Open Your Eyes

by Bauman, H-Dirksen L.

• ISBN13: 9780816646180
• ISBN10: 081664618X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-01-08
• Publisher: Univ of Minnesota Pr

Summary

This groundbreaking volume introduces readers to the key concepts and debates in deaf studies, offering perspectives on the relevance and richness of deaf ways of being in the world. In Open Your Eyes, leading and emerging scholars, the majority of whom are deaf, consider physical and cultural boundaries of deaf places and probe the complex intersections of deaf identities with gender, sexuality, disability, family, and race. Together, they explore the role of sensory perception in constructing community, redefine literacy in light of signed languages, and delve into the profound medical, social, and political dimensions of the disability label often assigned to deafness. Moving beyond proving the existence of deaf culture, Open Your Eyesshows how the culture contributes vital insights on issues of identity, language, and power, and, ultimately, challenges our culturers"s obsession with normalcy. Contributors: Benjamin Bahan, Gallaudet U; Douglas C. Baynton, U of Iowa; Frank Bechter, U of Chicago; MJ Bienvenu, Gallaudet U; Brenda Jo Brueggemann, Ohio State U; Lennard J. Davis, U of Illinois, Chicago; Lindsay Dunn, Gallaudet U; Lawrence Fleischer, California State U, Northridge; Genie Gertz, California State U, Northridge; Hilde Haualand, FAFO Institute; Robert Hoffmeister, Boston U; Tom Humphries, U of California, San Diego; Arlene Blumenthal Kelly, Gallaudet U; Marlon Kuntze, U of California, Berkeley; Paddy Ladd, U of Bristol; Harlan Lane, Northeastern U; Joseph J. Murray, U of Iowa; Carol Padden, U of California, San Diego. H-Dirksen L. Bauman is professor and director of the graduate program in Deaf Studies at Gallaudet University. He is coeditor of Signing the Body Poetic: Essays in American Sign Language Literature, executive editor of the Deaf Studies Digital Journal, and executive producer and codirector of the documentary film Audism Unveiled.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Listening to Deaf Studies	p. 1
Framing Deaf Studies
Talking Culture and Culture Talking	p. 35
Colonialism and Resistance: A Brief History of Deafhood	p. 42
The Deaf Convert Culture and Its Lessons for Deaf Theory	p. 60
Deaf Perception and Community
Upon the Formation of a Visual Variety of the Human Race	p. 83
Coequality and Transnational Studies: Understanding Deaf Lives	p. 100
Sound and Belonging: What Is a Community?	p. 111
Language and Literacy
On the Disconstruction of (Sign) Language in the Western Tradition: A Deaf Reading of Plato's Cratylus	p. 127
Turning Literacy Inside Out	p. 146
Critical Pedagogy and ASL Videobooks	p. 158
Places and Borders
The Decline of Deaf Clubs in the United States: A Treatise on the Problem of Place	p. 169
Think-Between: A Deaf Studies Commonplace Book	p. 177
Border Crossings by Hearing Children of Deaf Parents: The Lost History of Codas	p. 189
Intersections and Identities
Dysconscious Audism: A Theoretical Proposition	p. 219
The Burden of Racism and Audism	p. 235
Where Is Deaf HERstory?	p. 251
Queer as Deaf: Intersections	p. 264
The Question of Disability
Do Deaf People Have a Disability?	p. 277
Beyond Culture: Deaf Studies and the Deaf Body	p. 293
Postdeafness	p. 314
Postscript: Gallaudet Protests of 2006 and the Myths of In/Exclusion	p. 327
Contributors	p. 337
Index	p. 341
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