Remembered Lives: The Work of Ritual, Storytelling, and Growing Older - Softcover

Myerhoff, Barbara G.; Metzger, Deena; Ruby, Jay; Tufte, Virginia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0472081772 ISBN 13: 9780472081776

Publisher: Univ of Michigan Pr, 1992

Synopsis

What it's like to grow older in America, as revealed by an anthropologist who listened to the stories of the elderly.

About this title

Reviews

Myerhoff, an anthropologist who died in 1985, is best known for Number Our Days , her Academy Award-winning documentary and companion book about the lives of elderly immigrant Jews struggling to maintain their identity in Los Angeles. These 11 essays, most with a strong academic bent, will appeal not only to anthropologists but to those interested in gerontology. One essay analyzes the combination of American and Jewish rituals in a "graduation-siyum " (Hebrew for "completion") for Yiddish history classmates at a Jewish senior citizens' center who had completed a course of study; the ritual, Myerhoff writes, fused "disparate domains of experience," from the shtetl to America, sacred to secular. Another piece discusses how aging affects the sexes differently: immigrant Jewish women seem to become more active and expansive in old age, while the men withdraw. Most interesting are Myerhoff's reflections on her film and earlier book: on the conflict between her subjects' desire for visibility versus the professional dictum that their identities be disguised; the subjects' response to the film; and how she herself turned to this elderly community for emotional support.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Univ of Michigan Pr
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0472081772
• ISBN 13: 9780472081776
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400