Analysis: The National Theatre Of The Deaf

For my American Sign Language class I needed to attend some type of Deaf event. The event I chose was the showing of Love is Never Silent on October 22nd from 6-8pm in Wiley Hall at the University of Minnesota. Love is Never Silent is a very touching and powerful television movie from 1985. This movie can help the hearing world get a look at what it is like to have family members that are Deaf. This movie was also probably an inspiration for Deaf people by how relatable it could be to their life. The movie follows Margaret, a child of Deaf parents, through childhood until she is a grown adult. During the stages of Margaret’s life depicted through the movie I learned new information about Deaf culture and was able to make

“You have to be deaf to understand the deaf”’ is a deaf poem by Willard Madsen, and he was written at 1971’s. He was a professor of journalism and former Associate Professor of Sign Language at Gallaudet University. He was born from Peabody, Kansas in 1930s. He lost his hearing to scarlet fever when he was two age. He attended public junior high school before he transferring to Kansas school for the Deaf at Olathe. He went on to study at Gallaudet. He graduating in 1952s with a degree in the education. He do taught at the Louisiana school for the Deaf for five years after, he received a master’s degree from Louisiana State University. After he joined to Gallaudet faculty in 1957s, and he taught at gallaudet for 39 years when he have retirement at 1996s. His career was spent to teaching journalism and english to preparatory students. He was a founding member of American Sign language Teachers Association, which provided certification for sign teachers across the country. He wrote two text book for sign language but, he was well known as a poets in both American Sign Language and English. Classics of Deaf cultures are “You have to be deaf to Understand” and “NO!”.

Deaf people living in a hearing world have certainly made their mark in the hearing community. Deaf people can do anything that hearing people can do. The band shown in the film called “Beethoven’s Nightmare “caused quite a stir in our class. I think that we were simply amazed that deaf musicians could play so well. By showing the audience this experience, it provides hearing viewers with the knowledge that this type of event does occur within the deaf community and that the deaf can appreciate

The purpose of this research paper is to answer the major question, what is Deaf culture? There are three sub-questions that will assist in answering the major question: (1) What constitutes Deaf culture? (2) How has American Sign Language impacted the Deaf community? (3) What are the major issues that are being addressed in Deaf culture today? With these questions answer, it will give a better understanding as to what Deaf culture is and that it is indeed a culture.

Bob Hiltermann is a famous deaf storyteller, actor, comic, and musician. He was born in Wiesbaden, Germany and became deaf at the age of four due to spinal meningitis. His family assumed that he was slow and it wasn’t until he was ten years old that they finally realized he was deaf. When Bob turned eighteen, he attended Gallaudet University. While attending Gallaudet he learned American Sign Language, which would eventually lead him to become a confident and successful signer. Bob grew up in a family of classical musicians and this shaped his love for music. Despite being deaf he has become an accomplished musician himself and is the drummer for a famous all deaf band named Beethoven’s Nightmare. He has also experienced a very successful career as an actor and has starred in many award winning documentary films, TV, stage productions, soaps, and feature films. Bob has also helped create and star in an educational sign language series called “Shut up and Sign” (Hiltermann, 2016).

Deaf children are entitled to know that they are heirs to an amazing culture, not a pitiful defect. In order to follow through on that obligation, one of the best things I feel we can do is try to educate other hearing people about the realities of American Sign Language and Deaf culture. Language is one of the most critical aspects of most cultures, and one which sets deafness aside from other defects such as blindness, physical disability, or illness. Sign language is not universal, nor does it always correspond to the spoken language in the same country. For example American Sign Language is native to the United States and Canada. Deaf Canadians might use English, French, or both as a written language. But deaf people in Great Britain, while they may write in English, use a completely different sign language. (nad.org)

Two centuries ago, the Deaf community arose in American society as a linguistic minority. Members of this community share a particular human condition, hearing impairment. However, the use of American Sign Language, as their main means of communicating, and attendance to a residential school for people with deafness also determine their entry to this micro-culture. Despite the fact that Deaf activists argue that their community is essentially an ethnic group, Deaf culture is certainly different from any other cultures in the United States. Deaf-Americans cannot trace their ancestry back to a specific country, nor do Deaf neighborhoods exist predominantly throughout the nation. Additionally, more than ninety percent of deaf persons are born

deaf: working for the rights of all deaf people in this country, including education of deaf children.

The book also describes how life has changed for deaf adults through the years. Previously, many deaf adults were not able to get jobs in many places, because there were not many places that were accepting to them. These days, however, almost every business or company is looking for those that are fluent in American Sign Language, due to the simple fact that they would be able to accommodate that many more people and earn more money for their business. Also, there were not many outlets for deaf adults to use in relation to entertainment or basic needs, because again, mostly everything was catered to hearing adults only. However, they have recently developed many different ways for the deaf to communicate with the hearing and with one another, including TTY, full-keyboard, and internet phones and closed-captions on television stations and movies.

In the Deaf community Benjamin Bahan is considered an influential figure because not only does he write about Deaf culture but he is a storyteller as well. Bahan has published at least twenty-eight articles, five books, and eight videotapes. With Dirksen Bauman and Melissa Malzkuhn they created the world’s first online journal called, Deaf Studies Digital Journal. It is a “peer-reviewed academic and cultural arts journal to feature scholarship and creative work in both signed and written languages” (Gallaudet Press). Because he is a storyteller he appears in chapter two of “Signing the Body Poetics”. In this chapter he talks about the Face-to-Face tradition in the American

In 1988, students at Gallaudet University came together to formed a single "voice" that was heard, but more profoundly seen, by the world. Now known as "DPN" ("Deaf President Now"), these deaf students formed a community with a cause. They affected pedagogy: abandoning classes, closing the gates to the school, refusing to budge until their demands were met. They altered the power structure and strengthened their own community: rejecting the newly appointed president and having many of the faculty join their cause. Not long into the protests, deaf schools in Canada and West Germany closed on their behalf, and the media swarmed in, fumbling in its attempts to get interviews from students who didn't speak and to record rallies in which

The documentary Deaf Jam produced by New Day Films provided an in-depth look into the beauty and dexterity of American Sign Language (ASL) while highlighting many important aspects of deaf culture. It also gave an even deeper analysis of the personal lives of those who are deaf and the societal and emotional struggles they face every day. This was done through the eyes of an Israeli immigrant named Aneta Brodski and her empowering journey to share her story through signed slam poetry.

The Book I decided to read is called “Seeing Voices: A Journey into the World of the Deaf”. In this book the author Oliver Sacks basically focuses on Deaf history and the community of the deaf developed toward linguistic self-sufficiency. Sacks is a Professor of Neurology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He became interested in the problem of how deaf children acquire language after reviewing a book by Harlan Lane. The book was titled “When the Mind Hears: A History of the Deaf”. This book was first published in 1984 and was published again in 1989. Before reading Harlan’s book Sacks did not know any sign language. The book encouraged him to begin studying sign language. Sacks became extremely interested on how the deaf learn to communicate with the ability of sound being nonexistent. He wanted to know what this process may tell us about the nature of language. Seeing Voices is made up of three chapters, the history of the deaf, a discussion of language and the brain, and an evaluation of the problems behind the student strike that occurred at Gallaudet University, in March of 1988.

From antiquity, being deaf was looked upon as an undesirable and a culture which was disconnected with the rest of mainstream society. Often members of the community found themselves ostracized by members of other cultures, who viewed them with suspicion, and were thought to be possessed, or in communion, with undesirable “spirits”, particularly during the advent of the Christianity that was in practice during the Middle Ages. During this period, before the advent of Gutenberg’s metal, movable type printing press, the populace was mostly illiterate and religious texts and spiritual obligations/instructions were verbally transmitted to the people by the literate clerics of the day. Thus, the deaf were believed to have no access to “Fides

The key points of Chapter 9 in “Deaf Epics” are to show the reader that the Deaf community has their own epics, which have occurred throughout their history. One of the most important epics in this chapter was “The week the world heard Gallaudet.” This documented the battle between the students and the faculty at Gallaudet over electing their first Deaf president. This was an important part of their history and showed the their ability to fight for what they wanted and persevere against all odds. This chapter also showed that epics have a lasting effect and are used in performances to show injustices and misconceptions.