Voices of Reason - Nancie L. Gonzalez: Focus on the Family - Traditions and Mythology
Unlike most other animals that can be said to live in families, the composition and nature of human families are variable. Like other mammals, the human family's primary function is to produce, nourish, protect, and educate succeeding generations of our kind. Unlike all others, in order to do this effectively, humans depend not only on the innate "knowledge" of our bodies, but on cultural traditions created and perpetuated within each unique society. Over humanity's some 250,000 years of existence, we have probably always lived in families, but they have differed considerably, depending upon the nature of the society. This talk will present information on the different kinds of families that humans have found useful, and how the traditions supporting them have changed with the evolution of modern industrial and post-industrial society.
It will also discuss family traditions and mythology in relation to our time, suggesting that the first continuously change in all societies, sometimes surviving as the latter until they disappear entirely.
Nancie L. Gonzalez is Professor Emerita of Anthropology, University of Maryland, College Park. She has studied family and household organization in Central America, the Caribbean, the American Southwest, in mainland China and in the West Bank of Israel, publishing extensively on her findings and interpretations. She has also done considerable archival research on the family in the United States and England, especially in colonial times.
Free for Friends of the Center ; Public: $6
Must RSVP to mhensley[at]centerforinquiry.net or call 202-546-2332 Ext. 111.
