Welcome to the Book Club LibGuide for "Hearing Happiness: Deafness Cultures in History" by Dr. Jaipreet Virdi.
Join members of the Weill Cornell community for a discussion about deafness in American society and the endless quest for a cure on Wednesday, April 26th, 2023 from 1:00-2:00 PM EST.The meeting will be held virtually (via Zoom).
Reading the book (which is available as an e-book) is encouraged but not required!
The book club is hosted by the Medical Center Archives of NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medicine, Samuel J. Wood Library, and Office of Diversity and Inclusion, and is open to all members of the Tri-Institutional partnership.
Book Club Registration.
The book club on April 26 is intended to serve as a companion event for Dr. Jaipreet Virdi's Heberden Society lecture on April 26th at 5:00 PM.
Heberden Society Lecture Registration.
More information about the book club, Heberden Society lecture, and supplementary material is available through this LibGuide!
Hearing Happiness by 
Dr. Jaipreet Virdi is an award-winning historian whose research focuses on the ways medicine and technology impact the lived experiences of disabled people. Her first book, Hearing Happiness: Deafness Cures in History (University of Chicago Press, 2020) raises pivotal questions about deafness in American society and the endless quest for a cure. She has published articles on diagnostic technologies, audiometry, hearing aids, and the medicalization of deafness.
As an educator, Virdi has taught at Ryerson University, the University of Toronto, and Brock University. She is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of History at the University of Delaware where she teaches courses on disability histories, the history of medicine, and health activism. She also serves as Co-Director of the Hagley Program in the History of Capitalism, Technology, and Culture.
Born in Kuwait to Sikh parents, Virdi lost her hearing at age four to bacterial meningitis. By age six, her working-class family immigrated to Toronto, Ontario where she would later attend a school for deaf and hard-of-hearing children. A product of “mainstreamed” education, Virdi learned to lip-read and rely on her hearing aids. She attended public high schools, then received her Bachelors’ degree in the philosophy of science from York University. After graduation, she worked in marketing and fashion merchandising before deciding to return to school for graduate study. She received first her masters, then her doctorate, from the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto, focusing on the history of medicine and technology. Her PhD dissertation is titled “From the Hands of Quacks:” Aural Surgery, Deafness, and the Making of a Specialty in Nineteenth-Century London.
A seasoned public speaker and prolific on Twitter, Virdi has delivered keynotes on histories of medical inequities, social injustice, disability rights, and contemporary issues of technological accessibility.
We encourage you to learn more about Dr. Jaipreet Virdi and her work at her website.