Full Circles, Overlapping Lives: A New Vision of Identity and Connection in Our

by Mary Catherine Bateson

We live with strangers, not only in the streets and in the workplace, but in our very own homes. There are great differences between us -- even when we belong to the same family, race, class, or sex. In Full Circles, Overlapping Lives, Mary Catherine Bateson challenges us to rethink our lives at every stage of the life cycle, to question expected roles and relationships and to discover new possibilities.Bateson eloquently weaves together the words of a diverse group of remarkable women whom she taught at Spelman College. Their stories tell of individual discovery and creative improvisation, and show how even the home can be a training ground for dealing with differences and learning to communicate across generations. She juxtaposes their lives with life histories from around the world -- from !Kung tribeswomen to share-croppers and recent immigrants -- to show the commonality between experiences which may, at first, seem very different, and to demonstrate how evolving definitions of identity, commitment, and fulfillment can allow for new and greater understanding.

Genres: Nonfiction, Sociology

Hardcover

First published March 14, 2000

About the author

Mary Catherine Bateson (born December 8, 1939) is an American writer and cultural anthropologist.

A graduate of the Brearley School, Bateson is the daughter of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson.

Bateson is a noted author in her field with many published monographs. Among Bateson's books is With a Daughter's Eye: A Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, a recounting of her upbringing by two famous parents. She has taught at Harvard, Amherst, and George Mason University, among others.

Mary Catherine Bateson is a fellow of the International Leadership Forum and was president of the Institute for Intercultural Studies in New York until 2010.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Maria Eduarda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full circles overlapping lives is a book full of hints for reflection as a way of learning to progress, no to fall in happiness, or to fall again but with better grounds. Is about making ground and believe that that ground will come back to us inevitably, and we need to remake it again and again. Hopefully we will make it a way of being with others inviting others to walk it out and walking ourselves the ground of others to decentre ourselves from the closure of our feelings. Is about perspective, the lives of different others, is about wondering and wander, about reviewing our lives and it must be above all about teaching. She broke ground on teaching opening the peculiar aspects of her personal life to her students and inviting them to different levels of learning. A good approach to learning as well as teaching.

[Steph · Rating 3 out of 5]

p 135-136

Yet changes in beliefs and assumptions are nothing new. In spite of all the imagery of rocks and foundations, of unchanging and unquestioning faith, there have always been some commitments that involved constant change and learning. In fact, all the best relationships have a degree of mystery, demanding growth and change, learning moving between strangers. The best friendships, the most resilient marriages, student and teacher, mentor and mentee. They float. The most striking example is the commitment of parents to a child—different from day to day and year to year, bridging shifting values and worlds of experience. We love our children, we criticize and discipline them, we keep trying to maintain mutual understanding, and we are less and less able to predict who they will become or to make decisions for them.

One of the characteristics of parent-child relationships is how much we can learn from our children, if we will. We keep on growing because we live with strangers.

[Lawrence Linnen · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Full Circles, Overlapping Lives, best-selling author and cultural anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson looks with an inspired eye at how our very concepts of personal identity and shared fulfillment are changing. Living longer than ever before, alongside increasingly diverse neighbors, we are obliged to rethink our lives at every stage of the life cycle, to question expected roles and relationships, and to discover new possibilities. This is a book rich with the telling observations and subtle wisdom that Bateson has made her trademarks.

[Paulatics · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must-read for introspective women. It made a profound impact on me when I read it. Author is Margaret Mead's daughter.