Gary L. Albrecht is a Fellow of the Royal Belgian Academy of Arts and Sciences, Extraordinary Guest Professor of Social Sciences, University of Leuven, Belgium and Professor Emeritus of Public Health and of Disability and Human Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago. After receiving his Ph.D. from Emory University, he has served on the faculties of Emory University in Sociology and Psychiatry, Northwestern University in Sociology, Rehabilitation Medicine and the Kellogg School of Management and the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) in the School of Public Health and in the Department of Disability and Human Development. Since retiring from the UIC in 2005, he divides his time between Europe and the United States. He works in Boulder, Colorado and Brussels, Belgium. He was recently a Scholar in Residence at the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (MSH) in Paris, a visiting Fellow at Nuffield College, the University of Oxford and a Fellow in Residence at the Royal Flemish Academy of Science and Arts, Brussels
This remarkable book is unlike any other I have reviewed, for a variety of reasons. Firstly, at 700 pages and with 34 chapters, the sheer scale of the collection is vast. The editors state that the book is not definitive, but represents a creative work in progress. However, the collection certainly provides a unique insight into the current debates and issues which frame disability studies, combining a variety of different backgrounds and a diverse range of experiences, and this manifests in the way that the chapters range across academic disciplines. Consequently, the book is aimed at a wide audience including disabled people, practitioners, academics and those involved in forming social welfare policies' - Medical Sociology News 'This text is truly a welcome reference book to any desk, library or organization where people are interested in this field or working with people with a disability' - Nursing & Residential Care 'This text is truly a welcome reference book to any desk, library or organization where people are interested in this field or working with people with a disability' - Nursing & Residential Care The path-breaking Handbook of Disability Studies signals the emergence of a vital new area of scholarship, social policy and activism. Drawing on the insights of disability scholars around the world and the creative advice of an international editorial board, the book engages the reader in the critical issues and debates framing disability studies and places them in an historical and cultural context. Five years in the making, this one volume summarizes the ongoing discourse ranging across continents and traditional academic disciplines. The Handbook answers the need expressed by the disability community for a thought provoking, interdisciplinary, international examination of the vibrant field of disability studies. The book is of interest to disabled people, scholars, policy makers and activists alike. The book defines the existing field, stimulates future debate, encourages respectful discourse between different interest groups and moves the field forward.
