Social Anthropology

Considéré comme l'héritier de Levi Strauss, Philippe Descola est l'un des grands anthropologues français du XXe siècle. Ses premiers travaux ont été menés en Équateur, auprès d'une tribu amazonienne, les Jivaros Achuar. Ce terrain l'amène à s'interroger sur l'opposition traditionnellement établie entre nature et culture.

In the 1990s a small midwestern American town approved the construction of a massive pork complex, where almost 7 million hogs are birthed, raised, and killed every year. In Porkopolis Alex Blanchette explores how this rural community has been reorganized around the life and death cycles of corporate pigs. Drawing on over two years of ethnographic fieldwork, Blanchette immerses listeners into the workplaces that underlie modern meat, from slaughterhouses and corporate offices to artificial insemination barns and bone-rendering facilities.

While doing fieldwork on the remote Indonesian island of Flores, anthropologist Gregory Forth came across people talking about half-apelike, half-humanlike creatures that once lived in a cave on the slopes of a nearby volcano. Over the years he continued to record what locals had to say about these mystery hominoids while searching for ways to explain them as imaginary symbols of the wild or other cultural representations. We follow Forth on the trail of this mystery hominoid, and the space they occupy in islanders' culture as both natural creatures and as supernatural beings.

Clifford Geertz's first collection of essays, The Interpretation of Cultures (1973), made him a leading voice of anthropology's "symbolic" movement, which believed scholars should read the signs and symbols of a culture from the perspective of its natives. Geertz's approach helped anthropology reinvent itself as a scientific discipline that is still relevant today, making him - in the words of one critic - "a true giant of social and cultural theory."

バチは誰にも当たらない。我々はもう気づいている――子供や孫が、自分や先祖を供養する必要などない、と。平均寿命が延伸し、多くの日本人が天寿を全うする。

Meeting in racial affinity groups is a common practice in anti-racist, social justice, diversity, and similar educational endeavors. These groups provide a structured space in which participants can explore how racism personally impacts them, process specific experiences of racism, receive validation and support from their peers, heal, and strategize next steps for challenging racism. In A Space for Us, Michelle Cassandra Johnson brings her over twenty years of experience leading dismantling-racism work to provide the first affinity-group guide made for BIPOC communities.

Alone among the creatures of the world, man suffers a pang both bitter and sweet. It is an ache for the homecoming. The Greeks called it nostalgia. Post-modern man, homeless almost by definition, cannot understand nostalgia. If he is a progressive, dreaming of a utopia to come, he dismisses it contemptuously, eager to bury a past he despises. If he is a reactionary, he sentimentalizes it, dreaming of a lost golden age. In this profound reflection, Anthony Esolen explores the true meaning of nostalgia and its place in the human heart.

Der Historiker und Journalist Rutger Bregman setzt sich in seinem neuen Buch mit dem Wesen des Menschen auseinander. Anders als in der westlichen Denktradition angenommen ist der Mensch seinen Thesen nach nicht böse, sondern im Gegenteil: von Grund auf gut. Und geht man von dieser Prämisse aus, ist es möglich, die Welt und den Menschen in ihr komplett neu und grundoptimistisch zu denken. In seinem mitreißend geschriebenen, überzeugenden Buch präsentiert Bregman Ideen für die Verbesserung der Welt. Sie sind innovativ und mutig und stimmen vor allem hoffnungsfroh.

Linguistic structuralism studies the meaning of language based not just on definitions, but also on the relationships of words and sounds to each other. Lévi-Strauss's insight was to see that this concept of structuralism in linguistics could be applied to anthropology as well. He saw that while some cultures are very different from others, they all seem to have certain internal structural relationships in common. By tracing these structures across cultures, he tried to answer nothing less than the eternal question: "What is man?"

In the past 50 years, Asian Americans have helped change the face of America and are now the fastest growing group in the United States. The Making of Asian America tells the little-known history of Asian Americans and their role in American life, from the arrival of the first Asians in the Americas to the present-day.

Drawing from decades of experience in the craft of language, both Dimópulos and Coetzee face the reality that when it comes to self-expression, some things will always get lost in translation. Speaking in Tongues finally emerges as an engaging and accessible work of philosophy, shining a light on some of the most important linguistic and philological issues of our time.

Richard Parker delivers a provocative and eye-opening look at the most explosive and controversial state in America, where everything is bigger, bolder - and is shaping the future of America. Americans today are reckoning with a new Texas - that love-it-or-hate-it giant slice of America that has sparked controversy, bred presidents, and fomented change from the Civil War to the election of George W. Bush and the Iraq War.

Dal primo avventurarsi su due gambe nelle pianure africane alla produzione di pitture rupestri, piramidi, bastimenti, parlamenti e molto altro: tanto si è scritto sul cammino evolutivo dell'umanità grazie al lavoro di paleontologi, archeologi e genetisti. Ciascuno di loro ha messo un tassello a formare un quadro generale della nostra storia.

In the decades since 1945, Western Europe has undergone a seismic social and political transformation. The evils of racism, authoritarianism, and exclusionary nationalism, which once prevailed, have been defeated and marginalized. Through an arduous process of democratization and liberalization, today’s Western Europe is almost unrecognizable from the one our grandparents were raised in. Yet despite this commendable progress, alarm bells are ringing. Civilization is facing a new crisis, and once again, the Jews find themselves in great danger.

Ich war zunächst nicht großartig überrascht, als wir nach langer Zeit im Herbst 2021 bei einem gemeinsamen Kaltge­tränk auf die zahlreichen aktuellen Ereignisse zu sprechen kamen, die vor Monaten noch fleißig als Ver­schwörungstheorie diffamiert wurden. Eine Diskussion über Verschwörungstheorien ‒ oder besser gesagt: über alternative Ermittlungsansätze ‒ kann an­strengend sein. So muss man sich als offener Mensch permanent gegen Totschlagargumente zur Wehr set­zen. Und dann natürlich in einer Gegenargumentation sämtliche Fakten parat haben. Und zwar stichhaltig.

The rise of human civilization and all of recorded history occurred in this warm period, known as the Holocene. Until very recently, we had no detailed record of climate changes during the Holocene. Now we do. In this engrossing and captivating look at the human effects of climate variability, Brian Fagan shows how climate functioned as what the historian Paul Kennedy described as one of the “deeper transformations” of history—a more important historical factor than we understand.

Viktor E. Frankl'ın birçok dile çevrilen, dünyada milyonlarca satan bu baş yapıtı; acılarla başa çıkma, kişinin yaşam amacını bulma konusundaki sorgulamalarıyla birlikte okuyucular için unutulmaz bir tecrübe sunuyor. Genç yetişkinlere yönelik bu baskı Frankl'ın toplama kamplarındaki deneyimlerini, özet olarak yazarın 2. Dünya Savaşı öncesi geliştirmeye başladığı logoterapiyi, Frankl'ın mektup ve konuşmalarından oluşan bir seçkiyi, terimler sözlüğünü ve bir zaman çizelgesini içeriyor.

There is the Cornwall Lamorna Ash knew as a child – the idyllic, folklore-rich place where she spent her summer holidays. Then there is the Cornwall she discovers when, feeling increasingly dislocated in London, she moves to Newlyn, a fishing town near Land’s End. This Cornwall is messier and harder; it doesn’t seem like a place that would welcome strangers. Before long, however, Lamorna finds herself on a week-long trawler trip with a crew of local fishermen, afforded a rare glimpse into their world, their warmth and their humour.

Bronislaw Malinowski's seminal work, Sex and Repression in Savage Society, delves into the intricate dynamics of sexuality and societal control within primitive cultures. Published in 1927, this ethnographic study challenges prevailing Victorian notions of sexuality and sheds light on the nuanced ways in which indigenous societies navigate and regulate sexual behaviors. Malinowski's immersive fieldwork in the Trobriand Islands enables him to provide a rich anthropological account, exploring the role of rituals, customs, and taboos in shaping sexual practices.

Homo Exul indaga en la pregunta de por qué, en un momento preciso de la historia, los homínidos dejaron de cooperar y comenzaron a mostrar conductas violentas. Defiende, además, que la mayoría de dolencias y enfermedades crónicas que hoy nos afectan (desde la obesidad hasta el alzhéimer) son consecuencia de ese mismo proceso evolutivo que, por fuerza, conllevó importantes cambios sociales y alimenticios en adultos, niños y lactantes. Lanza, además, una importante pregunta: ¿estamos a tiempo de revertir estas marcas evolutivas y convertirnos de nuevo en una sociedad cooperativa?