Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot is enthralled by exits: long farewells, quick goodbyes, sudden endings, the ordinary and the extraordinary. There’s a relationship, she attests, between small goodbyes and our ability “to master and mark the larger farewells.” In Exit: The Endings That Set Us Free (Sarah Crichton, $26), she explores the ways we leave one thing and move on to the next; how we anticipate, define, and reflect on our departures; our epiphanies that something is over and done with. Too often, Lawrence-Lightfoot believes, we exalt new beginnings with the expense of learning from our goodbyes. Exit finds wisdom and perspective in the possibility of moving on and marks the start of a new conversation, to help us discover how we might make our exits with purpose and dignity.

Location: Street: 265 Aragon Ave City: Coral Gables, Province: Florida Postal Code: 33134-5008 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Exit: The Endings That Set Us Free Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot Renowned as an educator, researcher, author, and public intellectual, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot examines the culture of schools and socialization within families and communities. The Emily Hargroves Fisher Professor of Education at Harvard University, she received the MacArthur Prize in 1984 and Harvard’s George Ledlie Prize in 1993. Lawrence-Lightfoot’s acclaimed books include The Good High School: Portraits of Character and Culture and The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk, and Adventure in the 25 Years After 50, which challenged cultural definitions of strength, maturity, power, and sexiness. In Exit, she offers perspective and wisdom on the act of departing and bidding farewell, exploring the role of transition in our lives. Parkway Central Library 1901 Vine Street Philadelphia, PA 19103 (between 19th and 20th Streets on the Parkway) This is a FREE event; no tickets or reservations are required. For more information, please call 215-567-4341, or click here

Location: Street: Free Library of PHiladelphia Additional: 1901 Vine Street City: Philadelphia, Province: Pennsylvania Postal Code: 19103-5207 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

sara lawrence-lightfoot reads from Exit: The Endings That Set Us Free.

** From a renowned sociologist, the wisdom of saying goodbye ** Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot is enthralled by exits: long farewells, quick goodbyes, sudden endings, the ordinary and the extraordinary. There’s a relationship, she attests, between small goodbyes and our ability “to master and mark the larger farewells.” In Exit, her tenth book, she explores the ways we leave one thing and move on to the next; how we anticipate, define, and reflect on our departures; our epiphanies that something is over and done with. The result is an enthusiastic, uplifting lesson about ourselves and the role of transition in our lives. Lawrence-Lightfoot, a sociologist and a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has interviewed more than a dozen women and men in states of major change, and she paints their portraits with sympathy and insight: a gay man who finds home and wholeness after coming out; a sixteen-year-old boy forced to leave Iran in the midst of the violent civil war; a Catholic priest who leaves the church he has always been devoted to, the life he has loved, and the work that has been deeply fulfilling; an anthropologist who carefully stages her departure from he “field” after four years of research; and many more. Too often, Lawrence-Lightfoot believes, we exalt new beginnings at the expense of learning from our goodbyes. Exit finds wisdom and perspective in the possibility of moving on and marks the start of a new conversation, to help us discover how we might make our exits with purpose and dignity. About the Author: Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot is the Emily Hargroves Fisher Professor of Education at Harvard. As a sociologist, she examines the culture of schools, the patterns and structures of classroom life, socialization within families and communities, and the relationships between culture and learning styles. (TooFondOfBooks)… (more)