Sound Studies Meets Deaf Studies

By Michele Friedner, Stefan Helmreich. The Auditory Culture Reader, 2012

96 citations recorded by the source corpus.

ABSTRACT Sound studies and Deaf studies may seem at first impression to operate in worlds apart. We argue in this article, however, that similar renderings of hearing, deafness, and seeing as ideal types—and as often essentialized sensory modes—make it possible to read differences between Sound studies and Deaf studies as sites of possible articulation. We direct attention to four zones of productive overlap, attending to how sound is inferred in deaf and Deaf practice, how reimagining sound in the register of low-frequency vibration can upend deafhearing dichotomies, how “deaf futurists” champion cyborg sound, and how signing and other non-spoken communicative practices might undo phonocentric models of speech. Sound studies and Deaf studies emerge as fields with much to offer one another epistemologically, theoretically, and practically.

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Music

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a7922d1cb0cf69fc5024191d2792974334aaddc3