front cover of The Week the World Heard Gallaudet
The Week the World Heard Gallaudet
Jack R. Gannon
Gallaudet University Press, 1989
In 200 full-color and black-and-white photographs, The Week the World Heard Gallaudet depicts, day by day, the Deaf President Now! Revolution at Gallaudet University as it unfolded March 6 - 13, 1988. Author Jack Gannon interviewed such main characters as Greg Hlibok, president of the student government, and Elizabeth Zinser, the University’s president for two days. I. King Jordan, Gallaudet’s first deaf president, contributed the epilogue.
[more]
front cover of What's That Pig Outdoors?
What's That Pig Outdoors?
A Memoir of Deafness
Henry Kisor
University of Illinois Press, 2010
Henry Kisor lost his hearing at age three to meningitis and encephalitis but went on to excel in the most verbal of professions as a literary journalist. This new and expanded edition of Kisor's engrossing memoir recounts his life as a deaf person in a hearing world and addresses heartening changes over the last two decades due to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and advancements in cochlear implants and modes of communication.
 
Kisor tells of his parents' drive to raise him as a member of the hearing and speaking world by teaching him effective lip-reading skills at a young age and encouraging him to communicate with his hearing peers. With humor and much candor, he narrates his time as the only deaf student at Trinity College in Connecticut and then as a graduate student at Northwestern University, as well as his successful career as the book review editor at the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Daily News. Life without hearing, Kisor says, has been fine and fulfilling.
 
Widely praised in popular media and academic journals when it was first published in 1990, What's That Pig Outdoors? opened new conversations about the deaf. Bringing those conversations into the twenty-first century, Kisor updates the continuing disagreements between those who advocate sign language and those who practice speech and lip-reading, discusses the increased acceptance of deaf people's abilities and idiosyncrasies, and considers technological advancements such as blogging, instant messaging, and hand-held mobile devices that have enabled deaf people to communicate with the hearing world on its own terms.
[more]
front cover of When I Am Dead
When I Am Dead
The Writings of George M. Teegarden
Raymond Luczak
Gallaudet University Press, 2007

The Sixth Volume in the Gallaudet Classics in Deaf Studies Series

George M. Teegarden (1852-1936) taught at the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf for 48 years, established the printing department, and also served as the first editor of the school’s magazine. Despite these significant contributions, his greatest gift to deaf people was his skill as a writer and poet who was deaf, as readers will discover in When I Am Dead: The Writings of George M. Teegarden.

Editor Raymond Luczak selected Teegarden’s prose in When I Am Dead from several books, including Raindrop, and Stories, Old and New. Noting that these stories were never written for hearing readers, Luczak marvels at Teegarden’s ability to write English prose that the ASL-familiar reader would find incredibly easy to transliterate. By employing a rich blend of original stories and revisions of fables and myths, Teegarden taught his students the importance of improving their reading and writing skills to outfit them “for the battle of life.” He produced a body of work that Luczak characterizes as “a breath of fresh air: quick, painless, and usually told with a sense of wonder.”

Luczak’s choice of poems came from Teegarden’s self-published volume Vagrant Verses, a summation of his affection for Gallaudet College, the Deaf community, and all deaf people. The eponymous poem “When I Am Dead” articulates concisely the beliefs that directed Teegarden’s life of service:

“When I am dead, I hope to be
Remembered—this is true—
Not for my wit or vanities
But what I did for you.”

[more]

front cover of Whispers of a Savage Sort
Whispers of a Savage Sort
And Other Plays about the Deaf American Experience
Raymond Luczak
Gallaudet University Press, 2009

     “Oh, why can’t the deaf community be more like a family?” is the plaint of a character in Raymond Luczak’s title play Whispers of a Savage Sort. It also goes far in characterizing the main thread that runs through his remarkable collection of work offered in this new volume. Whispers of a Savage Sort and Other Plays about the Deaf American Experience presents a progression of plays that depict Deaf people in situations well-known by the community’s members. Written to be signing-driven, these plays feature Deaf characters from the various strata of Deaf society. Each play centers on different yet equally familiar issues.

     Snooty brings to life the difficulties of surviving the social pecking order in a deaf residential school. The main character’s only escape is a rich fantasy life in which he is in control. Doogle confronts its characters with the intrusion of technological communication devices parallel to the virtually forced intimacy of such a small, close community. Brought into stark focus by the specter of AIDS, Love in My Veins explores how trust, betrayal, and ultimately forgiveness can transform a Deaf couple’s love for each other in a Deaf community. The collection’s eponymous Whispers of a Savage Sort reveals the relentless damage that rumor and innuendo can do to a diverse group of Deaf individuals. The emotions, identities, and consequences created by Luczak in these dramas illuminate the Deaf American community in fascinating detail rarely seen in any medium today.

[more]
logo for Harvard University Press
The Wild Boy of Aveyron
Harlan Lane
Harvard University Press, 1976

The discovery of Victor, the wild boy of Aveyron, and the accomplishments of his teacher, Jean Marc Itard, launched a debate among philosophers anthropologists, psychologists, and educators that has lasted almost two centuries, has given birth to educational treatment of the mentally retarded with methods that are still widely employed, and has led in this country to a revolution in childhood education.

This beautifully written book by Harlan Lane tells the complete story of Dr. Itard's successes and failures with “l'enfant sauvage,” a story immortalized by director François Truffaut in The Wild Child (L'Enfant sauvage). Lane takes the reader into the central philosophical and scientific debates of the nineteenth century and sheds new light on questions that persist for our own time. Which human activities require social instruction and which do not? Is there a critical period for language acquisition? To what extent can education compensate for delayed development and limited endowment? What are the critical features of effective training methods?

[more]

Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter