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POSTPONED Apr 9 | Deaf NYC Spaces and Stories

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This event will be postponed to our 2020/2021 Workshop Series.

When: TBD

Where: TBD

What communities are overlooked in oral history practice, and in history-making more broadly? Deaf and hard of hearing people are often left out of oral history – even the phrase “oral history” is exclusive. Narrative history interviews conducted in American Sign Language with a commitment to visual and auditory access require methodological and ethical care. Using their Deaf NYC project as a case study, Brian Greenwald and Jean Bergey will share what they have learned about how to make bilingual and dual-model interviews accessible for everybody, including insights about doing video and visual history and working with translation that resonate with core questions in the field of oral history today.

This event will explore practices of embedded community history via the experiences of Deaf New Yorkers.  Deaf stories illustrate not only the values and experiences of a cultural-linguistic community, but also the economics of New York City, neighborhood change, and shifting centers of employment.  Interviews with Deaf people can reveal basic human stories of navigating a city where diversity is on every street corner, some of it invisible.  Greenwalk and Bergey will share stories about bias and barriers, organizational vs familial generations, and why the 14th Street subway stop became a hub for Deaf youth. 

Brian H. Greenwald is professor of history and Director of the Drs. John S. and Betty J. Schuchman Deaf Documentary Center at Gallaudet University. He is co-editor of A Fair Chance in the Race of Life: The Role of Gallaudet University in Deaf History and In Our Own Hands: Essays in Deaf History, 1780-1970.  Brian has presented widely on many topics on American Deaf history. Currently, he is co-director (with Jean L. Bergey) of the Deaf NYC: Signs of Change project that explores deaf life in New York City during the late 19th and 20th centuries. 

Jean Lindquist Bergey, associate director of the Drs. John S. & Betty J. Schuchman Deaf Documentary Center at Gallaudet University, directed the History Through Deaf Eyes project and was the University’s project director for the Through Deaf Eyes documentary produced by WETA, Washington, DC and Florentine Films/Hott Productions in association with Gallaudet.  Jean curated the Gallaudet University Museum exhibition Making a Difference: Deaf Peace Corps Volunteers, and served on the exhibit curatorial team for Deaf President Now: A Pivotal Moment.  She supervised research and production and served on the curatorial team for Deaf Difference + Space Survival, an exhibition on Deaf participation in 1955-1968 space research.  Publications include (with Douglas C. Baynton and Jack R. Gannon) Through Deaf Eyes: A Photographic History of an American Community, and a chapter from In Our Own Hands: Essays in Deaf History, 1780-1970, titled “Divine and Secular: Reverend Robert Capers Fletcher and the Southern Deaf Community.”  Articles include “Life and Deaf: Language and the Myth of Balance in Public History” in Sign Language Studies journal, and “Deaf Perspective: Inside View of Early Space Research” in Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly, Vol 25, #1, 2018.