Mean Little deaf Queer

Mean Little deaf Queer

Author: Terry Galloway

Publisher: Beacon Press

Published: 2010-06-01

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 0807073318

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In 1959, the year Terry Galloway turned nine, the voices of everyone she loved began to disappear. No one yet knew that an experimental antibiotic given to her mother had wreaked havoc on her fetal nervous system, eventually causing her to go deaf. As a self-proclaimed "child freak," she acted out her fury with her boxy hearing aids and Coke-bottle glasses by faking her own drowning at a camp for crippled children. Ever since that first real-life performance, Galloway has used theater, whether onstage or off, to defy and transcend her reality. With disarming candor, she writes about her mental breakdowns, her queer identity, and living in a silent, quirky world populated by unforgettable characters. What could have been a bitter litany of complaint is instead an unexpectedly hilarious and affecting take on life.


Planet of the Blind

Planet of the Blind

Author: Stephen Kuusisto

Publisher: Delta

Published: 2013-08-07

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0307830055

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"The world is a surreal pageant," writes Stephen Kuusisto. "Ahead of me the shapes and colors suggest the sails of Tristan's ship or an elephant's ear floating in air, though in reality it is a middle-aged man in a London Fog rain coat which billows behind him in the April wind." So begins Kuusisto's memoir, Planet of the Blind, a journey through the kaleidoscope geography of the partially-sighted, where everyday encounters become revelations, struggles, or simple triumphs. Not fully blind, not fully sighted, the author lives in what he describes as "the customs-house of the blind", a midway point between vision and blindness that makes possible his unique perception of the world. In this singular memoir, Kuusisto charts the years of a childhood spent behind bottle-lens glasses trying to pass as a normal boy, the depression that brought him from obesity to anorexia, the struggle through high school, college, first love, and sex. Ridiculed by his classmates, his parents in denial, here is the story of a man caught in a perilous world with no one to trust--until a devastating accident forces him to accept his own disability and place his confidence in the one relationship that can reconnect him to the world--the relationship with his guide dog, a golden Labrador retriever named Corky. With Corky at his side, Kuusisto is again awakened to his abilities, his voice as a writer and his own particular place in the world around him. Written with all the emotional precision of poetry, Kuusisto's evocative memoir explores the painful irony of a visually sensitive individual--in love with reading, painting, and the everyday images of the natural world--faced with his gradual descent into blindness. Folded into his own experience is the rich folklore the phenomenon of blindness has inspired throughout history and legend.


A Brief Literary History of Disability

A Brief Literary History of Disability

Author: Fuson Wang

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-07-21

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 1000603571

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A Brief Literary History of Disability is a convenient, lucid, and accessible entry point into the rapidly evolving conversation around disability in literary studies. The book follows a chronological structure and each chapter pairs a well-known literary text with a foundational disability theorist in order to develop a simultaneous understanding of literary history and disability theory. The book as a whole, and each chapter, addresses three key questions: Why do we even need a literary history of disability? What counts as the literature of disability? Should we even talk about a literary aesthetic of disability? This book is the ideal starting point for anyone wanting to add some disability studies to their literature teaching in any period, and for any students approaching the study of literature and disability. It is also an efficient reference point for scholars looking to include disability studies approaches in their research.


Innovations in Deaf Studies

Innovations in Deaf Studies

Author: Annelies Kusters

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-04-14

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 019067153X

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What does it mean to engage in Deaf Studies and who gets to define the field? What would a truly deaf-led Deaf Studies research program look like? What are the research practices of deaf scholars in Deaf Studies, and how do they relate to deaf research participants and communities? What innovations do deaf scholars deem necessary in the field of Deaf Studies? In Innovations in Deaf Studies: The Role of Deaf Scholars, volume editors Annelies Kusters, Maartje De Meulder, and Dai O'Brien and their contributing authors tackle these questions and more. Spurred by a gradual increase in the number of Deaf Studies scholars who are deaf, and by new theoretical trends in Deaf Studies, this book creates an important space for contributions from deaf researchers, to see what happens when they enter into the conversation. Innovations in Deaf Studies expertly foregrounds deaf ontologies (defined as "deaf ways of being") and how the experience of being deaf is central not only to deaf research participants' own ontologies, but also to the positionality and framework of the study as a whole. Further, this book demonstrates that the research and methodology built around those ontologies offer suggestions for new ways for the discipline to meet the challenges of the present, which includes productive and ongoing collaboration with hearing researchers. Providing fascinating perspective and insight, Kusters, De Meulder, O'Brien, and their contributors all focus on the underdeveloped strands within Deaf Studies, particularly on areas around deaf people's communities, ideologies, literature, religion, language practices, and political aspirations.


Deaf Identities

Deaf Identities

Author: Irene W. Leigh

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 445

ISBN-13: 0190887591

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"Much has been written about deaf identities, however, no single book has focused specifically on how different academic disciplines conceptualize deaf identities in one fell swoop. This book, "Deaf Identities: Exploring New Frontiers," does exactly that. It is a unique compilation of multidisciplinary perspectives on the lens of deaf identities written by scholars representing a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, counseling, education, literary criticism, practical religion, philosophy, psychology, sociology, social work, and Deaf Studies. Nowhere else can one find careful scrutiny of the meaning of deaf identities within, for example, the disciplines of philosophy and religion. Where else can one find a sense of identity in "passing" as a deaf person instead of "almost passing" as a hearing person? Where else can one examine mutating identities in progressing from Spiderman to the Incredible Hulk? The book focuses on how the contributors perceive what deaf identities represent, how these identities develop, and the societal influences that shape these identities. Intersectionality, examination of medical, educational, and family systems, linguistic deprivation, the role of oppressive influences, what the "deaf body" is about, strategies to facilitate positive deaf identity development, and how ethical values are interpreted are among the multiple topics examined in the search to better understand how deaf identities come into being. In presenting their deaf identity paradigms, contributors have endeavored to intertwine both scholarly and personal perspectives in their efforts to personalize academic content. The result is a book that reinforces the multiple ways in which deaf identities are manifested"--


The Cambridge Companion to American Gay and Lesbian Literature

The Cambridge Companion to American Gay and Lesbian Literature

Author: Scott Herring

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-05-19

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 1316298981

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This Companion examines the connections between LGBTQ populations and American literature from the late eighteenth to twenty-first centuries. It surveys primary and secondary writings under the evolving category of gay and lesbian authorship, and incorporates current thinking in US-based LGBTQ studies as well as critical practices within the field of American literary studies. This Companion also addresses the ways in which queerness pervades persons, texts, bodies, and reading, while paying attention to the transnational component of such literatures. In so doing, it details the chief genres, conventional historical backgrounds, and influential interpretive practices that support the analysis of LGBTQ literatures in the United States.


The SAGE Deaf Studies Encyclopedia

The SAGE Deaf Studies Encyclopedia

Author: Genie Gertz

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Published: 2016-01-05

Total Pages: 1107

ISBN-13: 1483346471

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The time has come for a new in-depth encyclopedic collection of articles defining the current state of Deaf Studies at an international level and using the critical and intersectional lens encompassing the field. The emergence of Deaf Studies programs at colleges and universities and the broadened knowledge of social sciences (including but not limited to Deaf History, Deaf Culture, Signed Languages, Deaf Bilingual Education, Deaf Art, and more) have served to expand the activities of research, teaching, analysis, and curriculum development. The field has experienced a major shift due to increasing awareness of Deaf Studies research since the mid-1960s. The field has been further influenced by the Deaf community’s movement, resistance, activism and politics worldwide, as well as the impact of technological advances, such as in communications, with cell phones, computers, and other devices. A major goal of this new encyclopedia is to shift focus away from the “Medical/Pathological Model” that would view Deaf individuals as needing to be “fixed” in order to correct hearing and speaking deficiencies for the sole purpose of assimilating into mainstream society. By contrast, The Deaf Studies Encyclopedia seeks to carve out a new and critical perspective on Deaf Studies with the focus that the Deaf are not a people with a disability to be treated and “cured” medically, but rather, are members of a distinct cultural group with a distinct and vibrant community and way of being.


Arts and Humanities

Arts and Humanities

Author: Brenda Jo Brueggemann

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Published: 2012-08-02

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13: 1483305929

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This volume in The SAGE Reference Series on Disability explores the arts and humanities within the lives of people with disabilities. It is one of eight volumes in the cross-disciplinary and issues-based series, which incorporates links from varied fields making up Disability Studies as volumes examine topics central to the lives of individuals with disabilities and their families. With a balance of history, theory, research, and application, specialists set out the findings and implications of research and practice for others whose current or future work involves the care and/or study of those with disabilities, as well as for the disabled themselves. The presentational style (concise and engaging) emphasizes accessibility. Taken individually, each volume sets out the fundamentals of the topic it addresses, accompanied by compiled data and statistics, recommended further readings, a guide to organizations and associations, and other annotated resources, thus providing the ideal introductory platform and gateway for further study. Taken together, the series represents both a survey of major disability issues and a guide to new directions and trends and contemporary resources in the field as a whole.