city on the hill

utopia

Real Universities may have trouble changing the world for the better, but utopias may fare batter. Gallaudet University, the four-year college for deaf and hard-of-hearing students in the Washington, DC area holds a special place in the narratives of deaf culture, produced both by deaf students and the larger deaf community. Gallaudet becomes, in these narratives, more than a physical place and an institution granting degrees to deaf individuals. The University becomes more - it becomes a deaf Shangri-La, a utopia. Every deaf person with which I have communicated has a story relating to Gallaudet and has either spent a semester or more on the campus or knows someone who has attended classes there.

back | map | next

john in context | jenny & sue
deaf:audist | hearing pedagogy | enfi | techno-teaching
city on the hill | "othered" outside
end | cited