Presented in collaboration with ASL and Deaf Studies in Penn's Department of Linguistics

Deaf experience is inherently multimodal: it can involve many different forms of communication, including visual and physio-spatial practices that diverge from common cultural expectations for spoken language. In this talk, Rachel Kolb, the author of the recent memoir Articulate: A Deaf Memoir of Voice (Ecco, 2025), will recount stories from a life spent practicing various types of articulation, both in English and in American Sign Language (ASL). Through her lived experiences as well as through the process of writing this book, Kolb has come to understand deafness as a source of insight, one that can deepen our analysis of the stakes of human connection, as well as illuminate more equitable and flexible ways of shaping our relationships with others.

Rachel Kolb is a writer whose work explores communication, language, and disability as central components of human experience. Her first book is Articulate: A Deaf Memoir of Voice (Ecco, 2025), which received starred reviews from both Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly. Her work has appeared in The New York Times and The Atlantic, among other publications.  

A graduate of Stanford University, she was the first signing deaf Rhodes scholar at Oxford before receiving her Ph.D. in English literature from Emory University and then completing a junior fellowship in the Society of Fellows at Harvard University.

In her free time, Rachel enjoys the outdoors, long conversations, pleasure reading, travel, museums, new fun facts, and spicy food.