Questions for Reflective Engagement
Distributed on a Handout to Panelists
Panel Workshop #1
- What aspects of Deaf lived experience were emphasized in early documentation? What aspects were hidden or overlooked?
- How can we ensure that filmed materials represent genuine folk traditions within the Deaf culture, and reveal the true sense of Deaf heritage?
- What makes a successful interview? How can we maximize the insider/indigenous perspective in the interview process?
- How important is visual documentation for capturing the true sense of sign language heritage?
Panel Workshop #2
- For individuals in the Humanities who have been involved in producing documentary films and other material, how can we make these materials widely available in a way which allows for broad access and interdisciplinary research?
- What was the initial motivation to start developing various L2 sign language curricula? Where did the pressure to embark on this venture come from? Why is it important to understand such forces?
- How can we build new collaborations for conducting digital multi-media research on sign language and deaf communities?
- One major impetus for sign language curriculum involves interpreter needs for training and information. What would the roadmap look like for extending this knowledge to the general public who need to apply this information to questions about communicating with Deaf children, peers, or deaf people they encounter?
Panel Workshop #3
- In work that you have pursued and conducted, did you identify or consider your venture as a project for “recovering forgotten voices”? If yes or no, how so?
- Why is it that, while films are an important medium for documenting the values, symbols and language of the culture comprising an indigenous perspective, historical films have largely been overlooked in scholarly studies?
- How can we perfect the documentary interview practice to record the experience and language of deaf people and relate this lived experience to the events, people and the arts important in Deaf culture?
- How can we give opportunity to diverse parts of the Deaf community to ensure inclusion of their unique, and as yet unrecorded, experiences as part of this worthwhile cause?