In the late nineteenth century, deafness was transformed into “Deafness,” shifting from a medical affliction towards a cultural category with its own language offering a unique perspective of the world. At the core of this transformation were educators and pupils at residential schools for the deaf. Educators were retrained in new pedagogical framework, adopting the… Continue Reading
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William Wright (1773-1860), whose professional career began in Bristol, England in 1796, moved to London and acquired a large practice in aural surgery that included the Duke of Wellington and other members of the nobility as patients. Eventually he became one of John Harrison Curtis’ fiercest and most outspoken rivals, rallying against the prevalence of… Continue Reading
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The afternoon of 1799, drew attention to the Théâtre de la République, where just five weeks after Napoleon’s seizure of power, the dramatist Jean-Nicolas Bouilly (1763-1842) was showcasing his new play, L’Abbé de l’Épée. A comedy in five acts, the play dramatized a fictionalized version of the case of the Comte de Solar, a young… Continue Reading
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One of the agendas of my dissertation is to build a steady bridge between scholarship from the history of medicine and scholarship from Deaf and Disability Studies. Granted, as part of my education at IHPST, my research has been lopsided, for I’ve concentrated more on the history of medicine and technologies (especially relating to medical… Continue Reading
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From the middle ages until the nineteenth century, the deaf were categorized in the same class as other outcasts—beggars, wanderers, invalids—and portrayed as defective bodies capable of communicating only through crude gestures. Yet, as some scholars have duly noted, the experiences of the deaf were by no means uniform: Saint-Loup argues that the Middle Ages… Continue Reading
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Conclusions: Disputes and Discourses Whether or not the Wallis-Holder dispute was the central factor, the Royal Society saw a remarkable decline in the focus on language projects as well as instruction for deaf-mutes. Mullett cites several factors that may have contributed to this decline, including the lack of physiological information on deafness, the rise of… Continue Reading
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De loquea While endeavours to create a universal language that was unambiguous and easy to learn were mainly directed toward the application of philosophical principles as outlined by Descartes and Bacon, some philosophers applied these schemes to design educational methods for reading and writing. Although there is a significant lack of literature probing analysis… Continue Reading
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A Society’s Interest A fascination with language in the seventeenth century was spearheaded by philosophers participating in various linguistic projects, some of which questioned the origin of language, delved into the art of cryptography, debated methods of language teaching, and sought to construct a language that would serve as a universal means of communication.[1] The… Continue Reading
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By Speech and Signs Historian Lennard Davis has emphasized that the deaf person has historically served as an icon for complex intersections of subject, class, and the body.[1] This construction and awareness of the connection to language relied on deafness becoming visible for the first time as an articulation in a set of practices. According… Continue Reading
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Welcome to yet another edition of this blog’s Monday Series. This series examines how philosophical interest in universal language amongst the early members of the Royal Society of London shaped both philosophical and social perceptions of deafness during the seventeenth century. INTRODUCTION The seventeenth century saw a tremendous surge in British publications examining deafness… Continue Reading
From the Hands of Quacks 