Research at
Gallaudet University
2005 - 2006

None

Status: Ongoing Begin date: May 2003 End date: September 2006

Description

Corinne Rocheleau-Rouleau (1881-1963), an accomplished Franco-American deaf essayist and biographer, challenged the norms of early twentieth century society in her unique focus on women as literary subjects and in the complexity of her evolving attitude towards her deafness. It is the researcher's thesis that it was through a continuing process of writing that Corinne Rocheleau resolved her ambivalences about her deafness, her writing serving both as art and as therapy. Through her written analyses of hearing and deaf women, Rocheleau came to accept her own deafness and gradually to expand the parameters of her life. In so doing, she transcended the constraints imposed upon deaf women of her era and succeeded in escaping from the isolating effects of her deafness through a creative association with and celebration of women. A chapter on Rocheleau will be included in the researcher's book on French deaf biographers.

Investigators