Professor, Deaf Studies, Gallaudet University

H-Dirksen L. Bauman is a Professor of Deaf Studies at Gallaudet University, the world’s only university for deaf students, located in Washington, D.C.  Originally hired in the Department of English, Dirksen was invited to join the Department of Deaf Studies in 1999, where he has taught ever since as the Department’s only hearing faculty member.  During this time, he has served as the co-editor/producer of the book/DVD project, Signing the Body Poetic: Essays in American Sign Language Literature (U of California P, 2006); editor of Open Your Eyes: Deaf Studies Talking (U of Minnesota P, 2008); co-editor of Deaf-Gain: Raising the Stakes for Human Diversity (U of Minnesota P, 2014) and co-author of Transformative Conversations: Mentoring Communities among Colleagues in Higher Education (Jossey Bass, 2013). Dirksen has also authored numerous book chapters and journal articles and has given dozens of invited lectures and keynote addresses nationally and internationally.  His scholarly and creative output over the years draws on a wide array of disciplines, including poetics, performance, cultural studies, critical theory, history, linguistics and philosophy.  

In addition to scholarly publications and presentations, Dirksen has also sought to integrate film and digital publishing as a means of disseminating work to a wide audience  He is the executive producer and co-editor of the documentary film, Audism Unveiled, which has galvanized an international awareness of this particular form of discrimination experienced by deaf individuals.  He is also the co-founding editor of the Deaf Studies Digital Journal, the world’s first peer-reviewed scholarly and creative arts journal in signed and written languages, and former director (and co-founder) of Gallaudet University’s ASL Connect, a nationally recognized program teaching American Sign Language online and onsite.  He has received grants from the National Endowment for Humanities (twice), Booth Ferris Foundation, the Cafritz Foundation (twice), and most recently, from the Maryland State Council for the Arts, in support of his creative and scholarly projects.  
 
After having spent decades devoted to teaching and university service–including five years as the founding director of the Office of Bilingual Teaching and Learning, six years as department chair, and ten years as graduate program coordinator, Dirksen is turning toward his long-held passion for creative ‘writing’ in both English and American Sign Language. He is currently engaged in a collaborative book-length project featuring poetry in American Sign Language   co-created with ASL poet, Douglas Ridloff. This project is an exploration of the “ecopoetics of gesture”--that is, the ways in which sign language poetry embodies the more-than-human -world. Corresponding to each signed poem (fifteen in total), this project features creative essays which not only translate but also reflect on the contexts, subtexts and associations embedded within and inspired by the poem.