The Legacy of Gallaudet University
Since 1864, when Abraham Lincoln signed into law its authority to confer degrees, Gallaudet University has won worldwide renown as the only liberal arts institution dedicated to the education of deaf and hard of hearing students. Today, Gallaudet University offers a full complement of undergraduate degree programs as well as master’s and doctoral degrees in several disciplines. On campus, it also supports two laboratory pre-college programs, the Model Secondary School for the Deaf and the Kendall Demonstration Elementary School.To extend the reach of Deaf Scholarship, the University Board of Trustees formally chartered the founding of Gallaudet University Press in 1980, charging it with the mission of publishing books and other works on all topics relating to deaf and hard of hearing people, including their culture, their native American Sign Language, and the Deaf community.
During the course of nearly two decades, Gallaudet University Press has released more than
250 titles, thereby establishing its reputation as the preeminent publisher of scholarly
books on Deaf studies, Deaf history, Deaf culture, American Sign Language, and notable deaf
people.The Gallaudet University Press Publishing Program
The controlled scope of GUPress operations allows the continuance of a highly focused
commitment to individual titles that has contributed significantly to its twenty years
of leadership in publishing on Deaf issues. Gallaudet University Press brings unmatched
experience and knowledge to the marketplace for books on and for the Deaf community,
its advocates, and scholars invested in the study of Deaf society.
Gallaudet University Press publishes scholarly and general interest books, children’s
books under its Kendall Green publications imprint, and sign language and textbooks under
the imprint Clerc Books.The Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities Series
A pioneer in the discipline of sociolinguistics
as it applies to Deaf communities, Gallaudet University Press publishes one volume
annually in the series, with titles ranging from the work of individual scholars
to collections of significant research articles by various well-known authorities.
The series has been celebrated by academic reviewers:
Over the last few years, editor Ceil Lucas has been making sure that data-driven sociolinguistic studies of deaf sign language variation reach an interested audience. The present volume makes an important contribution for at least three reasons: (a) it contains mostly empirical studies; (b) it is internationally based, providing a means for cross-cultural comparison of sign languages; and (c) it provides a forum for even preliminary work.
--Language in Society Disability Studies
Gallaudet University Press has broadened the milieu of deaf and disability studies by
publishing such titles as Harry Lang’s A Phone of Our Own, what
Publisher’s Weekly termed the “inspiring” tale of the deaf community’s decades long
struggle for equal telecommunications access, and Special Education in the
21st Century, edited by Margret Winzer and Kas Mazurek, which collects essays by the field’s
leading educators and researchers on the touchstone issues of inclusion and reform. The Press
has also taken the lead in publishing titles on the origin of language as it relates to signed
languages, including Original Signs by David F. Armstrong, a CHOICE
Outstanding Academic Book of the Year, and the last book by the late “father of American Sign
Language linguistics,” William C. Stokoe, Language
in Hand: Why Sign Came Before Speech.The Gallaudet Classics in Deaf Studies Series
The release of the new edition of Albert Ballin’s remarkable 1930 book The Deaf
Mute Howls marked the advent of the
Gallaudet Classics in Deaf Studies series. This unique
series makes available modern editions of historically critical works that inform a social
understanding of the culture and experiences of deaf people. Volume Two in the series,
A Mighty Change: An Anthology of Deaf American Writing, 1816-1864, edited
by Christopher Krentz, assembles for the first time the works of key figures in the burgeoning
Deaf community in the mid nineteenth century, as well as writings by previously undiscovered Deaf
authors.
The series’ third volume is a translation of Henri Gaillard’s Une Mission de Sourds-Muets Francais aux Etats-Unis (A Deaf Frenchman’s Mission to the United States), concerning the author’s 1917 trip to the U.S. to attend the National Association of the Deaf meeting and the celebration of the centenary of the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut, originally published in 1919 and now edited by Robert Buchanan (Illusions of Equality). Throughout the Classics series each author’s style and meaning is preserved, and new introductions place these works in their historical and intellectual context to help make the texts accessible to today’s readers.