Researching American Culture

Researching American Culture PDF Author: Conrad Phillip Kottak
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472080243
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Applies anthropological techniques to the study of contemporary American behavior

Researching American Culture

Researching American Culture PDF Author: Conrad Phillip Kottak
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472080243
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Applies anthropological techniques to the study of contemporary American behavior

Mormon Visual Culture and the American West

Mormon Visual Culture and the American West PDF Author: Nathan Rees
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000349799
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
This book explores the place of art in Latter-day Saint society during the first 50 years of the Utah settlement, beginning in 1847. Nathan Rees uncovers the critical role that images played in nineteenth-century Mormon religion, politics, and social practice. These artists not only represented, but actively participated in debates about theology, politics, race, gender, and sexuality at a time when Latter-day Saints were grappling with evolving doctrine, conflict with Native Americans, and political turmoil resulting from their practice of polygamy. The book makes an important contribution to art history, Mormon studies, American studies, and religious studies.

A Material Culture

A Material Culture PDF Author: Stephanie Wynne-Jones
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191077178
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
A Material Culture focuses on objects in Swahili society through the elaboration of an approach that sees people and things as caught up in webs of mutual interaction. It therefore provides both a new theoretical intervention in some of the key themes in material culture studies, including the agency of objects and the ways they were linked to social identities, through the development of the notion of a biography of practice. These theoretical discussions are explored through the archaeology of the Swahili, on the Indian Ocean coast of eastern Africa. This coast was home to a series of settlements from the seventh century onwards; some grew to become coral-built 'stonetowns'. These precolonial towns, such as Kilwa Kisiwani, Mombasa, and Gede, represent a unique urban tradition. They were deeply involved in maritime trade, carried out by a diverse Islamic population. This book suggests that the Swahili are a highly-significant case study for exploration of the relationship between objects and people in the past, as the society was constituted and defined through a particular material setting. Further, it is suggested that this relationship was subtly different than in other areas, and particularly from western models that dominate prevailing analysis. The case is made for an alternative form of materiality, perhaps common to the wider Indian Ocean world, with an emphasis on redistribution and circulation rather than on the accumulation of wealth. The reader will therefore gain familiarity with a little-known and fascinating culture, as well as appreciating the ways that non-western examples can add to our theoretical models.

Patterns of American Culture

Patterns of American Culture PDF Author: Dan Rose
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 1512809624
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
Dan Rose has explored the American status system for decades. His ethnographic research into black South Philadelphia, the business community of Hazleton Pennsylvania, and the large horse farms of Chester County Pennsylvania is drawn together here to examine the cultural forms that shape American life at every level. In Patterns of American Culture, Rose draws on the fact and metaphor of colonization to demonstrate that the central motive in the contemporary United States has been and continues to be the corporate form. He begins by considering our origins as a collection of colonies, each of which was constructed as a private corporation whose purpose was to make money for its investors by providing new goods and different markets for England. Rose contends that the structure underlying American life are still corporate and that their purpose is to create new resources, new products, new landscapes, new ideas, and new markets. Today, most Americans have multiple corporate memberships—in city and state governments, in the businesses that employ them, in professional organizations or unions, and in various civic and political associations. Further, through written rules and unwritten customs, these corporations determine who we are and what we can do. Patterns of American Culture is a scholarly and poetic pursuit of the concealed energies within this vast incorporation and an analysis of how it shapes society and the lives of individuals. Rose draws from poems by Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams and brings ideas from such sources as performance art and cultural theory to critique this pervasive institutional order. The book closes with a fable of life in a fictitious capitalist society that both comments on ethnographic practice and reveals the disturbing estrangement inherent in any study of this type of culture. This narrative ethnography will interest scholars and students of American studies, anthropology, English, folklore, and sociology, and members of the design professions, such as architecture, landscape, and urban design.

Investigating Culture

Investigating Culture PDF Author: Carol Delaney
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN: 9780631222378
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
Investigating Culture offers an innovative approach to understanding culture as a constructed phenomenon open to investigation of its implicit premises and explicit forms. Provides a refreshing alternative to traditional textbooks by challenging students to think in new ways and to apply these ideas to their own lives Focuses on the ways that humans orient themselves, e.g., in space and time, according to language, food, the body, and the symbols provided by public myth and ritual Each chapter includes: an introduction framing the central issues, examples from a range of cultures, a selected reading or two, additional suggested readings, and exercises

Made in America

Made in America PDF Author: Claude S. Fischer
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226251455
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 528

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Book Description
Our nation began with the simple phrase, “We the People.” But who were and are “We”? Who were we in 1776, in 1865, or 1968, and is there any continuity in character between the we of those years and the nearly 300 million people living in the radically different America of today? With Made in America, Claude S. Fischer draws on decades of historical, psychological, and social research to answer that question by tracking the evolution of American character and culture over three centuries. He explodes myths—such as that contemporary Americans are more mobile and less religious than their ancestors, or that they are more focused on money and consumption—and reveals instead how greater security and wealth have only reinforced the independence, egalitarianism, and commitment to community that characterized our people from the earliest years. Skillfully drawing on personal stories of representative Americans, Fischer shows that affluence and social progress have allowed more people to participate fully in cultural and political life, thus broadening the category of “American” —yet at the same time what it means to be an American has retained surprising continuity with much earlier notions of American character. Firmly in the vein of such classics as The Lonely Crowd and Habits of the Heart—yet challenging many of their conclusions—Made in America takes readers beyond the simplicity of headlines and the actions of elites to show us the lives, aspirations, and emotions of ordinary Americans, from the settling of the colonies to the settling of the suburbs.

Research Methods in Anthropology

Research Methods in Anthropology PDF Author: Harvey Russell Bernard
Publisher: Altamira Press
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 772

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Book Description
A new edition of the best selling textbook in anthropological methods. Includes new examples, new material on text analysis, rapid ethnography, computers in the field, and other topics.

Girls Uncovered

Girls Uncovered PDF Author: Joe S. McIlhaney, Jr., MD
Publisher: Moody Publishers
ISBN: 0802477720
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
Any parent can identify with the feeling that girls growing up in America face a treacherous future; Girls Uncovered unveils the facts. In a follow up to their eye-opening release Hooked, obstetricians Joe McIlhaney and Freda Bush present stunning scientific research on the development of young girls in America's increasingly reckless sexual culture. They survey the reality of prevalent sexual behaviors and attitudes as well as their psychological, social, physical, and spiritual effects. Despite the harrowing facts revealed by their studies, McIlhaney and Bush give us hope through their expertise as physicians and parents of daughters. Girls Uncovered provides fundamental wisdom and practical advice to help parents, counselors, and church leaders guide young girls safely through the challenges they will face so they can achieve their potential and enjoy full health, hope, and happiness.

African American Culture and Heritage in Higher Education Research and Practice

African American Culture and Heritage in Higher Education Research and Practice PDF Author: Kassie Freeman
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313024812
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Leading African American scholars examine the often neglected cultural context in research and policy development in African American higher education in this collection of essays. Past research has most often been conducted by individuals unfamiliar with the historical and cultural considerations of specific ethnic groups. Therefore, the outcomes of research and the development of programs have been based on deficit models, that is, what is wrong with African Americans, or what they cannot achieve. The book examines the questions; what is the relationship between African Americans' culture and experiences, and how should their culture be integrated into research and practice? How do African Americans' intra- and interrelations differ in higher education? How does understanding African American culture as it relates to higher education research enhance policy-making and practice? What role do HBUCs play in African Americans' participation in higher education? What are the policy and practice implications of past and current research? Scholars and practitioners of education, culture, and race relations will find this collection informative and interesting.

Resource Sharing in Biomedical Research

Resource Sharing in Biomedical Research PDF Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309055822
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 105

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Book Description
The United States is entering an era when, more than ever, the sharing of resources and information might be critical to scientific progress. Every dollar saved by avoiding duplication of efforts and by producing economies of scale will become increasingly important as federal funding enters an era of fiscal restraint. This book focuses on six diverse case studies that share materials or equipment with the scientific community at large: the American Type Culture Collection, the multinational coordinated Arabidopsis thaliana Genome Research Project, the Jackson Laboratory, the Washington Regional Primate Research Center, the Macromolecular Crystallography Resource at the Cornell High-Energy Synchrotron Source, and the Human Genome Center at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The book also identifies common strengths and problems faced in the six cases, and presents a series of recommendations aimed at facilitating resource sharing in biomedical research.