M.A. in Deaf Studies: Language and Human Rights

This course will introduce students to the most commonly-used research methods in Deaf Studies, particularly textual analysis, and ethnographic interviews. Students will be guided by the instructor in the processes of developing research questions, methodologies, data collection and analysis.

The course serves as an introduction to graduate study in Deaf Studies. Students are guided in reflecting on the past, present, and future of Deaf Studies scholarship. Exploring the historical trends and debates in Deaf Studies, we seek out foundational questions about deaf lives and communities, including identities, power, culture, and framing from interdisciplinary perspectives. Leading with stories and lived experiences, students connect theory with practice in preparation for subsequent courses within the Deaf Studies Master's Program. The course also aims to develop critical reading and writing skills important to graduate level scholarship.

This course begins by exploring key issues faced by minority language communities, with special emphasis on the world's linguistic diversity, language endangerment, and revitalization. After gaining a broad understanding of the dynamic intersections of language, culture and power, students will examine the historical role of language ideologies relating to signed languages, beginning with classical thought and continuing through the formation of deaf education in the 18th century and the medicalization of deaf bodies in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the end, students should be able to identify and explain intersections of philosophical, linguistic, educational, medical, scientific, and anthropological discourses which influenced the vitality of sign languages and deaf communities in the 21st century. Developing awareness of this phonocentric heritage helps to equip students in developing strategies for linguistic and cultural revitalization of sign languages and deaf communities.

This course traces the development of the human rights of deaf people within the wider context of the emergence of the concept of universal human rights after WWII. The formation of international institutions such as the United Nations, and the growth of international nongovernmental organizations dedicated to human rights work has allowed non-state actors significant opportunities to develop and use human rights tools to protect particular minorities. The emergence of the concept of linguistic human rights has been applied to signing communities and the concept promoted in the Convention on the Human Rights of Peoples with Disabilities. The concept and the Convention will be examined in depth and applied to the linguistic human rights of contemporary Deaf communities.

This three credit course is designed as a guided research course to support students' progress with their individual thesis research topics and methodologies within the field of Deaf Studies. This course is the second of two courses that provide students with experience in preparing their thesis proposals. Students will select their methodology, conduct a literature review, gather preliminary data if applicable, and complete the necessary steps to gain approval for their data collection procedures, such as IRB approval and CITI certification. Students will be introduced to ethical conduct in research, the Institutional Review Board procedures, and grant writing. They will complete and defend their thesis proposals at the end of this course.

This class will explore the historical, medical, social, political, philosophical, and cultural influences that have constructed the categories of ''normalcy'', ''disability'' and ''deafness''. Building on the writing of Michel Foucault and critical work in the field of disability studies, this course will inquire into the institutions that have enforced standards of normalcy, throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to the present. Primary attention will be paid to the rise of medical authority in the West, the history of eugenics, and contemporary bioethical issues confronting disability and deaf communities.

This course links theory with debates and issues central to contemporary deaf lived experiences situated in locations throughout the world. This course draws from foundational texts in the social sciences and humanities, as well as more recent theoretical directions and avenues of inquiry in Deaf Studies. Throughout this course, we will consider major theoretical perspectives as they have been applied in Deaf Studies. These perspectives will be discussed in terms of their historical precedents and their applicability to contemporary deaf lived experiences. Our aim is to understand the ways in which Deaf Studies scholars use specific concepts, their paths of inquiry and methodology, as well as contemplate future directions for scholarship in Deaf Studies. We will keep returning to the same question: where is-or could be-Deaf Studies today and how does-or could it-work as critique? In short, we will be critiquing Deaf Studies and thinking of it as critique in itself.

This course provides students with a survey of the concept of linguistic human rights. First included as an international right in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, linguistic human rights has become an important concept for identifying and furthering the rights of peoples based on languages. Students will examine the historical and theoretical underpinnings to this concept as it emerged within human rights discourse and tools which have been developed from this concept to further human rights aspirations based on language. The course will look at how this concept has been - and continues to be - used with deaf communities.

This course will provide students with a comprehensive understanding of the contemporary transnational Deaf public sphere. Students will study the origination and spread of international meetings among Deaf people and the concurrent formation of transnational Deaf networks. Students will study key concepts and review case studies in transnational studies which will then be used to interrogate the nature of interconnections between Deaf communities across the globe.

This course provides a multicultural perspective of community organizing for social change in parallel in understanding the deaf community's past and ongoing campaigns for equal rights from an advocacy perspective. Topics covered include organization structure, politics, ethics, inclusion, systematic challenges, and more.

The Deaf Studies Master's Project is a required, culminating project which demonstrates student's exemplary achievement as a Master's student. Under the supervision of Department faculty, students will develop projects that significantly advance knowledge in one of three concentrations: Cultural Studies, Language and Human Rights or Early Language Advocacy. Students may elect to produce a traditional Master's thesis, a creative project, or an applied advocacy project. During the first semester, students will develop and defend their project, including a demonstration of the project's significance, appropriate research methodologies and a detailed plan of action.

For nearly two centuries, deaf people have circulated in international spaces, exchanging ways of living as deaf people across local, regional and international borders. This course will introduce students in deaf studies and sign language interpreting to the history, motivations, and dynamics of transnational connections among deaf people. This circulation of peoples and ideas over time is explored through framing networks of signing deaf people as composed of translocal as well as transnational methodologies of circulation. Attempts at articulating a shared experience of being deaf across geographical distances will be discussed alongside differences regarding mobility, power and resources among deaf people around the globe. These circulations are enabled through a communication practice known as International Sign, where both conventionalized signs and a broad repertoire of visual communication strategies are utilized to enable communication across different sign language communities. The course will give students a basic introduction to the concept and practice of International Sign.

This course allows the opportunity to offer courses on a variety of topics of concern to Deaf Cultural Studies.

The Deaf Studies' Masters Project II is a required, culminating project which demonstrates students' exemplary achievement as a Master's student. Under the supervision of Department faculty, students will develop projects that significantly advance knowledge in either Cultural Studies, Language and Human Rights and Early Language Advocacy. Students may elect to produce a traditional Master's thesis, a creative project, or an applied advocacy project. During the second semester, students will present and defend their project. All students take DST 781 for 3 credits. In the event students do not complete their thesis at the end need of DST 781, they enroll in 781 a second time as a one-credit course.