Anyone reading anything interesting right now? Me: Anthropology & Africa

[HamdenRice]

I'm reading "Anthropology and Africa: Changing Perspectives on a Changing Scene," by Sally Falk Moore. It's really an overview of the development of anthropology in Africa and it's quite fascinating. I really, really wish I had read this when I was in graduate school because it puts personalities and institutions with all the literature I read. For example, I kind of figured that there was a close connection between A.R. Radcliffe-Brown and E.E. Evans-Pritchard, but never knew that they were basically teacher and student.

I loved the story about Godfrey Wilson being forced to resign as first director of the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) for "fraternizing" with the natives during the mining strikes of 1940. I had read a lot of historical work by his wife, Monica Wilson, and knew her collaborator, Leonard Thompson, and it seemed that this was exactly the kind of thing that that circle of very proper but very egalitarian and empathetic "white Africans" would do. I kind of guessed that Isaac Schapera was a no-nonsense, practical, fairly non-theoretical gatherer of "facts," but Moore's thumbnail sketch confirmed what I only vaguely sensed.

I'm only about 1/4 into the book but it clears up so much about the relationships, both personal, theoretical and institutional, between the major figures in African anthropology.

BTW, here is a strange story about Sir Isaac. Schapera's masterwork, "A Handbook of Tswana Law and Custom," is considered the major source for customary law in Botswana. Many years ago, I interviewed the late paramount chief of the Bakgatla section of the Tswana of both Botswana and South Africa, Tidimane Pilane. Chief Pilane told me that when both he and Schapera were young men, Schapera did his research for the Handbook in Botswana by coming to Pilane's town. Pilane says that they walked around the veld every day and that basically Pilane dictated the handbook to Schapera on their long walks!

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. Collapse...

finally :blush:

[malta blue]

2. I read that - it poses some interesting questions

I'd like to chat with you when you are done - I'll try and reread it too. I just packed it last night (moving next week) so I can still put my finger on the box.
:hi:

[Viva_La_Revolution]

3. I'll get back to it in a day or two...

I just got Gore's book in the mail, so Collapse got set aside. :)

[Jed Dilligan]

5. Jury's out on the old JD

I saw him talk not long ago and he made the room murmur with comments that seemed quasi-racist.

on edit: me, I'm the young JD. :evilgrin:

[Cabcere]

4. That sounds really interesting!

I'll have to try and check it out sometime. :) I took several African Anthropology classes last semester, and I'm thinking about looking at an African Studies angle to my anthropology degree. One of the most interesting classes I took was on disease, medicine, & society in Africa, and we read several chapters in "The Social Basis of Health and Healing in Africa" (edited by Steven Feierman & John M. Janzen). If you're interested in African medicine, I would recommend this book - it's pretty fascinating, and covers several different regions, diseases, and socio-cultural issues. :) (And okay, in the interest of full disclosure, my professor did write one of the essays. ;)) I kind of got into the whole African thing - well, I don't really want to say "by accident," but it wasn't totally intentional, either - one of my good friends is fascinated with Africa, wants to work in the Peace Corps there, etc., and I ended up taking a few classes w/him and got hooked. So far, I think African medical anthropology is one of my favorite topics, and "The Social Basis of Health and Healing in Africa" is really pretty interesting.

Another one of my favorite anthropological books is "Death's Acre," by Dr. Bill Bass. Quite possibly my favorite anthro work that I've read to date - it was assigned for my bio. anthro. class last year, and while physical anthropology isn't quite my thing, this book was totally fascinating. If you haven't already, and you're at all interested in forensic anthropology, I would really recommend reading "Death's Acre."

At the moment, I'm home for the summer and so I'm not currently reading any books (anthro-related or otherwise), but those are a few of my favorites. I really want to check out "Collapse" as well, but I haven't had a chance yet. Maybe soon...

[Jed Dilligan]

6. Have a couple of books going right now

One is "Daily Life in Babylon and Assyria," an old Modern Library book by Georges Conteneau. It's packed with interesting detail but he keeps hammering the point that life has "barely changed" in the Middle East since then (as of c. 1960). It's pretty much bathroom reading for me--a way to glean information that I might use in my fantasy fiction.

I'm also reading a really interesting cultural studies-type book called "Tank: The Progress of a Monstrous War Machine" by Patrick Wright. It's a bit outside of the normal bounds of anthropology, but it's one of the most interesting works of cultural history I've ever cracked. He looks at the history of the tank entirely from the standpoint of culture--both the institutional culture that created and promoted it and the wider culture's response, from the WWI "tank banks" to Tiananmen Square.