 Kenny says, let's open with you Bernard and first of all, we're going to address the term literature. What is it? Bernard says, I think that you could say in brief that it's life because to fully and completely understand life, we need literature. Literature reflects life to us. If you read something, a story, a play, a poem, as you read these pieces, you make a connection. It reflects my experience. So literature communicates experience to us. Now if you read something, you may say that reflects what I went through or you may have the opposite experience and say, I've never gone through that, but I sure do learn about somebody else's worldview and that they went through that. And so literature itself is about life. Is that clear? Does that feel like a good enough explanation? Connie says, thank you. That's wonderful. And now Bonnie. Bonnie says, fine. I'm ready. I have my overhead. Let's see. I can stand here. Can you see me all right here? Is this good? Should I move over to the other side? Where would it be best? Gilles says, I think if you go to where the stage light is on the spot, maybe you'll be able to be seen better. Bonnie says, fine. Now you'll notice that I have different categories here. This is my idea of what DeafLit is. If you look at research about literature and ASL, and it's kind of confusing. So we do have some written materials. Some other people say it should only about American Sign Language materials. So that gets a little muddy. So I decided that both of these categories could be subsumed under DeafLit and then it falls into two separate strains. There are written materials, and this could be written in any language. It could be English, Spanish, French, whatever. But these are specifically written materials. Books, plays, poems, what have you. But understand that this means they are written and created by Deaf people. By Deaf people. Now this means that the story or whatever the content is does not need to have Deaf characters in it. It's just acknowledging that the author, the creator, is Deaf. They may write some sort of piece that shows the life experience of someone that has nothing to do with Deafness. Nobody Deaf. They just see something, it affects them, and they write. And so overtly there may not be anything about Deaf people in it, but of course they're informed by their experiences. You know, and so maybe they would emphasize the visual more. Maybe they talk about a lot about the design of things or colors, but they de-emphasize the auditory components of a story. And so it would inform their experience in writing this, although there's nothing about it in there. Now there could be hearing people who write about Deaf people, hearing authors, that have Deaf characters in their writing. Maybe they had Deaf parents. It doesn't mean that they should not be involved in this category. They are creating Deaflet even though they're not Deaf. Now what if I'm Deaf and I write about Deafness that I belong in both categories? If you look over to the right, we talk about sign language materials in sign, specifically in sign language. It could be ASL, it could be French sign language, it could be Spanish sign language, any sign language-generated materials, and then there's different categories under that. There's translation, for example. So this morning Bruce Leibach was talking about his work, about teenagers, and he had this beautiful piece of writing. And that would go under A, I think, and C, so that fits into two categories. Maybe you'll be captivated by a particular piece of writing and then you'll translate it and perform it into ASL. So that's an ASL-performed material, but it's a translation and therefore it fits into two different categories also. B is adaptation, so that could be a fairy tale. There's nothing about Deafness in it, but what you do is you change the character so that it fits within a sign language representation. So C is original work, not an adaptation, not a translation. This means that it's something that I've come up with, there's nothing from a written form whatsoever. It's just an original work that I came up with. That's where I'm coming from with all of this. Kenny says, and now we'll hear from Gil Eastman and what he think the meaning of literature might be. A couple of days ago there was a panel discussion that took place and I wanted to give the idea about four categories of theater and a lot of people came up to me afterwards and said I needed to explain more about that, so I'm taking the stage right now to do that. Now, there's something called Theater of the Deaf and I can think of only a few examples of this. It would be groups in America of whom there are only a few like National Theater of the Deaf. Can anybody think any others that say of in the title? Somebody mentioned another Theater of the Deaf. New York City Theater of... Nope, nope to both of those suggestions. Nope, there's no of in those titles. Houston, I'm not sure about that one, it might be. FTD, that's right. Fairmont Theater of the Deaf, that's right. It has of in the name. What we mean by this when you say of, it's a group of Deaf people with hearing people involved in the group too and they create pieces of work for the audiences who are predominantly hearing and Deaf people are, quote, welcome. Theater for the Deaf, however, obviously is a group of Deaf actors who create pieces specifically for Deaf audiences and hearing people are, quote, welcome. Those are two distinct categories. Am I clear about that? Now, what National Theater of the Deaf would provide? Well, for example, let me go back. Gallaudet University, right? They have a theater department, theater arts department and they provide plays for hearing, Deaf, whatever and they adapt plays for Deaf audiences but their source material can be anything. Deaf theater, to be honest with you I can't even name one yet because what happens is quite often a Deaf club or a small community of Deaf people decide we're gonna create a Deaf theater group and then somebody will write a play and everybody, and it is Deaf, Deaf characters, it's created in sign language and that would be Deaf theater but I don't know many of those. So theater, you know, if you look at Hamlet you know, that is obviously a play written by a hearing person and often people will translate that into sign language and that doesn't mean whether it's actors who are Deaf or hearing, they're doing an adaptation of this but they're putting it into sign language and it has nothing to do with Deaf folks, Deaf characters, whatever it's just a skillful representation and bringing forward of a Shakespearean play in a translation. Thank you, Kenny says. And so let's see, Clayton, would you like to talk about the system you have of delineating what different views of literature might mean? Clayton says, can everybody see me okay? With that overhead up there? So I watched Gil's description and Bonnie's first of all, can everybody see me all right? Should I stand over there? Okay, I'll go over there. Okay, this looks at theater and that looks like a pretty definition to me. He's divided into four categories and I agree with that but for me, I'm looking specifically at poetry and poetry doesn't work with this particular delineation. Theater looks at language and culture, specifically and poetry is specifically and solely focused on playing with the language and crafting it. So yes, there are cultural overlays of course that are implicit within the language but I feel that we should deal with the fact that it's poetry, create an ASL and call it ASL poetry and it's not poetry of the deaf or for the deaf or anything like that, it's specifically ASL poetry and that's my feeling about that. Kenny says, maybe we need to bring the lights up a little bit. People are complaining about the lights. Faces are dark it seems. Can we bring up the lights a little please? Lynn says, wow, I'm blinded now. Okay, I want to clarify what Clayton just said and that overhead. Now I don't know if you remember a play that Bernard Bragg had written a long time ago called Tales from a Club Room. Which category would that fit in? It seems like it's deaf theater, right, because it's for deaf audiences. I wrote a play a while back and NTD had asked me to write it and they said write it specifically for hearing audiences and I had a lot of difficulty with that to tell you the truth. I have no hearing experience within my life and I went ahead and wrote it. I used my mother's experiences. Mine, I put them together and I crafted this play and it turned out pretty well. But I really felt the need and the urge to go back to depth-centered ASL plays. I really wanted to do that because I wanted to write a play that reflected my personal experiences, my childhood. And then I wrote a play in collaboration with others called Oh Stop, Oh Stop. That was back in 1981. It was a full-length play and it was about the spirit of the schools for the deaf when you weren't allowed to sign and when it was more the oralist paradigm of education. So that was for deaf people. There are a lot of plays, a lot of performances written by and for deaf people and I think it's important to note that. Sam says, so the title of this panel is ASL Literature. What is it anyway? Which I find interesting. But when I look at ASL Literature, I mean, okay, ASL Literature and I see all these different categories. Deaf Literature, ASL Literature, whatever and so I think we really need to not forget that we're talking about ASL. We're talking about language and you can't escape that. The idea is that we're talking about ASL. Everything about it just revolves around the use of ASL. So it can be in stories and poems and plays, what have you, it all revolves around ASL. So you have to focus on that. That's my understanding that you can't negate the importance of ASL in this discussion. Gil says, I'm sorry, I can tell you that when I saw the title of this panel, ASL Lit, what is it anyway? I don't really like the tone of that. I did not like the title, it took me aback and I just felt I had to let you know that. Kenny says, yeah ASL, what is it anyway? I think that's a hearing title. I think somebody hearing must have come up with that. Yeah, because it seems to be in conflict with our Deaf culture to have come up with a title that had that kind of tone to it. That's what I'm saying. But anyway, Kenny's continuing where the interpreter can finally see her. I went to a talk a couple of nights ago that I'd like you guys to respond to if you could. Lynn, if you could talk about that. Lynn's talking about, it says, the forms, the book, the characters, the writing, whatever, that's written literature. But ASL literature would be on the hands and playing around with the language, the way Clayton just mentioned. We would preserve that would be on discs, on DVDs or VHS or whatever. And that's the way we would preserve those materials. Clayton says, that's not the same. We're not really talking about the same thing because if you have literature as the umbrella term, it's not the same. You're talking about two separate categories that are not subsumed under the same umbrella term. You're talking about things that have no relationship at their point of impetus at all. Kenny says, perhaps you could describe a little bit more of where you're coming from with this Clayton. Clayton says, well, related to what Lynn was just talking about, she said that there's ASL lit, there's written lit. And I really have to think twice about all this, especially in light of what Gil said because literature is a very broad term, right? So Bonnie has this construct of having lit be at the top and then these separations being on two streams on either side, which I agree with, whether it's poetry or theater or any other kind of art, all of them could fit neatly into some of these categories on either side. And so I do say that I buy into Bonnie's particular way of showing this. Lynn says, well, I think the problem is that there hasn't been a lot of research done about this so far. So of course we're coming up with these ideas and everything's going to be tweaked as time goes on. So I do like Bonnie's perspective. I think it's much that she's started us off in this particular way. Bernard said, I want to ask Sam a little bit more personally because it's very interesting. There's all these different categories that we can tease out, but it's confusing. I would like to make things a lot easier so that if there were academic researchers or academic departments looking at this, they would see that it's validated. We have to note that there is an oral component to literature as well. So Bonnie has these ideas and I think that works very well. But I have a little bit of trepidation because some things will come up and where will we put them? If something's ASL, you might go on one side or another, but Sam, what do you think about this in terms of literature? Sam says, well, Deaf literature, one part can be any sign language, it could be anything like that. I think Deaf literature and ASL literature need to stay separate. Here I am coming to an ASL lit conference and I don't see any mention or any discussion about ASL lit specifically and it seems like they're free-flowing, but if we're looking at academic courses and curriculum, you have to figure out what the goals of those are and Deaf lit and ASL would be different. If some things are written material, then ASL confounds that definition. Where's the spirit of the oral tradition in that? Where's the lineage? I think that we need to be really careful about that. We must deal with the fact that language is involved and so ASL literature is tied to other traditions too and I think it's really important that we address the oral tradition and I don't see this anywhere. I don't see how that fits into either of these categories if it puts one category, maybe higher up in the hierarchy of when do we discuss these in terms of its importance. It says, Bernard Bragg mischaracterized me, I want to say this again. I was talking about these different categories of theater and you're talking about literature and I realize that really what I'm talking about is drama, okay, and drama is even another separate thing. When you're talking about written or whether it's performed or whatever, it's under drama. So these categories that I put up here are drama, but for example, Children of a Lesser God, okay, where would that go? That's on the left-hand side, audience left. Signed me, Alice would be over on the right in terms of an ASL play. So tales from a club room that Bernard wrote would go into another category too. So there's different ways that the plays will fall out in terms of this construct. Bernard says, should I go now? Do you want me to see the floor? Bernard says, Deflet, when I see that, I think it's important to have these different strains of meaning for what it means because we are dealing with two languages. We're all bilingual. We grew up that way. We had two languages growing up and so I think it's important that we do put these in different areas because we do have the English side of the equation and the ASL side. I think starting with a broad title and then taking it into either stream on either side is really important to maintain. Bernard says, I think that is a great point. We do have to emphasize the fact that we are a bilingual people and that we grow up with English and ASL. But ASL it, I think if we just talk about it that way it limits us and it funnels us into just one particular strain of thinking and creativity. I mean, we do have things written in English. We have created materials in a written format. You go to a library, there's books, there's videos, everything, you open it up to include Deaf Lit and ASL Lit. There'll be a lot more there. ASL Lit might seem very limiting and then you'd also have two different sections to even look under. I don't think Deaf people get enough credit in the community for having the facility in both languages and that's why I feel like having both these strains but under one category makes it a lot clearer. Bernard says, I think that I can take all these differences of opinion and maybe put them into one particular quilt. Clayton seems to relate to Bonnie's thinking and I believe that Gill is part of this too and I think everybody agrees to some extent or another. Drama, of course, goes into a particular category and then the whole thing about theater, the Deaf, whatever can go under the Deaf rubric. But I think we have a problem here because of Sam. I want to know where Sam stands on this because he is looking at something very interesting. If I understand where Sam is coming from, your very exciting research and your work that you're doing is really groundbreaking and exciting and he has coined the term sign language studies and that's the field of language study that he's engaged with and so that looks not just at ASL but sign language in general. So Sam, would you mind explaining a little bit more about that so tell us what's going on, your reasoning for calling something sign language studies? Because I feel like perhaps we can influence Sam's thinking a little bit and maybe move him a little bit more over to the ASL lit part of this continuum. The drama from Gill and the different ways that Bonnie has framed this, maybe we can bring these all together. We want to get to the point where Deaf lit makes sense and that then we can have it diversified into all the different genres we're talking about. You know, if we talk about something of the Deaf, period, then you go into all the different sections that might work under that category. Is that alright, County, if I offered the floor over to Sam to explain what he's up to these days? County says, I think that's fine. Yeah, that's fine, go ahead. And Sam says, well, I'm going to answer it, but I'm going to answer it on the long way around the block. Is there or is there not something called black literature? Right? Now obviously, I mean I haven't taken it myself, but we do know there's English literature, emphasis on the English, which is the language, but black literature doesn't necessarily have a language, it's about black people, right? How would you go further into categorizing that? So from where I stand, it looks like to me, we are trying to have all these different categories. There's English, there's French, whatever, there's black literature, all these things, but it might mean different things, and we're trying to figure out how we fit in these other constructs, and that concerns me. So here's the reasoning for what I'm doing and how I look at this. Def Lit, for me, I don't think that doesn't capture it, because where is the language part, like I said? That's what makes deaf people unique. That's what causes this bifurcation of categories is because the language is different, the communication is different, and so I think ASL is what makes deaf people unique, and it's not just culture, it's our language. The culture of course grows, and it's, of course intertwined with the language, but the heaviest weight in this conversation should always be focused on the language. And so where we put ASL at the top or the bottom, I don't know, but as per your question, I don't necessarily have an answer. I mean, we really need to talk about ASL lit. Like what is it? Why is it off in the woods somewhere? You know, people come to a deaf literature conference, they come to a panel what is deaf literature anyway? They want to know what ASL lit is. So is it just one thing? ASL literature and its relationship to other aspects of other kinds of literature? Does it have the same relationship or not? And he says, well, perhaps we can focus our discussion now just on literature. Let's clarify that because deaf literature and other sorts of literature, maybe that's where we need to be focusing our energies right now. So we talk about whether we agree with that. Okay, Bernard, you don't want to address this? Is there somebody else who wants to? Lynn says, I can respond to both of these concerns. Okay. ASL lit is about ASL. It's about American Sign Language. That's right. And of course, there's translations in computer and there's all these different categories and all the things we already talked about in all these studies. But deaf studies, like there's black studies and there's black history and there's black literature, I assume. I'm agreeing with you, Sam. Sam says it was a little awkward the way I put it. Lynn says, oh, somebody out there has an answer. They could address this later maybe. But I'm just saying that we need to focus specifically on ASL lit and then from under there we would have a lot more categories. There's a lot of practices, experimentation and there's a wealth of information in there. And so when you look at the linguistics and the play with that, I mean, we grow up we have no exposure to this. I think it's really important that we provide this exposure once we have these definitions and develop the reasoning behind our categories. Take it forward that way. Kenny says, so Howard University in Washington, DC somebody there envisioned having a black studies major or a black studies department, but nobody was looking at what the language was, what everything. Later on they called it African American studies or Afro American studies. But they have Afro American history and literature and what have you. Is there women's studies? There's women's studies, women's history and women's lit. And there's all these different categories of other underserved populations. And so I think that we are trying to recognize other groups that have done the same thing with putting studies after the name of the group. But now we're adding the other flying the ointment of talking about language and that's a little bit different. So maybe we can all address that. Bernard says, we need to come back to what I said before in the very beginning about what literature is and that it's life. So obviously there is written literature there are written materials and as well there's the oral tradition of our materials. Now before back in the day something wasn't considered literature unless it was written down. But slowly things are starting to change and I understand literature written in oral being under the rubric of that umbrella term the way Bonnie has it. Okay. So with that in mind I'm a little nervous about saying this. Okay. Blacklit as Kenny said, okay it's African American literature now. But we maybe we could use the term big D deflit not the little D but we would spell it with a big D deflit def literature because I think it refers to deaf people right? So ASL it's American sign language alright we all understand it's American sign language but that's not really the totality of what we are and what we're about we're not just about our language we're about more than that we're a culture we have a history we have heritage we have all these things if we only focus on one thing American sign language that negates all the other things that make us who we are so if we were to change it to ASL it you're right Bonnie said before that would be too limiting it would focus just on the language and none of the other things involved in it but you could add under that give a broad example of like who we are something that really resonates and says who we are as people what represents us we are more than just the language we use we are a people and so we are a people have our own culture and our own history and our own beliefs and that broadens out the representations in terms of literature so I think we need to keep this in mind that if we were to call this umbrella term deflit with a capital D and then sign language studies of course would be an even bigger umbrella term which could break it down into other terms it's just a suggestion that I have to frame it differently Gil says well I've met so many people here you know I've learned so much during this time and I see a couple of different groups that I've run into here so as Sam says sign language studies and then I've met some other people like Ben Bahan and he's talking about using the term def studies so now you have two camps that are addressing it in two different ways that way so same ASL lit and deflit it seems like things have already been set up we already have these two different groups and now if we talk about big D def lit you know ASL's in that of course I do agree that that would be in it because that includes oral folks and hard of hearing folks and that widens the scope of the demographic you're talking about it just gets more complicated Clayton says there's all these disparate views and this relates to attitude and politics and that's problematic I think we need to look at the broad scope of the US or Europe or wherever and look at the programs that are already offered so there's Spanish literature or black studies or well as you said afro-american studies I mean there are things already extant out there why don't we just follow the rubrics that are already been established I think we can just follow those you know there's Native American there's black what have you why don't we just follow the common understanding of how other things are set up and avoid the politics and the attitude and the wrangling I just don't think we need to go there and Sam says let me just clarify I want to go back a bit if we call something depth studies that is a really much larger broader category because so the ASL lit part is missing from that I mean I didn't explain it very clearly before we also say depth studies as well as sign language studies so it's even more complicated than even new and I'll get into that some other time but this whole thing I think is not really worth talking about that's a whole other linguistic and educational construct but what I'd like to offer is some courses that I'm planning one an ASL lit and a depth lit course and these would be separate courses that would be one way that you could take care of this because you have depth lit as the overarching thing that I don't like that it doesn't quite do it for me it skews things one way or the other and we need to give equal weight to the written and the signed materials so if you say depth studies as the term then you have literature as a term under that and you have culture and history and education as other separate categories and then under the literature category no names not depth not anything just literature then that goes into the two streams of ASL and depth is that clear so you start with an even higher order of taxonomy Kenny says I've seen some hands out in the audience and if you're going to ask a question I would just ask to whom you're going to address it or if it's for everybody on the panel and Matthew will be copy signing from the stage the question is for Sam I am experiencing a big conflict here I am a playwright and to me what's important is the content of the story if it's in ASL form how the story is communicated that's fine that's one example and I've written plays I wrote a play about Laurent Claire I wrote this play about him and we taped it and his relationship to Alice Cogswell and then it was translated and it was written into English so it was a depth literature play but it fit into both categories Claire Laurent Claire that's what that sign was Sam says oh last night yes we saw somebody we saw that one okay fine yes you're right you're right yeah I think it really does go into both categories quite nicely absolutely and the reason being that it's ASL lit and that would be if we're just looking at the language used in the play and I thought it was really interesting how that was done how you show Claire signing very differently to reflect the historical time in which he was living that's really cool so the particular language used within the play would put it in one category but as you said it's drama it's depth literature it's about the depth experience in that in the same play so the same play could fit within that so it's two different categories that's my response I'm agreeing right Bernard says yeah the lights are going up and down I think we need to fix them Bonnie says that's better another question from the audience all this wrangling back and forth about lit whatever why not American depth literature as a title Connie says is that question directed to anybody anybody in particular somebody want to take it the next question is I'm wondering about why not just calling it sign language literature and he says anybody want to respond to that question is if I go into a library there's all different classifications that I can look for but if I ask for ASL literature where are the books where am I going to look under just literature or you know I'd be confounded is there depth literature there's another section it'd be very confusing like in New York City there's a big bookstore and if I were to go in there what would I look under what would the label be of that particular section of the store I think it would say or you know would it be just a deaf area there's all different categories and I'd be looking all over the place I don't know what it would be under why not deaf studies that's just an easier classification can he said is that a question or a comment wait a minute are you making a comment a suggestion idea what form is that comment it's a question okay go ahead what exactly is the question this question goes to Sam with yes Sam says remember if there's literature if there's history if there's culture all these different categories and linguistics under a larger heading if you have literature then you can split it into deaf lit and ASL lit actually ASL and deaf are separate under the term of literature which is itself a separate category under sign language studies the question said but under deaf studies under deaf studies is different categories it's separate county's indicating somebody in the audience the question is for Clayton last night everybody was talking about the idea of ASL poetry and some people were saying that you didn't know if it was a performance if it was poetry and after a few days of this conference I wonder what your view is what would your definition be of the boundaries of what ASL poetry means could you give an example would you consider folklore storytelling or where do you land all this Clayton says 1987 was the first national deaf poetry conference right here and we all got together and I learned so much we all learned a lot from each other it was a great infusion and I've been thinking about things ever since and I think it's really about the language I mean it's the game of playing with the language and expressing yourself in ASL poetry it's first and foremost always the language but I'm seeing how moving things into different categories is helpful in a sense and that's making more sense to me so somebody brought up Peter Cook a while ago and yes he is amazing I mean that is art wow I see it as art but do you call it he does ASL poetry I'm not really sure I'm still questioning that I'm not authoritative I'm not the last word in all this I think we need more deaf poets to get together and discuss issues like this what's poetry what's art and I'm not the last say so on this I can't give a definitive answer I'm hoping 20 or 30 years down the road more people will have gotten together Lynn says I hope so Clayton says I do too does that answer your question question from the audience is can hearing people create or perform ASL lit Sam is answering well if we follow the construct of literature being the overarching theme one side is ASL one is lit is deaf lit I think that they're very different but if it were to come up that a hearing person creates something they have an idea about deaf or hearing ASL lit it could be another spin-off of that category Kenny is saying we're about to get over our time limit here so there's one more question that's supposed to go to all of you okay this is for Bernard translation that would go under ASL lit that's the first question and the second thing do deaf people you know we depend on books and we depend on translation and sometimes people don't create things in an original format if it's a translation how is it ASL lit Bonnie said well there's nothing wrong with that that's fine some people depend on their life experiences and they collect collect a grand amount of material I have my own life experiences sometimes I do translations sometimes it's from my own life and it's original so as I said there's different ways to go about it translations are fine because it's still the beauty of the language it's using the language in this beautiful way within the translation then translation can be created from something you've even written in English and then if you create stories that are just something that are based on your life that's fine it can fit into any of these categories and they don't one doesn't obviate any of the others honey says Gil you have something you want to add Gil says yes all of this makes me think everybody this is all making me think about five or six months ago I was asked to come here to participate in this ASL literature conference and I had a question if this conference was deaf literature would we be here if it was called deaf literature I'm wondering what the answer to that would be would you feel differently about it if the title of the whole conference was something different question from the audience I think that's a strange question it's something I've been struggling with to the idea of ASL it's American sign language and that means there are hearing people who can sign but you know and there are deaf people who live in America so what is it it's a male launch there's also Spanish there's English what does American mean American sign language it has to be deaf or anybody who can sign where does that fit into this woman in the audience has something about but what about deaf sign language instead of American sign language Lynn says this limits ourselves to talking about the physical part of our being in this signing there are coders there hearing children of deaf adults who sign with facility just like their deaf parents so American sign language is a good enough title for it it's used by mostly by deaf people and everybody pretty much understands that the comment is but ASL is different Sam says everybody can learn it who can see I mean it's just a theory it's a concept Gil says what about American Indian sign language I mean they can hear and they can talk but they're using this communication system I mean that didn't mean they had to be deaf to use sign language so you know Martha's Vineyard hearing people signed so I don't think you have to put deaf in front of the sign language Clayton says there's American English do we say American English and do we put hearing in front of that only hearing people use American English I just don't think we need that descriptor question from the audience is I'm deaf but what's unique about me what's unique about me of course I use ASL I can see why ASL literature might be a better fit because I as a deaf person use that as my language and it shows my culture and all those other additional aspects so ASL well back to you Sam what you said before Sam yeah okay that's fine I'll take it whatever you want to say person's comment is all this discussion about ASL lit are we just looking at the language or I mean if we're looking at it just from the language and then we add the overlay of culture and then we're adding other aspects more and more and more to it what it means how does it apply to what you're looking at Sam am I clear about that if we say that it's deaf and that's more general possibly I mean can we be more specific Connie says can you answer that question Sam says I'm good fine I don't know what that was about sorry Connie says let's ask the next person the problem with a definition of literature is yes you've got this written form on one side and you have the oral form on the other side and I think that Sam's were talking about having videotapes and trying to decide which part you would put them in if it's a translation or an adaptation if it's something that's a written material I mean can it be written and taped and then it would fit only in one category and the other question that I have before you get to that one is what about books that are written by hearing people but they have deaf folks in them that's a contradiction I think Connie says I throw this out to the panel Clayton you want to answer this the comment from the audience is it's not clear what about an adaptation once it's documented for recording it's filmed or something and then it's frozen but sign language is moving it's something different Clayton says well it's a written form that's kind of an interesting term we say written form it really should be considered a documented form and that's what you mean I think documented forms we don't have to say written we can say documented I accept that that could be recording the comment is it doesn't matter either way it could be written or it could be recorded in a visual form Sam says okay again film and written either way it's still it's different in a sense it still fits under either written or filmed or documented I just wanted to add it could still fit into different categories even if it's documented in any of those ways comment from the audience what about hearing children with deaf parents has to be considered to comment is deaf lit should not be limited just to ASL there's performances by the deaf and NTD and people from other countries who come here and learn American Sign Language then perform on this stage seems like there could be a world deaf lit ASL lit English deaf lit all different sorts of languages have their own deaf lit theater has its own different categories as he said before deaf world literature and now you meet people from other different other countries who come here and we're creating a world lit in essence by all these deaf people from other countries coming here Gil says I want to remind you all that any academic area university college whatever has an English department and under the English department they have writing and they have literature and it's all under the English department writing and literature so we have ASL and we could have the stream of literature what's the difference I think we missed some hands in the back of the audience comment is ASL stories need to be videotaped you need to be able to see them people read books in English that are published so my question relates to ASL literature and the need to be documented to be videoed so it can carry on through time so that we can study it as an art form of literature ASL literature would you agree Gil says I'm sorry I don't understand the question so I'll say it again ASL depends on the visual way of transmission and recording it stories and things being documented and videotaped so if somebody were to come and they wanted to study ASL literature what would you suggest to that person they want to study ASL literature how on earth would they do it ASL literature that's what I'm talking about Kenny says who wants to take that Lynn says of course videotapes I mean of course we have shelves and shelves of storytelling we have Sam's work we're adding to it all the time we have technology now that is working very much to our advantage Kenny says if you teach a course ASL literature then it would have to be all videotape materials there wouldn't be anything that you would look at that would be written did you say you wanted to add something to that Clayton yeah Clayton said do can I add to what you just said before about two different strains written an ASL oh no the English lit English lit at the top ok so it just made me think listening to this wow where is ASL literature who was studying it who has a degree in it who has a PHG in it nobody I think that creates a big difficulty there's no academy that's studying it question is we first get into learning about deaf studies and deaf culture and I learned about this and said wow that's fantastic and then next I learned now there's deaf studies that's fantastic too I'm so excited now there's ASL literature that's wonderful too so these are all great it's amazing I've been so impressed with the whole trajectory of ASL and so I'm trying to understand their language I'm trying to understand what it is I'm trying to understand signs whatever I'm trying to get more and more about ASL and keep this ASL keep this literature going Matthew says excuse me I'm sorry I can't see you I can't I'm not getting the gentleman in the audience says we have to keep writing it we have to keep going forward Matthew says could you please sign that again slowly so I can copy sign it alright I'm in education and I've been learning a lot I'm old but I'm still learning old dog new tricks and I think that we need more information for children don't misunderstand me you know I think it's really great but I've been very upset that there are no materials for children to learn this information and I think we have plenty for adult we have a lot at the higher level for adults but we don't have anything to bring kids up to the level of having any materials in ASL for them to learn and so we need more information for that for children Lynn says I can reply to that first time I offered adult level classes I realized I needed to tweak them I took the adult materials and I'm going to be working soon with kindergarteners and I'm going to have kids tell stories I'm going to videotape them and the next time we have a conference I'll be able to show you children signing these stories and signing ASL literature the comment is listening to all of this I am still not satisfied nobody seems to be agreeing what ASL literatures or deaf studies is and I do not want to leave without having some sort of definitive answer and Gil says well we are here without the intention of coming up with some sort of definitive pronouncement about what this all is we're just in discussion Clayton says again there's no ASL literature academy and canon and studies yet I didn't say that right let me start over without an ASL art form or studies of it in a higher form than we can't have ASL lit I think Lynn says I disagree Bernard says I feel somewhat the same maybe everybody does we're going to be leaving here and we're still in the place where we started I'm leaving with this feeling that we haven't reached consensus there is a course at Gallaudet called deaf in lit and what this means is stories and books and poetry that contain deaf characters within the content okay so if you go to the library and you do a search all kinds of books and stories and things come up related to deaf people and I also found deaf fiction deaf fiction there are tons it's like a thousand books are cited there with deaf characters in them the answer to the question of where do you go when you go into a library and you're trying to find things about deaf literature do you look under ASL do you look under deaf studies do you look under deaf literature ASL literature deaf studies deaf literature what do you do I'm proposing calling it literature of the deaf perhaps somebody from the audience talked about American deaf literature they brought that up somebody says that there's French deaf literature and then you can study what deaf literature is which would of course include the history the language the culture and everything else about that group of people so now coming back to the question at hand deaf well ASL literature that we talked about before we can keep that and deaf studies so I see a lot of possibilities that it's important for us to look at first we have to clearly define what we're going to call what it is we're looking for so we know what to even put in as keywords when we're doing a search if you're doing research or studies whatever you need to have something to be able to consolidate what you're looking for Kenny says well it's time to wrap up and we may leave without a clear definition of what deaf literature ASL literature is but the point is you'll go home and you'll share with other people where you've come from and you'll talk about these different ideas like Sam's ideas of sign language studies Clayton's ideas about poetry Gil Bonnie and Bernard everything the idea is that there's no right answer there's no wrong answer and I can see that this conference is the beginning of a very wonderful and exciting future for ASL