Through lyrical history and personal memoir, Hearing Happiness raises pivotal questions about deafness in American society and the endless quest for a cure. Taking us from the 1860s up to the present, Virdi combs archives and museums in order to understand the long history of curious cures: ear trumpets, violet ray apparatuses, vibrating massagers, electrotherapy machines, airplane diving, bloodletting, skull hammering, and many more. Hundreds of procedures and products have promised grand miracles but always failed to deliver a universal cure--a harmful legacy that is still present in contemporary biomedicine.

Weaving Virdi's own experiences together with her exploration into the fascinating history of deafness cures, Hearing Happiness is a powerful story that America needs to hear.

Jaipreet Virdi is a historian of medicine, technology, and disability. Her research and teaching interests include the history of medicine, the history of science, disability history, disability technologies, and material/visual culture studies. She received her Ph.D. from the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto (2014).

Dr. Virdi’s first book, Hearing Happiness: Deafness Cures in History (University of Chicago Press, 2020), rethinks how therapeutic negotiation and the influence of pseudo-medicine shaped what it meant to be a "normal" deaf citizen in American history. Examining how deaf/deafened individuals attempted to amplify their hearing through various types of surgical, proprietary, and/or technological "deafness cures," the book charts the dissemination of ideas about hearing loss from beyond medical elites to popular culture and the popular imagination.

She is also working on three other projects. Objects of Disability is an online resource database of historical artefacts used by, and/or crafted by, Canadians with disabilities, with the site scheduled to launch late 2020. Her second book project, From Prevention to Conservation: American Research on Hearing Impairment, 1910-1960 focuses on the network of specialists and services that aimed to improve the hearing of American citizens. 

By analyzing how various factions aimed to normalize hearing impairment through military rehabilitation efforts, social organizations, and advanced otological techniques, this project historicizes how deafness became construed as an urgent public health matter. Additionally, Dr. Virdi is collaborating with Dr. Coreen McGuire tracing the historical roots of scientific research on disabilities—such as deafness and breathlessness—in Britain and the role of women scientists. 

This project, tentatively titled Phyllis M. Tookey Kerridge and the Science of Disability in Interwar Britain especially focuses on how scientific instruments were used by women to demonstrate the value of their research against criticism and assert control over disabled bodies.

Dr. Virdi serves as Contributing Editor of the journal Pharmacy in History, Associate Editor of the Historical Journal of the Natural Sciences, and co-Editor of Communiqué, the newsletter of the Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science. She is also Managing Editor of the Disability History Association’s blog, All of Us.

Education 

• 2014 University of Toronto
  Ph.D. in History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
   
• 2008 University of Toronto
  M.A. in History and Philosophy of Science and Technology
   
• 2006 York University
  B.A., Honors in Philosophy of Science

Source: University of Delaware