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SUNY Series in Japan in Transition
Taming Oblivion: Aging Bodies and the Fear of Senility in Japan
Examines the cultural construction of senility in Japan and the moral implications of dependent behavior for older Japanese.
225 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2000
6 people want to read
About the author
John W. Traphagan
14 books3 followersAlso writes as J.W. Traphagan
I am an anthropologist and professor emeritus in Human Dimensions of Organizations at the University of Texas at Austin. I received my Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in anthropology, hold an MAR degree in ethics from Yale Divinity School, and a BA in political science from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. My postdoctoral research was conducted as a National Institute on Aging Postdoctoral Fellow at the Population Studies Center of the University of Michigan. I was also a Fulbright scholar to Japan in the 1990s.
Having become bored with traditional academic writing I recently started using my experience as an anthropologist to write for a general audience. The first example of this is my new anthropological memoir, Embracing Uncertainty: Future Jazz, That 13th Century Buddhist Monk, and the Invention of Cultures. Later in 2021, my first ethnographic mystery novel, The Blood of Gutoku, will be published.
I am an anthropologist and professor emeritus in Human Dimensions of Organizations at the University of Texas at Austin. I received my Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in anthropology, hold an MAR degree in ethics from Yale Divinity School, and a BA in political science from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. My postdoctoral research was conducted as a National Institute on Aging Postdoctoral Fellow at the Population Studies Center of the University of Michigan. I was also a Fulbright scholar to Japan in the 1990s.
Having become bored with traditional academic writing I recently started using my experience as an anthropologist to write for a general audience. The first example of this is my new anthropological memoir, Embracing Uncertainty: Future Jazz, That 13th Century Buddhist Monk, and the Invention of Cultures. Later in 2021, my first ethnographic mystery novel, The Blood of Gutoku, will be published.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 18, 2022
A deep empirical study of two micro-regions in Japan, regarding how a person's life and age class fits into the greater society and this society actually playing a , proving that "no man is an island" and the wiser and older the "man" the less likely that they will remain "an island".
This longitudinal study shows the evolution of group and class belonging and switching from ingroup to outgroup with the evolving age of the person, in regards to familial preoccupations familial status and responsibility, health, senility and voluntary resistance to senescence, sports, the differences in personal and collective responsibilities in the maintenance of the local community fabric as a function of a person's age and many more intricate things which made the bulk of the semi-traditional societies in the East and in the West and still, fortunately, continues to play a significant positive role in our lives now. I would not go as far as to qualify the old age in Japan, or anywhere, for that matter as idyllic, but I would go on to say that the opposite of what is described in this book is definitely an unenviable state of anomie.
A fascinating study.
This longitudinal study shows the evolution of group and class belonging and switching from ingroup to outgroup with the evolving age of the person, in regards to familial preoccupations familial status and responsibility, health, senility and voluntary resistance to senescence, sports, the differences in personal and collective responsibilities in the maintenance of the local community fabric as a function of a person's age and many more intricate things which made the bulk of the semi-traditional societies in the East and in the West and still, fortunately, continues to play a significant positive role in our lives now. I would not go as far as to qualify the old age in Japan, or anywhere, for that matter as idyllic, but I would go on to say that the opposite of what is described in this book is definitely an unenviable state of anomie.
A fascinating study.
Displaying 1 of 1 review