Although I’m taking a hiatus from formal schooling, I’d like to keep my mind sharp and my anthropological repertoire up to snuff. I’ve been planning on creating a reading list of all the most critical sociological and anthropological (and everything in between) texts I and others can think of. A few I have thought about, just to get the list going and in no particular order, are:
Coming of Age in Samoa – Margaret Mead
Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: The Riddles of Culture – Marvin Harris
The Interpretation of Cultures – Clifford Geertz
General Theory of Magic – Marcel Mauss
Tristes Tropiques – Claude Levi-Strauss
Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography – James Clifford and George E. Marcus
I’d love to hear about the books that have impacted your life or that you feel were critical to your understanding of anthropology/humanity in general. It would really help a young neophyte like myself prepare for the rite of passage that is graduate school! And maybe we can create an informative list for others looking for some good reading.
Mike Plugh said
Hey Adam.
Sociologist Charles Tilly’s work “Stories, Identities, and Political Change” is quite good in my opinion. More Media Ecology related is Ronald Deibert’s book, “Parchment, Printing and Hypermedia: Communication in World Order Transformation.” Those are on my bookshelf now and lately I’ve been working with them.
anthsoc said
Hi Adam, nice collection..I like Geertz’s The Interpretation of Cultures, but did not have chance to finish reading it yet…I have posted various books there in my blog…it is a long list and I think it will take a huge space here if I paste them here…any way, hope you can take a look on them….
these are some of what I posted:
Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing & Publishing) by Robert M. Emerson, Rachel I. Fretz ,and Linda L. Shaw
Planet of Slums by Mike Davis
A Sociology of Commercial Flight Crew by Simon Bennett
Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty by Aihwa Ong
Egypt as a Woman: Nationalism, Gender, and Politics by B Baron
To Have or To Be By Erich Fromm
The Art of Loving By Erich Fromm
abo46n2 said
The Art of Loving, excellent book by Fromm. Found that one by accident in a used book store and it’s easily one of my favorites. Glad you feel the same! The rest look interesting, I will jot them down. Thanks for the suggestions!
anthsoc said
hey Adam,
hope you will like them!
I posted couple of videos for Geertz and Fromm
Cheers,
Sara