Tom L. Humphries is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 academic, author, and lecturer on Deaf culture and communication. Humphries is a professor

Professor

A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 at the University of California, San Diego

University of California, San Diego

The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...

 (UCSD).

Early life

Humphries earned his Ph.D. in Cross Cultural Communication and Language Learning at Union Graduate School

Graduate College of Union University

Union Graduate College is part of a federation of Albany College of Pharmacy, Albany Law School, Albany Medical College, Dudley Observatory, Graduate College of Union University, and Union College which together form Union University, a historic linkage dating back to 1873.Each member institution...

 in 1977.

Career

Humphries is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the San Diego branch of the University of California.

In addition to teaching at UCSD, he has been developing an experimental curriculum for teaching deaf children by applying bilingual teaching practices.

One way of framing

Framing (social sciences)

A frame in social theory consists of a schema of interpretation — that is, a collection of anecdotes and stereotypes—that individuals rely on to understand and respond to events. In simpler terms, people build a series of mental filters through biological and cultural influences. They use these...

 his major area of interest is summarized in the abstract of his 2010 Lyons Lecture at the Rochester School for the Deaf

Rochester School for the Deaf

Rochester School for the Deaf is a private, tuition-free school for deaf and hard of hearing students to attend in Rochester, New York. It is one of the oldest and most respected preK-12th grade schools for children with hearing loss and their families in the United States, and one of nine such...

:

The processes of deaf identity construction are not unique phenomena but echo the experience of other embedded cultural groups, particularly those that are stressed by the assertion of hegemony over them by others. Theorists Jose Marti

José Martí

José Julián Martí Pérez was a Cuban national hero and an important figure in Latin American literature. In his short life he was a poet, an essayist, a journalist, a revolutionary philosopher, a translator, a professor, a publisher, and a political theorist. He was also a part of the Cuban...

 and W.E.B. DuBois, who struggled with similar issues, offer us ways to think about the complicated discourses of Deaf culture and the local social histories in which Deaf culture is constructed.

Selected works

Humphries' published writings encompass 43 works in 78 publications in 7 languages and 5,474 library holdings. His works are created with his wife and co-author, Carol Padden

Carol Padden

Carol A. Padden is a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of California, San Diego, where she has been teaching since 1983. She was named a 2010 MacArthur Fellow, and a 1992 Guggenheim Fellow....

.

• A Basic Course in American Sign Language (1980)
• Deaf in America: Voices from a Culture (1988)
• Inside deaf culture (2004)
• Learning American Sign Language (1992)

Chapters

• Humphries, T. (1996). "On deaf-mutes, the strange, and the modern Deaf self" in Culturally Affirming Psychotherapy with Deaf Persons. N. Glickman and M. Harvey, eds., Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1996.
• ____________. (2001). "On Deaf-mutes, the Strange, and the Modern Deaf Self,” in Culturally Affirming Psychotherapy with Deaf Persons, N. Glickman and M. Harvey, eds., Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1996. Reprinted in Deaf World: A Historical Reader and Primary Sourcebook, Lois Bragg, Ed. New York: New York University Press.
• ____________. (2004). "The modern Deaf self: Indigenous practices and educational imperatives," in Literacy and Deaf People: Cultural and Contextual Perspectives. B. Brueggemann, ed.. Gallaudet University Press.
• ____________. (2008). "Scientific explanation and other performance acts in the re-organization of DEAF," in Signs and Voices, Lindgren, DeLuca & Napoli, eds. Gallaudet University Press.
• ____________. (2008). "Scientific explanation and other performance acts in the re-organization of DEAF," in Signs and Voices, Donna Jo Napoli, ed.. Gallaudet University Press.
• ____________. (2008). "Talking culture and culture talking" in Open Your Eyes, Dirksen Bauman, ed., University of Minnesota Press.

Journals

• Humphries, T. and B. Allen. "Re-organizing teacher preparation in Deaf Education" in Sign Language Studies. 8:2. 2008.
• ____________. and MacDougall, F. "Chaining and other links: making connections between American Sign Language and English in two types of school settings" in Visual Anthropology Review, 15:2, Fall/Winter 1999/2000.

External links