We are said to be suffering a narcissism epidemic when the need for collective action seems more pressing than ever. The traits of Selfishness and selflessness address the ‘proper’ and ‘improper’ relationship between one’s self and others. The work they do during periods of social instability and cultural change is probed in this original, interdisciplinary collection. Contributions range from an examination of how these concepts animated the eighteenth-century anti-slavery campaigners to a dissection of the way middle-class mothers’ experiences illustrate gendered struggles over how much and to whom one is morally obliged to give.
Table of Content
List of Illustrations, Figures and Tables
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Self, Selfish, Selfless
Linda L. Layne
Chapter 1. Taking the Measure of ‘Selfishness’ and ‘Selflessness’ in the Early Twenty-First-Century US and UK
Linda L. Layne
Chapter 2. ‘Sentiment Has Struggled with Selfishness’: Selfishness, Sensibility and Gender in the Late Eighteenth-Century British Antislavery Campaign
G.J. Barker-Benfield
Chapter 3. Selfless Advocacy? Profeminist Men’s Movements in Late Twentieth-Century Britain
Lucy Delap
Chapter 4. ‘Doing the Right Thing for My Child’: Self Work and Selflessness in Accounts of British ‘Full-Term’ Breastfeeding Mothers
Charlotte Faircloth
Chapter 5. Sexism, Separatism and the Rhetoric of Selfishness: Single Mothers by Choice in the US and UK
Susanna Graham and Linda L. Layne
Chapter 6. Selfish Masturbators? The Experience of Danish Sperm Donors and Alternatives to the Selfish/Selfless Divide
Sebastian Mohr
Chapter 7. Inroads into Altruism
Marilyn Strathern
Chapter 8. On Being Selfish – Or Not: Explorations of an Idea from the Mountains of Oaxaca and the Alaskan Tundra
Barbara Bodenhorn
Conclusion: Starting Points: Modest Contributions to the History and Anthropology of Moralities and Ethics
Linda L. Layne
Index
About the author
Linda L. Layne is the author of Home and Homeland: The Dialogics of Tribal and National Identities in Jordan (1994, Princeton University Press) and Motherhood Lost: A Feminist Account of Pregnancy Loss in America (2003, Routledge) and co-producer of a television series on pregnancy loss. She has edited or co-edited numerous volumes on motherhood, parenting and consumer culture. She now studies heterosexual single mothers by choice, lesbian moms and gay dads.
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