How You Gonna Get to Heaven If You Can't Talk With Jesus: On Depathologizing Deafness

The articles in this book were written between the years of 1975 and 1979. They relate to the topics of the utmost concern for Deaf people; however, they have not been widely disseminated in the fields related to deafness. All four papers represent a development in research towards understanding Deaf society and culture in the U.S. and towards understanding why Hearing society in the U.S. has been so slow to give up the idea of Deaf people as pathological handicapped individuals. The four papers in this book view the U.S. Deaf community from anthropological and sociolinguistic perspectives. The papers attempt to describe Deaf people from the point of view of Deaf cultural values. Thus differences between Deaf and Hearing people can be seen as cultural differences not as deviations from a Hearing norm. The author has included a short summary and discussion entitled "On Depathologizing Deafness" which ties together the findings of the first four papers into a coherent philosophical framework for viewing Deaf people in the U.S.