intro
- Multimodality Frees the Deaf Soul
Hello everybody. Welcome to the Deaf Child Mythology website where Charles Katz is grateful for this opportunity to present his “novel” in American Sign Language (ASL) to the world.
This website is also for people who are interested in viewing, studying, and learning more about an original story based on the deafhood process (growth/history) of the deaf community (the deaf experience) on earth.
The Deaf Child myth has 12 chapters, each chapter divided into some ten parts. This myth in ASL will run for some 12 hours. Each videoclip will have a label, for example, 9.11.1. This means the 11th part of chapter 9 in its first version. The first number represents the number of the chapter, the second number represents the part of the chapter (the 11th part), and the third digit represents the version. 4.8.3 means the 8th part of 4th chapter revised the third time.
The myth, when fully told, can run several hours. Viewing the myth in its entirety at one sitting definitely can be taxing. It can be told in one sentence or in any length up to some 12 hours long. The one sentence is this - the myth is about HOW a “god” struggled to raise a deaf child across the whole span of our time - from the past to our immediate present and into our future. A roughly one hour version was signed at several deaf state schools, mainstreaming programs, a couple of conferences and deaf-expos all over America. Some two hours long versions (in two parts as storytelling and discussion sessions) were presented at a weekend deaf studies retreat deep in the forest of central Alaska and at the evening fires of the NAD’s Youth Leadership Camp in Oregon. An almost four hours long version were recorded onto the old VHS technology at deaf history sites in Europe and America. Now, with the vlog technology, this miraculous story of my/our deafhood/deaf history/deaf experience gets a new audience - the wonderful world-wide-web of deaf and hearing people all over.
I look forward to ride on the wings of VisMa with my hands signing the story of the archetypal Deaf Child within y0U all . . .
May VisMa Be With You . . .
