MARIAL CENTER COLLOQUIUM
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS LECTURE WILL TAKE PLACE
ON FRIDAY (OCT.13) RATHER THAN ON OUR NORMAL WEDNESDAY SLOT.
John Gillis
Department of History, Rutgers University
"Our Virtual Families: Toward a Cultural
Understanding of Modern Family Life"
Friday, October 13th, 2000, 4:00 p.m.
The symbolic importance of family is undeniable, but it is usually
taken for granted rather than explained. This paper explores
the historical origins of the cultural practices that constitute
the virtual families that contemporary Americans and Europeans
live by. It will examine the ways in which dream and memory
have come to have a central place in modern family life, often
obscuring the actual families we live with. The problems this
poses and some possible solutions will also be explored.
John Gillis is Professor of History at Rutgers
University. He is author of several books on family history,
including Youth and History (1975), For Better, For
Worse: British Marriages, 1600 to the Present (1985), and,
most recently, A World of Their Own Making: Myth, Ritual,
and the Quest for Family Values. He is also the editor of
The European Experience of Declining Fertility and Commemorations:
The Politics of National Identity. He is past co-chair of
the Council on Contemporary Families, a nonprofit organization
devoted to bringing the best in family scholarship to the wider
public. This spring he will be a fellow at the Swedish Collegium
for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences in Uppsala. As far
as his own family life is concerned, he is party to a transcontinental
commuting marriage, which takes him to Berkeley, California
on a reasonably regular basis. And he is grandfather to two
Texas tots.
The MARIAL Center
Emory West, 4th Floor, Room 415E
Refreshments will be served
DIRECTIONS TO THE MARIAL CENTER
Convenient and quick transportation to Emory West is available
every 10 minutes from the Campus via shuttle (Route W, which can
be found on the corner of Asbury Circle and Pierce Drive, Along
Pierce Drive, or in Front of the Administration Building). It
is a 5 minute ride. Or you can drive and park close in at Emory
West, 1256 Briarcliff Rd. Tell the receptionist at the front window
that you are here for the MARIAL Center lecture.
