Home Signs

Reviews / Votes

"Reno's [book] soars when it broaches taboos around disability and the question of which lives are worth living, and why...His treatment was gratifying for this linguistic anthropologist to read, as it showcases the usefulness of our theoretical tools for the anthropology of disability. It is also (if I'm being honest) a little humbling to see someone not trained as a linguistic anthropologist use those tools so adeptly to decenter the innatist speaking subject of Chomskyan linguistics, in a breezily erudite tour from Ray Birdwhistell and Edward T. Hall through Elizabeth Bates, Elinor Ochs, Bambi Schieffelin, Asta Cekaite, and the Goodwins. That genealogy only scratches the surface: If you never thought you needed a cultural history of tickling, you do, and Reno has written one." * American Anthropologist * "This deeply personal yet analytical style is nothing short of extraordinary." * Journal of Linguistic Anthropology * "When seeing the visual illusion titled Rubin's Vase, we 'make sense' of the image by drawing on a lifetime of experience. The vase may jump out ?rst, until our attention ?xates on a detail interpreted as background initially, and suddenly the two pro?led faces emerge from the same sensory input. Not only is the image perceived in a new way-it's impossible to 'unsee' the new perception. What once was negative space is suddenly foregrounded. Reno's book Home Signs does the same. He teases our brains into focusing on negative space, on the details of human communication that are typically ignored, downplayed, or relegated to the background in our perceptions of language, and once you see what was previously overlooked, you can't 'unsee' it."
* Journal of Anthropological Research * "Writing with precision and vulnerability, Reno illuminates an aspect of our lives together that is ubiquitous, yet rarely noticed: the subtle, deeply idiosyncratic ways we make sense to one another beyond and beside the languages some of us type, sign, and speak. He builds on a dizzying array of interlocutors. But at the heart of the book is Reno's relationship with his sweet-tempered, irascible, mysterious teenage son and the slaps, snaps, caresses, sounds, and silences that make up their shared repertoire of home signs. Setting a new standard for ethical, rigorous scholarship, Home Signs shows us how to move beyond debates over the limits of the human to the places of danger and creativity where sociality lives." * Danilyn Rutherford, author of Living in the Stone Age * "In this richly innovative book, Reno delves into the intricacies of communication among alingual children and their families and caretakers, unsettling stubborn assumptions about language, cognitive disability, and human sociality. As with the best of anthropology, Home Signs is ultimately about life and our creative abilities to relate to others." * Robert Desjarlais, author of Subject to Death: Life and Loss in a Buddhist World * "Reno puts into words (ironically!) so many things that we never dared to say aloud throughout the entire book. More than that, you make theoretical interventions that can have an impact on the world in concrete ways. I was moved to tears in every chapter, and had to write to express my gratitude to you for writing this." * Christine Chalifoux, Franklin & Marshall College * "What Reno has done here is truly extraordinary. I think it's one of the most intriguing and amazing pieces of academic writing that I've read in a very long time. If ever. Incredibly smart, incredibly moving."
* Crispin Thurlow, University of Bern, Switzerland * "Home Signs is superb. Brilliantly done. It's a major feat to write a book that weaves the personal into a work that is also scholarly and sophisticated." * Richard Grinker, George Washington University *