This unique collection of essays, accompanied by a pioneering DVD, at last brings a dazzling view of the literary, social, and performative aspects of American Sign Language to a wide audience. The book presents the work of a renowned and diverse group of deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing scholars who examine original ASL poetry, narrative, and drama. The DVD showcases the poems and narratives under discussion in their original form, providing access to them for hearing non-signers for the first time. Together, the book and DVD provide new insight into the history, culture, and creative achievements of the deaf community while expanding the scope of the visual and performing arts, literary criticism, and comparative literature.
Contents of the DVD Foreword--William C. Stokoe Preface: Utopian Gestures--W.J.T. Mitchell Acknowledgments Users' Guide 1. Introduction H-Dirksen L. Bauman, Jennifer L. Nelson, Heidi M. Rose PART ONE: FRAMING ASL LITERATURE 2. Face-to-Face Tradition in the American Deaf Community: Dynamics of the Teller, the Tale, and the Audience--Ben Bahan 3. The Camera as Printing Press: How Film Has Influenced ASL Literature--Christopher B. Krentz 4. Deaf American Theater--Cynthia Peters PART TWO: THE EMBODIED TEXT: "WRITING" AND VISION IN ASL LITERATURE 5. Getting out of Line: Toward a Visual and Cinematic Poetics of ASL--H-Dirksen L. Bauman 6. Textual Bodies, Bodily Texts--Jennifer L. Nelson 7. The Poet in the Poem in the Performance: The Relation of Body, Self, and Text in ASL Literature--Heidi M. Rose 8. ASL Literature Comes of Age: Creative "Writing" in the Classroom--Liz Wolter PART THREE: THE POLITICAL TEXT: PERFORMANCE AND IDENTITY IN ASL LITERATURE 9. "If there are Greek epics, there should be Deaf epics": How Protest Became Poetry--Kristen C. Harmon 10. Visual Screaming: Willy Conley's Deaf Theater and Charlie Chaplin's Silent Cinema--Carol L. Robinson 11. Hearing Things: The Scandal of Speech in Deaf Performance--Michael Davidson Afterword Carol A. Padden Appendix A: Time Line of ASL Literature Development Appendix B: ASL Video References Contributors Index
