Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict by Hilary Lapsley

Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict by Hilary Lapsley

This is the story of the extraordinary friendship between renowned anthropologists Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict. First as mentor and protegee, later as colleagues and lovers, these two women forged a bond that endured for 25 years, defying convention as well as easy categorization. Drawing on a range of sources, including correspondence between Mead and Benedict, Hilary Lapsley seeks to reconstruct this complex relationship and situate it in the context of its time. She explores the ways in which Mead's and Benedict's professional work grew out of concerns in their own lives - about sexuality and friendship, identity and difference. Lapsley also shows how Mead and Benedict used their anthropological studies to call attention to the cultural foundations of American life, Benedict seeking to make the world more tolerant of deviance and Mead to liberate the individual from the artificial constraints of gender and race. Overall, the book offers to chart the course of a relationship that persisted in the face of numerous obstacles, including separation of long duration, the competing claims of other partners, secrecy about lesbianism, the tensions of professional rivalry, and the clash of different personalities.

Hilary Lapsley is professor of women's studies at the University of Waikato, New Zealand.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781558491816
ISBN 10	1558491813
Title	Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict
Author	Hilary Lapsley
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	University of Massachusetts Press
Year published	1999-10-01
Number of pages	416
Prizes	Winner of Triangle Awards (Lesbian Nonfiction) 2000
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable