Touch the Future

A revelatory collection of essays on the DeafBlind experience, and a manifesto on the power and untapped potential of touch. Born Deaf into an ASL-speaking family and blind by adolescence, John Lee Clark learned to embrace the possibilities of his tactile world. He is on the frontlines of the Protactile movement, which gave birth to an unprecedented tactile language and a way of life based on physical connection. In a series of paradigm-shifting essays, Clark reports on seismic developments within the DeafBlind community. In “Against Access,” he interrogates the prevailing advocacy for “accessibility” that re-creates a shadow of a hearing-sighted experience. In the National Magazine Award–winning “Tactile Art,” he describes his relationship to visual art and encounters with tactile sculpture. He advocates for “Co-Navigation,” a new way of guiding that respects DeafBlind agency, and offers a brief history of the term “DeafBlind.” As warm and witty as he is radical and inspiring, Clark welcomes readers into the exciting Protactile landscape and celebrates the hidden knowledge that can be gained through touch.

John Lee Clark is an award-winning writer and Protactile educator. He has received the Krause Essay Prize and a National Magazine Award for his prose. His poetry collection, How to Communicate, received the Minnesota Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Kingsley Tufts Award. A 2021–2023 Bush Fellow, he lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota, with his partner, the ASL Deaf artist Adrean Clark, their three kids, and two cats.