Matthew Engelke discusses How To Think Like an Anthropologist. A Q&A and signing will follow the discussion.
About the book: What is anthropology? What can it tell us about the world? Why, in short, does it matter? For well over a century, cultural anthropologists have circled the globe, from Papua New Guinea to suburban England and from China to California, uncovering surprising facts and insights about how humans organize their lives and articulate their values. In the process, anthropology has done more than any other discipline to reveal what culture means—and why it matters. By weaving together examples and theories from around the world, Matthew Engelke provides a lively, accessible, and at times irreverent introduction to anthropology, covering a wide range of classic and contemporary approaches, subjects, and practitioners.
With interlocutor Danny Postel.
RSVP requested but not required.
About the Author
Matthew Engelke is an anthropologist at Columbia University, where he directs the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life. Prior to that, he was professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics and editor of the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. He is also editor of Prickly Paradigm Press. He is the author of A Problem of Presence: Beyond Scripture in an African Church and God’s Agents: Biblical Publicity in Contemporary England, and he edited The Objects of Evidence: Anthropological Approaches to the Production of Knowledge.