ABOUT

Based on research at the intersection of medical anthropology, science and technology studies, and critical disability studies, Professor Stephanie Lloyd will outline how research on cochlear implants (CIs) came to be dominated by unisensory approaches and narratives of lack as well as the effects of these orientations for forms of rehabilitation of this ‘less-than-typical’ hearing. She will then shift attention to studies of multimodal sensory experiences and emerging models of sensory experiences grounded in signals that are recalibrating understandings of what it means to hear, for typical and non-typical hearers alike. Lastly, Stephanie will propose how we might begin to understand sensory experiences with CIs beyond a normative framework, grounded in a study of what the experience is (rather than what it isn’t) and how people with CIs want to communicate with the world.

SPEAKER DETAILS

Stephanie Lloyd is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Université Laval (Québec, Canada) whose research sits at the intersection of medical anthropology and science and technology studies. Through two main research axes, her work explores (1) narratives emerging from neuroscience and epigenetics research on trajectories of neurobiological risk whose extreme end point is considered suicide, and (2) perceptions and experiences of hearing through cochlear implants (CIs), from the perspective of neuroscience and audiology researchers and CI users.  

ADDITIONAL DETAILS

Join the seminar here.