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oapen-20.500.12657-893702024-05-30T11:29:27Z The Radical Lives of Helen Keller Nielsen, Kim E. activism biography complex controversial explore first Kellers landscape political thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DN Biography and non-fiction prose::DNB Biography: general::DNBH Biography: historical, political and military thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBF Social and ethical issues::JBFM Disability: social aspects A political biography that reveals new sides to Helen Keller Several decades after her death in 1968, Helen Keller remains one of the most widely recognized women of the twentieth century. But the fascinating story of her vivid political life—particularly her interest in radicalism and anti-capitalist activism—has been largely overwhelmed by the sentimentalized story of her as a young deaf-blind girl. Keller had many lives indeed. Best known for her advocacy on behalf of the blind, she was also a member of the socialist party, an advocate of women's suffrage, a defender of the radical International Workers of the World, and a supporter of birth control—and she served as one of the nation's most effective but unofficial international ambassadors. In spite of all her political work, though, Keller rarely explored the political dimensions of disability, adopting beliefs that were often seen as conservative, patronizing, and occasionally repugnant. Under the wing of Alexander Graham Bell, a controversial figure in the deaf community who promoted lip-reading over sign language, Keller became a proponent of oralism, thereby alienating herself from others in the deaf community who believed that a rich deaf culture was possible through sign language. But only by distancing herself from the deaf community was she able to maintain a public image as a one-of-a-kind miracle. Using analytic tools and new sources, Kim E. Nielsen's political biography of Helen Keller has many lives, teasing out the motivations for and implications of her political and personal revolutions to reveal a more complex and intriguing woman than the Helen Keller we thought we knew. 2024-04-03T10:10:26Z 2024-04-03T10:10:26Z 2004 book ONIX_20240403_9780814759004_88 9780814759004 9780814758137 https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/89370 eng The History of Disability application/pdf application/epub+zip Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International 9780814759004_WEB.pdf 9780814759004_EPUB.epub New York University Press NYU Press 10.18574/nyu/9780814759004.001.0001 10.18574/nyu/9780814759004.001.0001 7d95336a-0494-42b2-ad9c-8456b2e29ddc 9780814759004 9780814758137 NYU Press 1 New York open access
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A political biography that reveals new sides to Helen Keller Several decades after her death in 1968, Helen Keller remains one of the most widely recognized women of the twentieth century. But the fascinating story of her vivid political life—particularly her interest in radicalism and anti-capitalist activism—has been largely overwhelmed by the sentimentalized story of her as a young deaf-blind girl. Keller had many lives indeed. Best known for her advocacy on behalf of the blind, she was also a member of the socialist party, an advocate of women's suffrage, a defender of the radical International Workers of the World, and a supporter of birth control—and she served as one of the nation's most effective but unofficial international ambassadors. In spite of all her political work, though, Keller rarely explored the political dimensions of disability, adopting beliefs that were often seen as conservative, patronizing, and occasionally repugnant. Under the wing of Alexander Graham Bell, a controversial figure in the deaf community who promoted lip-reading over sign language, Keller became a proponent of oralism, thereby alienating herself from others in the deaf community who believed that a rich deaf culture was possible through sign language. But only by distancing herself from the deaf community was she able to maintain a public image as a one-of-a-kind miracle. Using analytic tools and new sources, Kim E. Nielsen's political biography of Helen Keller has many lives, teasing out the motivations for and implications of her political and personal revolutions to reveal a more complex and intriguing woman than the Helen Keller we thought we knew.
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