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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Say No to the Devil
by Ian ZackWho was the greatest of all American guitarists?
You probably didn't name Gary Davis, but many of his musical contemporaries considered him without peer. Bob Dylan called Davis "one of the wizards of modern music. " Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead--who took lessons with Davis--claimed his musical ability "transcended any common notion of a bluesman. " And the folklorist Alan Lomax called him "one of the really great geniuses of American instrumental music. " But you won't find Davis alongside blues legends Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Despite almost universal renown among his contemporaries, Davis lives today not so much in his own work but through covers of his songs by Dylan, Jackson Browne, and many others, as well as in the untold number of students whose lives he influenced.
The first biography of Davis, Say No to the Devil restores "the Rev's" remarkable story. Drawing on extensive research and interviews with many of Davis's former students, Ian Zack takes readers through Davis's difficult beginning as the blind son of sharecroppers in the Jim Crow South to his decision to become an ordained Baptist minister and his move to New York in the early 1940s, where he scraped out a living singing and preaching on street corners and in storefront churches in Harlem.
There, he gained entry into a circle of musicians that included, among many others, Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie, and Dave Van Ronk. But in spite of his tremendous musical achievements, Davis never gained broad recognition from an American public that wasn't sure what to make of his trademark blend of gospel, ragtime, street preaching, and the blues. His personal life was also fraught, troubled by struggles with alcohol, women, and deteriorating health.
Zack chronicles this remarkable figure in American music, helping us to understand how he taught and influenced a generation of musicians.
No Sight - Great Vision
by J. W. WilsonThis text provides a history of the Association for the Blind in Australia.
Overbrook School for the Blind (The Campus History Series)
by Edith WilloughbySince 1832, Overbrook School for the Blind has been a leader in providing educational programs to children and young people who are blind and visually impaired. Julius Friedlander, the schools founder, and other early leaders worked hard to inform people about the educational needs of the children. Their efforts resulted in providing reading material for the blind and Overbrook's production of the first embossed book in America, the Gospel of Mark, and the publication of the first magazine for the blind, Lux en Tenebrae. Offering students access to all educational opportunities continues to be the schools main goal, and in the early 1990s, Overbrook pioneered the development of a school wide technology initiative that provided students with the ability to access the curriculum, communicate, and be successful in employment. Through rare photographs and documents, Overbrook School for the Blind offers a glimpse at the schools role in reaching out to people who are blind and it showcases how Overbrook has helped thousands of students to achieve independence, self-confidence, and the skills to experience active and fulfilling lives.
Home Before Dark
by Susan WiggsShe left her child behind, but couldn't let her goAs an irresponsible young mother, Jessie Ryder knew she'd never be able to give her newborn the stable family that her older sister could, and the security her child deserved. So Luz and her husband adopted little Lila and told her Jessie was but a distant aunt.Sixteen years later, having traveled the world with the winds of remorse at her back, Jessie is suspending her photojournalism career to return home-even if it means throwing her sister's world into turmoil.Where life once seemed filled with boundless opportunity, Jessie is now on a journey to redeem her careless past, bringing with her a terrible burden. Jessie's arrival is destined to expose the secrets and lies that barely held her daughter's adoptive family together to begin with, yet the truth can do so much more than just hurt. It can bring you home to a new kind of honesty, shedding its light into the deepest corners of the heart.
Stumbling Blocks Before The Blind
by Edward WheatleyStumbling Blocks Before the Blind presents the first comprehensive exploration of a disability in the Middle Ages, drawing on the literature, history, art history, and religious discourse of England and France. It relates current theories of disability to the cultural and institutional constructions of blindness in the eleventh through fifteenth centuries, examining the surprising differences in the treatment of blind people and the responses to blindness in these two countries.
The book shows that pernicious attitudes about blindness were partially offset by innovations and ameliorations---social; literary; and, to an extent, medical---that began to foster a fuller understanding and acceptance of blindness. A number of practices and institutions in France, both positive and negative---blinding as punishment, the foundation of hospices for the blind, and some medical treatment---resulted in not only attitudes that commodified human sight but also inhumane satire against the blind in French literature, both secular and religious. Anglo-Saxon and later medieval England differed markedly in all three of these areas, and the less prominent position of blind people in society resulted in noticeably fewer cruel representations in literature. This book will interest students of literature, history, art history, and religion because it will provide clear contexts for considering any medieval artifact relating to blindness---a literary text, a historical document, a theological treatise, or a work of art.
For some readers, the book will serve as an introduction to the field of disability studies, an area of increasing interest both within and outside of the academy. Edward Wheatley is Surtz Professor of Medieval Literature at Loyola University, Chicago.
Touch the Top of the World
by Erik WeihenmayerErik Weihenmayer was born with retinoscheses, a degenerative eye disorder that would leave him blind by the age of thirteen. But Erik was determined to rise above this devastating disability and lead a fulfilling and exciting life. In this poignant and inspiring memoir, he shares his struggle to push past the limits imposed 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 and the father who encouraged him to strive for that distant mountaintop. And he tells the story of his dream to climb the world's Seven Summits, and how he is turning that dream into astonishing reality (something fewer than a hundred mountaineers have done). From the snow-capped summit of McKinley to the towering peaks of Aconcagua and Kilimanjaro to the ultimate challenge, Mount Everest, this is a story about daring to dream in the face of impossible odds. It is about finding the courage to reach for that ultimate summit, and transforming your life into something truly miraculous."I admire you immensely. You are an inspiration to other blind people and plenty of folks who can see just fine." (Jon Krakauer, author of Into Thin Air)
Out of Darkness
by Cindy WatsonShort-listed for the 2011 Golden Oak Award
From the moment three-year-old Jeff Healey first laid a guitar across his lap in what was to become his signature style, it was clear he was no ordinary kid.
Losing both eyes to retinoblastoma, a rare form of cancer, opened a door to another world for Jeff, a newly adopted infant.
Out of darkness he created music, becoming one of the most influential blues-rock and jazz performers of our time, beginning with his first hit album, See the Light.
In this up-close and personal account, loaded with never-before-seen photographs, memorabilia, and intimate recollections of family, friends, and fellow musicians, we discover this unique music icon’s dynamic career, which saw him collaborate with everyone from George Harrison and Eric Clapton to B.B. King and Stevie Ray Vaughan.
From Jeff’s lonely start one snowy night at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Toronto to his untimely end in the same building, we come away with a potent message of empowerment and a renewed sense of hope.
The World in Flames
by Jerald WalkerA memoir of growing up with blind, African-American parents in a segregated cult preaching the imminent end of the world.
When The World in Flames begins, in 1970, Jerry Walker is six years old. His consciousness revolves around being a member of a church whose beliefs he finds not only confusing but terrifying. Composed of a hodgepodge of requirements and restrictions (including a prohibition against doctors and hospitals), the underpinning tenet of Herbert W. Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God was that its members were divinely chosen and all others would soon perish in rivers of flames.
The substantial membership was ruled by fear, intimidation, and threats. Anyone who dared leave the church would endure hardship for the remainder of this life and eternal suffering in the next. The next life, according to Armstrong, would arrive in 1975, three years after the start of the Great Tribulation. Jerry would be eleven years old.
Jerry's parents were particularly vulnerable to the promise of relief from the world's hardships. When they joined the church, in 1960, they were living in a two-room apartment in a dangerous Chicago housing project with the first four of their seven children, and, most significantly, they both were blind, having lost their sight to childhood accidents. They took comfort in the belief that they had been chosen for a special afterlife, even if it meant following a religion with a white supremacist ideology and dutifully sending tithes to Armstrong, whose church boasted more than 100,000 members and more than $80 million in annual revenues at its height.
When the prophecy of the 1972 Great Tribulation does not materialize, Jerry is considerably less disappointed than relieved. When the 1975 end-time prophecy also fails, he finally begins to question his faith and imagine the possibility of choosing a destiny of his own.
How Do you Kiss a Blind Girl?
by Sally Roesch WagnerSally Wagner grew up in Prairie Village, Kan., and received a B.A. in English from Grinnell College. She taught high school English in Lakewood, Colorado, and re ceived an M.A. in journalism from the University of Colorado. She turned from teaching to journalism, but within months came the first signs of what led to blindness three years later.
With Andy, her golden retriever dog guide from the Seeing Eye, she took a public relations post, returned to reporting and collected the anecdotes which drew her back to Prairie Village to write this book. Wagner, 42, now covers a police beat for the Kansas City Times from her Prairie Village apartment.
Zebra Crossing
by Meg VandermerweGhost. Ape. Living dead. Young Chipo has been called many names, but to her mother - Zimbabwe 's most loyal Manchester United supporter - she had always just been Chipo, meaning gift. On the eve of the World Cup, Chipo and her brother flee to Cape Town hoping for a better life and to share in the excitement of the greatest sporting event ever to take place in Africa. But the Mother City's infamous Long Street is a dangerous place for an illegal immigrant and albino. Soon Chipo is caught up in a get-rich-quick scheme organized by her brother and the terrifying Dr Ongani. Exploiting gamblers' superstitions about albinism, they plan to make money and get out before rumors of looming xenophobic attacks become reality. But their scheming has devastating consequences.
The Sound of the Walls
by Jacob TwerskyAs a small child in Poland, Jacob Twersky contracted an illness which left him almost totally blind. His parents hoped that a doctor in the United States could restore their son's sight, and this hope spurred them to emigrate in the mid-1920s. Twersky describes his childhood in Poland and Brooklyn, his years attending a resource room for blind children and a regular high school, and his eventual decision to enroll at a school for the blind. His struggle to accept his blindness is a theme throughout the book, threading its way through his college years, his struggle to find a teaching position, and his courtship and marriage.
The World Through Blunted Sight
by Patrick Trevor-RoperA British ophthalmologist discusses his impressions of visually-impaired artists, including a number of the Impressionists.
Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
by Heather TilleyIn this innovative and important study, Heather Tilley examines the huge shifts that took place in the experience and conceptualisation of blindness during the nineteenth century, and demonstrates how new writing technologies for blind people had transformative effects on literary culture.
Considering the ways in which visually-impaired people used textual means to shape their own identities, the book argues that blindness was also a significant trope through which writers reflected on the act of crafting literary form.
Supported by an illuminating range of archival material (including unpublished letters from Wordsworth's circle, early ophthalmologic texts, embossed books, and autobiographies) this is a rich account of blind people's experience, and reveals the close, and often surprising personal engagement that canonical writers had with visual impairment.
Drawing on the insights of disability studies and cultural phenomenology, Tilley highlights the importance of attending to embodied experience in the production and consumption of texts.
Reviewing Blindness in French Fiction, 1789–2013
by Hannah ThompsonThis book argues that the most interesting depictions of blindness in French fiction are those which call into question and ultimately undermine the prevailing myths and stereotypes of blindness which dominate Western thought. Rather than seeing blindness as an affliction, a tragedy or even a fate worse than death, the authors examined in this study celebrate blindness for its own sake. For them it is a powerful artistic and creative force which offers new and surprising ways of describing, and relating to, reality. Canonical and lesser-known novels from a range of genres, including the roman noir, science fiction, auto-fiction and realism are analyzed in detail to show how the presence of blind characters invites the reader to abandon his or her traditional reliance on the sense of sight and engage with the world in sensual, and hitherto unexpected, ways. This book challenges everything we thought we knew about blindness and invites us to revel in the pleasures and perils of reading blind.
Together
by Tom Sullivan and Betty WhiteFrom the book "If this dog loves me enough to lay down his life for my survival, how can I just give up?" One misstep on a mountain climbing trip plunged Brenden McCarthy into darkness by stealing his sight and everything else he held dear. But a too-independent guide dog named Nelson just might lead him back to life . . . if they don't kick him out of guide dog school first. Brenden can't accept the fact that he's lost his sight. And Nelson can't accept that he's been paired with someone other than his former master. Just as Brenden starts to live again, a devastating setback causes him to try to end it all. Brenden releases Nelson and sits down in the middle of an intersection. At that moment, everything changes when Nelson freely decides he'd rather join Brenden in death than live without him. Now they need a leap of faith and a love beyond words to make it.
As I See It
by Tom SullivanAn inspirational memoir of a man's rich life experiences without sight, but with an enormous sense of wonder in the world around him. Bestselling author Tom Sullivan explores life without sight and finds it rich and rewarding. In fact, he's gleaned a number of gifts from his "affliction," including: * I've never assessed my relationship with people according to the limits of labels or assumption. * I've enjoyed a world of senses available to all of us but almost never explored by the majority of those with sight. * I've made challenge my road to limitless opportunity. * I've cultivated a clear sense of my own purpose. * I've learned to be passionate, celebrating my own uniqueness through the expression of that passion. * I've found a powerful faith that has become my foundation for living. * I've learned to love unconditionally through the interdependent relationship I share with my wife, Patty, and my children. Through insightful stories and emotive writing, Tom describes a life of fullness, not lack, as he's made blindness a positive. For Tom Sullivan--author, actor, athlete, singer, entertainer, and producer--a life with blindness has been a life with very few true limits. In this elegant exploration of the senses, he considers the different challenges he's faced and explains the wonder he carries because, not in spite, of his blindness.
Adventures in Darkness
by Tom SullivanIn Adventures in Darkness, Tom Sullivan takes readers through the adventures of his monumental eleventh year. Blind since birth, Tom lived in a challenging world of isolation and special treatment. But he was driven to break out and live as sighted people do. This book is a hair-raising, heart-warming experience that culminates in Tom's reliance upon God to realize his dreams of a "normal" life.
Lights Out
by L SubramaniAn inspirational book about one man's (L Subramani) descent into blindness and his fight to live a normal life after it.
Behind Our Eyes
by Marilyn Brandt SmithLaugh with the blind guy who gets in the wrong car and almost gets arrested. Cry with the little girl whose parents resent her blindness so much that they constantly break her spirit. Rejoice over battles won against burglars, abusive spouses, self-doubt, and health care personnel who keep forgetting their patient can't see. Reflect on the issues of employment, acceptance, independent travel, and the appreciation of nature and other hobbies. This anthology attempts to bridge the gap between how disabled people are viewed by society and how they really live. Read about the writers' workshop, and join the group if you enjoy writing.
The One He's Been Looking For
by Joanna SimsHe'd finally discovered his muse...just as he was losing his sight. Joanna Sims tells the romantic story of a closed-off photographer who opens up for the love he's always needed in her latest book, The One He's Been Looking For! World-famous photographer Ian Sterling had been searching for the perfect woman. And when he finally spotted Jordan Brand he simply had to have her. Her photos would mark his final work. His life as he knew it was slipping through his fingers. The man who bestowed beauty on the world was losing his sight. For rebellious artist Jordan, becoming someone's inspiration should have been laughable. Yet being with Ian made her ridiculously happy. Knowing of the difficult road he was traveling made her love him even more. But Ian refused to pass his disorder along to children-leaving Jordan to choose between the man who held her heart and the family she'd always wanted....
The German Numbers Woman
by Alan SillitoeBlind Howard, an ex-RAF veteran, possesses an acute sense of #awareness, and can see almost better than the sighted. Morse code patterns his universe and keeps his #mind tuned to the big and sometimes bad world. Noble Laura, his doting wife, is loveliness personified. Then Howard becomes acquainted with the nefarious Richard, and soon the idyll of his life with Laura starts to crack. Morse is the common denominator in the alliance. But before long, Howard and his world of dots and dashes, dits and dans, takes on new darker horizons when he clicks into a drugs racket. Howard, the codebreaker, becomes Howard the buccaneer. He leaves lovely Laura for a wild voyage in search of a woman whose voice he has fallen in love with: and a sea-journey with maverick sailors on a heroin heist. Siletoe inhabits Howards unseeing world with absolute conviction, providing a wealth of telling detail about a blind persons skilful negotiation of his everyday surroundings
Fire in My Eyes
by Brad Snyder and Tom Sileo"I am not going to let my blindness build a brick wall around me. I'd give my eyes one hundred times again to have the chance to do what I have done, and what I can still do."-Brad Snyder speaking with First Lady Michelle Obama
On the night Osama bin Laden was killed, US Navy Lieutenant Brad Snyder was serving in Afghanistan as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal officer with SEAL Team Ten. When he learned of SEAL Team Six's heroics across the Pakistani border, Brad was thankful. Still, he knew that his dangerous combat deployment would continue.
Less than five months later, Brad was engulfed by darkness after a massive blast caused by an enemy improvised explosive device. Suddenly Brad was blind, with vivid dreams serving as painful nightly reminders of his sacrifice.
Exactly one year after losing his sight, Brad heard thousands cheer as he stood on a podium in London. Incredibly, Brad had just won a gold medal in swimming at the 2012 Paralympic Games.
Fire in My Eyes is the astonishing true story of a wounded veteran who refused to give up. Lieutenant Brad Snyder did not let blindness build a wall around him-through tenacity and courage, he tore it down.
Blindness Should Not Be a Burden
by Archie R. SilagoArchie Silago is a member of the Navajo Nation. Archie was born in 1951 at Crownpoint, New Mexico. At 17, a detached retina left him blind in his right eye; five years later he suffered the same fate in his left eye and became completely blind.
Eventually, he decided to attend college. He received his Bachelor s Degree in Psychology from New Mexico State University, completed a Master s Degree in Counseling at Western New Mexico University and became a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC). Today he is pursuing his PhD in Psychology. This memoir is intended to inspire and motivate other individuals with disabilities to help themselves to move forward with life.
Lullaby of Birdland
by George Shearing and Alyn ShiptonBritish pianist George Shearing emigrated to the United States in 1947, going on to achieve success in an American jazz world impressed with the accomplishments of the blind musician. In his autobiography he narrates his childhood, his beginnings in music, and his activities and encounters in the world of jazz. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)