Teresa Blankmeyer Burke

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Teresa Blankmeyer Burke
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Teresa Blankmeyer Burke, Lawrence Carter-Long (National Council on Disability), Julia Bascom in 2015
Alma materMills College,
University of New Mexico
Institutions Gallaudet University, University of New Mexico
Main interests
 Deaf philosophy, virtue ethics, moral justification, bioethics

Teresa Blankmeyer Burke is a Professor of Philosophy [1] at Gallaudet University. [2] She is the first signing deaf woman to receive a PhD in philosophy in the world, as well as the first deaf person to receive a PhD in philosophy at the University of New Mexico. [2] [3]

Contents

Her work primarily focuses on deaf philosophy (the intersection of philosophy and Deaf studies) and bioethics. [2] Her primary interests lay in areas such as virtue ethics, moral justification, and the ethics of sign-language interpreting. [2] Since the use of American Sign Language to discuss topics in philosophy is a relatively new development, Burke grappled with the lack of an existing philosophical lexicon in ASL and the philosophical considerations as to what the development of that lexicon could or should look like. [2]

Education and career

During Burke's early education, she was mainstreamed, and only received significant exposure to sign language when she reached post-secondary education. [4] Burke received a bachelor's degree in Biology, Ethics, and Society from Mills College in 1993. [5] During her time at Mills, Burke led a student movement aimed at increasing access to ADA accommodations, including filing a complaint with the Department of Justice towards this goal. [4] She went on to obtain master's and doctoral degrees in philosophy from the University of New Mexico in 2003 and 2011, respectively. [5] Burke was the first signing Deaf student to receive a doctorate degree in philosophy, and the University of New Mexico did not have appropriate academic accommodations for deaf doctoral students in place when she started pursuing her degree. [3] When she first started at UNM, Burke was paired with a signing interpreter who had just graduated from an interpreter training program, who had never taken any philosophy coursework, and who was not certified. [4] Burke had to fight in order to receive appropriate accommodations (including an appropriately trained interpreter), including filing complaints with higher administrators at UNM and having to threaten to file a complaint with the Department of Justice. [3] [4] (Many of Burke's initial interpreters lacked any philosophy-specific subject knowledge; one of Burke's interpreters signed "Greek word" every time they heard a word they didn't understand and assumed was Greek during a lecture given by Alexander Nehamas.) [4]

Burke served as an instructor at Gallaudet from 2005 to 2011, before receiving an appointment as Assistant Professor of Philosophy. [5] Besides her academic appointments, Burke has served in a variety of other roles. Burke is the current chair of the U.S. National Association of the Deaf's Subcommittee on Bioethics and is also a member of the American Philosophical Association's Inclusiveness Committee, the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities Task Force on Disability, and the World Federation of the Deaf Bioethics Committee. [2]

Research areas

Burke's primary research focus has been Deaf philosophy; the intersection of philosophy and Deaf studies. Within this realm, she has worked on topics such as the ethics of sign-language interpreting, deaf gain through the lens of intrinsic and instrumental value, moral justification regarding the use of technology to intentionally bear deaf children, and deaf liberty. [2] Since Burke actively teaches and 'does' philosophy using American Sign Language, she has also worked extensively both on the development of a more thorough philosophical lexicon for ASL, and on philosophical questions about what linguistic features should signal particular philosophical moves - quite literally, what the act of doing philosophy looks like. [2] She is also an expert on the medicalization of deafness and "curing" deafness. [6]

Publications

Burke has published a number of refereed papers and book chapters. [2] [5] Burke also makes an active effort to contribute to public philosophy within the signing Deaf community by facilitating online discussions about issues of ethics in both English and ASL, as well as being an active blogger. [5]

Related Research Articles

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American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States of America and most of Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that is expressed by employing both manual and nonmanual features. Besides North America, dialects of ASL and ASL-based creoles are used in many countries around the world, including much of West Africa and parts of Southeast Asia. ASL is also widely learned as a second language, serving as a lingua franca. ASL is most closely related to French Sign Language (LSF). It has been proposed that ASL is a creole language of LSF, although ASL shows features atypical of creole languages, such as agglutinative morphology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Stokoe</span> Scholar of American Sign Language

William Clarence Stokoe Jr. was an American linguist and a long-time professor at Gallaudet University. His research on American Sign Language (ASL) revolutionized the understanding of ASL in the United States and sign languages throughout the world. Stokoe's work led to a widespread recognition that sign languages are true languages, exhibiting syntax and morphology, and are not only systems of gesture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deaf culture</span> Culture of deaf persons

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The history of deaf people and deaf culture make up deaf history. The Deaf culture is a culture that is centered on sign language and relationships among one another. Unlike other cultures the Deaf culture is not associated with any native land as it is a global culture. By some, deafness may be viewed as a disability, but the Deaf world sees itself as a language minority. Throughout the years many accomplishments have been achieved by deaf people. To name the most famous, Ludwig van Beethoven and Thomas Alva Edison were both deaf and contributed great works to culture.

Audism as described by deaf activists is a form of discrimination directed against deaf people, which may include those diagnosed as deaf from birth, or otherwise. Tom L. Humphries coined the term in his doctoral dissertation in 1975, but it did not start to catch on until Harlan Lane used it in his writing. Humphries originally applied audism to individual attitudes and practices; whereas Lane broadened the term to include oppression of deaf people.

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Deaf education is the education of students with any degree of hearing loss or deafness. This may involve, but does not always, individually-planned, systematically-monitored teaching methods, adaptive materials, accessible settings, and other interventions designed to help students achieve a higher level of self-sufficiency and success in the school and community than they would achieve with a typical classroom education. There are different language modalities used in educational setting where students get varied communication methods. A number of countries focus on training teachers to teach deaf students with a variety of approaches and have organizations to aid deaf students.

The history of deaf education in the United States began in the early 1800s when the Cobbs School of Virginia, an oral school, was established by William Bolling and John Braidwood, and the Connecticut Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, a manual school, was established by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc. When the Cobbs School closed in 1816, the manual method, which used American Sign Language, became commonplace in deaf schools for most of the remainder of the century. In the late 1800s, schools began to use the oral method, which only allowed the use of speech, as opposed to the manual method previously in place. Students caught using sign language in oral programs were often punished. The oral method was used for many years until sign language instruction gradually began to come back into deaf education.

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Lou Fant was a pioneering teacher, author and expert on American Sign Language (ASL). He was also an actor in film, television, and the stage. Natively bilingual in ASL and English, he often played roles relating to sign language and the deaf.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marie Jean Philip</span>

Marie Jean Philip was a leader in both the American and international Deaf community. She advocated for the right to a natural sign language for Deaf people. Marie was one of the original researchers studying ASL and Deaf Culture. She was active in establishing American Sign Language (ASL) as a recognized language in the colleges of Massachusetts in the early 1980s. Later, Marie was the Bilingual-Bicultural Coordinator at The Learning Center for the Deaf in Framingham, Massachusetts.

Beth S. Benedict is a professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Gallaudet University, advocate for the deaf, and a mentor for families with deaf children. Her research focuses on early intervention, early language acquisition, and family involvement. Benedict is also an advocate for the use of bilingualism in education of the deaf - incorporating the value of American Sign Language in deaf children. Benedict advocates for deaf-hearing partnerships, avoiding audism, the importance of bilingual education, deaf culture and the use of sign language while also working as a family mentor for families with deaf children. Recently, she was a keynote speaker for an International Deaf Studies conference and the featured speaker for the deaf education summit. Benedict takes what she researches about deafness and education and shares it broadly by way of talks and application - for example, she has helped the Georgia School for the Deaf work on developing bilingual education in their programs. In 2015 Benedict was the featured speaker at the Deaf education summit in Louisiana - a conference that brought together practitioners, educators, and parents to discuss local issues surrounding education of deaf children.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lottie Louise Riekehof</span> American interpreter (1920–2020)

Lottie Louise Riekehof was an American Sign Language interpreter, author, and a pioneer in the field of professional sign language interpreting. She wrote one of the first curriculums for interpreter educators, and trained interpreters and interpreter educators all over the world.

ASL interpreting is the translation between American Sign Language (ASL) and another language, typically English, to allow communication between deaf and hearing people. ASL interpretation is done by qualified ASL interpreters and is common in medical, legal, educational, mental health, and vocational environments. Interpretation may be consecutive or simultaneous, and pairs or teams of interpreters may engage in different interpreting styles. ASL interpretation has been regulated by the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf since 1964. Many American universities offer undergraduate programs in ASL interpretation, and some graduate programs exist for the subject.

Ceil (Kovac) Lucas is an American linguist and a professor emerita of Gallaudet University, best known for her research on American Sign Language.

Caroline M. Solomon is an American academic whose teaching focuses on bringing deaf and hard-of-hearing students into the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Having experienced first-hand the problems for deaf students in classrooms without sign language interpreters, Solomon, who teaches biology at Gallaudet University, has designed databases to help students and teachers network with organizations and interpreters familiar with educational bridges for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. She is a co-creator of a database that formalizes the lexicon of signs used for scientific and technological terms in American Sign Language. Her innovations to teaching techniques were recognized with the Ramón Margalef Award for Excellence in Education of the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography in 2017.

Elizabeth Peet was an American educator of the deaf who taught at Gallaudet University for more than fifty years. Born to a deaf mother and a hearing father, Peet learned American Sign Language at an early age, and was a scholar in the history and etymology of ASL signs. She was described by U.S. Representative George P. Miller in 1950 as "a tiny lady who is considered the world's leading authority on sign language."

Elizabeth English Benson (1904–1972) was an American educator for deaf students who taught at Gallaudet College for two decades before being named Dean of Women there. During World War II, she temporarily joined the military so she could help newly deafened soldiers injured in the war. Later she was an occasional interpreter for two U.S. presidents.

Gilbert Eastman was an American educator, actor, playwright, author, and television host. He acted in American Sign Language (ASL) plays and wrote many of them. Eastman taught and performed at the National Theatre of the Deaf (NTD), while writing and performing in many of their plays. In 1993, he won an Emmy Award for co-hosting the show Deaf Mosaic.

Dorothy Chiyoko Sueoka Casterline was an American deaf linguist known for her contribution to A Dictionary of American Sign Language on Linguistic Principles, considered a foundational work of sign language linguistics.

References

  1. ↑ "Gallaudet University Directory". Gallaudet University. January 19, 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 DesAutels, Peggy. "Teresa Blankmeyer Burke: October 2013". Highlighted Philosophers. American Philosophical Association. Retrieved 23 October 2013.
  3. 1 2 3 Gutierrez Krueger, Joline (13 May 2011). "Deaf Student an Academic Trailblazer". Albuquerque Journal. Retrieved 23 October 2013.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Burke, Teresa Blankmeyer (1 January 2007). Goldman, Michael (ed.). "Seeing Philosophy". Teaching Philosophy. 30 (4): 443–451. doi:10.5840/teachphil20073047.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 "Teresa Blankmeyer Burke, Ph.D. - Gallaudet University".
  6. ↑ McWilliams, James (6 January 2018). "When Deafness Is Medicalized: Inside the Culture Clash Over Cochlear Implants". Pacific Standard. Retrieved 2019-11-10.
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