Saints, scholars, and schizophrenics cover

Saints, scholars, and schizophrenics

by Nancy Scheper-Hughes

"When Saints, Scholars, and Schizophrenics was published twenty years ago, it became an instant classic - a beautifully written study tracing the social disintegration of "Ballybran," a small village on the Dingle Peninsula in Ireland. In this richly detailed and sympathetic book, Nancy Scheper-Hughes explores the symptoms of the community's decline: emigration, malaise, unwanted celibacy, damaging patterns of child rearing, fear of intimacy, suicide, and schizophrenia. Following a recent return to "Ballybran," Scheper-Hughes reflects in a lengthy new preface and epilogue on the well-being of the community and on her attempts to reconcile her responsibility to honest ethnography with respect for the people who shared their homes and their secrets with her."--BOOK JACKET.

More by Nancy Scheper-Hughes

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?