Social Science : Anthropology : Cultural

Despite the masses still lining up to enter mega-churches with warehouse-like architecture, casually dressed clergy, and pop Christian music, the “Post-Boomer” generation—those ranging in age from twenty to forty—is having second thoughts. In this perceptive look at the evolving face of Christianity in contemporary culture, sociologists Richard Flory and Donald E. Miller argue that we are on the verge of another potential revolution in how Christians worship and associate with one another. Just as the formative experiences of Baby Boomers were colored by such things as the war in Vietnam, the 1960s, and a dramatic increase in their opportunities for individual expression, so Post-Boomers have grown up in less structured households with working (often divorced) parents and exposure to multiple cultures and worldviews. These childhood experiences leave them questioning institutions and craving authentic spiritual experience, rather than entertainment. Flory and Miller develop a typology that captures four current approaches to the Christian faith and argue that this generation represents a new religious orientation of “expressive communalism,” in which they seek spiritual experience and fulfillment in community and through various expressive forms of spirituality, both private and public. more...

Price: $18.00

Susban Seligson in this book shares her adventures in the bread trade as she stalks pillowy round loaves on their way to the communal bakeries of Morocco's ancient city of Fez, and gapes at the coiled stainless steel innards of a mammoth American Wonder Bread factory. more...

Price: $9.99

From the creator of Fark.com, an expose on the media gone awry, revealing the hysterical, often outrageous non-news that passes for newsworthy today: Have you ever found yourself noticing certain patterns in the news you see and read each day? Perhaps it’s the blatant fear-mongering in the absence of facts on your local 6 o’clock news (“Tsunami could hit the Atlantic any day!” EVERYBODY PANIC), or the seasonal articles that appear year after year like clockwork (“Roads will be crowded this holiday season.” Thanks AAA.). IT’S NOT NEWS, IT’S FARK is Drew Curtis’ clever examination of the state of the media today and a hilarious look at the go-to stories mass media uses when there's just not enough hard news to fill a newspaper or a news broadcast. Who is to blame for non-news in the media? Is it the media, or the media consumer and their website-clicking habits? Or does the answer lie somewhere in between? IT'S NOT NEWS, IT'S FARK takes a crack at why. Drew exposes eight stranger-than-fiction media patterns that prove just how little reporting is going on in the world of reporters today. Regardless of whether it’s a slow news day, mainstream media still has to deliver. IT’S NOT NEWS, IT’S FARK examines all the “news” that was never fit for print in the first place, and promises to have you laughing (with the media, mind you, not at them...) along the way. Let the hilarity ensue. more...

Price: $20.00

This groundbreaking volume showcases the exciting work emerging from the ethnography of media, a burgeoning new area in anthropology that expands both social theory and ethnographic fieldwork to examine the way media--film, television, video--are used in societies around the globe, often in places that have been off the map of conventional media studies. more...

Price: $15.95

Pathologies of Power uses harrowing stories of life--and death--in extreme situations to interrogate our understanding of human rights. Paul Farmer, a physician and anthropologist with twenty years of experience working in Haiti, Peru, and Russia, argues that promoting the social and economic rights of the world's poor is the most important human rights struggle of our times. more...

Price: $12.95