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An indictment of the mistreatment of the deaf community by a hearing establishment that resists understanding and awareness. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
This book presents a ‘Traveller’s Guide’ to Deaf Culture, starting from the premise that Deaf cultures have an important contribution to make to other academic disciplines, and human lives in general. Within and outside Deaf communities, there is a need for an account of the new concept of Deaf culture, which enables readers to assess its place alongside work on other minority cultures and multilingual discourses. The book aims to assess the concepts of culture, on their own terms and in their many guises and to apply these to Deaf communities. The author illustrates the pitfalls which have been created for those communities by the medical concept of ‘deafness’ and contrasts this with his new concept of “Deafhood”, a process by which every Deaf child, family and adult implicitly explains their existence in the world to themselves and each other.
A “remarkable and insightful” look inside a New York City school for the deaf, blending memoir and history (The New York Times Book Review). Leah Hager Cohen is part of the hearing world, but grew up among the deaf community. Her Russian-born grandfather had been deaf—a fact hidden by his parents as they took him through Ellis Island—and her father served as superintendent at the Lexington School for the Deaf in Queens. Young Leah was in the minority, surrounded by deaf culture, and sometimes felt like she was missing the boat—or in the American Sign Language term, “train go sorry.” Here, the award-winning writer looks back on this experience and also explores a pivotal moment in deaf history, when scientific advances and cultural attitudes began to shift and collide—in a unique mix of journalistic reporting and personal memoir that is “a must-read” (Chicago Sun-Times). “The history of the Lexington School for the Deaf, the oldest school of its kind in the nation, comes alive with Cohen’s vivid descriptions of its students and administrators. The author, who grew up at the school, follows the real-life events of Sofia, a Russian immigrant, and James, a member of a poor family in the Bronx, as well as members of her own family both past and present who are intimately associated with the school. Cohen takes special pride in representing the views of the deaf community—which are sometimes strongly divided—in such issues as American Sign Language (ASL) vs. oralism, hearing aids vs. cochlear implants, and mainstreaming vs. special education. The author’s lively narrative includes numerous conversations translated from ASL . . . a one-of-a-kind book.” —Library Journal “Throughout the book, Cohen focuses on two students whose Russian and African American roots exemplify the school’s increasingly diverse population . . . beautifully written.” —Booklist
In Reading Between the Signs, Anna Mindess provides a perspective on a culture that is not widely understood - American Deaf culture. With the collaboration of three distinguished Deaf consultants, Mindess explores the implications of cultural differences at the intersection of the Deaf and hearing worlds. Used in sign language interpreter training programs worldwide, Reading Between the Signs is a resource for students, working interpreters and other professionals. This important new edition retains practical techniques that enable interpreters to effectively communicate their clients' intent, while its timely discussion of the interpreter's role is broadened in a cultural context. NEW TO THIS EDITION: New chapter explores the changing landscape of the interpreting field and discusses the concepts of Deafhood and Deaf heart. This examination of using Deaf interpreters pays respect to the profession, details techniques and shows the benefits of collaboration.
The church of Jesus Christ finds itself at a very unique moment in history. The average Christian living in the “economically advanced countries” enjoys a level of prosperity that has been unimaginable for most of human history. At the same time, over 2.5 billion people in the Majority World (Africa, Asia, and Latin America) live on less than $2 per day, with many of these people being Christians. Ironically, it is amongst the “least of these” in the Global South that the global church is experiencing the most rapid growth. All of this raises profound challenges to the global church. How can churches and missionaries in the Majority World effectively address the devastating poverty both inside their congregations and just outside their doors? How can churches in the economically advanced countries effectively partner with Global South churches in this process? The very integrity of the global church’s testimony is at stake, for where God’s people reside, there should be no poverty (Deuteronomy 15:4; Acts 4:34). For the past several decades, microfinance (MF) and microenterprise development (MED) have been the leading approaches to poverty alleviation. MF/MED is a set of interventions that allow households to better manage their finances and start small businesses. From remote churches in rural Africa to the short-term missions programs of mega-churches in the United States, churches and missionaries have taken the plunge into MF/MED, trying to emulate the apparent success of large-scale relief and development organizations. Unfortunately, most churches and missionaries find this to be far more difficult than they had imagined. Repayment rates on loans are low and churches typically end up with struggling programs that require ongoing financial subsidies. Everybody gets hurt in the process: donors, relief and development agencies, churches and missionaries, and--most importantly—the poor people themselves. This book explains the basic principles for successfully utilizing microfinance in ministry. Drawing on best practice research and their own pioneering work with the Chalmers Center, Brian Fikkert and Russell Mask chart a path for churches and missionaries to pursue, a path that minimizes the risks of harm, relies on local resources, and enables missionaries and churches to minister in powerful ways to the spiritual and economic needs of some of the poorest people on the planet. The insights of microfinance can play a tremendous role in helping to stabilize poor households, removing them from the brink of disaster and enabling them to make the changes that are conducive to long-term progress. Moreover, when combined with evangelism and discipleship, a church-centered microfinance program can be a powerful tool for holistic ministry—one that is empowering for the poor and devoid of the dependencies plaguing most relationships between churches in economically advanced countries and churches in poor nations.
"This book provides very important evidence that changes in institutional attitudes toward manual language can be traced to broader changes in the accepted conceptions of the nature of language. . . . [It] will prove to be a milestone in the developing discipline of deaf history."--Harlan Lane, author of The Mask of Benevolence
"Inside Deaf Culture relates deaf people's search for a voice of their own, and their proud self-discovery and self-description as a flourishing culture. Padden and Humphries show how the nineteenth-century schools for the deaf, with their denigration of sign language and their insistence on oralist teaching, shaped the lives of deaf people for generations to come. They describe how deaf culture and art thrived in mid-twentieth century deaf clubs and deaf theatre, and profile controversial contemporary technologies." Cf. Publisher's description.
The People of the Eye compares the vales, customs and social organization of the Deaf World to those in ethnic groups. It portrays how the founding families of the Deaf World lived in early America and provides pedigrees for over two hundred lineages with Deaf members.
