Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
"Explorations of a Mind-Traveling Sociologist" is a book of thematically interconnected ethnographic essays by the internationally esteemed sociologist Ren e C. Fox, who employs a participant observer outlook to provide unique insight on such enduring--and pressing--issues as the lived experiences of physicians and patients, including patients who are physically challenged, elderly, mortally ill or beyond the reach of medical care; the origins and consequences of epidemic outbreaks of old and new plague-like infectious diseases that occur and recur, despite the impressive advances of medicine; the concomitants and challenges of aging; the wellsprings, dynamics and significance of medical humanitarian action; engagement with a "beyond borders" world view; the occurrence of national and international events of major moral as well as political and legal import and repercussions; and the meaning and meaningfulness of teaching, exploring, questing and writing. Latently associated with these themes are the author's social values and social conscience. Composing these essays from a participant observer outlook heightens and enriches the author's observations over the course of her daily life, enabling her to engage in "mind travel" to places and people she has intimately known in the past and to places she has yearningly hoped to visit but never has.
Description
When
the author's aging body and the post-polio symptoms it was manifesting
made it impossible for her to undertake the physically strenuous
ethnographic research in the array of American, European, African and
Asian settings that underlay her book Doctors Without Borders and
characterized her research throughout her career, she began writing
ethnographic essays, drawing from a range of things she was seeing,
experiencing, thinking and feeling at this juncture in her life.
Among the leitmotifs that pervade and interconnect these topically
varied essays are lived experiences of physicians and patients,
including patients who are physically handicapped, elderly, mortally ill
or beyond the reach of medical care; the origins and consequences of
epidemic outbreaks of old and new plague-like infectious diseases that
occur and recur, despite the impressive advances of medicine; the
concomitants and challenges of aging; the wellsprings, dynamics and
significance of medical humanitarian action; engagement with a "beyond
borders" world view; the occurrence of national and international events
of major moral as well as political and legal import and repercussions,
such as the travel ban on persons from certain countries with a
predominantly Muslim population initiated by Donald Trump and the
terrorist bombing in Brussels's Zaventem airport; and the meaning and
meaningfulness of teaching, exploring, questing and writing. Latently
associated with these themes are the author's social values and social
conscience.
Composing these essays from a participant observer outlook heightens
and enriches the author's observations over the course of her daily
life, enabling her to engage in "mind travel" to places and people she
has intimately known in the past and to places she has yearningly hoped
to visit but never has.
About the Author
Renée C. Fox is the
Annenberg Professor Emerita of the Social Sciences, Emerita Senior
Fellow of the Center for Bioethics and Professor Emerita of Sociology in
the Department of Sociology and the Schools of Medicine and Nursing at
the University of Pennsylvania, USA.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Anne Fadiman;
Preface; Resilience; Apartment Number 1103/4; A Hallway Friendship;
Making an Apartment House My Home; Beyond Borders; The Meanings of My
MSF Book; Venturing Out with a Rolling Walker; Election to the Explorers
Club; Encounters with Physicians; Plagues; Miss Balkema--and Mary Beth;
Life, Death, and Uncertainty in Physicians' Memoirs; Terrorist Bombings
in Brussels; The 2016 Presidential Election; Donald Trump's Executive
Orders on Immigration; On Being a Teacher; What I Learned about the
Language of Silence; A Bioethics Award and a Surrogate Lecture;
Epilogue; Index.