| Description |
xiv, 272 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm |
| Contents |
The essentials of the experience -- Autobiographical roots : some personal odysseys -- Religious foundations and their derivatives -- Secularized and commercialized odysseys -- Some miscellaneous, more or less invented experiences -- Some coercive odyssey experiences -- Additional theoretical reflections |
| Summary |
"This bold and innovative book traces the phenomenon of the "odyssey" experience as it shapes, informs, and defines our lives. Drawing on an astonishing range of specific examples, Nell J. Smelser focuses on how such experiences enhance our lives and provide them with meaning and dignity. The odyssey experience, as Smelser advances it. is generic, widespread, and recurring. It is a finite period of disengagement from the routines of life and immersion in a simpler, transitory, often collective, usually intense period of involvement that culminates in some kind of regeneration. Some of the topics he analyzes are religious experiences, such as rites of passage, crusades, and pilgrimages; secular experlences, such as serving in the Peace Corps or participation in Freedom Summer; modern travel and tourism; academic experiences ranging from undergraduate years to sabbatical leaves; psychotherapies; and cult experiences |
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By examining each of these topics as part of a larger, overarchlng phenomenon, Smelser transforms their study from the particular to the comparative, The Odyssey Experience thus reaches beyond a simple description of where and how transformations occur in daily life to offer a profound explanation for why they are there."--BOOK JACKET |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-248) and index |
| Subject |
Insight.
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Introspection.
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Life change events.
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Vision quests.
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Pilgrims and pilgrimages.
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Voyages and travels.
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| LC no. |
2008040509 |
| ISBN |
9780520258976 cloth alkaline paper |
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0520258975 cloth alkaline paper |
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9780520075993 paperback alkaline paper |
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0520075994 paperback alkaline paper |
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9780520075986 cloth alkaline paper |
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0520075986 cloth alkaline paper |
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