Binding: Paperback
Description: Weaving together lyrical history and personal memoir Virdi powerfully examines society's and her own perception of life as a deaf person in America. 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.
Title: Hearing Happiness Deafness Cures In History
Author(s): Virdi Jaipreet
Publisher: The University Of Chicago Press
Barcode: 9780226824062
Pages: 328 Pages, 40 Halftones
Publication Date: 11/5/2022
Category: Coping With Illness & Specific Conditions