History & Philosophy Books - Page 16

Conceptualising Society (European Association of Social Anthropologists)

Adam Kuper

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Editorial Review:

The leading European anthropologists contributing to this volume share the view that ethnography and theoretically informed comparisons constitute a single, feasible enterprise. They reject both the postmodernist criticism of ethnography as epistemologically problematic and the opposing view that no theory could possibly do justice to the insights and complex descriptions of ethnography.

In Conceptualising Society, the first of six collections of papers taken from the first conference of the newly-formed European Association of Social Anthropologists, the contributors discuss the various models at the disposal of the modern ethnographer. The contributors cover issues of structuralism, postmodernism and world systems theory, offering a lively account of the state of general theory in social anthropology today.

Memory and the Postcolony: African Anthropology and the Critique of Power (Postcolonial Encounters)

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Memory, politics and the colonial legacy 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Werbner, an anthropologist from the University of Manchester UK, made a wonderful work in editing this book, which brings together high quality researchers and works. His excellent introduction gives the foundation for an anthropology of memory and the past in contemporary Africa, and raises essential questions about the colonial legacy, power, and memory as a public practice. Excellent book!

Editorial Review:

The critique of power in contemporary Africa calls for a new approach to the making of political subjectivities. Through theoretically informed anthropology, this book meets the urgent need to rethink our understanding of the moral and political force of memory, its official and unofficial forms, its moves between the personal and the social in postcolonial transformations. Memory and the Postcolony brings these transformations into perspective. It is divided into three sections in which distinguished anthropologists explore death and subjectivity; the memory work of elections and public commissions; and fundamentalism and the future.

Leslie A. White: Ethnological Essays

Leslie A. White, Beth Dillingham, Robert L. Carneiro

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Anthropological Studies of Religion: An Introductory Text

Brian Morris

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A good introduction 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

I just finished reading this book as a starting point for a larger research project into the anthropological perspective on religion and found it to be a useful and in-depth introduction. This is not a "for beginners" book and Morris does not talk down to the reader. Morris provides a broad overview of important perspectives on religion from sociologists (Marx, Weber, Durkheim), anthropologists (Turner, Levi-Strauss, Malinowski, Douglas), and even covering, although pretty critically, the psychoanalytic interpretations of Freud and Jung. This is a good, comprehensive introduction that gives a general overview and deals with the criticisms of a flaws in the theories covered.

Editorial Review:

In this important, scholarly, and wide-ranging text, Brian Morris provides a lucid outline of the nature of the explanations of religious phenomena offered by such great thinkers as Hegel, Marx, and Weber. In doing so he also unravels the many theoretical strategies in the study of religion that have been developed and explored by later anthropologists. Besides discussing the classical authors and the debates surrounding their work, Morris presents perceptive accounts of more contemporary scholars such as Jung, Malinowski, Levi-Strauss, Geertz, and Godelier. Written from the standpoint of critical sympathy, and free of jargon, this book is an invaluable guide to the writings on religion of all the major figures in anthropology.

American Anthropology, 1946-1970: Papers from the "American Anthropologist"

American Anthropological Association

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Editorial Review:

From the early Cold War years through the social unrest and activism of the 1960s, American anthropology expanded considerably in size and outreach, becoming spectacularly global and cross-cultural in its interests. Complex societies and communities became increasingly popular subjects of inquiry; the influence of sociological methods upon fieldwork and interpretation grew; a reimagined cultural evolution emerged; and a pervasive interest in the broader forces of culture change shaped research, writing, and theory throughout the quarter century. A dynamic range of schools of anthropological thought flowered—cultural ecology, structural-functionalism, ethnoscience, and, in the last years of the era, French structuralism. The American Anthropological Association became a forum of political debate in the 1960s, and its membership included more people of color but fewer women than previously.

The twenty-two selections in this volume highlight the many telling achievements and enduring insights in American anthropology during the first few decades after World War II. An introduction to these essays by Robert F. Murphy provides a historical and critical backdrop for understanding the changes and continuity in American anthropology during this time.

Feminism and Anthropology (Feminist Perspective Series)

Henrietta L. Moore

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A Century of Controversy: Ethnological Issues from 1860-1960 (Studies in Anthropology)

Elman Rogers Service

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Conjectures and Confrontations: Science, Evolution, Social Concern

Robin Fox

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Thoughtful, amusing, and challenging - as Fox always is 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Robin Fox is one of the few social scientists who is fun to read. He doesn't go along with the crowd -- so be prepared to expand your horizons

Sensuous Scholarship (Contemporary Ethnography Series)

Paul Stoller

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Editorial Review:

In Sensuous Scholarship Paul Stoller challenges contemporary social theorists and cultural critics who - using the notion of embodiment to critique both Eurocentric and phallocentric predispositions in scholarly thought - consider the body primarily as a text that can be read and analyzed. He argues that this attitude is in itself Eurocentric and is particularly inappropriate for anthropologists, who often work in societies in which the notion of text, and textual interpretation, is foreign. In many of these societies not only are reading and writing unimportant but vision is not the central perceptual mode. Instead, the "lower" senses are central to the metaphoric organization of experience. Throughout Sensuous Scholarship Stoller argues for the importance of understanding the "sensuous epistemologies" of many non-Western societies so that we can better understand the societies themselves and what their epistemologies have to teach us about human experience in general.

Erect Men Undulating Women: The Visual Imagery of Gender, "Race" and Progress in Reconstructive Illustrations of Human Evolution

Melanie G. Wiber

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Editorial Review:

Based on intensive study of human origin illustrations, responses from students and colleagues and research into reconstructive illustration and feminist criticism of Western art, this ground-breaking book traces the subtle ways in which paleoanthropological conventions have influenced and have shifted in the creation of these illustrations. Wiber reveals that embedded meanings in these illustrations go beyond gender to include two other ubiquitous themes -- racial superiority and upward cultural progress. Underlying all these themes, she found a basic conservatism in the paleoanthropological approach to evolutionary theory.

Erect Men/Undulating Women provides a deeper understanding of popularized illustrations of human origins, but, more importantly, it encourages readers to gain a sensitivity to the ways in which Western culture constructs "scientific" findings that are compatible with its deeply held beliefs and values.