Skip to content

Booksellers & Trade Customers: Sign up for online bulk buying at trade.atlanticbooks.com for wholesale discounts

Booksellers: Create Account on our B2B Portal for wholesale discounts

A Room Full of Mirrors: High School Reunions in Middle America

by Keiko Ikeda
Save 17% Save 17%
Current price ₹7,098.00
Original price ₹8,518.00
Original price ₹8,518.00
Original price ₹8,518.00
(-17%)
₹7,098.00
Current price ₹7,098.00

Imported Edition - Ships in 18-21 Days

Free Shipping in India on orders above Rs. 500

Request Bulk Quantity Quote
+91
Book cover type: Hardcover
  • ISBN13: 9780804734356
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • Subject: N/A
  • Publisher: Stanford University Press
  • Publisher Imprint: Stanford University Press
  • Publication Date:
  • Pages: 220
  • Original Price: USD 65.0
  • Language: English
  • Edition: N/A
  • Item Weight: 418 grams
  • BISAC Subject(s): Anthropology / Cultural & Social

The high school reunion occurs throughout the United States and cuts across differences in age, locality, and ethnicity. This popular event is commonly thought of as a light-hearted social occasion or an exercise in nostalgia that has little other significance in the lives of its participants. Drawing on candid personal narratives derived from reunions ranging from the fifth to the fiftieth, this pathbreaking study demonstrates, however, that for many Americans the high school reunion is a rich and often poignant experience.

Of particular interest is the fact that this ethnographic study was conducted by a Japanese anthropologist trained in the United States, who offers a comparative perspective on high schools in the two countries. High schools serve very different social purposes in Japan and the United States, and the ways people in the two countries view their high school years differ accordingly.

The author examines the American high school reunion as a dramatic scene in the construction of self and meaning in adulthood. During the high school reunion, Americans are thrown into a room full of mirrors in which they are confronted by different visions of themselves. There they see images of their high school selves filtered through the lights and shadows cast by classmates' memories and projected against the backdrop created by the lives of those classmates in the present day. Through an analysis of the multiple reflections of self that emerge during reunions, the author shows how reunions afford people an occasion on which to reevaluate their own memories and arrive at a new understanding of self. The American high school reunion thus provides participants with a series of self-perceptions from which they can construct new narratives of their own lives.

Keiko Ikeda is Associate Professor in the Graduate School of American Studies at Doshisha University, in Kyoto.

Trusted for over 49 years

Family Owned Company

Secure Payment

All Major Credit Cards/Debit Cards/UPI & More Accepted

New & Authentic Products

India's Largest Distributor

Need Support?

Whatsapp Us