The University of Chicago Press
328 pages
|
40 halftones
|
6 x 9
|
© 2020
ISBN: 9780226690612
At the age of four, Jaipreet Virdi’s world went silent. A severe case of
meningitis left her alive but deaf, suddenly treated differently by
everyone. Her deafness downplayed by society and doctors, she struggled
to “pass” as hearing for most of her life. Countless cures, treatments,
and technologies led to
dead ends. Never quite deaf enough for the Deaf community or quite
hearing enough for the “normal” majority, Virdi was stuck in aural limbo
for years. It wasn’t until her thirties, exasperated by problems with
new digital hearing aids, that she began to actively assert her deafness
and reexamine society’s—and her own—perception of life as a deaf person
in America.
Through lyrical history and personal memoir, Hearing Happiness raises pivotal questions about deafness in American society and the endless quest for a cure. Taking us from the 1860s up to the present, Virdi combs archives and museums in order to understand the long history of curious cures: ear trumpets, violet ray apparatuses, vibrating massagers, electrotherapy machines, airplane diving, bloodletting, skull hammering, and many more. Hundreds of procedures and products have promised grand miracles but always failed to deliver a universal cure—a harmful legacy that is still present in contemporary biomedicine.
Weaving Virdi’s own experiences together with her exploration into the fascinating history of deafness cures, Hearing Happiness is a powerful story that America needs to hear.
Through lyrical history and personal memoir, Hearing Happiness raises pivotal questions about deafness in American society and the endless quest for a cure. Taking us from the 1860s up to the present, Virdi combs archives and museums in order to understand the long history of curious cures: ear trumpets, violet ray apparatuses, vibrating massagers, electrotherapy machines, airplane diving, bloodletting, skull hammering, and many more. Hundreds of procedures and products have promised grand miracles but always failed to deliver a universal cure—a harmful legacy that is still present in contemporary biomedicine.
Weaving Virdi’s own experiences together with her exploration into the fascinating history of deafness cures, Hearing Happiness is a powerful story that America needs to hear.
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