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1. account for the modes and distribution of power relations offers scope for empowerment and greater agency to move beyond the assigned status This then is Valente s approach by threading the weft of his personal history into the warp of a historical institutional and theoretical perspective on deafness he is able to bring to light successive instances of what he calls epistemic violence 35 and following which frames the definitions and treatment of deafness in an audist environment making many deaf children a party to their own oppression and marginalisation His neat recasting of deaf and dumb as active verbs gives full meaning to the book s title in naming this process the deafing disempowering and dumbing silencing of children with deafness 43 Reading the twenty five chapters that make up the work each one relating an episode a meeting a turning point in his scholarly and personal life and notwithstanding his constant indictment of an institutional set up that alienates deaf children what is striking overall is how upbeat and optimistic a vision of his journey towards Deaf culture we are left with The book ends as though inevitably with his going native at the house of Ben Bahan Gallaudet University Professor whose family are all signing Deaf The lucidity and humour in his account of this meeting the misunderstandings the enthusiasm the challenge of relating to this still enigmatic world which holds s2. agit donc en aucun cas de pr tendre une restitution brute ou authentique des exp riences relat es gr ce la m thode autobiographique au contraire Valente insiste sur le caract re s lectif et partiel de ses propres souvenirs surtout lorsqu il les confronte d autres versions de son histoire de vie propos es par sa famille proche et son entourage C est justement la nature construite contingente et ind finiment modifiable de ce travail de m moire qui est mise en avant non pas comme faille de la m thode mais comme ph nom ne inh rent la construction identitaire toujours en devenir Identities much like memories are organic and shape shifting always dependent on context Life histories tell us more about how we use memories in our identity work than about the memories themselves 43 Les identit s tout comme les souvenirs sont organiques et prot iformes toujours fonction du contexte Les histoires de vie en disent plus long sur notre utilisation des souvenirs dans le travail identitaire que sur les souvenirs eux m mes Or pour Valente comme pour tout autre sujet dont le statut subalterne a pu tre l origine de souffrances et de blessures revisiter ses propres souvenirs en y portant un nouveau regard dans son cas enrichi d une grille de compr hension th orique des formes et enjeux du pouvoir tels que Foucault Althusser et d autres les ont formul s offre une possibilit de prise
3. Ben Bahan Professeur Gallaudet University et sa famille tous des Sourds signants L humour et la lucidit avec lesquels il relate ses d convenues ses lans d enthousiasme ses relations avec ce monde encore si nigmatique pour lui mais qui offre tant de promesses confirment l id e d un voyage bien engag mais non termin It s not so much that I ve managed to find success in the larger hearing world or that I ve finally found Deaf culture What I m learning from this journey is how to more fully start living La main de Th t n 1 04 11 2013 4 VALENTE Joseph d Deaf and d Dumb A Portrait Of a Deaf Kid as a Young Superhero 2011 New York Peter Lang Disability Studies in Education Vol 10 151 p ISBN in both places 144 Ce n est pas tant que j ai r ussi faire ma place dans le vaste monde des entendants ni que j ai enfin trouv la culture Sourde Ce que m apprend ce voyage c est d arriver a vivre plus pleinement dans les deux lieux Nous ne pouvons que lui souhaiter bon vent La main de Th t n 1 04 11 2013
4. Sourds Sourd comme Fran ais Anglais etc l autonomie et l int grit d une langue et d une culture part enti re ce qui doit n cessairement passer par une immersion en langue des signes pour tous les enfants sourds d s leur plus jeune ge Ce parti pris de poser le probl me de la surdit non pas en termes de handicap mais d un point de vue linguistique et culturelle est d autant plus surprenant et par l m me d autant plus convaincant que Valente a t lev dans l oralisme sans acc s la Langue des signes am ricaine I a suivi un cursus scolaire et universitaire en int gration et aujourd hui encore sa pratique de la langue des signes est de son propre aveu balbutiant alors que son expression orale et crite en anglais am ricain est impeccable Bien entendu le paradoxe n est qu apparent le propos de l auteur sera de nous r v ler combien cette place entre deux ou liminale in between a pu tre source de frustration d humiliation de honte tant il avait int rioris le sentiment d tre d faillant Son salut Une prise de conscience pr coce soutenue et nourrie par son entourage de sa propre cr ativit et du pouvoir des mots A l origine du travail nous explique Valente ces l ments autobiographiques devaient simplement servir de remarques liminaires aux r sultats d un projet doctoral de recherche ethnographique effectu e en bonne et due forme respecta
5. VALENTE Joseph d Deaf and d Dumb A Portrait Of a Deaf Kid as a Young Superhero 2011 New York Peter Lang Disability Studies in Education Vol 10 151 p ISBN Karen Meschia Directrice adjointe du CeTIM Ma tre de Conf rences Universit de Toulouse II Le Mirail karen meschia univ tlse2 fr You didn t come with an instruction manual as his mother used to say to young Joey Valente who became almost totally deaf at three months after double pneumonia and who is the author of this remarkable book Doubtless one of his aims in writing was to provide what his family and himself so cruelly lacked when he was a child but his ambition today goes far beyond producing a How to book for parents of deaf children Dr Joseph Valente currently Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education and co Director of the centre for Disability Studies at Penn State University graphically announces his programmatic intent with the d Deaf spelling on the title page to free deafness from the institutional and social stranglehold that equates it with deficiency and the need for repair and to restore to the Deaf Deaf as in French or English a fully recognized autonomous language and culture Concretely this means ensuring that all deaf children have automatic access to sign language at school and beyond from their earliest childhood This commitment to addressing deafness in terms of language and culture rather than disability is all the mo
6. d autonomie empowerment l gard de ce statut dont il restait prisonnier sinon C est ainsi que proc de l auteur tissant la trame de sa propre histoire avec la cha ne d une continuelle mise en perspective historique institutionnelle et th orique de la surdit ce qui lui permet de d celer au fil du r cit les diff rents moments o surgit la violence pist mique 35 et suivantes qui fonde les d finitions et le traitement de la surdit dans un environnement audiste et qui rend beaucoup d enfants sourds complices de leur propre oppression et marginalisation Sa reconfiguration habile de la dyade deaf dumb pour en faire deux verbes actifs donne tout son sens au titre et permet de nommer ce processus the deafing disempowering and dumbing silencing of children with deafness 43 la surdisation qui confisque leur autonomie et mutisation qui les r duit au silence des enfants sourds Au cours des vingt cinq chapitres qui composent I ouvrage traitant chacun d un pisode d une rencontre d un tournant de sa vie intellectuelle et affective si la mise en cause par Valente de ce syst me d ali nation est toujours pr sente il se d gage cependant de l ensemble une vision de sa trajectoire et de son cheminement vers la culture Sourde qui est impr gn e d optimisme et de joie de vivre Le livre se termine comme naturellement avec son s jour en immersion chez le c l bre
7. e de Joyce ici la suite d une humiliation aupr s de ses camarades de jeu Joey au gr d une lecture fortuite d un passage de la Bible se d couvre un destin de super h ros l instar de Mo se Se juxtapose au deuxi me chapitre un souvenir bien plus r cent Joe doctorant l universit d Arizona rencontre les sujets pressentis de son travail de terrain ethnographique et prouve de nouveau un sentiment d humiliation devant sa propre insuffisance en langue des signes et la na vet de sa vision fantasm e du monde des Sourds La main de Th t n 1 04 11 2013 3 978 1 43331 0714 6 C est au troisi me chapitre que sa d marche est clairement explicit e permettant une r valuation par le lecteur des deux premiers et une mise en perspective de ce qui va suivre En effet tout en qualifiant ses travaux d un m lange d autobiographie d auto ethnographie et d auto fiction part autobiography part auto ethnography part autobiographical fiction 11 Valente ne fait pas l conomie d un appareil th orique et m thodologique extr mement sophistiqu et d ploie ici et tout au long de l ouvrage une grande rudition et une familiarit avec les courants de pens e les plus actuels en mati re de r flexion sur la construction identitaire sur les positionnements minoritaires et subalternes sur les enjeux de l auto narration comme en t moigne sa bibliographie tr s compl te Il ne s
8. emplary and show from the inside how it felt to be deaf in a hearing world The form and content of the work reflect this choice it was an audacious step in an academic context where notwithstanding post modernity s legitimation of subjectivity to speak as T is still seen as somewhat indecent or immodest The opening pages of the book plunge us head first into a distant memory from childhood made vivid through an abrupt staccato style present tense narration snappy dialogue The reader gradually comes to understand the significance of the story being told each episode recounted corresponds to a moment of truth in his life close to Joyce s epiphany here after being humiliated by his playfellows Joey falls by chance on a biblical extract about Moses that signals his destiny as a superhero In the second chapter we fast forward to a much more recent memory Joe now a doctoral student at the University of Arizona is meeting the intended subjects of his ethnographic field work and once again feels humiliated at his inadequate sign La main de Th t n 1 04 11 2013 1 978 1 43331 0714 6 language skills and the naivety of his fantasized vision of the Deaf world It is in chapter three that his authorial intentions are made fully explicit enabling the reader to reassess the two preceding chapters and putting what is to follow in fresh perspective Although he describes his book as part autobiography part auto ethnography
9. nt les principes de neutralit et de prise de distance requis pour tout travail de recherche scientifique Or l lectrochoc de son premier contact avec l institutrice et les enfants sourds de la maternelle o devait se d rouler son travail de terrain a battu en br che toute pr tention la prise de recul et tout d sir de neutralit Valente a compris que non seulement il lui tait impossible de ne pas tre partie prenante mais que c tait pr cis ment son propre cheminement et son statut d ancien petit sourd deaf kid devenu super h ros et d fenseur de la culture Sourde qui devait servir en quelque sorte de parcours exemplaire tout en permettant une compr hension de l int rieur du v cu d un sourd dans un monde d entendants La forme et le contenu de son ouvrage refl te ce choix un pari audacieux dans un contexte universitaire o nonobstant la subjectivit revendiqu e de notre re postmoderne dire je continue d avoir quelque chose d ind cent ou tout au moins d immodeste L incipit du livre nous plonge de plain pied dans un lointain souvenir du monde de son enfance rendu imm diat par un style haletant et saccad une narration au pr sent une restitution de l oralit des dialogues Le lecteur est amen progressivement saisir la signification du r cit chaque sc ne racont e repr sente un moment crucial de son parcours proche de l piphanie la mani r
10. o much promise all this tells of a journey that has begun auspiciously but is far from over It s not so much that I ve managed to find success in the larger hearing world or that I ve finally found Deaf culture What I m learning from this journey is how to more fully start living in both places 144 We can only wish that it will be a long and fruitful one La main de Th t n 1 04 11 2013 2 VALENTE Joseph d Deaf and d Dumb A Portrait Of a Deaf Kid as a Young Superhero 2011 New York Peter Lang Disability Studies in Education Vol 10 151 p ISBN Tu n as pas t livr avec un mode d emploi avait coutume de lui dire la m re du jeune Joey Valente devenu presque enti rement sourd l ge de trois mois la suite d une pneumonie avec complications et auteur de ce livre remarquable dont un des objectifs sans aucun doute est de rem dier cette lacune si cruellement ressentie par lui m me et par son entourage au cours de son enfance Cependant l ambition de l auteur aujourd hui Docteur des universit s aux Etats Unis sp cialiste de la didactique de la petite enfance dans le domaine de la surdit va bien au del d un manuel usage des parents d enfants sourds La graphie d Deaf s Sourd mise en exergue dans le titre annonce la vis e de l ouvrage sortir la surdit d une emprise institutionnelle et sociale fond e sur les notions de d ficience et de r paration pour restituer aux
11. part autobiographical fiction 11 Valente actually draws on a highly sophisticated theoretical and methodological framework which he deploys here and throughout the work with considerable erudition reflected in his copious bibliography showing familiarity with the most significant thinkers in the area of identity politics minority subaltern and disability theories and the problematics of self life writing This means that there is never any claim to recovering raw or authentic experience through the autobiographical method quite the reverse in fact for Valente constantly stresses how selective and partial his own memories are particularly when compared with other versions of his life story notably those revealed through interviews with family friends and other informants It is precisely the constructed contingent infinitely modifiable nature of this memory work that he wishes to underline not as a weakness in the method but as an inherent feature of identity construction which is open ended Identities much like memories are organic and shape shifting always dependent on context Life histories tell us more about how we use memories in our identity work than about the memories themselves 43 Now for Valente as for anyone else whose subaltern status has caused pain or suffering revisiting memories in order to view them afresh in his case armed with a theoretical lens provided by Foucault Althusser and others to
12. re surprising and all the more convincing thereby that Valente was brought up to lip read and oralise and had no contact with sign language as a child himself He was mainstreamed at school and university and even today his command of sign language is by his own account hesitant whereas his oral and written English is faultless This seems paradoxical but of course is not the author sets out to reveal the extent to which his in between position has been a source of frustration humiliation and shame so completely had he internalised feelings of inadequacy His personal salvation came with the early discovery of his own creative talent and the realisation of the power of words all this nurtured and encouraged by a series of mentors he met along the way At the outset as Valente explains these biographical details were merely to serve as the introductory remarks to his doctoral thesis which he had intended to carry out in compliance with the principles of neutrality and critical distance required by all university research However the shock of his first encounter with the deaf schoolchildren and their teacher who were to be the subjects of his ethnographic research led him to abandon any attempt at critical distance and all claims to neutrality He realised that not only was it impossible for him not to take position but that his own journey from deaf kid to superhero and defender of Deaf culture could actually be taken as ex
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