17th September 2015: A momentous day for the BSL Community

by Graham Turner On a most extraordinary afternoon last week (17th September 2015, a date to be remembered), it seemed that half of Heriot-Watt’s Department of Languages & Intercultural Studies re-located to the Scottish Parliament for a few hours. Why? It was the Stage 3 (final) reading in the chamber of the British Sign Language […]


Read the article

Passing as deaf or hearing: choosing cross-cultural identities

by Noel O’Connell On 15th June 2015, media reports raised questions about Rachel Dolezal’s background. A scholar of race and African-American culture and daughter of white parents, Dolezal had identified as Black. Stories of black people “passing” as white or white people as black have been a fascination for researchers and historians for many years. Racial […]


Read the article

On Deafhood Space

by Steve Emery   [English version] Last week, I went to Paddy Ladd’s lecture. He was talking about “Deafhood – A Pedagogy”, which was about theories of teaching Deaf children. It was really interesting, but there was one part of his lecture that really got me thinking,  when he was talking about  “Wounded Space”, which […]


Read the article