Renee C. Fox - Explorations of a Mind-Traveling Sociologist

Explorations of a Mind-Traveling Sociologist is like reading a story of a life and a story of a soul at the same time. In her beautifully written and enriching book, Rene Fox is engaged and engaging, deeply curious and informed, clear thinking and open-minded, humane and compassionate. She is as much a teacher as she is a scholar, and she is always a listener. What a joy to read such a wise and insightful book of life and living.

The Reverend Peter Kountz, Vicar, Saint Stephens Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, USA

Eye-opening, gripping and utterly engaging ethnographic essays from one of the great minds of our time. The book stands as testimony to the power of the human mind and the transcendence of the human heart and spirt. People are seen in their humility and frailtybut also in their nobility and strength. A must-read for anyone seeking understanding of life or uplift of spirit.

Kenneth M. Ludmerer, Professor of Medicine, Professor of History and the Mabel Dorn Reeder Distinguished Professor of the History of Medicine, Washington University, St. Louis, USA

Rightly revered as a pioneering figure in both the Sociology of Medicine and Bioethics, Rene C. Fox, now in her 90s, here offers her many readers an elegant collection of essays that are both personal and ethnographic. Whether writing about the staff in her apartment building or about the heroic efforts of Doctors Without Borders to deal with the outbreak of Ebola, Fox displays a novelists eye for detail and a social scientists eye for context, as she leads the reader outward from the seemingly narrow world of her near confinement, due to her advanced age and frailty, and into the wider world of medicine and politics with which she remains actively engaged and deeply connected. In doing so, Explorations of a Mind-Traveling Sociologist foregrounds and highlights Foxs deepest value commitments and the ideals that have guided her work from Experiment Perilous to Doctors Without Borders: the determination to break free of the social boxes of her origins and to develop an empathetic understanding of the experiences and sufferings of others.

Ultimately, Explorations of a Mind-Traveling Sociologist is a confession of faith: faith in the liberating and illuminating potential of cross-cultural research into the lived experience of others; faith in the goodness of a life devoted to the calling of the scholar-teacher; and faith in the goodness of those devoted to ministering to and witnessing the suffering of others. As such, this book is a gift both to Foxs many admirers and to future generations of her readers.

Howard L. Kaye, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA, USA

Rene Fox, an indefatigable and gracious nonagenarian scholar, casts her experienced sociological gaze near and far, sharing intimate thoughts about her personal life, and perspicacious observations on local, political and more distant global events. These emerita essays augment her prodigious scholarly output that place her in the pantheon of legendary sociologists.

Solomon Benatar, Emeritus Professor of Medicine, University of Cape Town, South Africa

Rene Fox shines with amazing grace: in her way of looking at the world around her, in her relationships with people, in her writing. Reading her leads to a state of equanimity rarely encountered in the social sciences.

Yves Winkin, Emeritus Professor, Urban Anthropology, University of Lige, Belgium

Rene C. Fox has been a worldwide traveler and explorer of social relations over the many decades she spent doing ethnographic research in the sociology of medicine. How then does someone who has qualified herself as a perpetual fieldworker sustain that activity when the frailties of age and disability limit her mobility? Explorations of a Mind-Traveling Sociologist testifies to the persistent vitality of Foxs instinct to explore, whether it be by reflecting on her past travels and research as they are embodied in her home surroundings and as they are regularly brought up to date by her continued connection with those she has met in the field, in the classroom or simply in her everyday surroundings. Unlike the memoir she published some years ago whose aim was to recount her life, Explorations of a Mind-Traveling Sociologist, a mosaic of essays on persons, problems and events encountered over the years, highlights her value commitments and points to the challenges she feels will require our most urgent attention.

Simone Bateman, Emeritus Senior Researcher, CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research), France

A consummate ethnographer and gifted writer, Rene Fox draws on her inner landscape to take us with her on a rich, varied array of journeys that are near and far and present and past.

Judith P. Swazey, Adjunct Professor, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, USA

Elegantly and beautifully conceived, Rene Foxs book Explorations of a Mind-Traveling Sociologist sparkles for those of us lucky enough to call her our teacher and for those just meeting her through these pages. Her ethnographic eye picks up things overlooked by even the most astute and reminds us of the analytic and personal values of the sociological imagination in all places and life stages.

Wendy Cadge, Professor of Sociology, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, USA

Explorations of a Mind-Traveling Sociologist is an ethnography of the mind that extends its reach into crucial spaces within the larger social world. From within the confines of her Philadelphia apartment, Fox shares with readers her wise, insightful and sometimes whimsical observations, most often about the dignity and grace, the humanity and solidarity, of the great variety of people she characterizes for us. She enables her readers to reflect on the way we lead our lives and on the things, both personal and global, that are important to us.

Mark Gould, Professor of Sociology, Haverford College, Haverford, PA, USA

The person who looks back with joy from the vantage point of 90 years is someone worth knowing. Those who are unfamiliar with the eminent social scientist Rene C. Fox and her lifetime of participant observation on four continents have a chance to make her acquaintance here. They will find the opportunity a privilege and a pleasure. Part memoir, part diary, part book review and part commentary on current events, these reflections and recollections reveal their author to be a keen observer despite failing eyesight and a nimble traveler in a churning world despite her dependence on a walker. The self in her dreams is able bodied, she tells us, and readers will discover a mind that remains agile along with a generous spirit and a warm heart. She touches lightly on her maladies but is moved by the suffering of others to celebrate even as she studies the doctors, nurses and therapists who treat the afflicted and seek to ease their pain. Her survival against the odds is a triumph, and for the wisdom that comes with her years, those who will be introduced to her for the first time in this book can be very grateful.

Mary Ann Meyers, Senior Fellow, John Templeton Foundation, Philadelphia, USA