Classic Readings in Cultural Anthropology

by Ferraro, Gary

• ISBN13: 9780534612726
• ISBN10: 0534612725
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-04-28
• Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing

Summary

Brief, accessible, and inexpensive, this new reader has been carefully edited by text author Gary Ferraro to include those articles and excerpts from works that have been pivotal to the field of anthropology and that have endured over the decades. These eminently relevant selections allow students to further explore anthropological perspectives on key cultural topics such as culture, language and communication, ecology and economics, marriage and family, politics and social control, supernatural beliefs systems, and issues of culture change.

Author Biography

Gary Ferraro: The University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Introduction	xii
SECTION I Perspectives on Culture	1	(12)
Body Ritual Among the Nacirema	1	(5)
Horace Miner
Queer Customs	6	(7)
Clyde Kluckhohn
SECTION II Language and Communication	13	(5)
Rapport-talk and Report-talk	13	(5)
Deborah Tannen
SECTION III Economics and Ecology	18	(16)
Eating Christmas in the Kalahari	18	(6)
Richard Borshay Lee
The Potlatch	24	(10)
Marvin Harris
SECTION IV Marriage and the Family	34	(14)
When Brothers Share a Wife	34	(6)
Melvyn C. Goldstein
Death Without Weeping	40	(8)
Nancy Scheper-Hughes
SECTION V Gender	48	(17)
Society and Sex Roles	48	(7)
Ernestine Friedl
Women and Men in !Kung Society	55	(10)
Marjorie Shostak
SECTION VI Politics and Social Control	65	(19)
The Kpelle Moot	65	(10)
James L. Gibbs, Jr.
American Schoolrooms: Learning the Nightmare	75	(9)
Jules Henry
SECTION VII Supernatural Beliefs	84	(14)
The Notion of Witchcraft Explains Unfortunate Events	84	(9)
E. E. Evans-Pritchard
Baseball Magic	93	(5)
George Gmelch
SECTION VIII Culture Change	98	(1)
Steel Axes for Stone-Age Australians	98	(11)
Lauriston Sharp
The Price of Progress	109
John Bodley