JULY 10-12, 2009: World-renowned deaf author Josh Swiller to deliver keynote address at the Northeast Cochlear Implant Convention in Sturbridge, Massachusetts
Written by admin2 on June 22nd, 2009Filed under: Themes, Deaf Jam, Books & Book Reviews, Irked Videos
Quoting the blog Chronicles of a Bionic Woman:
I will be attending the Northeast Cochlear Implant Convention 2009 on July 10 – 12, 2009 at the Sturbridge Host Hotel & Conference Center in Sturbridge, MA where none other [than] Josh Swiller, who is not only pretty easy on the eyes but the author of “The Unheard: A Memoir of Deafness and Africa,” will be the keynote speaker.
JoshSwiller.com’s “Meet Josh” blurb:
Josh Swiller was born with a moderate hearing loss and was legally deaf by the age of four. After graduating from Yale University, he’s had a wide variety of careers, including: forest ranger in the California Redwoods, sheepskin slipper craftsman and salesman, Zen monk, raw food chef, journalist, and teacher. Most recently, he worked as a hospice social worker in Brooklyn. Josh lives in the New York City area with Otis the Wonder Dog when he is not on tour. Josh has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post and other publications. In 2003-4, Josh developed a headache condition that prevented him from wearing hearing aids and he spent the next two years communicating almost entirely in sign language. In August 2005, he underwent surgery for a cochlear implant. In the surgery, an electrode array was threaded through his inner ear and connected to a transmitter implanted in the skull. This, in turn, was connected to a behind the ear attachment.
In 2005, Josh and his brother Sam received cochlear implants and partially recovered their hearing. Watch a captioned version of the trailer for “Soundproof,” a work-in-progress by filmmaker Rebecca Haimowitz:
Josh Swiller, being interviewed by the NYTimes:
“Being deaf and having three brothers, one of whom is also deaf, I learned how to communicate without language. I could conduct conversations when I understood only a few words in each sentence.” That was remarkable in itself. But far more remarkable is that the interview with me was conducted over the telephone, something Mr. Swiller, 37, could not have done three years ago. In 2005, he and his brother underwent life-changing surgery, substituting a cochlear implant for the hearing aids that were no longer working for them. “Thirty years of amplified sound had worn out our ears,” he explained. “In most people with sensorineural hearing loss, their hearing gets worse with time and they need stronger and stronger amplification. We started getting terrible headaches all the time, and I finally had to stop using the aids altogether.”
Quoting NPR.org:
In his poignant work The Unheard: A Memoir of Deafness and Africa, readers experience Africa through the eyes and ears of a man who tries to reconcile his deafness in a foreign culture. Surrounded by universal poverty and disease, Swiller’s disability almost becomes irrelevant as he treats sick babies and fights for irrigation projects and better AIDS facilities. When he encounters a remote school for deaf children in Zambia, he realizes the deaf world he experienced growing up was light-years from the students he sees “pushed to a corner.” When Swiller offers to teach the children—mentioning to the school administrator that he’s deaf—the man laughs disbelievingly, saying that deaf children can’t be taught.
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Learn more at JoshSwiller.com
