Deaf American Literature
eBook - PDF

Deaf American Literature

From Carnival to the Canon

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Deaf American Literature

From Carnival to the Canon

About this book

"The moment when a society must contend with a powerful language other than its own is a decisive point in its evolution. This moment is occurring now in American society." Cynthia Peters explains precisely how American Sign Language (ASL) literature achieved this moment by tracing its past and predicting its future in Deaf American Literature: From Carnival to the Canon.

       Peters connects ASL literature to the literary canon with the archetypal notion of carnival as "the counterculture of the dominated." Throughout history, carnivals have been opportunities for the "low," disenfranchised elements of society to displace their "high" counterparts. Citing the Deaf community's long tradition of "literary nights" and festivals like the Deaf Way, Peters recognizes similar forces at work in the propagation of ASL literature. The agents of this movement, Deaf artists and ASL performers—"Tricksters," as Peters calls them—jump between the two cultures and languages. Through this process, they create a synthesis of English literary content reinterpreted in sign language, which raises the profile of ASL as a distinct art form in itself.

       In this trailblazing study, Peters applies her analysis to the craft's landmark works, including Douglas Bullard's novel Islay and Ben Bahan's video-recorded narrative Bird of a Different Feather. Deaf American Literature, the only work of its kind, is its own seminal moment in the emerging discipline of ASL literary criticism.

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16.
Bakhtin, 
The 
Dialogic 
Imagination
, 
403.
17.
Constance 
Rourke, 
American 
Humor: 
A 
Study 
of 
the 
National 
Char-
acter 
(New 
York: 
Harcourt, 
Brace, 
1931), 
31.
18.
Barbara 
Babcock, 
“
‘Liberty’s 
a 
Whore’: 
Inversions, 
Marginalia, 
and
Picaresque 
Narrative,” 
in 
The 
Reversible 
World: 
Symbolic 
Inversion 
in
Art 
and 
Society
, 
ed. 
Babcock 
(Ithaca, 
N.Y.: 
Cornell 
University 
Press,
1978), 
101.
19.
Ibid., 
98.
20.
Frye, 
Anatomy 
of 
Criticism
, 
190–91.
21.
Stern 
and 
Henderson, 
Performance
, 
4. 
Bruce 
A. 
Rosenberg 
notes 
this
same 
tendency 
toward 
heavy 
characterization 
in 
vernacular 
story-
telling 
in 
Folklore 
and 
Literature: 
Rival 
Siblings 
(Knoxville: 
Universi-
ty 
of 
Tennessee 
Press, 
1991), 
37.
22.
Bernard 
Bragg 
and 
Eugene 
Bergman, 
Tales 
from 
a 
Clubroom
(Wash-
ington, 
D.C.: 
Gallaudet 
University 
Press, 
1981), 
113.
23.
Alexander 
A. 
Parker, 
Literature 
and 
the 
Delinquent: 
The 
Picaresque
Novel 
in 
Spain 
and 
Europe 
1599–1753
(Edinburgh: 
Edinburgh 
Uni-
versity 
Press, 
1967), 
58.
146
Islay:
The 
Deaf
American 
Novel

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title page
  3. Copyright page
  4. Contents
  5. Acknowledgments
  6. Is There Really Such a Thing as Deaf American Literature?
  7. Carnival: Orature and Deaf American Literature
  8. Deaf Carnivals as Centers of Culture
  9. The Oral Tradition: Deaf American Storytellers as Tricksters
  10. Literary Night: The Restorative Power of Comedic and Grotesque Literature
  11. Deaf American Theater
  12. Islay: The Deaf American Novel
  13. Poetry
  14. From Orature to Literature: The New Permanence of ASL Literature
  15. Conclusion
  16. Index