Essential, influential, and recommended texts in cultural anthropology
December 22, 2015 2:07 AM Subscribe
Allegra Lab's recently published list of 30 essential books in cultural anthropology overlaps substantially with Ryan Sayre's earlier list, 100 influential ethnographies and anthropological texts, but neither provides many details. Angela Stuesse's Engaged Ethnography site provides an up-to-date list of politically-engaged ethnographies (etc.) with descriptions of what to expect, and the Staley Prize each year selects and describes a book at least two years old but not more than eight to recognize recent work of lasting interest. Incidentally, many books on these lists are available online.
The following titles can be read at Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive, or the Open Library, but note that influential anthropological "classics" may exemplify armchair anthropology, essentialism, ethnocentrism, colonialism or legacies of colonialism [PDF], exoticism, individual and/or structural selection biases [PDF], representation in the ethnographic present, and more--lessons/issues that are normally read critically while searching for further questions to ask.
The following titles can be read at Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive, or the Open Library, but note that influential anthropological "classics" may exemplify armchair anthropology, essentialism, ethnocentrism, colonialism or legacies of colonialism [PDF], exoticism, individual and/or structural selection biases [PDF], representation in the ethnographic present, and more--lessons/issues that are normally read critically while searching for further questions to ask.
- Abu-Lughod, Lila (1986). Veiled Sentiments (alternate copy).
- Asad, Talal (1973). Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter.
- Basso, Keith (1979). Portraits of "The Whiteman".
- Bateson, Gregory (1958 [1936]). Naven: A Survey of the Problems Suggested by a Composite Picture of the Culture of a New Guinea Tribe Drawn from Three Points of View .
- Bateson, Gregory (1972). Steps Toward an Ecology of Mind.
- Belmonte, Thomas (1979). The Broken Fountain.
- Benedict, Ruth (1946). The Chrysanthemum and the Sword.
- Benedict, Ruth (1934). Patterns of Culture (alternate copy).
- Boas, Franz (1911). The Mind of Primitive Man.
- Bourgois, Philippe (2002). In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio.
- Bowen, Elenore Smith [Laura Bohannan] (1964). Return to Laughter.
- Brodkin Sacks, Karen and Remy, Dorothy, eds. (1984). My Troubles are Going to Have Trouble with Me: Everyday Trials and Triumphs of Women Workers.
- Brown, Karen McCarthy (1991). Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn.
- Casagrande, Joseph B., ed. (1960). In the Company of Man: Twenty Portraits by Anthropologists.
- Clifford, James (1988). The Predicament of Culture.
- Deacon, Terrence W. (1997). The Symbolic Species.
- Dumont, Louis (1966). Homo Hierarchicus.
- Durkheim, Émile (1912). The Elementary Forms of Religious Life.
- Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1940). The Nuer.
- Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1956). Nuer Religion.
- Fadiman, Anne (1998). The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (alternate copy).
- Frazer, James (1911). The Golden Bough, v.1, v.2, v.3, v.4, v.5, v.6, v.7, v.8, v.9, v.10, v.11, and v.12.
- Freud, Sigmund (1912). Totem and Taboo.
- Geertz, Clifford (1973), The Interpretation of Cultures.
- Geertz, Clifford (1988). Works and Lives.
- Ginsburg, Faye, ed. (1990). Uncertain Terms: Negotiating Gender in American Culture.
- Gluckman, Max (1955). Custom and Conflict in Africa.
- Harris, Marvin (1973). Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches.
- Hurston, Zora Neale (1981). Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica.
- Kleinman, Arthur (1981). Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture.
- Kwong, Peter (1997). Forbidden Workers: Illegal Chinese Immigrants and American Labor.
- Kwong, Peter (1987). The New Chinatown.
- Lamphere, Louise, and Rosaldo, Michelle (1974). Women, Culture, and Society.
- Lawrence, Peter (1964). Road Belong Cargo.
- Leach, Edmund (1954). Political Systems of Highland Burma.
- Lévi-Strauss, Claude (1962). The Savage Mind.
- Lévi-Strauss, Claude (1955). Tristes Tropiques.
- Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien (1910). How Natives Think.
- Malinowski, Bronislaw (1922). Argonauts of the Western Pacific.
- Maybury-Lewis, David (1965). The Savage and the Innocent.
- Mauss, Marcel (1966 [1923-24]). The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies.
- Mead, Margaret (1928). Coming of Age in Samoa.
- Mintz, Sidney (1986). Sweetness and Power.
- Morgan, Lewis Henry (1877). Ancient Society.
- Newman, Katherine (1999). No Shame in My Game: The Working Poor in the Inner City.
- Parsons, Elsie Clews (1922). American Indian Life.
- Powdermaker, Hortense (1939). After Freedom: A Cultural Study in the Deep South.
- Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. (1922). The Andaman Islanders.
- Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. (1952). Structure and Function in Primitive Societies.
- Redfield, Robert (1930). Tepoztlan: A Mexican Village.
- Rivers, W. H. R. (1914). Kinship and Social Organisation.
- Rosaldo, Michelle (1980). Knowledge & Passion: Ilongot Notions of Self & Social Life.
- Sapir, Edward (1949). Selected Writings in Language, Culture, and Personality.
- Shostak, Marjorie (1981). Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman.
- Stocking, Jr., George W., ed. (1983). Observers Observed: Essays on Ethnographic Fieldwork.
- Tylor, Edward B. (1871). Primitive Culture v.1 and v.2.
i haven't read a single one of those. is there anything that is interesting to the layperson? i guess maybe freud (i've heard he's a good read - i'm not particularly interested in whether any particular book is "correct" or not)?
(the one anthropological book i have read, i really enjoyed).
posted by andrewcooke at 4:33 AM on December 22, 2015
(the one anthropological book i have read, i really enjoyed).
posted by andrewcooke at 4:33 AM on December 22, 2015
Holy shit, Wobbuffet, if your personal goal this December is to kick MeFi's ass into gear by posting the most incredible FPPs, you are sure achieving it. Thanks for this.
andrewcooke -- yes! I'd start with Fadiman and Hurston myself.
posted by thetortoise at 5:21 AM on December 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
andrewcooke -- yes! I'd start with Fadiman and Hurston myself.
posted by thetortoise at 5:21 AM on December 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
is there anything that is interesting to the layperson?
I've only read three or so off of the first list (the Allegra Lab list), but I would say, based on those three, that if you are intellectually curious and willing to engage with sometimes difficult concepts and issues, that the answer is unequivocally yes. Number 25 on that list is Scheper-Hughes' Death Without Weeping, which remains probably the most powerful book I have ever read. It's not easy reading (because a book about child mortality is never going to be easy), but it is incredibly well-written and deeply thought through.
But I'd defer to someone who knows that field for a real suggestion about where to start as an interested outsider. I enjoyed reading Geertz, but I wouldn't suggest it as a starting point, for example.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:43 AM on December 22, 2015 [5 favorites]
I've only read three or so off of the first list (the Allegra Lab list), but I would say, based on those three, that if you are intellectually curious and willing to engage with sometimes difficult concepts and issues, that the answer is unequivocally yes. Number 25 on that list is Scheper-Hughes' Death Without Weeping, which remains probably the most powerful book I have ever read. It's not easy reading (because a book about child mortality is never going to be easy), but it is incredibly well-written and deeply thought through.
But I'd defer to someone who knows that field for a real suggestion about where to start as an interested outsider. I enjoyed reading Geertz, but I wouldn't suggest it as a starting point, for example.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:43 AM on December 22, 2015 [5 favorites]
The Fadiman book was written for mass market, so it's definitely of interest to a lay person.
I was a sociology/anthropology major in college and this list brings back a lot of memories.
posted by soren_lorensen at 5:46 AM on December 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
I was a sociology/anthropology major in college and this list brings back a lot of memories.
posted by soren_lorensen at 5:46 AM on December 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
Weaponizing Anthropology: Social Science in Service of the Militarized State David Price
posted by bukvich at 5:47 AM on December 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by bukvich at 5:47 AM on December 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
buckvich, is it working? This sounds like the HR department saying "from now on, we're going to use psychology, dammit!" Great idea, but the practice turns out to be more difficult than we imagined and is often counterproductive.
posted by sneebler at 8:21 AM on December 22, 2015
posted by sneebler at 8:21 AM on December 22, 2015
There's also a nice cache of classic cultural anthropology texts over at HAU Books.
posted by cosmologinaut at 8:44 AM on December 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by cosmologinaut at 8:44 AM on December 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
sneebler what they do is hire social science degreed folk to curate death squad hit lists. If body count counts as working it works very well.
posted by bukvich at 9:10 AM on December 22, 2015
posted by bukvich at 9:10 AM on December 22, 2015
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