| February, 2002 |
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Book Reviews
Lois Bragg (Editor) Book Description
by Erik Weihenmayer
Deaf World : A Historical Reader and Primary Sourcebook
Paperback - January 2001
List Price: $25.95
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"A most welcome contribution to the burgeoning field of Deaf Studies. The book performs a vital service to readers by providing them with a comprehensive collection of sources that narrate the struggles, accomplishments and aspirations of our nation's deaf community."
--I. King Jordan, President, Gallaudet University
"This is one of those marvelous initiatives that, when you see it, leads you to say, 'Why didn't I think of that?' A very valuable resource not only for the growing numbers of students in Deaf Studies but for everyone who seeks to understand the world of culturally Deaf people."
--Harlan Lane, University Distinguished Professor, Northeastern University
"A landmark in the history of Deaf studies. Bragg has assembled an astonishingly balanced selection of historical sources, personal memoirs, and critical essays to give readers a rich and varied panaroma of perspectives."
--Yerker Andersson, Professor Emeritus of Sociology and former Chair of Deaf Studies, Gallaudet University
To many who hear, the deaf world is as foreign as a country never visited.
Deaf World thus concerns itself less with the perspectives of the hearing and more with what Deaf people themselves think and do. Editor Lois Bragg asserts that English is for many signing people a second, infrequently used language and that Deaf culture is the socially transmitted pattern of behavior, values, beliefs, and expression of those who use American Sign Language. She has assembled an astonishing array of historical sources, political writings, and personal memoirs, from classic 19th-century manifestos to contemporary policy papers, on everything from eugenics to speech and lipreading, the right to work and marry, and the never-ending controversy over separation vs. social integration. At the heart of many of the selections lies the belief that Deaf Americans have long constituted an internal colony of sorts in the United States.
While not attempting to speak for Deaf people en masse, this ambitious platform anthology places the Deaf on center stage, offering them an opportunity to represent the world--theirs as well as the hearing world--from a Deaf perspective. For Deaf readers, the book will be welcomed as a gift, both a companion to be savored and, as often, an opponent to be engaged and debated. And for the hearing, it serves as an unprecedented guide to a world and a culture so often overlooked.
Comprising a judicious mix of published pieces and original essays solicited specifically for this volume, Deaf World marks a major contribution.
Touch the Top of the World : A Blind Man's Journey to Climb Farther Than the Eye Can See
Hardcover - February 2001
List Price: $23.95
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Book Description
The incredible, inspiring story of world-class climber Erik Weihenmayer, from the terrible diagnosis that foretold of the loss of his eyesight, to his dream to climb mountains, and finally his quest to reach each of the Seven Summits.
Erik Weihenmayer was born with retinoscheses, a degenerative eye disorder that would progressively unravel his retinas. Erik learned from doctors that he was destined to lose his sight by age thirteen. Yet from early on, he was determined to rise above this devastating disability and lead a fulfilling, exciting life. In Touch the Top of the World, Erik recalls his struggle to push past the limits placed on him by his visual impairment-and by a seeing world. He speaks movingly of the role his family played in his battle to break through the barriers of blindness: the mother who prayed for the miracle that would restore her son's sight; the father who encouraged him to strive for that unreachable mountaintop.
Erik was the first blind man to summit McKinley. Soon he became the first blind person to scale the infamous 3000-foot rock wall of El Capitan and then Argentina's Aconcagua, the highest peak outside of Asia. He was married to his longtime sweetheart at 13,000 feet on the Shira Plateau on his way to Kilimanjaro's summit, and recently Erik scaled Polar Circus, the 30,000-foot vertical ice wall in Alberta, Canada. Erik's story is about having the vision to dream big; the courage to reach for near impossible goals; and the grit, determination, and ingenuity to transform our lives into "something miraculous."
Blindness: The History of a Mental Image in Western Thought
by Moshe Barasch
List Price: $85.00
Library Binding
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Book Description
Blindness is a remarkable study of how Western culture has imagined what it is like to be blind, especially as it is represented in that most visual of arts, painting. Art historian Moshe Barasch here draws upon not only the span of art history from antiquity to the eighteenth century but also the classical and biblical traditions that underpin so much of artistic representation: Blind Homer, the healing of the blind, blind musicians, blindness as a punishment, blindness as a special mark. The book discusses blindness in antiquity, in the Early Christian world, in the Middle Ages, and in the Renaissance, with a final long consideration of Diderot. Blindness explores the fascinating paradoxes in the Western representation of blindness, revealing the ways in which the idea of absence of vision has been central in the history of our visual culture.