Event
The ASL Program and the Department of Linguistics are happy
to announce the ASL Lecture Series event for Spring 2016:
Dr. Octavian Robinson, Deaf Studies faculty at the College
of the Holy Cross will present "Ableist Rhetoric at the Turn
of the 20th Century" on Thursday, March 24, 2016, from
5-6:30 PM in Claudia Cohen Hall, Room G-17.
A map of the location can be found HERE
<http://www.facilities.upenn.edu/maps/locations/cohen-hall-claudia>.
This event is free and open to the public and will be
presented in ASL. Voice interpretation will be provided
for non-signing audience members. Please feel free to
share this announcement with anyone who might be interested.
Light refreshments will be served following the talk and a
social hour will continue until 7:30 PM.
The abstract for the talk can be found below.
For questions, please contact Jami Fisher, ASL Program
Coordinator, Department of Linguistics: jami@sas.upenn.edu
This talk is co-sponsored by the Disability Studies Group
in the Department of English.
*
ABSTRACT:*
The talk explores rhetoric and how the Deaf community in the
United States has long employed ableist rhetoric as part of
their strategy for passing as normal able-bodied citizens.
Ableist rhetoric subscribes to an hierarchy of
ability-disability, celebrates invisibility of disability,
and celebrates those closest to the "norm"- that is-
able-bodiedness while disparaging disability. This rhetoric
marginalized members within the Deaf community who were
DeafBlind or DeafDisabled. This late nineteenth century
rhetoric of white male middle-class leaders in the American
Deaf community subsequently led to intracommunity
marginalization of DeafBlind and DeafDisabled people. Deaf
people's ableist rhetoric also established roots for the
twentieth-century schisms between deaf and disabled
activists, deaf and disability studies.
*BIO:*
Octavian Robinson holds a Ph.D. in history from The Ohio
State University with an emphasis on women's history, modern
U.S. history, and African American history. He also holds a
Master of Arts degree in Deaf Studies with a concentration
in Deaf History from Gallaudet University. Robinson
specializes in the history of the American Deaf Community.