The SMU annual Community Reads book selection for 2021-22 is Golem Girl by Riva Lehrer (2020). The memoir will open the mind about people living with disabilities and our own perceptions and behaviors towards difference. We invite all students, faculty, administrators, and associated members of the SMU community to read this moving, inspirational, thought provoking, and transformative memoir during the 2021-22 academic year.
The book encourages us to consider the question: how can we as healthcare providers and community members change the paradigm and instead contribute to a climate of health promotion, inclusion, and equity?
A theme of the book is that many babies (and people) with a disability engender fears, anxieties, pity, anger, and superstition. Thus, the title "Golem Girl". The author was born with spina bifida (myelomeningocele) in the 1950's, when parents were routinely told that the child would have significant intellectual delay as well as motor impairment, would likely not live past age 2, and highly recommended immediate institutionalization. These feelings, beliefs, and behaviors are still present today all over the world including in the United States and in healthcare professions. Lehrer, now in her 60s and a successful artist, explores a range of issues including body image, sexuality, gender identity, class, "clinical gaze", physical and emotional pain, accessibility, equity, and art.
The book includes color replicas of Lehrer’s artwork. Her artistic specialty is portraits of people with disabilities, some nude, as she challenges the subject, herself, and the viewer/ art consumer to see the beauty of the human body and the human experience. Through her experience, the book describes the impact of the American Disability Act (ADA) and its roots in the Bay Area with the activism of Berkeley's Center for Independent Living (CIL) and leader Ed Roberts, legislation that is still essential to challenging behaviors to this day.
Golem Girl is available in SMU's and local libraries. This book will certainly impact each reader dramatically and may produce changes for individuals and our University that we have not yet imagined. We invite you to read the book and join us in events and discussions in fall 2021 and spring 2022.