Deaf History Network

For a long time, the academic history of d/Deafness and d/Deaf people was mainly written by hearing people. Deaf history, which includes a wide range of d/Deaf perspectives, is still a relatively young, interdisciplinary field of research. This is particularly true in German-speaking countries, where the history of the d/Deaf is still barely anchored in academia. This is where the DFG network "'Deaf History' in German-speaking countries" comes in. Between 2020 and 2024, we offered researchers from various disciplines as well as representatives of d/Deaf associations the opportunity to exchange ideas about "Deaf History." Our goal is to advance research into the history of d/Deaf people and close gaps in research especially with regard to German-speaking coutries, i.e., Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. As part of medical, social, and educational history, media and language history, d/Deaf history raises questions about marginalisation and equal opportunities, about the authority of science and scholarship over the rights and autonomy of individuals and minorities as well as about socio-cultural definitions of dis-/ability.

The network is based at the Institute of Ethics and History of Medicine Göttingen in co-operation with the History Department at the University of Erfurt .

Publications

Our new multi-author volume was published in German in June 2024. All contributions to the new edited volume are summarised in German Sign Language (DGS) with transcripts in barrier-free PDFs.

Anja Werner / Marion Schmidt (eds.). Unsichtbare Geschichte(n) sichtbar machen. Gehörlose und schwerhörige Menschen im deutschsprachigen Raum vom 19. Jahrhundert bis in die Gegenwart [Making invisible (his-)stories visible. Deaf and hard-of-hearing people in German-speaking countries from the 19th century to the present]. Frankfurt a./M.: Campus, 2024.

Summaries in German sign language (DGS) of the contributions to the multi-author volume "Unsichtbare Geschichte(n) sichtbar machen"

Our first anthology was published in 2019, highlighting the necessity and potential of a Deaf History for the German-speaking world.

Marion Schmidt / Anja Werner (ed.). Zwischen Fremdbestimmung und Autonomie. Neuen Impulse zur Gehörlosengeschichte in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz [Between heteronomy and autonomy. New impulses for deaf history in Germany, Austria and Switzerland]. Bielefeld: transcript, 2019.

Coordinators

PD Dr Anja Werner

PD Dr Anja Werner is co-coordinator of the the Deaf History network. She is a DFG research group leader at the Centre for Transcultural Studies / Perthes Collection Gotha and an associate researcher in contemporary history at the Department of History at the University of Erfurt. She is interested in Deaf History in Germany, Austria, the USA and in African countries. She explores possibilties of transcultural Deaf History. Her dissertation on American students at German universities in the 19th century already included a chapter on deaf Americans (The Transatlantic World of Higher Education, Berghahn Books 2013). She wrote her habilitation thesis on international influences on expert discourses about deafness in the divided Germany, including the perspectives of d/Deaf activists and academics ("Deaf History" als Wissenschaftsgeschichte. Die Teilhabe gehörloser Menschen an Fachdiskursen über Taubheit im geteilten Deutschland, transcript 2024). Together with Dr Marion Schmidt, she edited two multi-author volumes on d/Deaf History in German-speaking countries, namely Unsichtbare Geschichte(n) sichtbar machen (campus 2024) and Zwischen Fremdbestimmung und Autonomie (transcript 2019). In her current project, she examines the lives and work of the deaf missionary couple Berta and Andrew Fosters in Africa since 1957.

Anja Werner
PD Dr. Anja Werner
Project Leader of the DFG Research Project: Black and Deaf Western Missionaries and Deaf Education in Ghana and Nigeria: The Story of Berta and Andrew Foster - A Case Study in Global History
(Centre for Transcultural Studies / Perthes Collection)
anja.werner@uni-erfurt.de

Dr Marion Schmidt

Marion Schmidt, PhD coordinates the Deaf History network. She is a research associate at the Institute for Ethics and History of Medicine in Göttingen and researches the history of deafness in the USA, Germany, and Switzerland. She is particularly interested in when and why deafness was seen in medicine and science as a defect or as a characteristic of a sociolinguistic minority and which structural and sociocultural factors underlie this perception. In 2019, together with Dr Anja Werner, she published a multi-author volume Between heteronomy and autonomy on the transnational history of the deaf in the German-speaking world. Her most recent publication was Eradicating Deafness? Genetics, Pathology and Diversity in 20th Century America(Manchester University Press 2020).

Members

Urs Germann
Johannes Hennies
Jana Hosemann
Clara Kutsch
Bettina Lindmeier
 
Ines Potthast
Markus Spöhrer
Robert Stock
Sylvia Wolff
Mark Zaurov

Academic advisory board

Professor Brian Greenwald Gallaudet University
Professor Dr Annette Leonhardt University of Munich
Professor Dr Gabriele Lingelbach University of Kiel
Professor Dr Joe Murray Gallaudet University
Professor Dr Beate Ochsner University of Konstanz
Professor Dr Anne Waldschmidt University of Cologne
Professor Dr Martina Winkler University of Kiel

Cooperation partners

Helmut Vogel President German Federation of the Deaf (DGB)
Helene Jarmer President of the Austrian Federation of the Deaf (ÖGB)
Harry Witzthum Representative of the Swiss Federation of the Deaf SGB-FSS
Diana Preller Head of the Special Library for the Deaf in Leipzig
Ralf Kirchhoff Association for the Culture and History of the Deaf (KuGG ev.)