Exiting the Extraordinary

Returning to the Ordinary World after War, Prison, and Other Extraordinary Experiences

By (author) Frances V. Moulder

Not available to order

Publication date:

11 November 2015

Length of book:

176 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9781498520201

This book is an exploratory study, in sociological perspective, of the process of returning to the ordinary world after extraordinary experiences. Some people have transformative experiences in life that are so extraordinary that they cannot be at all adequately explained to those who have not had such experiences. Experiences of this sort include: being in military combat; participating in great social movements, revolutions or terrorist activities; being incarcerated in concentration camps, the Gulag, and prisons; surviving collective disasters such as floods or hurricanes; serving in intelligence agencies and undercover roles; being a member of unusual religious groups; working as a journalist in war zones; carrying out aid work in impoverished or war-torn regions; and enduring slavery. The book discusses the commonalities among extraordinary experiences; why people are so profoundly changed by them; the typical challenges faced by returnees; and some typical strategies returnees have followed in order to deal with these challenges. A central theme of the book is that returnees are challenged not simply by experiencing extreme events, but by a great cultural divide between the extraordinary and the ordinary worlds. The struggles of returnees need to be seen as a social issue, rather than simply the private troubles of individuals. The book is based on personal accounts by returnees, interviews, and secondary sources, and contains many lively examples, both historical and contemporary, of the struggles and triumphs of those who go through extraordinary experiences and return to life in the ordinary world.

Introduction
Part I: Extraordinary Experiences
Chapter 1: Some Extraordinary Experiences
Chapter 2: Why People are Transformed by Extraordinary Experiences

Part II: Returning to the Ordinary World
Chapter 3: Contexts of Return
Chapter 4: Challenges of Returning to the Ordinary World
Chapter 5: Strategies for Returning to the Ordinary World
Chapter 6: Conclusion: Implications for Public Policy
Methodological Appendix
Theoretical Appendix

Drawing on compelling interviews with military veterans, holocaust survivors and others who have had extra-ordinary experiences, Frances Moulder's moving book sheds light on a longstanding sociological blind spot. Specifically, the failure to study the experiences of extraordinary individuals. This intellectual void is quickly filled by romanticized heroic tales that soon give way to culturally debilitating stories of traumatized or pathologized individuals. By contrast, Moulder's interviewees reveal how exiting is a profoundly social experience. A work of far ranging insight, Exiting the Extraordinary is an important contribution to the vital role the sociological imagination can play in countering the fatalistic commonsense of tragedy and pathology with a renewed commitment to community outreach and policy reforms that embrace empathy.