Jonathan Schlunck: “Schools for the Deaf as Places of Knowledge Production"

Jonathan Schlunck presents a chapter from his dissertation with the preliminary title “Schools for the Deaf as Places of Knowledge Production".

Abstract:

What happens when we try to understand deaf history through the lens of the school building? How did schools become places of production and distribution of knowledge about deafness in Scandinavia between the 1950s and 1980s? Which groups of actors become visible? In this seminar I will present an extended description of my dissertation project. By combining the perspectives of spatiality and disability in line with the history of knowledge and education, I am investigating how knowledge about deafness was produced and transnationally distributed in schools between the 1950s and 1980s, using Sweden and Denmark as examples. The aim is to offer new perspectives on the history of deafness that take seriously the notions of space that are closely tied to the place of the residential school.