Deaf Studies Conference held November 1-3, 2018

Deaf Studies Conference

On November 1-3, the American Sign Language (ASL) and Deaf Studies department held the

Deaf Studies Conference on campus, a first in more than 20 years, hosting various workshops, presentations, and other collaborative activities with presenters coming in from throughout the world.

The conference, themed “Transformations,” studied existing frameworks through the generation of new knowledge and perspectives. “We live in a time of enormous social, political and technological change, a time when categories, identities, boundaries, are becoming increasingly fluid, a time that is increasingly transformational,” explains the conference marketing brochure.

“After many months of discussing, planning, and worrying, the 2018 Deaf Studies Conference: Transformations finally happened,” said Dr. Arlene B. Kelly, 77 G-92, ASL and Deaf Studies professor and chair.

“Attendees expressed a lot of gratitude for this conference, a first since 1997. I even had some reflective takeaways from the conference. There is so much research that needs to be conducted to make significant transformations in the world.”

With a generous sponsorship from DawnSignPress, the department was fortunate to have three international keynote speakers:

• Dr. Annelies Kusters from Heriot-Watt (Edinburgh, Scotland)
• Dr. Maartje De Meulder from the University of Namur (Namur Belgium)
• Dr. Yutaka Osugi from Tsukuba University of Technology (Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan)

Tawny Hlibok, ’05 & G-’10, Department of ASL and Deaf Studies assistant professor, and Matthew Malzkuhn, ’05 & G-’07, instructor, co-chaired the conference.

“It was incredible to see scholars and advocates from all over the United States and the world come to discuss new knowledge and trends in the field of deaf studies,” said Hlibok. “Gallaudet is the perfect place to do that.”

Featured photo: Trisha Houston, of California State University, Fresno, presented “Defining Academia Influences on Mobility, Identity, and Culture of Deaf Scholars in Higher Education.” Houston, an adjunct lecturer at Fresno City College and CSU Fresno, is preparing to defend her dissertation for a Doctorate in Educational Leadership.