Subjectivity and Suffering in American Culture: Possible Selves

This book explores the experience of suffering in order to shed light on the nature of the human self. Using an intimate life history approach, it examines ways people struggle to cope with experiences that can shatter their lives: a diagnosis of cancer, the death of a spouse, a parent's mental illness. The volume takes readers deep into private worlds of suffering in American culture, and invites reflection on what the subjectivity of suffering tells us about being human.

About the Author:
Steven M. Parish is Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of California, San Diego and the author of Moral Knowing in a Hindu Sacred City: An Exploration of Mind, Self, and Emotion and Hierarchy and Its Discontents