Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Much has been missed by social researchers in their attempt to understand the human experience as a series of rational, cognitive choices. What comes under the rubric of "lived experience" fits no researcher′s model other than, in the words of one of the volume′s contributors, "one damned thing after another." Human subjectivity in lived experience, both that of the subject and of the researcher, is the topic of Investigating Subjectivity, an important corrective to the cool, disdainful stance of most previous social research. The dozen contributors examine various aspects of subjectivity--the emotions, the gendered nature of experiences, the body-mind relationship, perceptions of time, place and setting, understanding of the self--and how these elements provide a fuller understanding of the human condition. Incorporating subjectivity into research requires a new set of methods--systematic introspection, self-ethnography, staged readings, poetry, stories--many of which are demonstrated in the book. It also requires a focus on mundane (minor ailments, media images, hobbies) and extraordinary elements (exotic trips, earthquakes, abortion experience), which make up the bulk of lived experience and how people react to these life events. Investigating Subjectivity stands out from any others in the field because the emphasis is on research rather than theory or conceptualization. This outstanding volume is quality reading for academicians, undergraduate and graduate students in sociology, cultural studies, qualitative methods, and communication, especially those interested in emotions, narration, textual analysis, and symbolic interaction. "This is an unusual and intriguing book consisting of eleven articles and the authors′ excellent, well-written, and probing introduction. The book unflinchingly pursues ′subjectivity′ as an important and legitimate object of scientific research. . . . The writers challenge the continuing dominance of eighteenth-century rationalism by challenging the contemporary social science model that ′transforms emotional experience into models of rational action.′" --Perspectives on Political Science "The authors suggest that the volume be judged by whether it provokes feelings in the readers that they have lived, or could live, the experiences described. This reviewer argues that the editors have succeeded in their goal. . . . this reviewer recommends the book to the rehabilitationist who is interested in either conducting research or the application of research to practice. . . . This is an appropriate tool for the rehabilitation professional." --Journal of Applied Rehabilitation Counseling "This volume demonstrates an exciting reinvigoration of interactionism as it collides with phenomenology, existential sociology, and poststructuralism." --Contemporary Sociology

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• An Agenda for the Interpretation of Lived Experience
• Part 1 Interpreting Texts
• The Many Faces of Emotionality
• Reading
• Persona
• Archival Research in Intertextual Analysis
• Four Representations of a Year in the Life of Dr Lillian Moller Gilbreth
• Women's Subjectivity and Feminist Stories
• Part 2 Creating Texts
• Telling and Performing Personal Stories
• the Constraints of Choice in Abortion
• The Reflexive Self through Narrative
• A Night in the Life of an Erotic Dancer/Researcher
• The Consequences of Poetic Representation
• Writing the Other, Re-Writing the Self
• Part 3 Experiencing Subjectivity
• The Erotics of Hermeneutics of Temporality
• Wild Life
• Authenticity and the Human Experience of 'Natural' Places
• The Trail Through Experience
• Finding Self in the Recollection of Travel
• Part 4 Transformations of The Self
• Extraordinary Events and Mundane Ailments
• The Contextual Dialectics of the Embodied Self
• The Self, Its Voices, and Their Discord

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Essays in this collection address the study of emotional lived experience from a methodological perspective. The 11 chapters grew from the 1990 Gregory Stone Symposium, sponsored by the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction. Although the quality of the articles is uneven and a few seem outside the methodological theme, several represent important contributions to the study of social interaction as a subjective, personal experience, an understudied area of sociology that has special methodological problems. Contributors make persuasive arguments about the importance of the approach and illustrate its usefulness by reporting on specific research projects. Chapters by Laurel Graham, by Carolyn Ellis and Arthur P. Bochner, and by Laurel Richardson are particularly strong, while those by Gary Allen Fine and Mark Newmann provide a different approach to the study of naturalism and tourism. Although this approach owes much to George Herbert Mead and Erving Goffman, current work more closely follows Norman Denzin (e.g., On Understanding Emotion, CH, Oct'84, and Interpretive Interactionism, 1988). Graduate; faculty. A. A. Hickey; Western Carolina University