RIT Libraries and RIT/NTID Deaf Studies, Culture, and History Archives, along with NTID Video Engineering, Marketing and Communications, Dr. Karen Christie, ASL Literature scholar, and Interpreting staff, particularly Miriam Lerner, have created a grant-funded site "Sculptures in the Air" featuring ASL Poetry and Literature conference videos from 1987, 1991, and 1996. This site includes other materials such as ASL Lecture presentations, poetry performances by Robert F. Panara and the NTID Drama Club, the 1984 Ginsberg/Panara Beat Summit, ASL poetry and literature Deaf sign artist pioneers, and more. All of these videos are captioned, voiced, and signed with interactive transcripts.
There are abstracts, longer descriptions, and/or analyses of video presentations and performances below each embedded YouTube video. Videos are also available on the Luna visual catalog site. You can navigate the tabs to the left and find the particular conference or topic you want to review.
This project is supported by a Digitizing Hidden Collections grant from the Council of Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. In addition, the office of the NTID President, Dr. Gerry Buckley, contributed funds and video digitization cost-share. The Department of Cultural and Creative Studies also contributed funds to convert the Poetry in the Palm of Your Hand (1978) films.
Many thanks to Miriam and Kenny Lerner, Karen Christie, Patti Durr, and others for their collection donations which were used in this grant project.
Use of RIT resources is reserved for current RIT students, faculty
and staff for academic and teaching purposes only.
Please contact your librarian with any questions.
