front cover of Damned for Their Difference
Damned for Their Difference
The Cultural Construction of Deaf People as Disabled
Jan Branson
Gallaudet University Press, 2002

Until the recent recognition of Deaf culture and the legitimacy of signed languages, majority societies around the world have classified Deaf people as “disabled,” a term that separates all persons so designated from the mainstream in a disparaging way. Damned for Their Difference offers a well-founded explanation of how this discrimination came to be through a discursive exploration of the cultural, social, and historical contexts of these attitudes and behavior toward deaf people, especially in Great Britain.

       Authors Jan Branson and Don Miller examine the orientation toward and treatment of deaf people as it developed from the 17th century through the 20th century. Their wide-ranging study explores the varied constructions of the definition of “disabled,” a term whose meaning hinges upon constant negotiation between parties, ensuring that no finite meaning is ever established. Damned for Their Difference provides a sociological understanding of disabling practices in a way that has never been seen before.

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front cover of Finding Faith
Finding Faith
The Spiritual Quest of the Post-Boomer Generation
Flory, Richard
Rutgers University Press, 2008
Despite the masses still lining up to enter mega-churches with warehouse-like architecture, casually dressed clergy, and pop Christian music, the "Post-Boomer" generation-those ranging in age from twenty to forty-is having second thoughts. In this perceptive look at the evolving face of Christianity in contemporary culture, sociologists Richard Flory and Donald E. Miller argue that we are on the verge of another potential revolution in how Christians worship and associate with one another.

Just as the formative experiences of Baby Boomers were colored by such things as the war in Vietnam, the 1960s, and a dramatic increase in their opportunities for individual expression, so Post-Boomers have grown up in less structured households with working (often divorced) parents. These childhood experiences leave them craving authentic spiritual experience, rather than entertainment, and also cause them to question institutions. Flory and Miller develop a typology that captures four current approaches to the Christian faith and argue that this generation represents a new religious orientation of "expressive communalism," in which they seek spiritual experience and fulfillment in community and through various expressive forms of spirituality, both private and public.
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Homeless Families
THE STRUGGLE FOR DIGNITY
Barry Jay Seltser and Donald E. Miller
University of Illinois Press, 1993
How do homeless people perceive their plight? Specifically, how does their situation affect their sense of personal dignity? In intensive interviews with one hundred adult heads of homeless families, Barry Seltser and Donald Miller ask these questions, previously not dealt with in the growing literature on homelessness. Homeless Families sensitizes readers, challenging them to consider their own moral and social responses to homeless people.
 
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