Audiobooks narrated by Kaliswa Brewster

The Question of Unworthy Life: Eugenics and Germany's Twentieth Century

This audiobook narrated by Kaliswa Brewster reveals the dark history of eugenic thought in Germany from the nineteenth century to today—and the courageous countervoices Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi genocide claimed the lives of nearly three hundred thousand people diagnosed with psychiatric illness or cognitive deficiencies. Not until the 1980s would these murders, as well as the coercive sterilizations of some four hundred thousand others classified as 'feeble-minded,' be officially acknowledged as crimes at all. The Question of Unworthy Life charts this history from its origins in prewar debates about the value of disabled lives to our continuing efforts to unlearn eugenic thinking today. Drawing on a wealth of rare archival evidence, Dagmar Herzog sheds light on how Germany became the only modern state to implement a plan to eradicate cognitive impairment from the entire body politic. She traces how eugenics emerged from the flawed premise that intellectual deficiency was biologically hereditary, and how this crude explanatory framework diverted attention from the actual economic and clinical causes of disability. Herzog describes how the vilification of the disabled was dressed up as the latest science and reveals how Christian leaders and prominent educators were complicit in amplifying and legitimizing Nazi policies. Exposing the driving forces behind the Third Reich's first genocide and its persistent legacy today, The Question of Unworthy Life recovers the stories of the unsung advocates for disability rights who challenged the aggressive victimization of the disabled and developed alternative approaches to cognitive impairment based on ideals of equality, mutuality, and human possibility.

Dagmar Herzog (Author), Kaliswa Brewster (Narrator)

Audiobook

ResearcHER: The Power and Potential of Research Careers for Women

Not all research careers look the same. Not all academics spend their working lives in labs, or dark offices surrounded by dusty books. A research career can mean working in theatres or schools, influencing policy, working with the world’s leading brands and businesses, and much, much more. Showing the true diversity of scholarship, and the women leading the way, ResearcHER offers an A-Z of research and researchers from around the world, exploring who researchers are and what they really do, all whilst celebrating female scholarship. Each short chapter offers an insight into a real-life researcher, their background and journey into a research career, what they’re currently researching, their top tips for budding researchers, and fun facts and activities to explore yourself. ResearcHER smashes stereotypes to show you that research is not just conducted by men and women in lab coats or stuck in stuffy offices; researchers are women from all backgrounds, researchers come from diverse geographies, are disabled and able-bodied, are transgender, nonbinary, queer. Researchers look just like you, and you could be one too.

Women In Academia Support Network (wiasn) (Author), Anu Anand, Dorothea Sawczuk, Kaliswa Brewster, Kelly Pickard-Smith, Lyndsay Muir, Marnie Chesterton, Nneka Okoye, Sarah Aubrey, Seema Bowri, Steph Bower, Summaya Mughai (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Sky Is for Everyone: Women Astronomers in Their Own Words

This inspiring audiobook shares the stories of trailblazing women astronomers from around the globe Features a prelude, chapter introductions, and postlude read by Kaliswa Brewster With additional narration by Marnie Chesterton, Katherine Fenton, Pooneh Ghoddoosi, and Kate Harper The Sky Is for Everyone is an internationally diverse collection of autobiographical narratives by women who broke down barriers and changed the face of modern astronomy. This audiobook vividly describes how, before 1900, a woman who wanted to study the stars had to have a father, brother, or husband to provide entry, and how the considerable intellectual skills of women astronomers were still not enough to enable them to pry open doors of opportunity for much of the twentieth century. After decades of difficult struggles, women are closer to equality in astronomy than ever before. Here are the stories of the tough and determined women who flung the doors wide open. Taking readers from 1960 to today, this triumphant anthology serves as an inspiration to current and future generations of women scientists while giving voice to the history of a transformative era in astronomy. With contributions by Neta Bahcall, Beatriz Barbuy, Ann Merchant Boesgaard, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Catherine Cesarsky, Poonam Chandra, Xuefei Chen, Yilen Gómez Maqueo Chew, Cathie Clarke, Judith Gamora Cohen, France Anne Córdova, Anne Pyne Cowley, Bożena Czerny, Wendy L. Freedman, Gabriela González, Saeko S. Hayashi, Martha Patricia Haynes, Roberta Humphreys, Vicky Kalogera, Gillian Knapp, Shazrene S. Mohamed, Carole Mundell, Priyamvada Natarajan, Dara Norman, Hiranya Peiris, Judith Lynn Pipher, Dina Prialnik, Anneila I. Sargent, Sara Seager, Gražina Tautvaišienė, Silvia Torres-Peimbert, Virginia Trimble, Meg Urry, Ewine F. van Dishoeck, Patricia Ann Whitelock, Sidney Wolff, and Rosemary F. G. Wyse.

David A. Weintraub, Tbd, Virginia Trimble (Author), Kaliswa Brewster, Kate Harper, Katherine Fenton, Marnie Chesterton, Pooneh Ghoddoosi (Narrator)

Audiobook

Now Comes Good Sailing: Writers Reflect on Henry David Thoreau

This audiobook brings together original pieces on Thoreau by twenty-seven of today's leading writers With narration by William Hope, Barbara Barnes, Kaliswa Brewster, Kate Harper, Peter Marinker, and Ako Mitchell Features essays by Jennifer Finney Boylan • Kristen Case • George Howe Colt • Gerald Early • Paul Elie • Will Eno • Adam Gopnik • Lauren Groff • Celeste Headlee • Pico Iyer • Alan Lightman • James Marcus • Megan Marshall • Michelle Nijhuis • Zoë Pollak • Jordan Salama • Tatiana Schlossberg • A. O. Scott • Mona Simpson • Stacey Vanek Smith • Wen Stephenson • Robert Sullivan • Amor Towles • Sherry Turkle • Geoff Wisner • Rafia Zakaria • and a cartoon by Sandra Boynton The world is never done catching up with Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), the author of Walden, “Civil Disobedience,” and other classics. A prophet of environmentalism and vegetarianism, an abolitionist, and a critic of materialism and technology, Thoreau even seems to have anticipated a world of social distancing in his famous experiment at Walden Pond. In Now Comes Good Sailing, twenty-seven of today’s leading writers offer wide-ranging original pieces exploring how Thoreau has influenced and inspired them—and why he matters more than ever in an age of climate, racial, and technological reckoning. Here, Lauren Groff retreats from the COVID-19 pandemic to a rural house and writing hut, where, unable to write, she rereads Walden; Pico Iyer describes how Thoreau provided him with an unlikely guidebook to Japan; Gerald Early examines Walden and the Black quest for nature; Rafia Zakaria reflects on solitude, from Thoreau’s Concord to her native Pakistan; Mona Simpson follows in Thoreau’s footsteps at Maine’s Mount Katahdin; Jennifer Finney Boylan reads Thoreau in relation to her experience of coming out as a trans woman; Adam Gopnik traces Thoreau’s influence on the New Yorker editor E. B. White and his book Charlotte’s Web; and there’s much more. The result is a lively and compelling collection that richly demonstrates the countless ways Thoreau continues to move, challenge, and provoke readers today.

Various (Author), Ako Mitchell, Barbara Barnes, Kaliswa Brewster, Kate Harper, Peter Marinker, William Hope (Narrator)

Audiobook

The World of Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is a singular figure defined by a lifetime of creative invention that has helped transform music, literature, pop culture, and even politics. This book provides a lively, accessible look at his art and music as seen by leading rock and pop critics and music scholars. The chapters are carefully integrated so that readers can take quick dives into specific topics ranging from the Blues to religious faith, civil rights, and American literature. Incorporating a rich array of new archival material, The World of Bob Dylan offers a comprehensive, informed and fresh account of the songwriter, artist, filmmaker, and Nobel Laureate whose unique voice has permanently reshaped our cultural landscape.

Sean Latham (Author), Barbara Barnes, Ian Porter, John Chancer, Kaliswa Brewster, Kerry Shale, Rufus Jones (Narrator)

Audiobook

Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment

In spite of the double burden of racial and gender discrimination, African-American women have developed a rich intellectual tradition that is not widely known. In Black Feminist Thought, originally published in 1990, Patricia Hill Collins set out to explore the words and ideas of Black feminist intellectuals and writers, both within the academy and without. Here Collins provides an interpretive framework for the work of such prominent Black feminist thinkers as Angela Davis, bell hooks, Alice Walker, and Audre Lorde. Drawing from fiction, poetry, music and oral history, the result is a superbly crafted and revolutionary book that provided the first synthetic overview of Black feminist thought and its canon.

Patricia Hill Collins (Author), Kaliswa Brewster, Katherine Fenton (Narrator)

Audiobook

Audiobooks Narrated by Kaliswa Brewster