Reading Benedict / Reading Mead

Dolores Janiewski is a senior lecturer in the department of history at Victoria University of Wellington and the author of Sisterhood Denied: Race, Gender and Class in a New South Community. Lois Banner is a professor of history and gender studies at the University of Southern California and the author of several books, including Intertwined Lives: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Their Circle.

• Introduction: Being and Becoming Ruth Benedict and Margaret MeadPart I: Becoming Benedict, Becoming MeadChapter 1. Woven Lives, Raveled Texts: Benedict,Mead, and Representational DoublenessChapter 2. "The Bo-Cu Plant": Ruth Benedict and GenderChapter 3. Margaret Mead, the Samoan Girl and the Flapper: Geographies of Selfhood in Coming of Age in SamoaPart II: Erasures and InclusionsChapter 4. Coming of Age, but Not in Samoa: Reflections on Margaret Mead's Legacy for Western Liberal FeminismChapter 5. "A World Made Safe for Differences": Ruth Benedict's The Chrysanthemum and the SwordChapter 6. White Maternity, Rape Dreams, and the Sexual Exile in A Rap on RacePart III: Imperial VisionsChapter 7. Of Feys and Culture Planners:Margaret Mead and Purposive Activity as ValueChapter 8. The Lady of the Chrysanthemum: Ruth Benedict and the Origins of The Chrysanthemum and the SwordChapter 9. Ruth Benedict's Obituary for Japanese CultureChapter 10. The Parable of Manus: Utopian Change, American Influence, and the Worth of WomenPart IV: Echoes and ReverberationsChapter 11. Imagining the South Seas:Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa and the Sexual Politics of ParadiseChapter 12. Symbolic Subordination and the Representation of Power in "Margaret Mead and Samoa"Chapter 13. Misconceived Configurations of Ruth BenedictPart V: Re-Thinking Benedict and MeadChapter 14. Margaret Mead: Anthropology's Liminal FigureChapter 15. "It is besides a pleasant English word"—Ruth Benedict's Concept of Patterns RevisitedChapter 16. On the Political Anatomy of Mead-bashing, or Re-thinking Margaret MeadNotesContributorsIndexIllustrations

"A handy compendium of current writing on Benedict and Mead - enormously informative, stimulating, and intellectually sound." - Howard Brick, Washington University, St. Louis"