Patricia Smith

Disability and Culture: an International and Inter-professional Perspective Patricia Smith

Publisher Marketing: This book is the first of its kind to specifically look at the issues of how disability is culturally placed and contextualized in different societies. Within, it covers a range of professional, inter-professional, and international perspectives of culture and disability. It also begins to look at the cultural considerations when researching culture and disability. These cutting edge chapters written by leading practitioners, researchers, and academics raise questions and provide answers to some of the critical issues around disability and culture. In their writings, they highlight current and seminal work on this topic while providing clarity on the meaning of disability and culture in a way that opens up debate and provides resolution. This book provides a positive outlook on the topic and makes it accessible to not only academics and professionals, but also service users and students alike. The authors throughout this book largely agree that those living with disability need to be provided for in society and that this is achieved through a cultural understanding of disability in society and an understanding of self. The importance of their comments relating to these concepts are to be noted. Contributor Bio:  Smith, Patricia Patricia Smith is the author of five books of poetry, including Blood Dazzler, a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award, and Teahouse of the Almighty, a National Poetry Series winner, the Best Poetry Book of 2006 on About.com, and a 2007 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and Paterson Poetry Prize winner. Her work has appeared in many literary journals, including Poetry, The Paris Review, and TriQuarterly, and she has received a Pushcart Prize. She is currently at work on a dance/theater production based on Blood Dazzler and the verse memoir Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah. Smith is a professor of English at the City University of New York/College of Staten Island, and is on the faculty of both Cave Canem and the Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine.