1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910464886903321

Autore

Smelser Neil J

Titolo

The odyssey experience [[electronic resource] ] : physical, social, psychological, and spiritual journeys / / Neil J. Smelser

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, : University of California Press, c2009

ISBN

1-282-77254-6

9786612772542

0-520-94342-2

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (287 p.)

Disciplina

153.4

155.9

Soggetti

Insight

Introspection

Life change events

Vision quests

Pilgrims and pilgrimages

Voyages and travels

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 221-248) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Preface -- 1. The Essentials of the Experience -- 2. Autobiographical Roots: Some Personal Odysseys -- 3. Religious Foundations and Their Derivatives -- 4. Secularized and Commercialized Odysseys -- 5. Some Miscellaneous, More or Less Invented Experiences -- 6. Some Coercive Odyssey Experiences -- 7. Additional Theoretical Reflections -- References -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

This bold and innovative book traces the phenomenon of the "odyssey" experience as it shapes, informs, and defines our lives. Drawing on an astonishing range of examples, Neil J. Smelser focuses on how such experiences enhance our lives and provide us with meaning and dignity. The odyssey experience, as Smelser advances it, is generic, widespread, and recurring. It is a finite period of disengagement from



the routines of life and immersion into a simpler, transitory, often collective, usually intense period of involvement that culminates in some kind of regeneration. By examining a variety of topics as part of a larger, overarching phenomenon, Smelser transforms their study from the particular to the comparative. The Odyssey Experience thus reaches beyond a simple description of where and how transformations occur in daily life to offer a profound explanation for why they are there.