News from the Collective

Questions

[1] I want to know your thoughts about the multiple profiles that depict you with specific word-associations and comparisons with other (Swartz / Piratebay / Napster / Megaupload / Wikileaks / Snowden / Manning, etc.) (punished) projects/public personas historically and culturally related with online piracy in USA. Even when you pointed out the problems of some of these profiles on your personal blog/s in the past, is crucial to address and insist about media development and treatment around your name in a wide spectrum in recent years, simply because that could trigger more attentive-branches about reductive misconceptions or elaborated images that some people may have about you.

I’ll take two cases as examples, a mainstream profile-feature published by The Verge in 2018 and an article from Nature in 2016 titled Paper piracy sparks online debate, both are highly cited/added in platforms and social media channels to identify and introduce people to your work, but at the same time both also developed specific agendas, avoiding open support (and probably legal threats or loss of sponsorship), is media output really engaging Sci-Hub’s aims and copyright enforcement accusations with the proper treatment?

[2] In the last three decades, ideas and activities associated with the word hacker were transformed radically, from being originally conceived in the background of programming-jargon, to get prosecuted with ‘illegal stickers’ ruled under the law, is a similar trend in which legal apparatuses label common words or compounds used in sharing networks and open knowledge activities as criminal-by-association in regards to free access and text-private-property. Conveniently, is an alarming reminding of the protective measures used in the Medieval Ages to prevent book-theft that you referenced in your text Анафема!, phantom-language for speculative punishment.

Why do you think these legal tactics under the argument of >capitalist loss< have been opportune to try to slow down sharing networks and archival repositories?

[2a] Do you consider these measures, like the legal prosecution directed by Elsevier to cease Sci-Hub in 2015, are similar reminiscences of Middle Age’s curses in the sense of status protection < via knowledge in XXIst century capitalism?

Here’s an extract of the actual complaint:

This is a civil action seeking damages and injunctive relief for: (1) copyright infringement under the copyright laws of the United States (17 U.S.C. § 101 et seq.); and (2) violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18.U.S.C. § 1030, based upon Defendants’ unlawful access to, use, reproduction, and distribution of Elsevier’s copyrighted works. Defendants’ actions in this regard have caused and continue to cause irreparable injury to Elsevier and its publishing partners (including scholarly societies) for which it publishes certain journals.

[3] Is fascinating how the tense relationship between USA and Russia during Cold War plays an important precedent in the public eye to generate plots and theories about the origins and intentions of Sci-Hub on copyrighted territories (even though you repeatedly insisted that Sci-Hub is a project you started in 2011), these theories suggest a plethoric range of prospects, from a fully state-funded project by Russian Intelligence, to an ongoing investigation directed by the US Justice Department that targets Sci-Hub as an undercover espionage-project.

What is your response to these accusations?

What is behind the constant emergence of conspiracy plots toward Sci-Hub?

[4] In 2016 Marcia Mcnutt (former president of the National Academy of Sciences) wrote a column for Science Magazine, My love-hate of Sci-Hub in which she argues that downloading papers from Sci-Hub could create collateral damage for authors, publishing houses, universities, fellowships, science education, among other areas. The love-hate scenario Mcnutt paints is nonetheless confusing for the debate she wants to open about corporate knowledge inside institutions, since, the whole text leaves serious cracks in her depiction of the publishing system’s function. Accidentally in the same text, she evidences a chain of normalized exploitation towards researchers in her community by not rewarding them in this excerpt:

“Journals have real costs, even though they don’t pay authors or reviewers, as they help ensure accuracy, consistency, and clarity in scientific communication.”

If access means power and power is fueled by elevated amounts of money, what are the standards of politically correct access to information aiming for, if not capital accumulation? Sci-Hub proposes a deep change into the file-share landscape.

[5] Sci-Hub’s bounder-less pirate distribution is generating not only scientific capital but also cultural capital, knowledge-availability never experienced before. Language barriers aside, the capacities for scientific development in countries with research shortages may have a significant growth in the next ten years thanks to Theft Trade Communication.

In a presentation you made this year about the mythology of science titled The Open Science Idea you showed an unexpected statement: modern science grew out of theft.

What is the nexus between cognition, communism, and theft inside your studies about the cultural history of science?

If Sci-Hub could release an official theft-ethos, what it would contain?

[6] Is also worth noticing the high contrast amid the graphic assertions from Elsevier and Sci-Hub and what each one represents and stands for in regard to power and information. I’ve always wondered about Sci-Hub’s logo genesis, because in this case the graph-isms go beyond the symbolic.

[7] I’m curious about the links and connections generated in the Master’s Program in Linguistics/Biblical Languages you were part in 2017, in a series of texts you’ve shown interesting readings about mythology, knowledge, theology and the ancient roots of copyright and intellectual property. You’ve been compiling information from figures like Колумба (or Saint Pirate), Hermes and antique repositories like the Library of Ashurbanipal to highlight one common denominator, the systematic exclusion of the premise “spread the word” and the consequent copy_paste counter-measure techniques to unlock this information_s.

Now that you discovered attractive routes to study information patterns and similarities through history, what is your future-vision to redefine file-sharing in an established .net regulated consumption landscape?

[8] We are in the middle of important changes at institutional, corporate and cultural levels in the context of Open Science and info-access, in June of this year MIT ended negotiations with Elsevier for a new contract, and recently the University of California also renewed negotiations launching open access resolutions with the dutch company. At the same time, many universities are inaugurating new protocols and initiatives to ensure wide and free access for academic resources.

Do you consider the recent measures taken by academic organizations are enough to abolish the paywall-economy?

[9] Earlier this year you were nominated for the John Maddox Prize by Fergus Kane after almost ten years of navigating into heavily corporate waters with Sci-Hub, one curious detail about the award is that it has support from the international scientific journal Nature, Nature’s news team covered Sci-Hub’s legal battle in New York courts with unfavorable handling.

What is your approach to this nomination and how significant could be for Sci-Hub’s potential?

Reference:

[1] Karaganis, J. Shadow Libraries (1st ed., p. 6). The MIT Press.

By Jan M. Ziolkowski

The Brooklyn-born R. O. Blechman, Bob to his intimates, qualifies officially as a nonagenarian on October 1, 2020. This blog post, despite being candleless and cakefree, celebrates the occasion, with more than enough social distancing to satisfy the strictest epidemiologist.

It fêtes the birthday boy by putting a little of his genius before a new generation, while simultaneously refreshing the memories of preceding ones about some of his achievements that may have slipped their minds.

In nine decades, this artist has produced an oeuvre in which the slim book entitled The Juggler of Our Lady stands out as the first and foundational masterpiece—"surely the ground plan for everything that came after,” in the words of Maurice Sendak. Its creator has innovated at every step, while at the same time evidencing consistently a less-is-more minimalism that stamps his work immediately as both typically mid-century modern and unmistakably Blechmannian.

The volume was brought out in 1953, a year after Blechman graduated from Oberlin College. Through a schoolmate, he received an introduction to an art director at the trade press Henry Holt & Company. Among other items in his portfolio he displayed a graphic story from his undergraduate years. In response, he was urged to devise something suitable for the Christmas market. A friend of his suggested Anatole France’s The Juggler of Our Lady, with which Blechman immediately familiarized himself. For context he consulted Will Durant’s bestselling Age of Faith, then a mainstay of popular history on the Middle Ages. He roughed out a draft in one night and delivered the completed form a few days later to the publishing house.

In Blechman, the hero has the new name of Cantalbert. After failing to impress the world through his juggling, the charmingly hapless performer enters a monastery in search of spiritual fulfillment. Yet his simplicity and lack of education make him a fish out of water. A series of crises reaches a head when the monks offer the gifts of their talents before a statue of Mary. In a Merry Christmas miracle, Cantalbert elicits from the Mother of God positive acknowledgment for his juggling.

The latest reprint, published in 2015, bears the subtitle The Classic Christmas Story. Those four words are not as straightforward as they appear. For starters, the subtitle of the first edition and its reissue in 1997 was A Medieval Legend. Sure, the next page identifies it as “A sort-of Christmas story.” Yet the narrative did not originally have its seasonality baked into it, not in its medieval original and not in Anatole France’s short story either.

To complicate matters even more, we could consider that its author is Jewish by background. If the book is a Christmas tree, its trimmings are wonderfully odd: a foreword by Jules Feiffer, who calls it a “miniature masterpiece,” leads into an introduction by Maurice Sendak. This triumvirate points not to England of ye olde or Europe of yore, but to Manhattan in the full swing of the American century.

To tack back to the subtitle, The Juggler of Our Lady has a much harder time passing muster as a classic in the changing cultural canon of the twenty-first century than it did from the fin de siècle through the first half of the twentieth. When Blechman composed his proto-graphic novel, Anatole France’s story belonged the bedrock for French instruction in the U.S. Adapted for American audiences, the tale was performed on the radio each December in multiple versions.

Now that nearly seventy years have passed, French has long lost the prestige and preeminence that it formerly possessed among foreign languages, Anatole France’s literary stature and Nobel prize have gone forgotten, and the holiday broadcasts have become a thing of the past. The story shows its greatest vitality in children’s literature, but the best-known iteration by the late Tomie dePaola dispensed with the formerly familiar title in favor of The Clown of God.

For all the hurdles that have been raised, my bet is confident that Blechman’s The Juggler of Our Lady will live on. For one thing, his creation helped to bring into being a thriving genre. A graphic novel, by its very nature, depends upon relating a series of events in a text that can sustain and be sustained by illustration. In this case, the storyline has at its heart the importance of following a passion—and an urgent need to stand out and accomplish something. The juggler is at once sublimely humble and supremely ambitious, and the drawing is complex in its simplicity, just as the calligraphy is rock-steady in its waviness.

Another factor favoring the book is the marvelous nine-minute animated short that was released in 1957, likewise entitled The Juggler of Our Lady. It fills out the story by alluding to the Cold War, the Korean War, and McCathyism; it takes cartoon art to altogether new heights; and, to boot, it benefits from voiceover by Boris Karloff, after his heyday in horror films but before the animation of Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Though not often viewable with the wide-screen or color quality of early prints, it richly rewards those who can find it online or otherwise. Go, YouTube!

The same return for effort holds true for every bit of Blechmania that can be found in print or in animation.

Anyone who watched television in 1967 will recall with a smile or even a laugh the commercial in which to advertise Alka-Seltzer a stomach was interviewed about its digestive suffering. From around the same time were interstitials for CBS and the 1966 Christmas message for the same television network. Turning from TV broadcasts to magazines and newspapers, those old enough will remember our artist’s lines across later decades to the present. Think for instance with joy of the twin towers of the World Trade Center on the cover of The New Yorker of April 29, 1974, with grief of them in The New York Times op-ed page of September 14, 2001.

Now is not the time nor this the place to embark upon a catalogue raisonné of everything Bob Blechman has given us, but instead to express best wishes for continued productivity—so that at least for him we can consider the third decade of the twenty-first century the nifty nineties. More than ever, the world needs his fierce integrity, along with his relentless care about words and images.

Smiles and wisdom will not fix all ills in this time of pandemic—but they do the soul good.

Photos free so long as attributed: see http://www.bguthriephotos.com/graphlib.nsf/keys/2018_DC_Blechman_181103

Read Jan Ziolkowski's six-volume set, The Juggler of Notre Dame and the Medievalizing of Modernity (2018), freely accessible to read and available to buy at Open Book Publishers.

When did creative work become so boring? How did ‘digital-first’ come to dominate everything? …and why is nobody talking about it?

Offline Matters is a handbook for anybody experiencing digital overload in their lives and creative work. Part insider exposé, part worker-manual, this book is for any creative seeking help on:

• Navigating the possibility of offline alternatives
• Countering overwork culture, exploitation, and dulled-down ideas
• Recovering what you loved about your creative calling

… away from the confines of our screens. We are dreaming of offline. Not as a romanticised past, a punishment, a quick detox, or a WiFi-free café. Offline is not a lifestyle. It’s a space of opportunity.

Please visit the website of the book: https://www.offline-matters.com/

By the end of Offline Matters, you’ll have a new perspective on the dry digitality that defines creative work today – and a set of strategies for going beyond it.

Offline Matters is a handbook of radical strategies for creative workers. Theguide blows open the true state of today’s creative work where digital solutions are doctrine, overwork culture results in burnouts and ideas churn out into depressing marketing noise.

Part of the vanguard of young minds exposing the insides of contemporary workplaces, Jess Henderson represents the growing body of precarious creative workers. In “saying what nobody else is saying,” Henderson addresses an array of issues from a stance of mutual aid and solidarity.

A wake-up call for the digital age, Offline Matters is pro-flourishing rather than anti-technology. Take this countercultural ride of togetherness through an offline-first approach to creative work. From ideas that unlearn the limiting habits of most workplaces, to insider advice on avoiding clichés and reducing digital overload, this book offers practical thoughts for a creative life that questions pervasive productivity mandates.

About The Author

Jess Henderson is a writer, research, theorist and founder of Outsider, and insider-activist project within the creative industries. At just 26, whilst working as a brand strategist at numerous prominent creative agencies, Henderson began Outsider as a critical space for industry insiders exploring the possibilities of ‘offline’ in the realm of creative work. Beginning as a subversive email newsletter titled ‘Outsider Weekly’*, Outsider became a mysterious cult figure in the industry through its opinion pieces and counter-cultural ideas, experiments, and events.

This book culminates three years of research conducted under the project and is also its sweet kiss goodbye. Jess is a senior researcher of the Institute of Network Cultures, now based in Zürich, where she is conducting research on a theory of the burnout. She continues to write, speak, and guide workshops on the missed opportunity of offline connections and the industry’s technodeterminist fallout on both workers and audiences.

https://nofun.tips/

https://networkcultures.org/nofun/ 

Praise 

“Offline Matters is a much needed take-down of the whole ‘cult of creativity’ from the inside. This rattle gun attack on the perniciousness of the creative digital work will leave you aghast and amused in equal measure.”—Oli Mould, author of Against Creativity

“For any creative who has had to cater to corporate dimwits in order support their art, here’s a terrific guide to bringing your best work into the commercial sphere without selling out or compromising your craft. This is a book about how to break free from the data-driven expectations of your client’s spreadsheet, and retrieve the true novelty that makes you valuable in the first place.”—Douglas Rushkoff, author of Team Human

“This book is extremely timely. The pandemic has obliged everybody to stay online almost all the time. Offline Matters reminds us that life is (also) elsewhere. The neologism ‘offline’, which did not exist twenty years ago, has philosophical relevance. This book is hoping we can discover it.”—Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi, philosopher, theorist and activist

“Today we are all called upon to be the content providers of our own lives. This can be exhausting and estranging. Fortunately Jess Henderson has arrived to help us get offline, not into the pasts but into the presence of our lives. With compassion and humour Henderson brings us back to ourselves and it turns out we are not predestined to be profiled and branded.  Offline Matters is the mutual help book we need right now!”—Stefano Harney, co-author of The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study

“Jess’ has written a kind of outsider/artist/creatve/inventor SURVIVAL MANUAL for our over-amped, information-overloaded, hypercommunicative age.

Anyone seeking encouragement, inspiration, moral support, and IDEAS would do well to study these pages, preferably in a solitary room with no music playing and no laptop showing ‘news’ (or a cellphone constantly pinging). Electronics in another room, please!”—V. Vale, founder of RE/Search and Search & Destroy

“Offline Matters couldn’t come at a more important and critical juncture in our human existence… The insights within this book highlight the current creative plight we’ve gotten ourselves into and the cracks within many cultural and societal pillars.

This book is a great step in helping us reclaim and reconsider our roles within the current structures we’ve all been players within. Many of us can read along nodding in agreement and the examples surely represent thoughts we’ve embraced at some point. But this book isn’t about reprimanding us so much as help us understand how we can move forward. We’ve become so subservient to other factors out in the world and this is a stern reminder to take back control of something that can provide an immense amount of personal and community value.”—Eugene Kan, co-founder of MAEKAN and Hypebeast

“Consider this book a rehabilitation program for a creative thinking populace unknowingly addicted to vain online activity. Through these influential pages, Henderson bestows upon their readers the tools necessary to free one’s mind from the constraints of the virtual realm so they may focus instead on something much more important… Reality.”—James T. Padlow, THE PEN NAME

“I have followed Jess’ writing since she created Outsider; an anarchic newsletter/witty commentary against the establishment, and its pervasive contentment with the same old marketing bullshit. I waited in anticipation, sometimes for months, to receive news from the trenches… Just like the white space between the lines in a book, it was like reading every unspoken truth, every unheard sigh, every roll of the eyes in our industry. Someone had to say it and thank god it was Jess. We need this book.”—Alvaro Sotomayor, Creative Director at WIEDEN+KENNEDY

Interview with Jess Henderson: https://maekan.com/article/offline-matters-with-jess-henderson/
Article in Amsterdam Alternative: ‘Shock Me. Please’ https://amsterdamalternative.nl/articles/9917

Six textes d’Orlando Fals Borda, choisis et traduits sous la direction de Liliana Diaz et Baptiste Godrie

Avec Paulo Freire, Orlando Fals Borda (1925-2008), est l’un des pères fondateurs des approches décoloniales latino-américaines en sciences sociales. Pourtant, alors que le premier est une figure familière du paysage des sciences sociales francophones, le second est quasiment inconnu. Cette anthologie francophone, la première à ce jour, propose cinq textes, publiés entre 1968 et 2003, en plus d’une conférence inédite prononcée en 1966. Elle vise à présenter la proposition épistémologique de Fals Borda d’une science latino-américaine émancipée des cadres théoriques européens et nord-américains, et orientée vers la production partagée des connaissances entre universitaires et mouvements sociaux pour favoriser la transformation de la société vers une plus grande justice sociale. Chaque texte est présenté dans sa version espagnole originale et dans sa traduction française, avec une brève mise en contexte permettant de situer celui-ci dans l’œuvre de l’auteur. Une introduction présente la thématique de l’anthologie et la trajectoire intellectuelle de Fals Borda.

***

Junto con Paulo Freire, Orlando Fals Borda (1925-2008) fue uno de los padresfundadores de los enfoques descoloniales latinoamericanos en las ciencias sociales. Sinembargo, mientras que el primero es una figura familiar en el panorama francés de lasciencias sociales, el segundo es casi desconocido. Esta antología francófona, la primera hasta la fecha, ofrece cinco textos publicados entre 1968 y 2003, además de una conferencia inédita realizada en 1966. Su objetivo es presentar la propuesta epistemológica de Fals Borda de una ciencia latinoamericana emancipada de los marcos teóricos europeo y norteamericano, y orientada a la producción de conocimientos compartida entre los académicos y los movimientossociales para promover la transformación de la sociedad hacia una mayor justicia social.Cada texto se presenta en su versión original en español y en su traducción al francés, conuna breve contextualización que permite ubicarlo en el trabajo del autor. Una introducción presenta el tema de la antología y la trayectoria intelectual de Fals Borda.

ISBN version imprimée / edición impresa : 978-2-924661-99-4
ISBN PDF : 978-2-924661-97-0
ISBN ePub : 978-2-925128-03-8

DOI : à venir
230 pages
Couverture réalisée par Kate McDonnell, photographie tirée de ce documentaire sur Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfaZNTrfSNQ
Date de publication : septembre 2020

DOI : pronto
230 páginas
Portada dirigida por Kate McDonnell, fotografía de este documental en Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfaZNTrfSNQ
Fecha de publicación: septiembre de 2020

Table des matières / Índice

by Janis Sposato (Bonvillian)

For over twenty years, the development and eventual publication of the Simplified Sign System was the one and only goal.  Last month, with the assistance of Open Book Publishers and the perseverance of the authors, family and friends, the Simplified Signs project crossed the publication finish line.  And it did so with aplomb – a beautifully crafted two-volume set of research and signs available worldwide, online and for free for anyone to use.

So now what?

Now it is time to use the signs, to play with them and to explore the reaches of this rich new communication tool.

The Simplified Sign System is not unlike a sleeping giant.  It is big to begin with.  There are approximately one thousand signs illustrated in the Volume 2 lexicon.  But when it is awakened, those one thousand signs can be used to signify many thousands more ideas, concepts and words.   The Sign Index and your own creativity are the only tools you need to waken the giant and unlock the full richness of the Simplified Sign System.

Here is an example.  Suppose you want to sign the word “symphony.”  If you look through Volume 2 and find the “S” signs, you will not see a unique sign listed for “symphony.”  But there is a way to sign “symphony.”   It is by making the sign for MUSIC.  The sign for MUSIC is reminiscent of a conductor directing the musical performance of an orchestra.  Taking it a step further, you can focus on a different meaning of the sign for MUSIC to connote “sing, singer, or choir” by simply opening your mouth while making the MUSIC sign.  The key is to know that MUSIC is the main concept under which related ideas are listed.  This is where the Sign Index is such a useful tool.

The Sign Index contains references to all the signs as well as to their synonyms, antonyms and related concepts.  In the case above, MUSIC is the sign or “main gloss” (think glossary) or concept and “symphony” is a related word or concept.  Both words are alphabetized in the Sign Index.  The related word “symphony” is in ordinary typeface and if you look it up, the index gives you a cross-reference to the main gloss word, MUSIC.  The main gloss is in all capital letters and boldface print, and it is followed by a page number where you will find the sign.  If you click on the page number in an electronic version of the Sign Index, a link will take you directly to the page that illustrates and explains the main gloss concept or sign as well as its synonyms, antonyms and related concepts.

Most main gloss words are intended to be used broadly.   You can find them easily using the Sign Index.  We encourage you to search them out and to use them creatively.  If you do this, you will greatly expand your communication possibilities and add to the sheer pleasure of using Simplified Signs.

Also the sign for Conductor, Conduct Music, Orchestra, and Symphony. If this sign is made with the mouth open, it means Choir, Sing, and/or Singer.

This book is now available to read and download for free. Please, click here to access Vol. 1 and here for Vol.2.

Notre Tanoh Laurent Kakou a créé un blog pour son propre projet de recherche en libre accès, C.A.S.A.D.: Centre d’Accès aux Savoirs d’Afrique et de sa Diaspora.

Quelques articles seront familiers aux lecteurs de Soutenir les savoirs communs, le travail de l’équipe; d’autres sont nouveau recherche fait par Tanoh. La vidéo Qu’est-ce que la revue Afroscopie?, un entretien avec Benoit Awazi, est éclairante pour quiconque s’intéresse à la recherche en Afrique francophone.

Merci et félicitations à notre Tanoh Laurent Kakou, candidat au doctorat en communication (et diplômé d’ÉSIS), qui a réussi son examen de synthèse cet été! Meilleurs voeux à Tanoh et sa recherche.

English

Our Tanoh Laurent Kakou has created a blog for his own research project in open access, C.A.S.A.D.: Centre d’Accès aux Savoirs d’Afrique et de sa Diaspora.

Some articles will be familiar to readers of Sustaining the knowledge commons, as the work of the team; others are new research projects by Tanoh. The video Qu’est-ce que la revue Afroscopie?, an interview with Benoit Awazi, is enlightening for anyone who is interested in research in francophone Africa.

Thank you and congratulations to our Tanoh Laurent Kakou, a doctoral candidate in communication (and graduate of ÉSIS) on passing his comprehensive exam this summer! Best wishes to Tanoh and his research.

Français

By Jessica Davis

When called upon to recount my experience working with Professor John Bonvillian on the Simplified Sign project, I am reminded of Hamlet beseeching the Players:

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to

you, trippingly on the tongue: …

...Nor do not saw the air

too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently;

for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say,

the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget

a temperance that may give it smoothness.

(III.II. 1-8).

With the same desperate urgency with which young Hamlet implored his audience to grasp the dire importance of attention to how we conduct an exchange of ideas, I would ask our readers to note that we must learn to mind not only our “tripping” tongues, but also our “tempestuously passionate” gestures.

John and his colleagues recognized from the beginning the unquestionable importance of “listening” to the gestures, facial expressions, and body movements of others. Bonvillian’s methodology compassionately acknowledged the needs of those he observed by individually crafting a response to such persons in their native hand. In 2012, I, a late-deafened 22-year-old woman who had recently transferred to her dream school, stumbled into his office seeking permission to learn more about the sign language research he was doing at the University of Virginia. That afternoon, John Bonvillian became the first person in my life to immediately adapt his communication with me by supporting his speech with signs and gestures, facing me when speaking, enunciating his words, and never hesitating to repeat himself should I ask for clarification. More importantly, in that same moment, he became the first clinician to explicitly define and validate my previously unacknowledged communicative needs, which forever changed how I interacted with myself and those around me.

Like thousands of students before me, I had the privilege of learning from the pulpit of a psychosocial pioneer of multimodal “tempered smoothness” who had a gift for effortlessly incorporating gestures with his trademark pentameter-esque cadence of spoken English. Unlike most of his other students, however, I experienced chronic kidney disease, moderate-severe deafness, language deprivation, social isolation, PTSD, and many of the psychosocial misgivings of being a nontraditional working “Townie” at the prestigious UVA. None of these “abnormalities” phased Dr. Bonvillian, who worked with me as he would any other student, eventually bringing me into the Simplified Sign project and honoring me with the role of a Principal Investigator.

It was at UVA, and especially in John’s classes, that I would first come to understand the implications of a lifetime spent being underestimated as a valuable and contributing member of society. I would also come to learn from both a personal and academic perspective the amazing power of signs and gestures for making social connections. I couldn’t possibly articulate the innumerable benefits that I have gained from learning Simplified Signs, but I can attest to the noticeable communicative progress in both my English-spoken and ASL-signed interactions over the last 8 years of my life. Moreover, I am living proof that sign language education does not impede spoken language usage; on the contrary, my experience has taught me the statistically significant benefits of integrating linguistic modalities.

Imagining a new sociocultural norm that fully supports linguistic diversity does not sound easy. However, teaching what I’ve learned about the intentional integration of signed and spoken language for the purposes of optimal perception and shared understanding might be a simple enough idea to see a shift in the status quo, and I embrace that idea wholeheartedly. Thanks to Open Book Publishers, Simplified Signs Volumes I & II are available for free for everyone to use worldwide. We are now all endowed with the tools to communicate meaningfully from a distance, and/or while wearing face masks, and/or through glass windows, and/or across language barriers, and/or with one’s culturally diverse or differently-abled child, sibling, friend, family member, client, colleague, teacher, weary traveler, or wounded warrior. As we move forward in our lives in the days and years that follow this publication, I beseech you in the spirit of the Bard:

Sign the speech, we pray you, as we have pronounced it to

you. And with this, our system, beget

a temperance that may give it smoothness.

Jessica Davis was a research assistant on the Simplified Sign project for a year and then served as a principal investigator for two years. Her research focused on expanding the lexicon for use with a broader population of individuals. She continues to be involved in the project and, in coordination with the authors, hopes to produce an app and educational materials for persons learning Simplified Signs. Ms. Davis counts herself among the neurodiverse populations that Dr. Bonvillian aimed to most directly serve.

This book is now available to read and download for free. Please, click here to access Vol. 1 and here for Vol.2.

Photo by Shoeib Abolhassani on Unsplash