Reviews for Pioneers of the Black Atlantic: Five Slave Narratives from the Enlightenment, 1772-1815

The average rating for Pioneers of the Black Atlantic: Five Slave Narratives from the Enlightenment, 1772-1815 based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-11-05 00:00:00 Laurie Maclennan Like many anthologies, it was a mix of really good and moving pieces (like the one-act play, The Hearing Test, where a young hard of hearing boy's autonomy and identity as deaf are ignored and steamrolled by ostensibly well-meaning adults in his life) and some anthologies that kind of fell flat for me (The Finer Things annoyed me so, so much. Like, yay, it was gay but like...I did not like the ending message). It was interesting that Jill Jepson perused a variety of experiences in the deaf and hard of hearing communities to include in this book, but I think this anthology could have really benefited from an editor who was also deaf or hard-of-hearing. There are just a lot of pieces, and I feel like it is maybe a disproportionate amount, that really lean into the idea that deafness is a loss and not a ton of pieces that celebrated deaf culture (like, we have a piece where a woman mourns that she is losing her hearing and that Christmas will be hard, but where is the piece where a deaf person celebrates going home because that is where people will communicate with sign). I think it shows its age as well, as it includes the terms "hearing-impaired" and that just isn't really an identifier any more. I'll be pursuing some of the writers in this text more, but for the most part, I found much of it wanting.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-06-26 00:00:00 Joseph Kroepil collection of works by deaf/HH authors