Marika Kovacs-Houlihan, M.Ed.

Marika Kovacs-Houlihan, M.Ed., is a professor of American Sign Language (ASL) and Coordinator for the ASL Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.   She is a fourth generation member of a Deaf family.  She has been actively promoting a positive self-esteem as a Deaf person to such organization as the Deaf Mentor Program, where she taught ASL and Deaf culture to hearing parents of deaf children.  Her other valuable attributes are her theatrical experience and her passion in ASL Literature.  Marika received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Marketing from Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, and a Master’s degree in Adult Education and Leadership from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

ASL Cinesthetic

Written language has a claim in literature. Yet, American Sign Language (ASL) has made its own claim in literature: ASL Poetry and Storytelling. One innovative way to look at ASL literature metaphorically is through film, “ASL Cinematic.”  The ASL literature is the realm of the visual, spatial, and kinetic images, and it is also paralleled to the world of cinematic.   The evolution of ASL literature and the techniques of film making are creating a new perspective on ASL literature.  We must first understand the elements of ASL literature and the works of cinema along with its lexicon. Subsequently, we will understand how ASL literature’s prose is created through the eye of the camera.  The workshop will include analysis and critique of ASL’s visual vernacular and cinematic elements such as the three basic filming techniques: 1) camera, 2) shot, and 3) editing.  The goal is to provide new "cinesthetic", a combination of aesthetic and cinematic experience, of ASL literature!