Alphabetically ordered by the speakers' last names
Serena Algappan - “Toward a Theory of Signed Lyric” (15-minute lighting talk with 10-minute Q & A)
This talk explores how American Sign Language (ASL) poetry helps us better understand what a lyric poem is and does. Drawing on Jonathan Culler’s idea of the poem as a “lyric event,” I argue that ASL poetry not only exemplifies Culler’s theory but also expands it in important ways. I conduct a close reading of Peter Cook’s ASL poem “Poetry,” analyzing the poem’s rhythm, visual rhymes, pacing, and repetitions. I also consider the ways ASL poets shift roles, physically embodying different perspectives and drawing the audience directly into the poem. By combining Culler’s ideas with those of Derek Attridge, this paper suggests that ASL poetry enriches our understanding of lyric poetry and literary event theory.
Stefanie Amiruzzaman - “Teaching ASL Literature: Interactive Classroom Strategies” (50-minute workshop)
This workshop introduces participants to American Sign Language (ASL) literature through hands-on activities and visual storytelling techniques. Attendees will analyze ASL stories and poems, explore narrative devices like role shift, spatial mapping, and classifiers, and practice discussion prompts used in classrooms. Designed for both Deaf and hearing participants, the session includes brief English summaries and captions to make activities accessible to everyone. By combining live demonstrations with guided practice, participants will gain practical strategies for teaching and analyzing ASL literature, leaving with tools to engage students and a deeper appreciation for the unique visual and cultural richness of Deaf storytelling.
H-Dirksen L. Bauman - “Posthuman Embodiments: Ecopoetics, Gesture, and Sign Language Performance” (50-minute presentation)
This paper proposes an ecological framework for understanding sign language performance. Rather than interpreting depictions of animals, plants, or natural forces as anthropomorphism, an ecopoetic approach recognizes performance as a collaborative compositional process with the more-than-human world. Because signed languages are embodied, spatial, and kinetic, they readily engage the movements and rhythms of animals, plants, water, wind, and other elemental forces.
Approaching a range of sign language poems (from Valli to contemporary visual vernacular) through lenses of zoopoetics, phytopoetics, elemental and planetary poetics, we may see how sign language performance becomes a site of what Donna Haraway calls “sympoeisis” or “making together among species” where human and nonhuman expressive systems intersect.
Through this ecocritical approach, this presentation challenges anthropocentrism by demonstrating ways in which sign language performances are deeply embedded expressions of our kinship with the more-than-human world.
Kailee Bates & Anita Harding - “Creating Accessible Literature for Deaf Young Adults” (50-minute presentation)
While many books have been translated into various spoken and written languages, translations into American Sign Language have been neglected, particularly for Deaf young adults. This project dives into this resource gap, discussing the necessity of translation and the process it takes. This was explored through student translations of "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Applying Nida's translation framework, we compared these translations, observing how this text was represented in ASL. Both translators aimed for "dynamic equivalence" as described by Nida, a translation that considers and accommodates the cultural differences between the languages involved.
Fred Beam - “Contribution of ‘BlackDeaf’ Performing Arts” (2-hour workshop)
Fred Beam’s workshop focuses on the history, impact, and cultural importance of Black Deaf performing arts in theater, dance, and other performance fields. The presentation highlights how Black Deaf artists have contributed significantly to the development of Deaf culture and performing arts, yet their achievements are often overlooked in Deaf Studies and mainstream arts history.
James Caverly & Andrew Morrill - Creating & Performing in Off-Broadway Trash (50-minute panel)
Join Deaf playwrights and actors James Caverly and Andrew Morrill for a conversation about their experiences creating, producing, and performing in their Off-Broadway play "Trash." The panel will be moderated by Noah Buchholz.
Frances Conlin, Nozomi Tomita, Nora Owen & Andrew Fisher - “More than Muscle Memory: Visual Shadowing and Motor Encoding in ASL Literature Learning” (50-minute presentation)
What happens when students move with the story instead of just watching it?
Research shows that motor engagement helps learners remember individual signs. In this session, we explore whether that same principle can strengthen learning in ASL literature classrooms. We conducted a small study comparing two groups of students learning an ASL narrative. One group practiced visual shadowing—signing along with the video—while the other group watched without shadowing. The difference was striking: students who shadowed the story scored much higher on a recall assessment (96% average) than those who did not (74%).
Although our study was small, the findings suggest that embodied learning can deepen comprehension and memory at the discourse level—not just for vocabulary. We will also discuss complementary approaches, including usage-based learning, which builds knowledge through repeated exposure to meaningful patterns, and chunking, which helps students manage and understand complex ASL narratives.
Ben Jarashow - “Personficiation or Anthropomorphism?” (50-minute presentation)
In this presentation, we will examine conceptual riddles and puzzles related to personification and anthropomorphism in ASL literature. We have used the term "personification genre" for ASL literature for many years, but is this the most accurate terminology? Should we consider adopting the term "anthropomorphic genre" instead? The goal is to understand the differences between personification and anthropomorphism and to determine which term is more appropriate for ASL literature. Additionally, we will explore the interactions between human characters and anthropomorphic characters. We will also observe interesting differences between ASL literature and general literature or media in terms of anthropomorphism.
Bridget Klein - “The LGBTQIA+ Deaf People’s Tool of Resistance by Using ASL Literature” (2-hour workshop)
ASL Literature includes a range of genres such as folklore, humor, poetry and handshape-constrained storytelling. At the same time, queer narratives often explore themes of coming out, discrimination, resistance, and queer love. In this proposal, we examine how the experiences of Queer Deaf people are expressed and represented within ASL Literature, particularly how they convey affirmation and resistance through their narratives.
Lynnette Taylor, Stephanie Feyne & Candace Broecker Penn - “Translation Considerations in Theatre Interpretation” (15-minute lighting talk with 10-minute Q & A)
In this presentation we will identify key translatory considerations when collaboratively developing a teamed ASL interpretation of a live theatrical performance. In our approach, a team is composed of interpreters, the Deaf Interpreter Director, and the stage itself.
A collaborative team approach requires co-constructing translations to be performed simultaneously within the constraints of the performance, responsive to team members, and faithful to the artistry of the performers and the story being told onstage.
The source, a live theatrical performance, is multimodal in its expression and this requires a multimodal exploration of the content. Content strands include: the performative, the interactional and dialogic expressions, cultural matter, team composition, representation, and body as signifier, as well as staging elements. Interpretations crafted with these considerations in mind support the stage in becoming a more active dialogic partner.
Some examples of the process will be shared.
Russell S. Rosen - “A History of American Sign Language Literature” (50-minute presentation)
This presentation provides epistemic perspectives on the history of American Sign Language (ASL) artistic, literary, and performative works. In the 19th century Romanticism period, artistic and literary works reflected the intellectual abilities of people who are deaf and use ASL to think, reason, write, and have lives. In the late 19th-mid-20th century Modernism period, English was a template for translating stories from the mainstream literature into ASL; English alphabet and numbers were used to create ABC and number stories; and ASL was used in signed stories to resist audist practices in society. In the mid-20th-early 21st century Postmodern period, English was deconstructed and ASL forms were depicted in the artworks and imprinted on literary works; in performance works ASL were aesthetically transformed by poetic techniques into ASL poetics, and further deconstructed by cinematic techniques into ASL stories, gestural techniques into visual vernacular stories, and musical techniques into sign music.