Padden, Carol

72 dialogues are presented to demonstrate the various conversations with are presented in text form in the accompanying book.

Examines how historical events and social changes have influenced the ways in which Deaf people define themselves at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

Explains how deaf culture works through the use of folklore, apocryphal stories, poetry, jokes, and discussion of split factions and advocacy organizations.

"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.