Anthropology asks what it means to be human, incorporating answers from all four major subfields of anthropology - biological anthropology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology, and cultural anthropology - as well as applied anthropology. Fully conveying the richness of the discipline, thisdetailed yet accessible introduction helps students gain a deeper understanding of the human condition by looking at themselves and the world around them through an anthropological lens.
The only brief cultural anthropology text specifically designed to prepare students to read ethnographies more effectively and with greater understanding, this is a concise introduction to the basic ideas and practices of contemporary cultural anthropology.
Accessible, engaging, and distinctly Canadian, Cultural Anthropology: A Perspective on the Human Condition explores the diverse factors that interact to shape human cultural practices. Offering solid coverage of traditional topics and their contemporary applications, the authors incorporate cutting-edge theory and highlight human narratives across cultures. This new Canadian edition includes discussion of globalization, medical anthropology, gender and feminist anthropology, and ethics inanthropology. Canadian issues and examples are also integrated throughout the text in addition to a strong global perspective. Students and instructors alike will appreciate the stunning full-colour design which highlights the vibrancy of the material. Cultural Anthropology is the ideal introductory text for studying this fascinating discipline!
This book comprehensively surveys the colorful history of mass hysteria and kindred phenomena in schools, documenting outbreaks of demonic possession during witchcraft scares, to modern incidents of collapsing bands, itching frenzies, ghost panics and mystery illnesses. Strange behaviors and illnesses in students are examined through the centuries. Possessed children went into trance states and began to bark like dogs in 16th and 17th century Holland; an epidemic of twitching, trembling and blackout spells swept through European schools during the latter 1800s; an outbreak of Tourette's-like symptoms struck schoolgirls in western New York in 2011-12. In addition to the US and Europe, separate chapters detail accounts from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Oceania. A variety of theories to explain outbreaks are examined.
A revealing examination of small-town life More than thirty million Americans live in small, out-of-the-way places. Many of them could have joined the vast majority of Americans who live in cities and suburbs. They could live closer to more lucrative careers and convenient shopping, a wider range of educational opportunities, and more robust health care. But they have opted to live differently. In Small-Town America, we meet factory workers, shop owners, retirees, teachers, clergy, and mayors—residents who show neighborliness in small ways, but who also worry about everything from school closings and their children's futures to the ups and downs of the local economy. Drawing on more than seven hundred in-depth interviews in hundreds of towns across America and three decades of census data, Robert Wuthnow shows the fragility of community in small towns. He covers a host of topics, including the symbols and rituals of small-town life, the roles of formal and informal leaders, the social role of religious congregations, the perception of moral and economic decline, and the myriad ways residents in small towns make sense of their own lives. Wuthnow also tackles difficult issues such as class and race, abortion, homosexuality, and substance abuse. Small-Town America paints a rich panorama of individuals who reside in small communities, finding that, for many people, living in a small town is an important part of self-identity.
How a fraying social fabric is fueling the outrage of rural Americans What is fueling rural America’s outrage toward the federal government? Why did rural Americans vote overwhelmingly for Donald Trump? And is there a more nuanced explanation for the growing rural-urban divide? Drawing on more than a decade of research and hundreds of interviews, Robert Wuthnow brings us into America’s small towns, farms, and rural communities to paint a rich portrait of the moral order—the interactions, loyalties, obligations, and identities—underpinning this critical segment of the nation. Wuthnow demonstrates that to truly understand rural Americans’ anger, their culture must be explored more fully, and he shows that rural America’s fury stems less from economic concerns than from the perception that Washington is distant from and yet threatening to the social fabric of small towns. Moving beyond simplistic depictions of America’s heartland, The Left Behind offers a clearer picture of how this important population will influence the nation’s political future.
From fads, crazes, and manias to collective delusions, scares, panics, and mass hysterias, history is replete with examples of remarkable social behavior. Many are fueled by fear and uncertainty; others are driven by hope and expectation. For others still, the causes are more obscure. This massive collection of extraordinary social behaviors spans more than two millennia, and attempts to place many of the episodes within their greater historical and cultural context. Perhaps the most well known example of unusual collective behavior occurred in 1938, when a million or more Americans were frightened or panicked after listening to a realistic radio drama about a Martian invasion of New Jersey, based on an adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel "War of the Worlds." Less known but equally remarkable scares based on Wells' book occurred in Chile in 1944 (when Army units were mobilized), in Ecuador in 1949 (when riots broke out, leaving more than a dozen dead), as well as in Buffalo in 1968, Rhode Island in 1974, and Europe in 1988 and 1998. The modern civilized world is by no means immune to such peculiar episodes. In the late 20th century, scores of people in the U.S. and Europe were wrongly incarcerated following claims of Satanic ritual abuse by authorities untutored in False Memory Syndrome. This episode recalls the European witch terror of the late Middle Ages, when innocent people were tortured and executed for consorting with the Devil based on the flimsiest of evidence. OUTBREAK! THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF EXTRAORDINARY SOCIAL BEHAVIOR is an authoritative reference on a broad range of topics: collective behavior, deviance, social and perceptual psychology, sociology, history, folklore, religious studies, political science, social anthropology, gender studies, critical thinking, and mental health. Never before have so many sources been brought together on the mesmerizing topic of collective behavior.
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