Synopses & Reviews
Exploring Twins presents an analysis of twinship considered as a specifically social phenomenom. Drawing upon a wide range of interdisciplinary, historical, and cross-cultural data, Elizabeth Stewart argues that in both traditional and modern societies, twinship represents a recurrent anomaly that calls into question the assumptions around which different types of society are organized.
About the Author
Elizabeth A. Stewart lectures on the sociology of Soviet/Russian society at the London School of Economics. Her research interest in the social analysis of twinship arose from the birth of hew own twins.
Table of Contents
Part I * Myths about Twins * The Comparative Constitution of Twinship: Antrhopological and Ethnographic Perspectives * Twins in Literature, Films, Television and the Press * Heredity and Environment: The Classic Twin Method * Measuring Twinship: Psychologists on Twins * The Divided Self: The Psychoanalytic Approach *
Part II * The Social Construction of Twinship I: Family, Parents and Siblings * The Social Construction of Twinship: We Two Together * 'Are They Identical?': Twins' Parents Questionnaire and General Public Questionnaire * Thinking Twinship: Childhood and the Formation of Self and Identity * Towards the Social Analysis of Twinship * Concluding Remarks * Appendices