Deaf Studies

Emergence of the Field

The field of Deaf Studies emerged alongside other minority studies and cultural studies in the last third of the 20th century. Instigated by the revelation in the 1960s that signed languages were bona fide languages, Deaf individuals began to see themselves as members of a linguistic and cultural minority. Calls for the formation of Deaf Studies began as a means to understand this new framework of what it means to be Deaf. The first recorded call for the establishment of a field of Deaf Studies came in 1971, from the U.S. National Association of the Deaf executive director Frederick Schreiber, who said, “If deaf people are to get ahead in our time, they must have a better image of themselves and their capabilities. They need concrete examples of what deaf people have already done so that they can project for themselves a brighter future. If we can have Black studies, Jewish studies, why not Deaf studies?” After this initial call for the field to be formed, publications and courses began to emerge which sought to reframe Deaf individuals as being defined more by their cultural practices and affiliations than by their disability.

Institutional Bases

The field of Deaf Studies came into being in research centers and degree-granting programs in the United Kingdom and the United States in the late 1970s and 1980s. The Centre for Deaf Studies was established at the University of Bristol in Bristol, United Kingdom, in 1978. The creation of the first degree-granting programs in Deaf Studies occurred in the 1980s—Boston University established its Deaf Studies program in 1981 and the California State University at Northridge founded its in 1983, with the University of Bristol establishing a degree program in 1985, granting its first research master’s degree to a Deaf sign language user in 1992. The Centre remained a critical source of master’s-and PhD-level research degrees on Deaf Studies until the Centre’s closure in 2013. Gallaudet University founded its Deaf Studies program in 1994, and its graduate program in 2002, which introduced more critical theory and cultural studies perspective into its courses.

Since this time, Deaf Studies courses and programs have proliferated in the United States, along with the popularity of ASL being taught as a foreign language. According to the Modern Language Association’s 2013 report, ASL ranks third among languages taught, behind Spanish and French. The rapid expansion of ASL as a language of instruction at postsecondary institutions in the United States over the past two decades has seen a significant number of university departments in the United States that use the name Deaf Studies in their programs, a trend also seen outside the United States. These programs have a wide range of course offerings under the rubric of Deaf Studies, with many focusing on sign language interpreting, sign language instruction to second language users, or deaf education. Fewer than 10 institutions in the United States today offer bachelor’s degrees in Deaf [Page 273]Studies as a field of cultural study. With the closure of Deaf Studies in Bristol, Gallaudet University remains the only institution offering a master’s degree in Deaf Studies as a cultural studies field, and no institution currently offers a PhD degree in Deaf Studies, although Deaf Studies related work is increasingly prominent in other disciplines such as education, anthropology, history, and cultural studies, among others.

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