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The hard parts : a memoir of courage and triumph
The United States' most decorated winter Paralympic or Olympic athlete tells how she overcame Chernobyl disaster-caused physical challenges through sheer determination and a drive to succeed to win the world's best in elite rowing, biathlon, cross-countryskiing, and road cycling competitions.
Book
Jean Paton and the Struggle to Reform American Adoption
Jean Paton (1908-2002) fought tirelessly to reform American adoption and to overcome prejudice against adult adoptees and women who give birth out of wedlock. Paton wrote widely and passionately about the adoption experience, corresponded with policymakers as well as individual adoptees, promoted the psychological well-being of adoptees, and facilitated reunions between adoptees and their birth parents. E. Wayne Carp's masterful biography brings to light the accomplishments of this neglected civil-rights pioneer, who paved the way for the explosive emergence of the adoption reform movement in the 1970s. Her unflagging efforts over five decades helped reverse harmful policies, practices, and laws concerning adoption and closed records, struggles that continue to this day.
eBook
All you can ever know : a memoir
Chung investigates the mysteries and complexities of her transracial adoption in this chronicle of unexpected family for anyone who has struggled to figure out where they belong.
Book
Seeking Sanctuary
Seeking Sanctuary brings together poignant life stories
from fourteen lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)
migrants, refugees and asylum seekers living in Johannesburg. The
stories, diverse in scope, chronicle each narrator's arduous
journey to South Africa, and their corresponding movement towards
self-love and self-acceptance. The narrators reveal their personal
battles to reconcile their faith with their sexuality and gender
identity, often in the face of violent persecution, and how they
have carved out spaces of hope and belonging in their new home
country. In these intimate testimonies, the narrators' resilience
in the midst of uncertain futures reveal the myriad ways in which
LGBT Africans push back against unjust and unequal systems.
Seeking Sanctuary makes a critical intervention by showing
the complex interplay between homophobia and xenophobia in South
Africa, and of the state of sexual orientation and gender identity
(SOGI) rights in Africa. By shedding light on the fraught
connections between sexuality, faith and migration, this
ground-breaking project also provides a model for religious
communities who are working towards justice, diversity and
inclusion.
Seeking Sanctuary brings together poignant life stories
from fourteen lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)
migrants, refugees and asylum seekers living in Johannesburg. The
stories, diverse in scope, chronicle each narrator's arduous
journey to South Africa, and their corresponding movement towards
self-love and self-acceptance. The narrators reveal their personal
battles to reconcile their faith with their sexuality and gender
identity, often in the face of violent persecution, and how they
have carved out spaces of hope and belonging in their new home
country. In these intimate testimonies, the narrators' resilience
in the midst of uncertain futures reveal the myriad ways in which
LGBT Africans push back against unjust and unequal systems.
Seeking Sanctuary makes a critical intervention by showing
the complex interplay between homophobia and xenophobia in South
Africa, and of the state of sexual orientation and gender identity
(SOGI) rights in Africa. By shedding light on the fraught
connections between sexuality, faith and migration, this
ground-breaking project also provides a model for religious
communities who are working towards justice, diversity and
inclusion.
eBook
Lion
\"The miraculous and triumphant story of a young man who rediscovers not only his childhood life and home...but an identity long-since left behind\"-- Provided by publisher.
Surrendered Child
Surrendered Child is Karen Salyer McElmurray's raw, poignant account of her journey from her teen years, when she put her newborn child up for adoption, to adulthood and a desperate search for the son she never knew. In a patchwork narrative interwoven with dark memories from her childhood, McElmurray deftly treads where few dare--into a gritty, honest exploration of the loss a birth mother experiences.
The year was 1973, a time of social upheaval, even in small-town Kentucky, where McElmurray grew up. More than a story of time and place, however, this is about a girl who, at the age of sixteen, relinquished her son at birth. Twenty-five years would pass before McElmurray began sharing this part of her past with others and actively looking for her son.
McElmurray's own troubled upbringing and her quest after a now-fully-grown son are the heart of her story. With unflinching honesty, McElmurray recounts both the painful surrendering and the surprise rediscovery of her son, juxtaposed with her portrayal of her own mother, who could not provide the love she needed. The dramatic result is a story of birthright lost and found--and an exploration of the meaning of motherhood itself.
eBook
A long way home
\"The miraculous and triumphant story of a young man who rediscovers not only his childhood life and home...but an identity long-since left behind\"-- Provided by publisher.
BOOK
Muhammad Is Not the Father of Any of Your Men
The Islamic claim to supersede Judaism and Christianity is embodied in the theological assertion that the office of prophecy is hereditary but that the line of descent ends with Muhammad, who is the seal, or last, of the prophets.While Muhammad had no natural sons who reached the age of maturity, he is said to have adopted a man named Zayd, and mutual rights of inheritance were created between the two. Zayd b. Muhammad, also known as the Beloved of the Messenger of God, was the first adult male to become a Muslim and the only Muslim apart from Muhammad to be named in the Qur'an. But if prophecy is hereditary and Muhammad has a son, David Powers argues, then he might not be the Last Prophet. Conversely, if he is the Last Prophet, he cannot have a son.In Muhammad Is Not the Father of Any of Your Men, Powers contends that a series of radical moves were made in the first two centuries of Islamic history to ensure Muhammad's position as the Last Prophet. He focuses on narrative accounts of Muhammad's repudiation of Zayd, of his marriage to Zayd's former wife, and of Zayd's martyrdom in battle against the Byzantines. Powers argues that theological imperatives drove changes in the historical record and led to the abolition or reform of key legal institutions. In what is likely to be the most controversial aspect of his book, he offers compelling physical evidence that the text of the Qur'an itself was altered.
eBook
Jean Paton and the struggle to reform American adoption
\"Pioneering adoption activist Jean Paton (1908-2002) fought effectively for 50 years to reform American adoption. Paton gave adult adoptees a voice and provided them with a healthy self-image; facilitated thousands of meetings between adult adoptees and their families of origin; fought to open sealed adoption records; and indefatigably explained the adoption experience to a wider public. Paton's ceaseless activity created the preconditions for the explosive emergence of the adoption reform movement in the 1970s. She was also instrumental in the formation of two of the movement's most vital organizations, Concerned United Birthparents and the American Adoption Congress. Using previously unexamined sources, historian E. Wayne Carp offers the first-ever biography of Jean Paton. Beginning in 1951, Paton, a twice-adopted, middle-aged ex-social worker, dedicated her life to overcoming American society's prejudices against adult adoptees and women who give birth out of wedlock. Her unflagging efforts over the next five decades helped reverse social workers' harmful policy and practice concerning adoption and sealed adoption records and change lawmakers' enactment of laws prejudicial to adult adoptees and birth mothers, struggles that continue to this day\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Traces in the History of Swedish Transnational Adoption—A Diffractive Mapping through the Voices of Adoptees and Their Parents
The initial Swedish discourse of transnational adoption as a win-win situation has changed over its more than 60-year-long history. This article aims to trace and present some themes in this history, with a particular focus on the public debate and the different narratives that representatives of the adoption triangle—the adoptees, the adoptive parents, and the biological parents—tell when dealing with transnational and transracial adoption as a personal and political phenomenon. The article draws from an ongoing study of discourses and narratives of transnational adoption based, above all, on journalism, memoirs, governmental documents, and previous research. It attempts to present the contradictory perspectives on transnational adoption to create a diffractive pattern. The diffractive analysis makes it possible to show how the investigated narratives and discourses on transnational adoption change in encounters with experiences made, and even more so, made visible and knowledgeable, in social practices.
Journal Article