Signing identity: Rethinking United States poetry, acts of translating American sign language, African American, and Chicano poetry and the language of silence

This dissertation interrogates issues of national cultural identity articulated in poetic discourse through an exploration of late 20th century Deaf (American Sign Language/ASL), African-American, and Chicano poetic language and products. Further, I investigate the effects of various translation theories and methods on publically articulated national identities found in poetry and poetic language. The project as a whole poses these questions: What does it mean to not hear when we traditionally conceive of poetry as voice? What happens to poetry as genre when we add a body of poetic literature that is signed rather than voiced? What constitutes U.S. literature? How can we conceive translation as a tool for resisting hegemony rather than as a tool for reinforcing hegemony? What role does translation play in U.S. literature and in U.S. literary pedagogy? What role should it play? In answer, I offer new metaphors for encountering and discussing alterity and a new paradigm for translation.