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. 
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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.