On Replacement: Cultural, Social and Psychological Representations

This book is an interdisciplinary study of the human drama of replacement. Is one’s irreplaceability dependent on surrounding oneself by a replication of others? Is love intrinsically repetitious or built on a fantasy of uniqueness? The sense that a person’s value is blotted out if someone takes their place can be seen in the serial monogamy of our age and in the lives of ‘replacement children’ – children born into a family that has recently lost a child, whom they may even be named after. ...