Summary of SEAA READS, session five, 4/2023
The Anatomy of Loneliness: Suicide, Social Connection, and the Search for Relational Meaning in Contemporary Japan . 2021 U. California Press. The six readers joining the online conversation in April logged on from both sides of the Pacific and points in-between. The Zoom session was hosted by Jennifer Prough, the chair of the 2022 Francis L.K. Hsu book prize committee which selected this book in the annual competition. Of the 30 titles that the committee read, this one by Chikako Ozawa-De Silva stood out for its many features: difficult to discuss topic (loneliness; death; suicide), difficult to design ethnographic sources and methods, and excellent writing that engages specialists and general audiences at the same time. See the award committee's remarks in full at https://seaa.americananthro.org/awards/past-seaa-awards/ . The book circle began with brief self-introductions and impressions from the book, including references and new ground for some readers: anthropology of "...