Mary Gergen
Department of Psychology
Pennsylvania State University
25 Yearsley Mill Road
Media, Pennsylvania 19063
U.S.A.
Home Page
Phone: (610) 566-1825
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After finishing my Ph.D. at Temple University in social psychology, I worked as a psychological consultant for AT&T on their longitudinal study of managers' lives. I began my academic career at Penn State, Delaware County, in 1984 in Psychology and Women's Studies.
My intellectual focus originates at the intersection of social psychology, feminist theory, and social constructionist ideas. I have worked on gender issues, primarily using narrative methods. My last book was an edited volume with Sara N. Davis, Toward a New Psychology of Gender (Routledge, 1997), and my subsequent book was Feminist Reconstructions in Psychology: Narrative, Gender and Performance (Sage, 2000). More recently I have edited a reader on Social Constructionism with Ken Gergen (Sage, 2003), and a small primer, Social Construction: Entering the Dialogue (2005), with Ken Gergen, which has been translated into 5 European languages.
Recently I have been experimenting with forms of performative psychology, which involves dramatic presentations as a way of doing social science. I have taught a variety of subects in psychology, including social psychology, gender relations, and leadership in the workplace. In 1998 I was appointed Division Head for the Social Sciences and Education in the newly formed Commonwealth College of Penn State, which is now the largest of the colleges. I am also a founder of the Taos Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the development of social constructionist ideas within diverse practice areas, including therapy, organizational consulting, and education. Our web site is http://www.taosinstitute.net/ Since "so-called" retirement, I have been primarily involved in advising PhD students in a joint program sponsored by Tilburg University in The Netherland and the Taos Institute. I also continue to teach Feminist Theory at Penn State Brandywine, a local college near our home in Swarthmore, PA.
Finally, I am co-creator of an electronic newsletter, The Positive Aging Newsletter, which is dedicated to promoting a positive image of aging, as opposed to the usual negative stereotype. If you are interested, email me, and I'll see that you will get one bimonthly.
 Books:
- Feminist Reconstructions in Psychology: Narrative, Gender, & Performance. (2001). London, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
- Feminist Thought and the Structure of Knowledge. (Ed.). New York: NYU Press, 1988. Translated into Portugese; Rio de Janiero: Editora Rosa dos Tempos, 1993.
- Historical Social Psychology . Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1984. (edited with K.J. Gergen).
- Psychology: A Beginning , San Diego: Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich, 1989. (with J. Suls, R. Rosnow, & R. Lana).
- Social Consruction: A Reader (2003). London, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Edited by Mary Gergen and Kenneth J. Gergen
- Social Construction: Entering the Dialogue. (2004). Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute Publications. by Kenneth J. Gergen & Mary Gergen
- Social Psychology . New York: Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich, 1981 (with K.J. Gergen). Second Edition, New York: Springer-Verlag, 1986. Translated into French, Italian, and Spanish. Psychologie Sociale, Editions Vivant, revised 2nd edition, (with S. Juras). 1992.
- Statistics: A Conceptual Approach (with Gudmund Iversen). (1996). New York: Springer-Verlag.
- Toward a New Psychology of Gender: A Reader (Edited with Sara Davis). (1996). New York: Routledge.
Other Publications:
- Positive aging for women. In J. Chrisler, C. Golder, & P. Rozee (Eds.). Lectures on the Psychology of Women, 4th edition. 2007. (pp.376-391). New York: McGraw Hill.
- Qualitative Methods in Feminist Psychology. In W. Stainton-Rogers & C. Wittig (Eds.). Handbook of Qualitative Research in Psychology. 2007. (pp. 280-295). London, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
- Social construction and psychological inquiry. In J. Gubrium & J. Holstein (Eds.). Handbook of Social Constructionism. 2007,(pp. 171-188) Sage. (With K. J. Gergen, 1st author)
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