Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood [Paperback]

Paddy Ladd (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1853595454 | ISBN-13: 978-1853595455 | Publication Date: March 5, 2003

This text presents a "Traveller's Guide" to deaf culture, starting from the premise that deaf cultures have an important contribution to make to other academic disciplines, and human lives in general. Within and outside deaf communities, there is a need for an account of the new concept of deaf culture, which enables readers to assess its place alongside work on other minority cultures and multilingual discourses. The book aims to assess the concepts of culture, on their own terms and in their many guises and to apply these to deaf communities. The author illustrates the pitfalls which have been created for those communities by the medical concept of "deafness" and contrasts this with his new concept of "deafhood", a process by which every deaf child, family and adult implicitly explains their existance in the world to themselves and each other.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Paddy Ladd is a Lecturer and MSc co-ordinator at the Centre for Deaf Studies in the University of Bristol. He completed his PhD in Deaf Culture at Bristol University in 1998 and has written, edited and contributed to numerous publications in the field. Both his writings and his Deaf activism have received international recognition, and in 1998 he was awarded the Deaf Lifetime Achievement Award by the Federation of Deaf People, for activities which have extended the possibilities for Deaf communities both in the UK and worldwide.

Product Details

• Paperback: 502 pages
• Publisher: Multilingual Matters (March 5, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1853595454
• ISBN-13: 978-1853595455
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #105,439 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #30 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Disorders & Diseases > Physical Impairments

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A very good book, December 31, 2011

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Schmoe - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood (Paperback)

Let me start with the assumption that I'm one of the few people entirely outside the Deaf community to pick this book up. I read Seeing Voices by Oliver Sacks way back when, and the idea of Deaf culture never left me. Reading around on forums a little brought me to this book - probably the Deaf culture bible right now (if there is such a thing, though a few blogs I've read certainly make it seem like it), and definitely one of the first books you should pick up if you're interested in all things capital D. I find this book of anthropological value, few to no people know of such a thing as Deaf culture, and the common heritage these people feel binds them, nor are they aware of the beauty of sign language. And deaf clubs? Wut? A Deafhood university course? You bet. As a complete outsider, I found this book exciting. I'm always on the lookout for hidden facets of the society we live in, and I have a deep sociological and anthropological interest. For someone like me, finding this book is like striking gold.

Well-written, engaging and comprehensive, this book is definitely a gem if you're so inclined. The author comes across as an awesome fellow, and I found his narrative to be both easy going and ingraciating. The author insists that one can pick and choose the chapters of interest, and go from there, though in reality, it's probably best to start from the beginning and work your way in, if you're a newbie to the scene, he does explain a lot of basic things in the first 100 pages, and if you delve deeper in, you'll regret having failed to read his introduction to Deaf thought and the Deaf history, something I'd strongly advise you "plow through" to fully understand the things he touches on later.

This is an important book, and a detailed summary of Deaf culture and thought, and most importantly - written with the newbie reader in mind, which is sometimes rare in specialised literature.

The only "con" I can think of is that it's not a short book, and does demand more than just a baseline of interest to stick with, especially since it commands attention to the plethora of information it provides. I found my brain steaming at times and found myself putting it down for a week or two before returning to it, as well as re-reading parts I'd read before and forgotten the important bits of. Not for everyone? You bet. Then again I doubt you came to this page from browsing Dan Brown novels.

6 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Understanding Deaf Culture, February 16, 2007

By 

Mary L. Smetana "book mesa" (Mesa, AZ) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood (Paperback)

It was very interest and little hard to understand about different of kind deaf culture ASL and Oral and other disablity.