Writing Deafness: the Hearing Line in Nineteenth-Century American Literature

Description

Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1. I Write What You Speak: Writing and the Emergence of the American Deaf Community, 1816-1835; 2. Essaying the Unsayable: The Deaf Presence in Antebellum American Literature; 3. Powers of Deafness: Deaf Characters by Hearing Authors; 4. A Sense of Two-ness: Deaf Double Consciousness at Midcentury; 5. Playing with the Hearing Line: Deafness, Passing, and Laughter; Epilogue; Notes; Bibliography; Index; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; R; S; T; V; W.;Taking an original approach to American literature, Christopher Krentz examines nineteenth-century writing from a new angle: that of deafness, which he shows to have surprising importance in identity formation. The rise of deaf education during this period made deaf people much more visible in American society. Krentz demonstrates that deaf and hearing authors used writing to explore their similarities and differences, trying to work out the invisible boundary, analogous to Du Bois's color line, that Krentz calls the ""hearing line."" Writing Deafness examines previously overloo.