CLARA SHERLEY-APPEL IN VOLUME ON DEAF LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

In the course of the week, the University of Minnesota Press published Deaf Gain, a volume of essays which argue from various perspectives against the deficit view of deafness and which instead frame deafness as a distinct way of being, one which brings intellectual and cultural benefits. Among the contributors to the volume is grad student Clara Sherley-Appel, who coauthored one of the chapters in the book along with John Bonvillian of the University of Virginia. The title of their paper is Manual Signs and Gestures of the Inuit of Baffin Island: Observations during the Three Voyages Led by Martin Frobisher and Clara has this to say about the paper:

The chapter is part of a project I worked on with John Bonvillian at UVA on the use of manual signs and gestures in first contact situations. The primary case study in this chapter concerns the journeys of a privateer of the Elizabethan era named Martin Frobisher. Frobisher was commissioned by Elizabeth to seek a Northwest Passage to what was then known as Cathay. He didn’t find a Northwest Passage (because it doesn’t exist), but the logs and diaries of the crew from the three voyages he led mention using signs and gestures to facilitate contact and trade, and there is some additional evidence that the Inuit of Baffin Island had elaborated sign systems used for hunting and other purposes, making it an interesting case study.