Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals develop their identities within environments that convey and reinforce preconceived assumptions of disability and... of deafness, thereby encouraging particular ways of accommodating individuals' hearing status. These assumptions ultimately influence the evolution of their identities and in turn their psychological well-being. This notion is particularly important within societies that frame deaf or hard-of-hearing persons as living in a "prison of silence" (a metaphor the media uses frequently when extolling the virtues of cochlear implants) or which view them in one-dimensional perspectives-- rather than recognizing that there are many ways to be deaf or hard-of-hearing. Many factors, some ever-present and some that have emerged in recent years, impact the unique identities of deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals today. These factors, which are explored in A Lens on Deaf Identities, include explanatory paradigms that frame how deaf and hard-of-hearing people are understood within the context of disability and sociolinguistics; the relatively recent formal recognition of a Deaf culture and the emergence of bicultural frames of reference; the appearance of deaf identity theories in the psychological literature; the influence of families and schools, historical and social contexts; the acknowledgement of diversity in this population; and the technology that affects the identity of deaf people in potentially unexpected ways (e.g., cochlear implants as bionic ears, telecommunications that bring deaf people together with each other as well as with hearing people, and advances in genetics with implications for parental decision-making about hearing status and the acceptability of hearing differences). This book uses personal experiences, theoretical formulations, and research data to examine interfaces within and between each of these areas and how the tensions emerging at these junctures influence deaf and hard-of-hearing identity formation in complex, multifaceted ways that defy pervasive stereotypes of deaf and hard-of-hearing persons. A Lens on Deaf Identities will appeal to students and professional researchers in deaf studies and deaf education, as well as those interested in identity formation in the presence of "disability".

This new Hebrew book for adult learners is ground breaking in its structure and as an effective educational tool. This superb new text was created by... Rabbi Linda Motzkin in consultation with key figures in the field of Hebrew education. Piloted in a sample of Reform congregations throughout the country, the book is the first step in a program of Hebrew learning for adults. Drawing upon the particular knowledge that the individual reader brings to the material, one is carefully introduced to the letters and vowels of the Hebrew alphabet. The goal is to develop the reader's ability to decode written Hebrew words as well as to ground the learning of Hebrew in the broader sense of its use in Jewish life, ritual, study, and tradition.

From the author of A Gathering of Old Men and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman comes a deep and compassionate novel. A young man who returns to... 1940s Cajun country to teach visits a black youth on death row for a crime he didn't commit. Together they come to understand the heroism of resisting.

Ever since humankind raised its head toward the heavens in search of universal understanding and spiritual fulfilment, wars, pogroms, persecution,... prejudice, and contempt have been the means of resolving the many and varied disagreements that have arisen over matters religious. In his "Letter Concerning Toleration", Locke offers a compelling plea for freedom of conscience and religious expression. He outlines the limits of social and political incursion into the realm of personal belief or non-belief, discusses the dangers of mixing church and state, and strikes hard at those who would use the power of the state to fulfil religious or political goals.Rational persuasion is always to be encouraged in the hope that wayward souls may find a moral direction in life, but the use of force in such matters is unwarranted and unacceptable. Locke also addresses the question of denominational infighting and relations among the major religions. Talk of heresy and schism should be set aside in favour of understanding and co-operation to achieve mutually desirable social ends.

A Letter Concerning Toleration and Other Writings brings together the principal writings on religious toleration and freedom of expression by one of the... greatest philosophers in the Anglophone tradition: John Locke. The son of Puritans, Locke (1632–1704) became an Oxford academic, a physician, and, through the patronage of the Earl of Shaftesbury, secretary to the Council of Trade and Plantations and to the Lords Proprietors of Carolina. A colleague of Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton and a member of the English Royal Society, Locke lived and wrote at the dawn of the Enlightenment, a period during which traditional mores, values, and customs were being questioned.This volume opens with Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) and also contains his earlier Essay Concerning Toleration (1667), extracts from the Third Letter for Toleration (1692), and a large body of his briefer essays and memoranda on this theme. As editor Mark Goldie writes in the introduction, A Letter Concerning Toleration "was one of the seventeenth century's most eloquent pleas to Christians to renounce religious persecution." Locke's contention, fleshed out in the Essay and in the Third Letter, that men should enjoy a perfect and "uncontrollable liberty" in matters of religion was shocking to many in seventeenth-century England. Still more shocking, perhaps, was its corollary, that the magistrate had no standing in matters of religion. Taken together, these works forcefully present Locke's belief in the necessary interrelation between limited government and religious freedom. At a time when the world is again having to come to terms with profound tensions among diverse religions and cultures, they are a canonical statement of the case for religious and intellectual freedom.This Liberty Fund edition provides the first fully annotated modern edition of A Letter Concerning Toleration, offering the reader explanatory guidance to Locke's rich reservoir of references and allusions. The introduction, a chronology of Locke's life, and a reading guide further equip the reader with historical, theological, and philosophical contexts for understanding one of the world's major thinkers on toleration, who lived and wrote at the close of Europe's Reformation and the dawn of the Enlightenment.This book is the first volume in Liberty Fund's Thomas Hollis Library series. As general editor David Womersley explains, Thomas Hollis (1720–1774) was a businessman and philanthropist who gathered books he thought were essential to the understanding of liberty and donated them to libraries in Europe and America in the years preceding the American Revolution.John Locke (1632–1704) was an English philosopher and physician.Mark Goldie is Reader in British Intellectual History, University of Cambridge and is co-editor of The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450–1700 and editor of John Locke: Two Treatises of Government and John Locke: Political Essays.David Womersley is Thomas Warton Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford. His most recent book is Divinity and State.

Ever since humankind raised its head toward the heavens in search of universal understanding and spiritual fulfilment, wars, pogroms, persecution,... prejudice, and contempt have been the means of resolving the many and varied disagreements that have arisen over matters religious. In his "Letter Concerning Toleration", Locke offers a compelling plea for freedom of conscience and religious expression. He outlines the limits of social and political incursion into the realm of personal belief or non-belief, discusses the dangers of mixing church and state, and strikes hard at those who would use the power of the state to fulfil religious or political goals.Rational persuasion is always to be encouraged in the hope that wayward souls may find a moral direction in life, but the use of force in such matters is unwarranted and unacceptable. Locke also addresses the question of denominational infighting and relations among the major religions. Talk of heresy and schism should be set aside in favour of understanding and co-operation to achieve mutually desirable social ends.

A powerful wake-up call to all AmericansWith a new postscript that urges political bipartisanship, optimism, and actionWith only 6 percent of the... world’s population, how long will the United States remain a global superpower? The answer, David Boren tells us in A Letter to America, depends on asking ourselves tough questions. A powerful wake-up call to Americans, A Letter to America, forces us to take a bold, objective look at ourselves.In A Letter to America, Boren explains with unsparing clarity why the country is at a crossroads and why decisive action is urgently needed and offers us an ambitious, hopeful plan.What the country needs, Boren asserts, are major reforms to restore the ability of our political system to act responsibly. By relying on our shared values, we can replace cynicism with hope and strengthen our determination to build a better future. We must fashion a post–Cold War foreign policy that fits twenty-first-century realities—including multiple contending superpowers. We must adopt campaign finance reform that curbs the influence of special interests and restores political power to the voters. Universal health care coverage, budget deficit reduction, affordable higher education, and a more progressive tax structure will strengthen the middle class.Boren also describes how we can renew our emphasis on quality primary and secondary education, revitalize our spirit of community, and promote volunteerism. He urges the teaching of more American history and government, for without educated citizens our system cannot function and our rights will not be preserved. Unless we understand how we became great, we will not remain great.The plan Boren puts forward is optimistic and challenges Americans to look into the future, decide what we want to be and where we want to go, and then implement the policies and actions we need to take us there.

A Letter to America boldly faces the question of how long the United States, with only six percent of the world's population, can remain a global... superpower. University of Oklahoma president David Boren explains with unsparing clarity why the country is at a crossroads and why decisive action is urgently needed. He draws on his experiences as the longest-serving chair of the U.S. Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence and as a state governor and leader of a major public university. Boren asserts major reforms to restore the ability of our political system to act responsibly. We have shared values, and we should use them to replace cynicism with hope and the determination to build a better future. Bipartisan cooperation on behalf of national interests needs to replace destructive partisanship, and we should not rule out electing a president independent of both existing parties. We must fashion a post-Cold War foreign policy that fits twenty-first-century realities--including several contending superpowers. We must adopt campaign finance reform that restores political power to the voters, rather than special interests. Universal health care coverage, budget deficit reduction, affordable higher education, and a more progressive tax structure will strengthen the middle class. Boren also describes how we can renew our emphasis on quality primary and secondary education, revitalize our spirit of community, and promote volunteerism. He urges the teaching of more American history and government, for without educated citizens our system cannot function and our rights will not be preserved. Unless we understand how we became great, we will not remain great. The plan Boren puts forward is ambitious and hopeful. It challenges Americans to look into the future, decide what we want to be and where we want to go, and then implement the policies and actions we need to take us there.

"Teaching after all is about knowing children well"—from A Letter to Teachers"Perrone has given us a gift, a book worth reading over many times, an... important reflection on his many years of close observation of schools and school people, parents, teachers, children, and their communities."—Deborah W. Meier, principal, Central Park East Secondary SchoolSimple, elegant and full of common sense, these reflections on the art of teaching address the deepest concerns teachers have for their work with children and young people.

Mary Robinson's A Letter to the Women of England (1799) is a radical response to the rampant anti-feminist sentiment of the late 1790s. In this work,... Robinson encourages her female contemporaries to throw off the "glittering shackles" of custom and to claim their rightful places as the social and intellectual equals of men. Separately published in the same year, Robinson's novel The Natural Daughter follows the story of Martha Morley, who defies her husband's authority, adopts a found infant, is barred from her husband's estate and is driven to seek work as an actress and author. The novel implicitly links and critiques domestic tyrants in England and Jacobin tyrants in France. This edition also includes: other writings by Mary Robinson (tributes, and an excerpt from The Progress of Liberty); writings by contemporaries on women, society, and revolution; and contemporary reviews of both works.

In June 1942, seven months after attacking Pearl Harbor, the Japanese navy invaded Alaska's Aleutian Islands. For nine thousand years the Aleut people... had lived and thrived on these treeless, windswept lands. Within days of the first attack, the entire native population living west of Unimak Island was gathered up and evacuated to relocation centers in the dense forests of Alaska's Southeast. With resilience, compassion, and humor, the Aleuts responded to the sorrows of upheaval and dislocation. This is the story of Vera, a young Aleut caught up in the turmoil of war. It chronicles her struggles to survive and to keep community and heritage intact despite harsh conditions in an alien environment.