Customer Reviews (5)

Cultural Anthropology Book
Awesome book and great content to use in a college level classroom, great for training missionaries that will work overseas.

Perfect.
Just the way it was described-was a little late on the shipping [1 day] but it didn't affect the product in any way. I'd buy another if I needed to!

a good text or study of Cultural Anthroplogy
I am sure you could get a more updated book, but I bought it at a low price to study for my won personal curiosity.It was very informative.

A smooth transaction
The book came in time, the condition of the book was as stated on the website. All in all a smooth and timely transaction. Thanks !

OK for intro-level anthropology courses, but not flawless
When dealing with textbooks, you eventually realize that every textbook has its advantages and disadvantages. "Cultural Anthropology" by Kottak is no different. The book has some fundamental flaws that warrant discussion. First, I think the book would benefit if it included an early chapter that introduced students to various anthropological theories. Since many anthropology texts fail to do this, I can't hold too much against Kottak for this negligence. Most sociology textbooks incorporate a chapter introducing students to Functionalist, Conflict, and Symbolic Interaction theoretical frameworks, and I believe anthropology books should follow suit.

My second problem with the book is that Kottak, at times, provides questionable definitions for various terms and concepts. For example, in Chapter 6 he defines a "race" as "an ethnic group that is assumed to have a biological basis." This is a fundamentally flawed definition. The fact that definitions of race are socio-cultural categories notwithstanding, most Americans would consider African-Americans, the Dinka, and the Igbo to be three separate ethnic groups but all members of the same race.The same can be said of Italian-Americans, Russians, and the Amish. Kottak's definition implies that "race" and "ethnicity" are essentially the same phenomenoa, when in actuality they are two totally distinct concepts. His sloppy, simplistic definitions have a potential to confuse non-anthropology students.

My other critique with Kottak is that, at times, he offers ridiculous and overly-simplistic culturalist explanations. For example, Kottak points out that Germany has numerous high-quality female Olympic swimmers, while Brazil lacks high-caliber women swimmers. What accounts for this difference? According to Kottak, the answer is different standards of sex appeal and constructions of female beauty in the two societies. In Germany, women with hard and sculpted bodies are considered sexy, while Brazilians value the "natural beauty" of women, especially the "ghetto booty." What a joke! How would Kottak account for the fact that Brazil sends a quality women's volleyball team to the Olympics - a team stocked with 6'0" women with rock solid abs and muscular, toned frames?

On the plus side, students find Kottak easy to read, and for the most part, easy to comprehend. Each chapter has a set of discussion questions to facilitate in-class discussions of the material at hand. The instructor's edition comes with an outstanding test/quiz component for each chapter. Also, Kottak does offer many cross-cultural examples and case studies to support his ideas.

While far from perfect, "Cultural Anthropology" is a recommended textbook for intro-level anthropology courses - especially those that project a large enrollment of freshmen. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Couldn't get through it.
This would be a good book for a term paper or essay, but not for pleasure reading, which is what I wanted it for. ... Read more

Product Description
In 1992, an explosion of "stock fever" hit Shanghai. Ellen Hertz's anthropological study sets the stock market and its players in the context of Shanghai society, and probes the dominant role played by the state, which has yielded a stock market very different from those of the West. She explains the way in which investors and officials construct a "moral storyline" to make sense of this great structural innovation, identifying a struggle among the big investors, the little investors and the state to control the market. ... Read more

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Now in its second edition, Cultural Theory: The Key Concepts is an up-to-date and comprehensive survey of over 350 of the key terms central to cultural theory today.

This second edition includes new entries on:

•  colonialism
• cybercultur
•  globalisation
•  terrorism
• visual studies.

Providing clear and succinct introductions to a wide range of subjects, from feminism to postmodernism, Cultural Theory: The Key Concepts continues to be an essential resource for students of literature, sociology, philosophy and media and anyone wrestling with contemporary cultural theory.

Customer Reviews (2)

A unique and useful intellectual resource
As best I can tell, cultural theory aims to understand culture (or cultures) in an interdisciplinary way, drawing mainly on philosophy and the human sciences (especially sociology and anthropology), with perhaps a few ideas of its own thrown in to produce a fairly eclectic mix.

This book surveys cultural theory by describing more than 350 key concepts from the field, with the length of each entry typically being intermediate to a dictionary and encyclopedia.Examples of the concepts are absence, authority, civic humanism, counterculture, dramaturgical model, feudalism, ideological state apparatus, libertarianism, myth, philosophy of language, propoganda, ritual, sociobiology, syntagm, and youth culture.

As you can see, the concepts range from the familiar to the highly esoteric.Since the book has two editors and thirteen contributors, the quality of the entries likewise varies somewhat, and you will occasionally encounter some which are too unclear, although most are quite good and some are outstanding.

I read this book from cover to cover, and the net effect for me was that it was enlightening, often to the extent of being a page turner, which is saying a lot for a book organized alphabetically.The book would, of course, also be useful to look up concepts on an as-needed basis, as well as for randomly dipping into.

Highly recommended to people with an interest in relatively highbrow intellectual sort of stuff.

An Idea Whose Time Has Come
The most comprehensive, thorough, insightful, quick reference to Cultural (as distinguished from and including what used to be known as Critical) Theory that I've come across. Well-sized, it's ready-to-hand, organized dictionary style under the topics of Cultural Theory which range across all disciplines, made here easily accessible to the reader in a tightly knit format.The book has an extensive bibliography and index.A must for every scholar's personal library(even those expert in the field will find it useful as a teaching tool - great for handouts), and a go-to-first guide for anyone who needs to understand the often complex, elusive, gnomic terminology of the post-modern intellectual environment.The explanations are concise, yet not thin. The book as a whole exhibits a fine sense or proportion and judgement. ... Read more

Product Description
An examination of the colorful Tiwi culture from the late 1920s to the 1980s that provides a broad picture of cultural change and modernization in a hunting and food gathering tribe. The first half focuses on marriage contracts and their relationship to other aspects of Tiwi social structure, and the second half examines the Tiwi's response to modern influences. ... Read more

Product Description
Cultural Globalization: A User’s Guide is a personal and engaging journey through theories of culture and globalization. Drawing on extensive examples and interdisciplinary research, Wise explores concepts of culture, territory and identity in order to give students a new perspective on issues of globalization.

• Includes numerous examples from Asian, European, and North American youth culture and popular music
• Draws on interdisciplinary research from the fields of anthropology, cultural studies, cultural geography, and media studies
• Considers how global processes carry with them the ethical questions of how to act in the world and how to care for others
• Provides an original and stimulating overview of theories of culture and globalization, encouraging
  students think more broadly about the key issues

Product Description
Ethnographic Fieldwork: An Anthropological Reader provides a comprehensive selection of classic and contemporary reflections, examining the tensions between self and other, the relationships between anthropologists and informants, conflicts and ethical challenges, various types of ethnographic research, and different styles of writing about fieldwork.

Customer Reviews (1)

A Should-be for every Ethnology-Student
This "textbook" covers a multitude of fieldwork-aspects. The good thing: It is compiled of a variety of authors, and connects theoretical topics with very practical problems. It is among the avantgarde that now also gives voices to the long overheard. ... Read more

Product Description
In 80 entries this work provides an introduction to the key ideas of cultural anthropology. In each article--culture, race, materialism, semiotics, "primitive," etc.--Winthrop provides a balance between describing a concept's contemporary theoretical relevance and tracing its development, including the broader intellectual context transcending professional anthropology. Thus the article on "interpretation" discusses St. Augustine, Schliermacher, Dilthey, and Gadamer, as well as Geertz and Evans-Pritchard. That on "ethnology" treats Boemus, Acosta, and Prichard as well as the Boasians. The article on "nature" contrasts the Greek concept of physis with the Roman natura. Though this is a work of synthesis rather than of original historical scholarship, Winthrop quotes primary sources as much as possible, to let the key figures speak for themselves. ... Read more

Product Description
The anthropology of art is a fast-developing area of intellectual debate and academic study. This beautifully illustrated volume is a unique survey of the current state of anthropological thinking on art and aesthetics. The distinguished contributors draw on contemporary anthropological theory and on classic anthropological topics such as myth and ritual to deepen our understanding of particular aesthetic traditions in their socio-cultural and historical contexts. Many of the essays present new findings based on recent field research in Australia, New Guinea, Indonesia, and Mexico; while others draw on classical anthropological accounts of the Trobriand Islanders of Melanesia and the Nuer of the Southern Sudan to form new arguments and conclusions. The introductory overview of the history of the anthropology of art, by Sir Raymond Firth, makes this volume especially useful for those interested in learning what anthropology has to contribute to our understanding of art and aesthetics in general. ... Read more

Product Description
A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion is a collection of some of the most significant classic and contemporary writings in the field. Updated in its second edition, this volume examines numerous aspects of religion in a diversity of cultures and expands upon the idea of what we mean by ‘religion’, linking it to some of the broader questions of culture and politics.

• Collects classic and contemporary articles from the major thinkers in both North American and British anthropology


• Emphasizes the ongoing conversation among anthropologists with respect to central questions of religious behavior


• Presents comprehensive coverage of theory and religious practice, through time and ethnographic regions, integrated by editorial commentary


• Includes additional classic pieces by Pouillon, Burridge, and Meyerhoff, as well as more contemporary work by Harding, De Boeck, and Palmié


• Includes indexed bibliography arranged according to both ethnographic region and religious topics and practices

Customer Reviews (1)

The best anthology on the market, at least for the price
As an anthropologist who teaches a course on the anthropology of religion, I looked at all the available anthologies, as well as textbooks.This is by far the best anthology, especially for the price. Some are up to $100, which is an awful lot to ask an undergrad to spend.Even compared to those, which can be large and dense, this one stands out for a particular reason.

Most of its competitors present their offerings in a kind of mechanical and sequential way: "here is a section on myth, here is a section on ritual, etc."After using Lambek's text for the second time, I really began to appreciate how his book has a trajectory.It is really "up to something."Unlike the others, he is subtly developing a perspective, and the selections contribute almost universally to that perspective.I think even the students began to realize what he was trying to accomplish and approved of it.
The book is not perfect.It is heavy on ritual and short on some other topics.It does little or nothing with specialists, and nothing at all with altered states of consciousness/hallucinogens.Some of the selections are probably too hard for undergrads, and the piece by Wittgenstein, while he is important, does not convey enough of his thinking to be particularly helpful.
I understand a new edition is forthcoming.I know that I will be using it and encourage others to do so as well. ... Read more

Product Description
This exciting new volume brings together seminal work by leading figures in what is emerging as a new and important intellectual tradition, relating them to other work in sociology and different disciplines. The book is divided into sections on Culture as Text and Code, The Production and Reception of Culture, and Culture in Action, each containing edited theoretical and empirical contributions that address the key debates in cultural sociology: the autonomy of culture, power and culture, structure and agency, and the concept of meaning. ... Read more

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In The Anthropology of Politics: A Reader in Ethnography, Theory and Critique, editor Joan Vincent offers her readers a selection of classic and contemporary articles on the anthropology of politics. Her introduction, headnotes, and suggested readings make this an indispensable resource for students, scholars, and instructors alike. ... Read more

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The Anthropology of Media: A Reader is an unprecedented collection of articles that, taken together, define the emergent field of the anthropology of mass media. Anthropologists – traditionally hailed as interpreters of cultural "Others" – no longer serve as the primary interlocutors for the communities with which they work. Owing to the spread of mass media and new forms of expression and communication, anthropologists have been displaced by CNN, Hollywood, the Internet, and other global media in presenting and representing unfamiliar cultures to the majority of our world. People everywhere are seeing and hearing themselves and others in new ways, and have picked up these media to use for their own purposes. The Anthropology of Media offers a critical overview of how mass media represent and construct both Western and non-Western cultures. By drawing on the recent explosion of culture and media studies and moving beyond earlier anthropological emphases on ethnographic film, this volume heralds the emergence of a new field and brings its key literature together for the first time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Anthropology of Media: A Reader (Blackwell Readers in Anthropology) (Purchased on 09/26/2009) by Kelly Askew
The book came on time, that I appreciate-- but within a week the first chapter had ripped out of the binding! By the end of the semester the thing will surely be in pieces. ... Read more

Product Description
Seed and gene banks have made great strides in preserving the biological diversity of traditional agricultural plant species, but they have tended to ignore a serious component: the knowledge about those crops and methods of farming held by the people who have long raised them. Virginia Nazarea now makes a case for preserving cultural memory along with biodiversity. By exploring how indigenous people farm sweet potatoes in Bukidnon, Philippines, she discovers specific ways in which the conservation of genetic resources and the conservation of culture can support each other. Interweaving a wealth of ecological and cognitive data with oral history, Nazarea details a "memory banking" protocol for collecting and conserving cultural information to complement the genetic, agronomic, and biochemical characterization of important crops. She shows that memory banking offers significant benefits for local populations—not only the preservation of traditional knowledge but also the maintenance of alternatives to large-scale agricultural development and commercialization. She also compares alternative forms of germplasm conservation conducted by a male-dominated hierarchy with those of an informal network of migrant women.Cultural Memory and Biodiversity establishes valuable guidelines for people who aspire to support community-based in situ conservation of local varieties. Perhaps more important, it shows that the traditional methods of local farmers are often as important as the "advanced" methods encouraged by advocates of modernization. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Solid, practical, beautiful, AND tops in methodology
According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN, some 1.4 billion people live in farm families that are largely self-provisioning in terms of seeds. In recent years, the skill and knowledge applied to the management and improvement of farmer-varieties has become more fully appreciated. Farmers have been found to employ taxonomic systems, encourage introgression, use selection and breeding techniques, multiply seeds, field test, record data, and name their varieties. It was not so long ago that these farmer-varieties were referred to, in scientific literature, as "primitive" or even "Stone-Age" varieties. They are still referred to by the rather disembodied term, "landraces."

The concerted collection of these materials for conservation and use in modern plant breeding preceeded by some decades any efforts to conserve or use the knowledge farmers had about their materials. Virginia Nazarea's book is at once a warm and loving tribute to farmer-innovators, and a practical guide to the study of "indigenous" knowledge of farming systems and farmer-managed biodiversity. She connects plants to people in ways readers will find difficult to forget, and shows that the existence of diversity in crops is linked with the health and diversity of human cultures. In a sense, they have co-evolved with each other.

Nazarea's field research focused on how people farm sweet potatoes in Bukidnon, Phillipines. In the course of this research she was able to collect 89 sweet potato varieties. Her book offers a detailed account of these varieties and their management. One particularly interesting table provides a compendium of indigenous cultural management beliefs and practices, and comments on each by a plant pathologist, entomologist, agronomist, plant breeder and plant physiologist. The result is fascinating and revealing. In response to the observation that Holy water is mixed with some cuttings so God will watch over and protect the crop, the plant pathologist replies, "purely fanatic," while the plant breeder comments that "water will be good for the cuttings."

Most important, the field research was a test of methodology. This is where the book shines. Nazarea offers a well-conceived, practical, step-by-step guide to researchers who wish to examine the interaction between traditional farmers and their crops. Though Nazarea is an anthropologist by training, this guide, interestingly and uniquely, will be equally valuable to social scientists, ethnobiologists, and agricultural scientists (particularly plant collectors and breeders). Nazarea is clearly sensitive both to the local needs and feelings of farmers as well as to aspirations and needs of researchers. The result is highly useful. In one light volume, the researcher has a complete and rigourous methodology laid out, from the types of questions to ask, to how to ask them and to whom. With slight modification to suit particular circumstances, most researchers may need little else to undertake work in this particular field.

Nazarea's "big" thesis is that "preserving local knowledge pertaining to traditional varieties of crops is complementary, and in many respects indispensable, to the maintenance of the genetic diversity of these crops." Some may argue that she falls a little short in proving its indispensability. Nevertheless, she is on solid ground, genetically and socially, when she demonstrates the importance of on-farm management and what she calls "memory banking" of indigenous knowledge. Equally, she is convincing in arguing that ex situ (genebank) and in situ (on-farm) conservation and management of genetic resources are complementary strategies. Nazarea's contribution is to the latter, both by providing a methodology for research, and an engaging, delightfully-written case study of its application. This is a book without peers in its field.

The loss of biodiversity is a loss of cultural dimensions.
Literature on indigenous knowledge tends to be long on trendiness and idealism, but short on solid method and results. Nazarea's book is a refreshing corrective by offering a distinct operational program. Nazarealaysout a program for conserving cultural knowledge, step-by-step, withpractical examples from one who has been in the trenches. The staggeringloss of biodiversity is not just a biological loss, but a loss of human andcultural proportions. Nazarea makes the critical link between nature andculture: when plants go extinct, so does cultural memory. Not only does theworld lose an inventory of plant materials, but it alsolosses astorehouse of knowledge for growing and using plnats. The implication isthat attempts to store genetic materials in seed banks is a sterile andhalf-hearted exercise, because the loss of the cultural, adaptive knowledtehas grave consequences for the future of the human species. Nazarea goes tothe people at the margins for answers, and in the process, she turnsscience on its head, proclaiming that "diversity is actually thenatural state of things." In that regard Nazarea's work is destined tobecome an anthropological classic, pointing the direction for thediscipline for the next century. Nazarea breaks new ground indecision-making theory by showing the pitfalls of microeconomic models thatassume farmers make either-or choices when selecting a course to follow.Instead, farmers use multiple criteria in making cropping decisions inorder to spread out the riskagainst uncertainties of the growing season.This is a sophisticated decision-making process that defies the neatformulations of formalized economic models. In the end, Nazarea documentsthat women are the best safeguards of indigenous knowledtge throughcomaraderie and sharing. An experimental in situ conservation program runby the male hierarchy collapsed, but spouses and female relatives took upthe work to maintain the plots. If Nazaarea's book is a defense offuzziness, as she puts it, then less-defined, less-formalized structures ofwomen may also be the best hope for preserving indigenous knowledge. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Mao rules
This is an excellent reader. Superb. Extremely funny essays from "publish or perish" series. As a student, I wasn't "frustrated by the lack of references, footnotes, and endnotes" at all.But, still, for a Stalinist/Maoist anthropology professor it may look so. (Talking about representation - who represents whom). I have no intentions, of course, of refuting Stalinist ravings. It is just as meaningless as these ridiculous "front lines" stories.

Decent overview but lacking in references, footnotes
An interesting and broad overview to Anthropology, but students may be frustrated by the lack of references, footnotes, and endnotes. ... Read more

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Yi-Chieh Lin reveals how the entrepreneurial energy of emerging markets, such as China, includes the opportunity to profit from fake stuff, that is counterfeit goods that rely on our fascination with brand names. Students will discover how the names and logos embroidered and printed on their own clothes carry their own price tag above and beyond the use value of the products themselves. The book provides a wonderful introduction for students to global markets and their role in determining how they function.

Product Description
The 1990s saw the dramatic rise of spectacular forms of body modification, which included the tattoo renaissance and the rise in body piercing, the emergence of neo-tribal practices like scarification and flesh hanging, and the invention of new, high-tech forms of body art like subdermal implants. This book, based on years of interviews with body modifiers throughout the United States, is both sympathetic and critical and provides the most comprehensive look at this phenomenon. From punk rock to "modern primitives," from queer sadomasochism to cyberpunks, sociologist Victoria Pitts provides insight into the full range of body modification subcultures. Whether by turning themselves into female punks, neo-tribal "primitives" or science fiction cyborgs, body modifiers are engaged in the project of "reclaiming" their bodies from the machine of modern life. Pitts explores the connections between body modification and contemporary struggles over sex and gender, and widespread attitudes about identity, consumption, and the body.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Boring
The general tone of this book is very much like a second rate graduate thesis. It manages to be blandly academic in terms of style yet with none of the rigor one would associate with a decent sociology text. For example the author appears to have interviewed a grand total of about five people. Also none of the people interviewed are particularly interesting characters; the focus seems to be people recovering from sexual abuse or people affirming their sexuality by getting branded.

Now I don't have a problem with this phenomenon, I think its pretty interesting but If you want to read that kind of thing you can find tons of it free on Bmezine. Bmezine, has tones of experience stories like this, actual pictures and a means to contact people actually involved.

If you scrape away the interviews all you have left are the authors opinions about modification and a few cheap sudo cyberpunk photo's.

If you want a good read about body modification read the modern primitives re search title and the industrial culture handbook. I don't really have any good academic recommendations but I bet with a bit of research you can find something a lot better than this.

save your money
poor quality printing with very few photo's and what they were was not up to today's standards

Body modification-let the truth be told!
The book deals with a myriad of social issues pertaning to the body and its modification to show both resistance and conformaty to mainstreem and subculture respectively.And indeed the book was interesting to read once and maybe twice if one is writing their masters thesis or doctoral dissertaion.However, I felt that the book would someteimes just drag on and on.What was however interesting was the course that included the book in its uses.The work is very academic, professional and worth the time to read.

Superbly intelligent rendering of postmodern culture
Victoria Pitts's book "In the Flesh" is the most brilliant analysis of postmodern culture I have ever read. Through the lens of recent phenomena in body modification--from the beautifying to the erotic and grotesque--she shows how issues of subjectivity are complexly intertwined with body strategies--performances in which the actors at once gain and lose themselves. With exquisite analysis of fascinating subjects and clear-minded use of postmodern theory, her book is the epitome of rigorous scholarship, both theoretical and empirical. It is, in a word, a theory of flesh and its agencies; but beyond the body, it offers us a scaffolding from which to view the painfully complex issues of contemporary culture at large.

bodies and culture
This is a fascinating book that is theoretically sophisticated and guides us through the body in modern and postmodern theory. Her insight into the range of body modification practices and how they are linked to broader cultural shifts in late modernity is sharp and convincing. ... Read more

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Psychological Anthropology: A Reader in Self in Culture presents a selection of readings from recent and classical literature with a rich diversity of insights into the individual and society.

• Presents the latest psychological research from a variety of global cultures
• Sheds new light on historical continuities in psychological anthropology
• Explores the cultural relativity of emotional experience and moral concepts among diverse peoples, the Freudian influence and recent psychoanalytic trends in anthropology
• Addresses childhood and the acquisition of culture, an ethnographic focus on the self as portrayed in ritual and healing, and how psychological anthropology illuminates social change

Customer Reviews (2)

Just what I ordered!
The book came exactly as described: it looks barely used.Definitely worth the money.

Great Purchase!
Buying this product was not a problem at all and I am so happy that I had found such a good deal on it too. Thank you so much! ... Read more

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This collection of ten mini-ethnographies takes a problem-based learning approach, focusing on contextual and cumulative learning to enhance student understanding of the fundamental concepts of cultural anthropology. The problems covered in the text range from how anthropology contributes to an understanding of human similarities and differences and why people believe different things to inequality, violence, poverty, and death. Each problem is explored in the context of a particular society, including Canada, Ecuador, Indonesia, Kohistan, Tibet, Tonga, the United States, and Sudan.2002. F.E. Peacock Publishers, Inc. ... Read more