To be human means to resist dehumanization. In the darkest periods of human history, men and women have risen up and in many different voices said this one thing: “Do not treat me like this. Treat me like the human being that I am.” Claiming Her Dignity explores a number of stories from the Old Testament in which women in a variety of creative ways resist the violence of war, rape, heterarchy, and poverty. Amid the life-denying circumstances that seek to attack, violate, and destroy the bodies and psyches of women, men, and children, the women featured in this book absolutely refuse to succumb to the explicit, and at times subtle but no less harmful, manifestations of violence that they face.
This book defies easy categorization but will be one of the most original, thoughtful, and genuinely interesting books published next year. Before the author's mother died, she asked her daughter, Drucilla, to write a book 'that would bear witness to the dignity of her death [and one that] her bridge class would be able to understand.' As if that wasn't difficult enough, Drucilla's mother, who had a degenerative disease, decided to end her life by ingesting a lethal cocktail of drugs. Drucilla was in the unenviable position of bearing witness to her mother's act. Unsentimental yet poignant, candid and courageous, this is the book that Drucilla promised her mother she'd write. Unlike her earlier academically-oriented books, Between Women and Generations is an intensely personal narrative which interweaves the personal and political decisions Drucilla's made throughout her life. She uses the personal as a springboard to talk about larger philosophical issues such as how one achieves dignity in life and in death, and the nature of intergenerational relationships between women. Drucilla speaks candidly of her relationship with her mother, about her decision to adopt a non-Western child, and about her commitment to UNITY, a cooperative of house cleaners in Long Island, New York. This book will resonate strongly with Western women.
Is it impossible to assess dignity, the agency of autonomy and equality of rights under the current rule of law, when we are met by global challenges like climate change, financial crisis, food crisis, natural disasters, inequality, violent conflicts and trade disputes? Drawing on European philosophical enlightenment to rethink dominant theories of contemporary Western Human Rights, Stephan P. Leher explores the philosophical foundation of the concept of ‘dignity’ and Human Rights. Using specific examples from Africa and Latin America to explain these concepts as social realizations in the world, Leher demonstrates the link between justice and peace and contends that dignity, freedom and Human Rights law rule are social realizations and claims by all people. He argues that sentences and propositions about social choices and realizations of real life expressed in ordinary language constitutes the basic element for the foundation and protection of human dignity and Human Rights. The social choice to claim one’s freedom and right can be considered as the dignity agency of the individual. Dignity and Human Rights sheds new light on the academic assessment of dignity, the agency of autonomy and equality of rights under a rule of law in a time of changes and challenges of human rights policies and politics.
(Book 1 in the Determination Trilogy) He wants it back… My name is Kevin Markos, former anchor for Full News Broadcasting. I say former, because an exhaustion- and frustration-fueled emotional on-air meltdown of apocalyptic proportions means my previously dignified reputation and successful career as a highly respected conservative TV news host and commentator lay in smoking, irreparable ruins. Only one person will hire me now, and it's the last person I want to work for—Democratic Senator ShaeLynn Samuels, who's determined to be the next president of the United States. My reluctance isn't because of her, but because of who's working for her: Christopher Bruunt, the head of her Secret Service detail. A college spring break trip I thought was safely hidden forever in my past, even if it never strayed far from my thoughts, now comes back to haunt me. But if I take this job and succeed, it could resurrect my career and put me at the right hand of the most powerful person in the United States. But how much am I personally willing to sacrifice to claw my way back to the top? Because Christopher never forgot that spring break, either. And he has a few agendas of his own. This MMF contemporary political romance features older main characters, second-chance love, an Alpha Secret Service agent, power exchange, pining, frenemies to lovers, a secret workplace romance at the highest levels of our nation's government, political intrigue, and a satisfying HEA. Book 1 of the Determination Trilogy, a standalone spin-off trilogy set in the world of the Governor Trilogy, the Devastation Trilogy, and others.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER "A profound book.... It will break your heart but also leave you with hope." —J.D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy "[A] deeply empathetic book." —The Economist With stark photo essays and unforgettable true stories, Chris Arnade cuts through "expert" pontification on inequality, addiction, and poverty to allow those who have been left behind to define themselves on their own terms. After abandoning his Wall Street career, Chris Arnade decided to document poverty and addiction in the Bronx. He began interviewing, photographing, and becoming close friends with homeless addicts, and spent hours in drug dens and McDonald's. Then he started driving across America to see how the rest of the country compared. He found the same types of stories everywhere, across lines of race, ethnicity, religion, and geography. The people he got to know, from Alabama and California to Maine and Nevada, gave Arnade a new respect for the dignity and resilience of what he calls America's Back Row--those who lack the credentials and advantages of the so-called meritocratic upper class. The strivers in the Front Row, with their advanced degrees and upward mobility, see the Back Row's values as worthless. They scorn anyone who stays in a dying town or city as foolish, and mock anyone who clings to religion or tradition as naïve. As Takeesha, a woman in the Bronx, told Arnade, she wants to be seen she sees herself: "a prostitute, a mother of six, and a child of God." This book is his attempt to help the rest of us truly see, hear, and respect millions of people who've been left behind.
Focused on the more practical level, volume 2 seeks to understand the work dignity may do as a foundation for law, how it is related to religious liberty, and how we should adjudicate religious liberty disputes at the individual and corporate level. What is the sphere of human dignity that the law should be trying to protect? Is the role of dignity helpful as a foundational legal concept, and if so, how exactly? What is the status of religious liberty as a component of human dignity, and how is it to be balanced with other individual rights, such as freedom of expression? And finally, to what extent can the law adjudicate corporate religious claims?
The relation between changes in society over historical time and the concomitant transformation of a concept that depicts something of intrinsic value in that society is complex and contingent. Social Thought and Rival Claims to the Moral Ideal of Dignity attempts to see if we can get any closer to a rounded, three-dimensional view of dignity by drawing on the historical record, on philosophy and social thought more widely and, finally, on contributions that present dignity in a rather more public and political light. In thus tracing the fortunes of human dignity we find that it has not always been viewed as a straightforwardly laudable principle. Social Thought and Rival Claims to the Moral Ideal of Dignity examines the reasons behind what turns out to be, really quite pronounced, the ambiguous status of the idea and ideal of dignity.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK • From a leading voice on racial justice, an eye-opening account of growing up Black, Christian, and female that exposes how white America’s love affair with “diversity” so often falls short of its ideals. “Austin Channing Brown introduces herself as a master memoirist. This book will break open hearts and minds.”—Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Untamed Austin Channing Brown’s first encounter with a racialized America came at age seven, when she discovered her parents named her Austin to deceive future employers into thinking she was a white man. Growing up in majority-white schools and churches, Austin writes, “I had to learn what it means to love blackness,” a journey that led to a lifetime spent navigating America’s racial divide as a writer, speaker, and expert helping organizations practice genuine inclusion. In a time when nearly every institution (schools, churches, universities, businesses) claims to value diversity in its mission statement, Austin writes in breathtaking detail about her journey to self-worth and the pitfalls that kill our attempts at racial justice. Her stories bear witness to the complexity of America’s social fabric—from Black Cleveland neighborhoods to private schools in the middle-class suburbs, from prison walls to the boardrooms at majority-white organizations. For readers who have engaged with America’s legacy on race through the writing of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Michael Eric Dyson, I’m Still Here is an illuminating look at how white, middle-class, Evangelicalism has participated in an era of rising racial hostility, inviting the reader to confront apathy, recognize God’s ongoing work in the world, and discover how blackness—if we let it—can save us all.
In this work, Carol V.A. Quinn (re)constructs the survivors’ arguments in the debate concerning the ethics of using Nazi medical data, showing what it would mean to take their claims seriously. She begins with a historical case and presents arguments that help make sense of the following claims: 1) Using the data harms the survivors by violating their dignity; 2) The survivors are the “living data,” and so when we use the data we use them; 3) The data is really, not merely symbolically, evil and we become morally tainted when we engage it; and 4) The survivors are the real moral experts in this debate, and so we should take seriously what they say. Quinn’s approach is interdisciplinary, incorporating philosophy, psychology, trauma research, survivors’ testimony, Holocaust poetry, literature, and the Hebrew Bible.
In everything from philosophical ethics to legal argument to public activism, it has become commonplace to appeal to the idea of human dignity. In such contexts, the concept of dignity typically signifies something like the fundamental moral status belonging to all humans. Remarkably, however, it is only in the last century that this meaning of the term has become standardized. Before this, dignity was instead a concept associated with social status. Unfortunately, this transformation remains something of a mystery in existing scholarship. Exactly when and why did "dignity" change its meaning? And before this change, was it truly the case that we lacked a conception of human worth akin to the one that "dignity" now represents? In this volume, leading scholars across a range of disciplines attempt to answer such questions by clarifying the presently murky history of "dignity," from classical Greek thought through the Middle Ages and Enlightenment to the present day.
