Born Deaf into an ASL-speaking family and blind by adolescence, John Lee Clark learned to embrace the possibilities of his tactile world.
Touch the Future is a dynamic appeal to rethink the meanings of disability, access, language, and inclusivity, and to reach for a future we can create together..
As warm and witty as he is radical and inspiring, Clark encourages us--disabled and non-disabled alike--to reject stigma and discover the ways we are connected.
A distinct language of taps, signs, and reciprocal contact, Protactile emerged from the inadequacies of ASL--a visual language even when pressed into someone\'s hand--with the power to upend centuries of DeafBlind isolation.
Touch the Future brims with passion, energy, humor, and imagination as Clark takes us by the hand and welcomes us into the exciting landscape of Protactile communication.
He offers a brief history of the term DeafBlind, distills societal discrimination against DeafBlind people into Distantism, sheds light on the riches of online community, and advocates for Co-Navigation, a new way of exploring the world together without a traditional guide.
In Against Access, he interrogates the prevailing advocacy for accessibility that re-creates a shadow of a hearing-sighted experience, and in Tactile Art, he describes his relationship to visual art and breathtaking encounters with tactile sculpture.
In a series of paradigm-shifting essays, Clark reports on seismic developments within the DeafBlind community and challenges the limitations of sighted and hearing norms.
He is on the frontlines of the Protactile movement, which gave birth to an unprecedented language and way of life based on physical connection.
Born Deaf into an ASL-speaking family and blind by adolescence, John Lee Clark learned to embrace the possibilities of his tactile world
