EMORY MAGAZINE | SPRING 2026
WHAT DEAFNESS CAN TEACH US ABOUT BEING ‘ARTICULATE’
Through her writing, acclaimed author and Emory alumna Rachel Kolb upends preconceptions about language, access and the lifelong search for connection.
Rachel Kolb 20PhD vividly remembers how odd it felt when she first went to public elementary school in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She was the only deaf child there, newly mainstreamed after attending the New Mexico School for the Deaf during her preschool and kindergarten years.
Stepping into that conventional learning environment, she quickly realized something that changed her understanding of the world: Most people didn’t know sign language. She had assumed it was much more commonplace than it really was. After all, her hearing family had learned to sign with her, and up until this point she had been surrounded by classmates and teachers who communicated the same way she did.
This world felt different, but it was not unwelcoming. In the classroom, Kolb was supported by the provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), including an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter at her side. She worked with teachers determined to make her feel included in the classroom. And her parents partnered closely with the school to make sure she had what she needed to succeed.
Rachel Kolb at a summer camp for deaf children in Colorado. She says she became an anthropologist of hearing culture at a young age, hope to bridge the gap between non-hearing and hearing worlds.
Rachel Kolb at a summer camp for deaf children in Colorado. She says she became an anthropologist of hearing culture at a young age, hope to bridge the gap between non-hearing and hearing worlds.
Socially, however, Kolb found it harder to fit in, even if she would later learn strategies for engaging with her hearing peers. On the playground, Kolb ran alongside the other kids, watching closely, trying to figure out what games they were playing and what they were saying with their mouths. She had so many questions and wanted answers: Why didn’t everybody learn how to sign? Why did hearing people always speak out loud? What, exactly, was she supposed to do with her situation?
Kolb now communicates in multiple ways — she speaks, signs, writes and more — but as a child she was still learning how to navigate those different worlds.
Years later, she would joke that she became an “anthropologist of hearing culture” at a young age, carefully observing how people communicate and what happens when shared language is missing. Even then, she was learning something lasting: Shared language matters and communication, when it works, can be an act of generosity. That early mix of curiosity and a deep need for connection would shape the rest of her life.
Today, Kolb writes and teaches about communication, language and disability as central parts of human experience. Her memoir, “Articulate,” draws on her childhood growing up deaf while tackling broader issues about connection, access and the limits of speech. Kirkus Reviews singled out her book as one of the best of 2025, calling it “An exquisite memoir about deafness that brilliantly shatters our ideas about language.”
Her personal essays have also appeared in The New York Times and The Atlantic, where Kolb writes with the same mix of precision and openness that marked her earliest efforts to understand the world around her. Even now, beneath the scholarship and accolades, there remains that same impulse from the playground years: a desire to bridge distance, to make meaning across difference, to find ways to communicate where none seem to exist.
After becoming the first signing deaf person to be awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, Kolb went on to pursue her PhD in English from Emory’s Laney Graduate School. Here, she learned to think across disciplines and embrace public scholarship. She says the intellectual rigor of her doctoral education and the close community she forged with Emory mentors and classmates helped shape the work she continues to pursue today.
In the following Q&A with Emory Magazine, Kolb reflects on her childhood, her time at Emory and the multitude of experiences that shaped her understanding of deafness, language and access — as well as what it truly means to be understood.
EMORY MAGAZINE: Growing up deaf, what early childhood experiences most shaped how you understood communication, connection and your place in the world?
RACHEL KOLB: Once I entered mainstreamed school in first grade, I had lots of questions about how communication worked. At my elementary school, I did have an ASL interpreter, and my parents were very involved in my life and education. I always loved school, but I’d still noticed that my perspectives were different than those of my hearing classmates. Social interactions outside of class weren’t always easy for me because of communication barriers.
That being said, I also learned how important shared language was. My elementary-school best friend learned some ASL. Even her mom learned some ASL, too. For a few years, that friend and I were inseparable. That friendship showed me the value of accessible communication. Over the years, I’ve learned to express my own needs and insights more honestly, in hopes that I can invite other people to be more adaptable in how they communicate. Writing has been a big part of that journey.
EM: Your memoir “Articulate” invites readers into your life’s journey. What personal moments or realizations made you want to tell this story for a broad audience beyond academia?
KOLB: Honestly, I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was very young, and I’m grateful for the many teachers and mentors who have encouraged me in that pursuit. I got my start through publishing some early personal essays, including a piece I wrote for Stanford Magazine about lipreading. That essay, which I first drafted while a Stanford undergrad, went viral online. Soon I started getting emails from strangers, some deaf and some hearing, who told me that my writing had resonated with them.
It was meaningful for me to see those responses and to strike up an email correspondence with a few of those people. Over the years, as I kept writing more essays, I thought about how writing can be an invitation into wider conversations and new perspectives. When I read something powerful, I get to question what I think I know and expand my way of seeing the world. That’s been hugely important to me, and it’s a big reason I enjoy writing personal work for a general audience.
EM: A central argument of your book is that communication is far broader than speech alone. What do you hope readers come to understand or reconsider?
KOLB: I hope that readers will realize how many options we really do have to communicate. And then I hope they’ll give some of those new modes of communication a try. I hope they’ll feel a little braver, a little more curious and a little more willing to fumble around with others they might meet in their everyday lives, including using forms of language that may feel unfamiliar to them. Maybe that means trying to learn a little bit of ASL or fingerspelling, maybe it means gesturing or writing things down or learning more about the nuts and bolts of different accessibility tools.
Human beings are so resourceful when it comes to figuring out ways to communicate. One of the neat things about deaf and disability experience is how it can be an invitation into different ways of knowing and interacting.
EM: You’ve resisted the idea that deafness is something to be overcome. How has your understanding of deafness as identity and perspective evolved over time?
KOLB: I’ll always be grateful to my family and my early teachers, who helped me grow up with a sense of self-confidence and possibility. Long before I could express it this way, they helped me see that the challenges deaf and disabled people face are often the result of social and attitudinal barriers in our environments.
Over the years, I’ve deepened my understanding of deafness through engaging more with the signing deaf community, especially during adulthood. I’ve met many friends who have shown me different ways to be deaf, as well as different ways to grow into identity and perspective. This has been a gift. Deaf experiences are very diverse, and there’s such power in having that community as a resource.
EM: You’ve moved through innovative academic spaces as a signing deaf scholar. What did those experiences teach you about access and belonging?
KOLB: One of my Emory PhD advisors, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson [professor emerita of English and bioethics], taught me this phrase: Access is always an aspirational ideal. In other words, access is an ongoing process. It’s something we keep figuring out as different situations arise, not something that will ever be completely finished.
Access can look very different for different people and even for a single person depending on the context. Sometimes it involves navigating access conflicts between individuals, which ideally leads to thoughtful conversations about how to include everyone. For example, imagine I need a seminar room to be well-lit so I can see my ASL interpreter, but someone else with low vision is also present, and they need the lights dimmed so they can see the slides on the PowerPoint projector. What do we do to resolve this access conflict?
In other words, one size doesn’t fit all. We can create more inclusive spaces through investing the energy it takes to understand the different access needs people might have, and then through having intentional conversations about how everyone can participate in that situation.
I’ve also learned that “access labor” is a very real thing. Just making sure that access needs are met can take up a lot of mental energy. Anything institutions can do to make accessibility an inherent part of how they function rather than an exception is an important part of meaningful inclusion.
EM: What led you to pursue a PhD at Emory, and how did that experience shape you?
KOLB: I decided to do my PhD at Emory because I wanted to learn more about how disability has arisen in American literature and cultural history. Some leading scholars in the field were at Emory at the time, and I ended up studying under Rosemarie Garland-Thomson and Benjamin Reiss [professor and current chair of English], both of whom were amazing advisors.
I also completed a graduate certificate in bioethics, which helped me explore how medical and ethical frameworks shape our understanding of disability. Many guest speakers came to Emory through the Disability Studies Initiative, and those conversations sparked my imagination about what was possible for my own work. My fellow graduate students were also a sharp and generous group, and many of us still keep in touch.
Kolb earned her PhD in English from Emory's Laney Graduate School in 2020. Even though she didn't get to walk at Commencement because of COVID restrictions, she still has had a chance to wear her Emory doctoral robes.
Kolb earned her PhD in English from Emory's Laney Graduate School in 2020. Even though she didn't get to walk at Commencement because of COVID restrictions, she still has had a chance to wear her Emory doctoral robes.
EM: You’ve said “Articulate” was made possible by your time at Emory. What from those years feels most essential to the book and your career?
KOLB: My memoir is very different from my PhD dissertation, but I don’t think I could have finished it without having written the dissertation first. My dissertation explored how ideas about intelligible sound and speech became dominant in nineteenth-century American culture at the same time deaf people were confronting oralist approaches to education.
Researching those histories taught me a great deal about deaf and disability experience in the United States. Having that familiarity with the past was essential for how I crafted my own story on the page. My conversations with faculty and fellow graduate students also helped sharpen how I talk about disability, language and the value of writing itself.
EM: Since the book’s release, what reader responses have stayed with you most?
KOLB: I’ve had many meaningful conversations since the book came out. I’ve spoken with deaf and hard-of-hearing readers who related to feeling between deaf and hearing worlds and also with readers who feel in between cultures or languages in very different ways.
I’ve also heard from hearing readers who admitted they didn’t know much about deafness or disability history before reading the book. It’s been encouraging to see their curiosity grow and to watch them develop new language for discussing these topics. There still aren’t enough stories and resources out there and many people simply haven’t had the chance to learn.
Rachel Kolb holds up a copy of her acclaimed memoir “Articulate” during a recent book event.
Rachel Kolb holds up a copy of her acclaimed memoir “Articulate” during a recent book event.
EM: Much of your work encourages people to rethink what good communication looks like. What do you wish more people realized about “listening,” patience and the emotional work it takes to be understood in everyday life?
KOLB: Often, you just have to take a little extra time to figure out how to connect. You might need additional resources, patience, creativity or even a bit of humor and imagination. You might need to set aside what you think you know and follow someone else’s lead.
The payoff can be meaningful even if understanding doesn’t come easily or quickly. Sometimes smooth communication is just another aspirational ideal. Being willing to stay with the process of connection is a vital part of our humanity.
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