Home Movies Hardly Silent: Unlocking Our Deaf Folklife Films
Home Movies Hardly Silent: Unlocking Our Deaf Folklife Films
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Abstract
This seminal book on Deaf-made home movies takes readers on a journey through the first fifty years of filmmaking (1925–1970s). It will show how the American Deaf community utilized silent film technology while overcoming its inherent spoken communication barrier through sign language. In this way, a wide range of cultural and literary content was invoked, illustrating the integrated values of both a minority community and the larger society in which they lived. Home movies and the visual nature of emerging cinema technology of the time enabled Deaf people, unlike those outside of their community, to capitalize on this novel technology wherein all cultural activities preserved and shared on film were naturally embedded with sign language. Therefore, the widely held belief that these home movies were silent only because they were without sound was debunked. Deaf people have managed to textualize their language using film technology, and it has become their oral history frozen in time in their exact forms. The importance of home movies for the Deaf community was fully recognized by the National Association of the Deaf, which funded the production of twenty-two films intended to preserve the literary traditions of the community and the formal language register. Views of the Deaf presented in home movies offer a stark contrast to their institutional life as typically depicted on film and validate the idea that films are indeed a superior method for documenting the Deaf community.
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Front Matter
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1
Introduction
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2
How Amateur Filmmaking Technology Gave the Deaf Their Voice
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3
Krauel’s Journey as Amateur Filmmaker Pioneer
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4
On the Authenticity of Amateur Filmmaking and Deaf Folklife
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5
Designing Ethnographic Methodology for Manifesting Deaf Voice
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6
Fundamentals for Organizing Film Collections
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7
Theme-Based Ethnographic Analysis
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8
Tweaking Ethnographic Paradigms and Views
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9
Leaving a Cinematic Legacy through Sign Language
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10
Conclusion: In the Present and Looking Ahead
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End Matter
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