Book Selections

"Struggle and Solidarity presents seven key pieces of federal legislation and demonstrates how public policies--even when not explicitly mental health related--can shape social determinants and improve mental health"--

Imagining anti-ableist liberation beyond the rubrics of access and inclusion In the thirty years since the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law, the lives of disabled people have not improved nearly as much as activists and politicians had hoped. In Crip Negativity , J. Logan Smilges shows us what's gone wrong and what we can do to fix it. Leveling a strong critique of the category of disability and liberal disability politics, Smilges asks and imagines what horizons might exist for the liberation of those oppressed by ableism-beyond access and inclusion. Inspired by models of negativity in queer studies, Black studies, and crip theory, Smilges proposes that bad crip feelings might help all of us to care gently for one another, even as we demand more from the world than we currently believe to be possible. Forerunners: Ideas First is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital publications. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.

"In The Future Is Disabled, Leah Laksmi Piepzna-Samarasinha asks some provocative questions: What if, in the near future, the majority of people will be disabled - and what if that's not a bad thing? And what if disability justice and disabled wisdom are crucial to creating a future in which it's possible to survive fascism, climate change, and pandemics and to bring about liberation? Building on the work of their game-changing book Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice, Piepzna-Samarasinha writes about disability justice at the end of the world, documenting the many ways disabled people kept and are keeping each other - and the rest of the world - alive during Trump, fascism and the COVID-19 pandemic. Other subjects include crip interdependence, care and mutual aid in real life, disabled community building, and disabled art practice as survival and joy. Written over the course of two years of disabled isolation during the pandemic, this is a book of love letters to other disabled QTBIPOC (and those concerned about disability justice, the care crisis, and surviving the apocalypse); honour songs for kin who are gone; recipes for survival; questions and real talk about care, organizing, disabled families, and kin networks and communities; and wild brown disabled femme joy in the face of death. With passion and power, The Future Is Disabled remembers our dead and insists on our future." --

"This book explores how being "disabled" originates in the physical world, social representations and rules, and historical power relations-the interplay of which render bodies "normal" or not. Scholars and researchers will find that this book provides new avenues for thinking about dis/ability. A wider audience will find it accessible and informative"--

"In 1938 the Fair Labor Standards Act authorized the use of subminimum wages for workers with disabilities. While some states have banned their use, it remains legal federally. The program known as 14(c) has a long history of poor oversight and abuse. While disability rights have grown in the United States, this issue lags decades behind"--

Safety: every law enforcement officer and every politician tells us that they're for it. And yet for many, police are a problem in their communities, and today's policies are only making things worse. If what we're doing isn't the answer. What is? We explore this issue, and what we all need to learn from the disability justice movement, with this week's guest. Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a queer disabled writer, performer, poet, healer and teacher, inspired by poets and authors June Jordan, Suheir Hammad and Audre Lorde. She is the author of several books of poetry, including Consensual Genocide and the Lambda-award winning Love Cake. She has a new book of poetry called Bodymap, and a memoir, Dirty River. out this year. She also co-founded the performance group Mangos With Chili and is an editor of The Revolution Starts At Home: Confronting Intimate Violence in Activist Communities, a book that grapples with the difficult idea of addressing violence without police. All this, and Laura discusses the roads less traveled.

"Violence in the lives of women with disabilities is not a new problem, but it is a problem about which little has been written. This gap in our knowledge needs to be addressed, as women with disabilities are valuable members of our society whose experiences need to be made known. Without such knowledge, political action for social justice and for the prevention of violence is impossible. Contributors to Not a New Problem examine the experiences of Canadian women with disabilities, the need for improved access to services and the ways this violence is exacerbated by and intersects with gender, sexuality, indigeneity, race, ethnicity and class"--

Forbidden Signs explores American culture from the mid-nineteenth century to 1920 through the lens of one striking episode: the campaign led by Alexander Graham Bell and other prominent Americans to suppress the use of sign language among deaf people. The ensuing debate over sign language invoked such fundamental questions as what distinguished Americans from non-Americans, civilized people from "savages," humans from animals, men from women, the natural from the unnatural, and the normal from the abnormal. An advocate of the return to sign language, Baynton found that although the grounds of the debate have shifted, educators still base decisions on many of the same metaphors and images that led to the misguided efforts to eradicate sign language.

"A groundbreaking collection of first-person writing on the joys and challenges of the modern disability experience: Disability Visibility brings together the voices of activists, authors, lawyers, politicians, artists, and everyday people whose daily lives are, in the words of playwright Neil Marcus, "an art ... an ingenious way to live." According to the last census, one in five people in the United States lives with a disability. Some are visible, some are hidden--but all are underrepresented in media and popular culture. Now, just in time for the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, activist Alice Wong brings together an urgent, galvanizing collection of personal essays by contemporary disabled writers. There is Harriet McBryde Johnson's "Unspeakable Conversations," which describes her famous debate with Princeton philosopher Peter Singer over her own personhood. There is columnist s. e. smith's celebratory review of a work of theater by disabled performers. There are original pieces by up-and-coming authors like Keah Brown and Haben Girma. There are blog posts, manifestos, eulogies, and testimonies to Congress. Taken together, this anthology gives a glimpse of the vast richness and complexity of the disabled experience, highlighting the passions, talents, and everyday lives of this community. It invites readers to question their own assumptions and understandings. It celebrates and documents disability culture in the now. It looks to the future and past with hope and love."--

"Politics of (En)closure: Deinstitutionalization, Disability, and Prison Abolition argues that a complex understanding of disability is fundamental to an understanding of decarceration. Many argue that the rise of deinstitutionalization led directly to the rise of imprisonment. Liat Ben-Moshe complicates this narrative by looking closely at how people of color and disabled people are pathologized as well as how profit plays a roll in caring for "disposable" populations in nursing homes, rehab facilities, prisons, etc. Ben-Moshe puts forth a theory of carceral abolition as a way to understand the failed utopian dream of deinstitutionalization and how to move forward"--

Broadly attentive to the political and economic shifts of the last several decades, Robert McRuer asks how disability activists, artists and social movements generate change and resist the dominant forms of globalization in an age of austerity, or "crip times." Throughout "Crip Times", McRuer considers how transnational queer disability theory and culture-activism, blogs, art, photography, literature, and performance-provide important and generative sites for both contesting austerity politics and imagining alternatives. The book engages various cultural flashpoints, including the spectacle surrounding the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games; the murder trial of South African Paralympian Oscar Pistorius; the photography of Brazilian artist Livia Radwanski which documents the gentrification of Colonia Roma in Mexico City; the defiance of Chilean students demanding a free and accessible education for all; the sculpture and performance of UK artist Liz Crow; and the problematic rhetoric of "aspiration" dependent upon both able-bodied and disabled figurations that emerged in Thatcher's England. "Crip Times" asserts that disabled people themselves are demanding that disability be central to our understanding of political economy and uneven development and suggests that, in some locations, their demand for disability justice is starting to register. Ultimately, McRuer argues that a politics of austerity will always generate the compulsion to fortify borders and to separate a narrowly defined "us" in need of protection from "them."

Academic Ableism brings together disability studies and institutional critique to recognize the ways that disability is composed in and by higher education, and rewrites the spaces, times, and economies of disability in higher education to place disability front and center. For too long, argues Jay Timothy Dolmage, disability has been constructed as the antithesis of higher education, often positioned as a distraction, a drain, a problem to be solved. The ethic of higher education encourages students and teachers alike to accentuate ability, valorize perfection, and stigmatize anything that hints at intellectual, mental, or physical weakness, even as we gesture toward the value of diversity and innovation. Examining everything from campus accommodation processes, to architecture, to popular films about college life, Dolmage argues that disability is central to higher education, and that building more inclusive schools allows better education for all.

"In this long awaited new edition Oliver draws on his own experiences to paint a vivid picture of both the practical challenges of disablement and the theoretical understandings of disability. This approachable text is core reading for social work, nursing, health and social care and social science students taking modules in disability"--Provided by publisher.

This well-written and informative book has become the standard on the uses and laws regarding therapy and service dogs. With the expansion of new service dog types, a greater complexity with regard to service animal laws and regulations and the interpretation of these by the courts has developed. This book carefully examines these complexities at both the state and federal levels. In addition, the expanded use of therapy dogs in facilities and institutions has brought with it a paradigm shift in society's acceptance and acknowledgment of the canine capacity to contribute in meaningful ways to the lives of ill and institutionalized persons. This resource discusses the benefits of dogs as a therapeutic modality that reflects the importance of enrichment and healing to seizure patients, autistic children, and others with disabilities, including mental illness. Part I covers canines and canine caregiving, physical disabilities, mental disabilities, cancer sniffers, and the therapy dog movement. Part II explores traveling and living with canine caregivers, taking service and support dogs to schools, workplace scenarios, access rights of trainers and handlers, and proving service animal status and false assertions of such status. Part III discusses registration, licensing, tags, special gear for skilled dogs, traffic precautions, including cruelty and criminal interference laws protecting service animals. Part IV researches canine caregivers and social benefits, keeping animals with handlers in emergencies and disasters, tax benefits, and social service reimbursement for service animals. The author has provided a list of legal sources and service and therapy dog organizations by state. The information contained in this book is well-researched, factual, and appropriately cited. By reading this book, readers will acquire a clearer understanding of the many federal and state laws that apply to service and therapy dogs.

"A comprehensive study of the history of the Pennhurst State School and Hospital (1908-87), a state-operated institution in Pennsylvania for children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Explores Pennhurst's enduring impact on the disability civil rights movement in America"--

This Handbook brings together twenty-nine authors from around the world, each expert in a different area within the history of disability. This collection of new and original essays forms a benchmark in a field of historical inquiry that has been growing and maturing over the last thirty years. It is the first book to gather critical essays that incorporate studies from South and East Asia, eastern and western Europe, Australia, North America, and the Arab world. This Handbook is unique among other disability history texts in that it engages simultaneously in methodological and historiographic debates and in a further articulation and analysis of the lived experiences of disabled people.

A sociological history of the fight for civil rights for people with intellectual disabilities. Allison Carey develops a relational practice approach to the issues of intellectual disability & civil rights, looking at how advocacy has progressed over the course of the past century.

"A study of the global oppression of people with disabilities and the international movement that has recently emerged to resist it ... A theoretical overview of disability oppression that shows its similarities to, and differences from, racism, sexism, and colonialism."--Jacket.

Many children have learning disabilities and it's up to parents and schools to work together to ensure that each child's unique educational needs are met. But what if the school disagrees with your goals for your child? You are at a disadvantage if you don't know the law. This book teaches you to: identify a learning disability; understand your child's rights to education; untangle eligibility rules and evaluations; prepare and make your best case to school administrators; develop IEP goals and advocate for their adoption, and explore and choose the best programs and services.

The memoir of a paraplegic journalist, describing his experiences as a reporter for National Public Radio in exotic locations, and the challenges of living in a wheelchair.

Theories of social justice are necessarily abstract, reaching beyond theparticular and the immediate to the general and the timeless. Yet such theories, addressing the world and its problems, must respond to thereal and changing dilemmas of the day. A brilliant work of practicalphilosophy, Frontiers of Justice is dedicated to this proposition. Taking up three urgent problems of social justice neglected by current theorie sand thus harder to tackle in practical terms and everyday life, Martha Nussbaum seeks a theory of social justice that can guide us to aricher, more responsive approach to social co-operation.

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, a Books for a Better Life Award, and one of The New York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of 2012, this masterpiece by the National Book Award-winning author of The Noonday Demon features stories of parents who not only learn to deal with their exceptional children, but also find profound meaning in doing so--"a brave, beautiful book that will expand your humanity" (People). Solomon's startling proposition in Far from the Tree is that being exceptional is at the core of the human condition--that difference is what unites us. He writes about families coping with deafness, dwarfism, Down syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, or multiple severe disabilities; with children who are prodigies, who are conceived in rape, who become criminals, who are transgender. While each of these characteristics is potentially isolating, the experience of difference within families is universal, and Solomon documents triumphs of love over prejudice in every chapter. All parenting turns on a crucial question: to what extent should parents accept their children for who they are, and to what extent they should help them become their best selves. Drawing on ten years of research and interviews with more than three hundred families, Solomon mines the eloquence of ordinary people facing extreme challenges. Elegantly reported by a spectacularly original and compassionate thinker, Far from the Tree explores how people who love each other must struggle to accept each other--a theme in every family's life.

"At thirty-two, Ady Barkan had everything he wanted: a fulfilling career in the progressive movement, a brilliant wife, and a beautiful newborn son. Then his luck ran out. What he thought might be carpal tunnel was in fact ALS, a neurological disease that would probably paralyze and kill him quickly. But then, with his life slipping away and American democracy under grave threat, he turned a devastating diagnosis into his most potent tool. [This book] is a rousing memoir featuring intertwining narratives about determination, perseverance, and now to live a life of purpose. The first traces Ady's battle with ALS. The second shows his journey from a goofy political nerd to a prominent figure in the progressive movement, becoming one of today's most vocal advocates for social justice. [This book] is an evocative and unforgettable memoir about activism, dedication, love and hope."--Book jacket flap

Sensitive and practical, this book openly discusses the ways in which personal thoughts, feelings, and questions about disabilities can influence effective communication between people with and without disabilities. It offers simple and effective ways to become more comfortable with the concept of disability, and it opens the door to better social and professional relationships. Featuring activities and exercises that encourage self-examination, this guide helps us all create more enriching personal relationships and work toward a fully inclusive society. It will help you overcome fears and dispel stereotypes while enhancing personal growth, professional development, and community outreach.

For psychotherapist, painter, feminist, filmmaker, writer, and disability activist Harilyn Rousso, hearing well-intentioned people tell her, "You're so inspirational!" is patronizing, not complimentary. In her empowering and at times confrontational memoir, Don't Call Me Inspirational, Rousso, who has cerebral palsy, describes overcoming the prejudice against disability--not overcoming disability. She addresses the often absurd and ignorant attitudes of strangers, friends, and family. Rousso also examines her own prejudice toward her disabled body, and portrays the healing effects of intimacy and creativity, as well as her involvement with the disability rights community. She intimately reveals herself with honesty and humor and measures her personal growth as she goes from "passing" to embracing and claiming her disability as a source of pride, positive identity, and rebellion. A collage of images about her life, rather than a formal portrait, Don't Call Me Inspirational celebrates Rousso's wise, witty, productive, outrageous life, disability and all.

Based on interviews with almost a hundred activists, this book provides a detailed history of the struggle for disability rights in the United States. It is a complex story of shifts in consciousness and shifts in policy, of changing focuses on particular disabilities such as blindness, deafness, polio, quadriplegia, psychiatric and developmental disabilities, chronic conditions (for example, cancer and heart disease), and AIDS, and of activism and policymaking across disabilities. Referring to the Americans with Disabilities Act as "every American's insurance policy," the authors recount the genesis of this civil rights approach to disability, from the almost forgotten disability activism of the 1930s to the independent living movement of the 1970s to the call for disability pride of the 1990s. Like other civil rights struggles, the disability rights movement took place in the streets and in the courts as activists fought for change in the schools, the workplace, and in the legal system. They continue to fight for effective access to the necessities of everyday life -- to telephones, buses, planes, public buildings, restaurants, and toilets. The history of disability rights mirrors the history of the country. Both World Wars sparked changes in disability policy and changes in medical technology as veterans without without limbs and with other disabilities return home. The empowerment of people with disabilities has become another chapter in the struggles over identity politics that began in the 1960s. Today, with the expanding ability of people with disabilities to enter the workforce, and a growing elderly population increasingly significant at a time when HMOs are trying to contain healthcare expenditures.

Covers the entirety of U.S. disability history, from pre-1492 to the present. Disability is not just the story of someone we love or the story of whom we may become; rather it is undoubtedly the story of our nation. It places the experiences of people with disabilities at the center of the American narrative. In many ways, it's a familiar telling. In other ways, however, it is a radical repositioning of U.S. history. By doing so, the book casts new light on familiar stories, such as slavery and immigration, while breaking ground about the ties between nativism and oralism in the late nineteenth century and the role of ableism in the development of democracy. This work pulls from primary-source documents and social histories to retell American history through the eyes, words, and impressions of the people who lived it. As the author, a historian and disability scholar argues, to understand disability history isn't to narrowly focus on a series of individual triumphs but rather to examine mass movements and pivotal daily events through the lens of varied experiences. Throughout the book, he illustrates how concepts of disability have deeply shaped the American experience from deciding who was allowed to immigrate to establishing labor laws and justifying slavery and gender discrimination. Included are narratives of blinded slaves being thrown overboard and women being involuntarily sterilized, as well as triumphant accounts of disabled miners organizing strikes and disability rights activists picketing Washington. This work fundamentally reinterprets how we view our nation's past: from a stifling master narrative to a shared history that encompasses us all

How should we respond to individuals with disabilities? What does it mean to be disabled, and is a disabled person necessarily less independent and less competent than a person who is not disabled? Is a life with a disability a life worth living? In this compelling book, three experts on disability issues, ethics, and the law address several pressing issues in bioethics, including the prospect of genetic discrimination, heroic treatment of seriously impaired neonates, and whether severely impaired competent individuals should be permitted or assisted to die. Anita Silvers, David Wasserman, and Mary Mahowald bring important philosophical theories to bear on subjects of concern in a wide variety of disciplines dealing with disability, and they do so in the context of the groundbreaking Americans With Disabilities Act. Disability, Difference, Discrimination will be of great interest to the legal, philosophical, and medical communities engaged in ongoing debates about the disabled.

A powerful memoir of one of the most influential disability rights activists in U.S. history and her mission to create a more accessible world for all. From fighting for educational access as a young person, to A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year for Nonfiction "...an essential and engaging look at recent disability history."-Buzzfeed One of the most influential disability rights activists in US history tells her personal story of fighting for the right to receive an education, have a job, and just be human. A story of fighting to belong in a world that wasn't built for all of us and of one woman's activism-from the streets of Brooklyn and San Francisco to inside the halls of Washington-Being Heumann recounts Judy Heumann's lifelong battle to achieve respect, acceptance, and inclusion in society. Paralyzed from polio at eighteen months, Judy's struggle for equality began early in life. From fighting to attend grade school after being described as a "fire hazard" to later winning a lawsuit against the New York City school system for denying her a teacher's license because of her paralysis, Judy's actions set a precedent that fundamentally improved rights for disabled people. As a young woman, Judy rolled her wheelchair through the doors of the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in San Francisco as a leader of the Section 504 Sit-In, the longest takeover of a governmental building in US history. Working with a community of over 150 disabled activists and allies, Judy successfully pressured the Carter administration to implement protections for disabled peoples' rights, sparking a national movement and leading to the creation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Candid, intimate, and irreverent, Judy Heumann's memoir about resistance to exclusion invites readers to imagine and make real a world in which we all belong.

"The first significant book on the history and impact of the ADA--the "eyes on the prize" moment for disability rights The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is the widest-ranging piece of civil rights legislation ever passed in the history of the United States, and it has become the model for most civil rights laws around the world. The untold story behind the act is anything but a dry account of bills and speeches, however. Rather, it's a fascinating story of how a group of leftist Berkeley hippies managed to make an alliance with upper-crust, conservative Republicans to bring about a truly bipartisan bill. In this riveting account, acclaimed disability scholar Lennard J. Davis tells the behind-the-scenes and on-the-ground story of a too-often ignored or forgotten civil rights fight, while illustrating the successes and shortcomings of the ADA in areas ranging from employment, education, and transportation to shifting social attitudes. Published for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the ADA, this book promises to powerfully ignite readers in a discussion of disability rights in America"--;"This book is the first major book to focus exclusively on the history and impact of the ADA which was the widest ranging piece of civil rights legislation in the history of the United States and has become the model for most civil rights laws around the world. Yet the history isn't a dry account of bills and speeches. Rather it tells the fascinating story of how a group of leftist Berkeley hippies managed to make an alliance with upper-crust, conservative Republicans to bring about a truly bi-partisan bill. It covers how major politicians fought in public while staffers hammered out the details amidst public demonstrations by disability activists providing momentum for all. The book provides behind the scenes accounts and never-before published intrigues that led to a successful outcome. In addition, the book will assess the impact and legacy of the ADA through the stories of individuals who have been affected by the legislation"--