Visualizing Deafness: Language Manuals and Manual Languages

Building on research on manual-kinetic communication in medieval and early modern Europe, this presentation suggests possibilities for a prehistory of Deaf culture prior to the development of fully expressive sign languages. How did premodern people express the value of deafness as a physical condition and cultural practice? In what way can lived experience of deafness in the historical past reshape contemporary (often politicized) understandings of cultural, linguistic, or ethnic identity?

A reception will follow the program.