Special Collections
Blindness and Visual Impairment Special Collection
Description: A collection featuring biographies, memoirs, fiction and non-fiction by and about members of the blind community. #disability
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A Beacon for the Blind
by Winifred HoltA biography of Henry Fawcett. The story of his life as it is to be told in this book will give ample illustrations of his fortitude and his perseverance.
The Wonder Years
by Ted Hull and Paula L. StahelTed Hull was not a singer or a musician, however he was very involved in Stevie Wonder's life and Motown. Ted was Stevie's teacher, mentor and companion.
Reflections
by Therese-Adèle HussonIn the 1820s, several years before Braille was invented, Therese-Adele Husson, a young blind woman from provincial France, wrote an audacious manifesto about her life, French society, and her hopes for the future. Through extensive research and scholarly detective work, authors Catherine Kudlick and Zina Weygand have rescued this intriguing woman and the remarkable story of her life and tragic death from obscurity, giving readers a rare look into a world recorded by an unlikely historical figure. Reflections is one of the earliest recorded manifestations of group solidarity among people with the same disability, advocating self-sufficiency and independence on the part of blind people, encouraging education for all blind children, and exploring gender roles for both men and women. Resolutely defying the sense of "otherness" which pervades discourse about the disabled, Husson instead convinces us that that blindness offers a fresh and important perspective on both history and ourselves. In rescuing this important historical account and recreating the life of an obscure but potent figure, Weygand and Kudlick have awakened a perspective that transcends time and which, ultimately, remaps our inherent ideas of physical sensibility
Downcast Eyes
by Martin JayLong considered "the noblest of the senses," vision has increasingly come under critical scrutiny by a wide range of thinkers who question its dominance in Western culture. These critics of vision, especially prominent in twentieth-century France, have challenged its allegedly superior capacity to provide access to the world. They have also criticized its supposed complicity with political and social oppression through the promulgation of spectacle and surveillance. Martin Jay turns to this discourse surrounding vision and explores its often contradictory implications in the work of such influential figures as Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Louis Althusser, Guy Debord, Luce Irigaray, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jacques Derrida. Jay begins with a discussion of the theory of vision from Plato to Descartes, then considers its role in the French Enlightenment before turning to its status in the culture of modernity. From consideration of French Impressionism to analysis of Georges Bataille and the Surrealists, Roland Barthes's writings on photography, and the film theory of Christian Metz, Jay provides lucid and fair-minded accounts of thinkers and ideas widely known for their difficulty. His book examines the myriad links between the interrogation of vision and the pervasive antihumanist, antimodernist, and counter-enlightenment tenor of much recent French thought. Refusing, however, to defend the dominant visual order, he calls instead for a plurality of "scopic regimes." Certain to generate controversy and discussion throughout the humanities and social sciences, Downcast Eyes will consolidate Jay's reputation as one of today's premier cultural and intellectual historians.
No Finish Line
by Sally Jenkins and Marla Runyan"Blind? I think there's no doubt that Marla Runyan can see things much clearer than most of us with 20/20 vision. " - Lance Armstrong
Marla Runyan was nine years old when she was diagnosed with Stargardt's disease, an irreversible form of macular degeneration. With the uneasy but unwavering support of her parents, she refused to let her diagnosis limit her dreams. Despite her severely impaired, ever-worsening vision, Marla rode horseback and learned to play the violin. And she found her true calling in sports. A gifted and natural athlete, Marla began to compete in the unlikeliest event of all: the heptathlon, the grueling women's equivalent of the decathlon, consisting of seven events: the 200-meter dash, high jump, shot put, 100-meter hurdles, long jump, javelin throw, and 800-meter run. In 1996, she astonished the sports world by qualifying for the U. S. Olympic Trials and, along the way, set the American record for heptathlon 800. It was then that she decided to concentrate on her running. Four years of intense effort paid off. In 2000, she qualified for the U. S. Olympic team by finishing third in the 1,500 meters. In Sydney, she placed eighth in the finals, the top American finisher - the highest women's placing for the United States in the event's history. With self-deprecation and surprising wit, Marla reveals what it's like to see the world through her eyes, how it feels to grow up "disabled" in a society where expectations are often based on perceived abilities, and what it means to compete at the world-class level despite the fact that - quite literally, for her - there is no finish line.
As The Twig Is Bent
by Kenneth Jernigan"Table of Contents To Park Or Not To Park What Lynden Has To Hear How Different It Might Have Been How Different It Is Do You Want To Go To The Store, Ted? Partially Sighted, Really Blind Advice From A Seven-Year-Old A Matter Of Attitude A Purchasing Alliance They Didn't Want Me To Go To School Ladies And Gentlemen Of The Jury Sight Unseen To Light A Candle With Mathematics Supremacy." Other books in this series are available from Bookshare.
Beginnings and Blueprints
by Kenneth JerniganThis is a motivational book showing that blind individuals can live productive lives doing the things that sighted people do and even succeed at it!
Gray Pancakes and Gold Horses
by Kenneth JerniganHow do blind children learn the details of the hundreds of small daily acts that sighted children pick up without ever even knowing they have done it? A blind boy sits in a farm house on a summer night and wonders which way to shake his head to mean yes and no. He guesses and loses, and his mother's feelings are hurt. I know, for I was that boy.
Kenneth Jernigan
by Kenneth JerniganCompiled writings of Dr. Kenneth Jernigan with editorial introduction and notes
Old Dogs and New Tricks
by Kenneth JerniganThe tenth book in the Kernel Book Series contains these vignettes: Editor's Introduction Old Dogs and New Tricks The Sliding Board Tending to My Knitting Roller Coasters Serving Communion and Loving Elizabeth. Other books in this series are available from Bookshare.
Standing on One Foot
by Kenneth JerniganThis is book six of the Kernel Series. The ways of overcoming challenges that face individuals who want a normal life in spite of blindness is revealed in these short true-to-life stories.
Tapping the Charcoal
by Kenneth JerniganVarious individuals tell their story of overcoming blindness and becoming productive employed members of society. Their experiences are an encouragement to all of us who must overcome challenges.
Toothpaste and Railroad Tracks
by Kenneth JerniganThis is the eighth book in the Kernel Books Series--a series of books in which people who are blind tell about life situations and how they coped with them. "What do toothpaste and railroad tracks have in common? Just about the same that axes and law books do--nothing and everything. They are the building blocks of the routine of daily existence. In a very real sense they are the essence of humanity itself. When I was younger (maybe 40 years ago), there was a popular song called "Little Things Mean a Lot." It dealt with what the title implies, but its message was much more than that. It was that each little incident (relatively unimportant in and of itself) combines with all of the other trivial events that are constantly happening to us to form the pattern of our lives. It is not the major events but the recurring details that make us what we are--that determine whether we will succeed or fail, be happy and productive or sad and miserable. Other books in this series are available from Bookshare."
Wall-To-Wall Thanksgiving
by Kenneth JerniganThis is the thirteenth book in the Kernel Series. Its chapters are: Don't Throw the Nickel Boy Was I Bamboozled Lessons from the Charcoal Pit Concerning Books, Lawn Mowers, and Bus Rides Children, Fruitcake, and Rectangles The Wall-to-Wall Thanksgiving Meeting the Challenge Daddy Read Me Walking the Balance Beam Big Enough to Ride the Bike and, of course, Dr. Jernigan's introduction, which ties together the featured vignettes. Other books in this series are available from Bookshare.
What Color is the Sun
by Kenneth JerniganA Kernel Book, this has life stories from 14 blind people.
When The Blizzard Blows
by Kenneth JerniganThis is the seventh book in the Kernel Book Series. In these books, people who are blind share incidents from their lives and tell how they coped with them. Some are serious; some are humorous; all are thought-provoking. Other books in this series are available from Bookshare.
Mexico by Touch
by Larry P. JohnsonMy memories of Mexico are a montage of flavors, fragrances, sounds and sensations.
There's nothing that can compare with the smell and taste of freshly made corn tortillas just before the mid-day meal. Nor are there many sounds more soothing and ethereal than the rippling melodies of a neighborhood marimba band playing a dawn serenade.
Sight Unseen
by Ellyn KaschakSight Unseen reveals the cultural and biological realities of race, gender, and sexual orientation from the perspective of the blind. Through ten case studies and dozens of interviews, Ellyn Kaschak taps directly into the phenomenology of race, gender, and sexual orientation among blind individuals, along with the everyday epistemology of vision. Kaschak's work reveals not only how the blind create systems of meaning out of cultural norms but also how cultural norms inform our conscious and unconscious interactions with others regardless of our physical ability to see.
South of Surrender
by Laura KayeShe's the only one who can see through his golden boy façade to the broken god within...Chrysander Notos, Supreme God of the South Wind and Summer, is on a mission: save Eurus from his death sentence, and prove his troubled brother can be redeemed. But Eurus fights back, triggering vicious summer storms that threaten the mortal realm, dangerously drain Chrys, and earn the ire of the Olympic gods who ordered Eurus dead.Laney Summerlyn refuses to give up her grandfather's horse farm, despite her deteriorating vision. More than ever, she needs the organized routine of her life at Summerlyn Stables, until a ferocious storm brings an impossible-and beautiful-creature crashing down from the heavens.Injured while fighting Eurus, Chrys finds himself at the mercy of a mortal woman whose compassion and acceptance he can't resist. As they surrender to the passion flaring between them, immortal enemies close in, forcing Chrys to choose between his brother and the only woman who's ever loved the real him.
Now I See You
by Nicole C. KearAt nineteen years old, Nicole C. Kear's biggest concern is choosing a major--until she walks into a doctor's office in midtown Manhattan and gets a life-changing diagnosis. She is going blind, courtesy of an eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa, and has only a decade or so before Lights Out. Instead of making preparations as the doctor suggests, Kear decides to carpe diem and make the most of the vision she has left. She joins circus school, tears through boyfriends, travels the world, and through all these hi-jinks, she keeps her vision loss a secret.
When Kear becomes a mother, just a few years shy of her vision's expiration date, she amends her carpe diem strategy, giving up recklessness in order to relish every moment with her kids. Her secret, though, is harder to surrender - and as her vision deteriorates, harder to keep hidden. As her world grows blurred, one thing becomes clear: no matter how hard she fights, she won't win the battle against blindness. But if she comes clean with her secret, and comes to terms with the loss, she can still win her happy ending.
Told with humor and irreverence, Now I See You is an uplifting story about refusing to cower at life's curve balls, about the power of love to triumph over fear. But, at its core, it's a story about acceptance: facing the truths that just won't go away, and facing yourself, broken parts and all.
The Story of My Life
by Helen KellerEnriched Classics offer readers accessible editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and commentary. Each book includes educational tools alongside the text, enabling students and readers alike to gain a deeper and more developed understanding of the writer and their work.Left blind, deaf, and mute after an illness in infancy, Helen Keller overcame her disabilities with the help of Anne Sullivan, her inspired teacher. Her classic autobiography, first published in 1903, covers her first twenty-two years, including the memorable moment at a water pump when she first made the connection between the word "water" and the cold liquid flowing over her hand. She also discusses her friendships with Oliver Wendell Holmes and other notables, her education at Radcliffe, her joy at learning to speak, and above all, her extraordinary relationship with her teacher. This deeply moving memoir, full of love and compassion for others, offers an unforgettable portrait of one of the twentieth century's most remarkable women. Enriched Classics enhance your engagement by introducing and explaining the historical and cultural significance of the work, the author's personal history, and what impact this book had on subsequent scholarship. Each book includes discussion questions that help clarify and reinforce major themes and reading recommendations for further research. Read with confidence.
How Late It Was, How Late
by James KelmanA raw, wry vision of human survival in a bureaucratic world, How Late It Was, How Late opens one Sunday morning in Glasgow, Scotland, as Sammy, an ex-convict with a penchant for shoplifting, awakens in a lane and tries to remember the two-day drinking binge that landed him there. Then, things only get worse. Sammy gets in a fight with some soldiers, lands in jail, and discovers that he is completely blind. His girlfriend disappears, the police probe him endlessly, and his stab at Disability Compensation embroils him in the Kafkaesque red tape of the welfare system.
A masterpiece of black humor, subtle political parody, and Scottish lower-class vernacular.
Man Booker Prize winner
Business Owners Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired
by Deborah KendrickThe second title in the exciting Jobs That Matter series written by an award-winning blind journalist, Business Owners Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired demonstrates the wide range of careers and talents that can be pursued by persons with visual impairments. Each profile features a successful individual who has accomplished his or her dream of business ownership and who shares important insights. From a lawyer and an accountant to a florist and a gourmet cook, the range of engaging stories told will inspire young adults with visual impairments and the parents, teachers, and counselors who advise them.
Teachers Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired
by Deborah KendrickThe first volume in the Jobs That Matter series, Teachers Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired profiles 18 visually impaired individuals who have successfully fulfilled their dreams of becoming teachers. Included in this volume are educators of different ages, ethnic backgrounds, and geographic locations across the United States, who work in the classroom in ways that are both surprisingly similar and dramatically different from one another. These engaging individuals demonstrate how visually impaired teachers can be effective in their jobs and achieve classroom success and satisfaction. Designed to inspire young people who are blind or visually impaired, their families, and the professionals who work with them about careers that are available, the books in the Jobs That Matter series are meant to expand readers' horizons by showing a wide range of employment possibilities.