Nothing About Us Without Us: The Liminal Space Between Obscurity and the Limelight

Wednesday, October 18, 2023

Presented in collaboration with Penn’s ASL Program

Octavian Robinson
Associate Professor, Deaf Studies, Gallaudet University

In 1988, the Gallaudet University community protested the hiring of a hearing person as the newly-appointed president of the prestigious institution, which had always been dedicated to providing a fully accessible linguistic environment for deaf and hard-of-hearing people. Gallaudet hadn’t had a deaf president in its 124 year history and the politics of the protest and disability rights reverberated across the globe with front-page headlines and primetime news interviews. In the three and half decades since the Deaf President Now movement, deaf people continue to occupy a liminal space between the margins and the center of popular imagination as sign languages became vogue.

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