The goal is to record most books written or edited by the Anthropology faculty. We will start by entering the most recent publications first and work our way back to older books. There is a WMU Authors section in Waldo Library, where most of these books can be found.
With a few exceptions, we do not have the rights to put the full text of the book online, so there will be a link to a place where you can purchase the book.
If you are a faculty member and have a book you would like to include in the WMU book list, please contact wmu-scholarworks@wmich.edu
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Understanding Cultures: Perspectives in Anthropology and Social Theory
Robert Ulin
Understanding Cultures confronts the major theoretical issues involved in cross-cultural interpretation. The book introduces students to rationality among the ancestors of anthropology before proceeding to a wide-ranging evaluation of the Anglo-American rationality debates.
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Interpretations of Native North American Life: Material Contributions to Ethnohistory
Michael S. Nassaney and Eric S. Johnson
"A thoughtful, disciplined, and useful work. . . . The issue of how to interpret North American Native cultures, in all their complexity and diversity, is one that historians, archaeologists, and other behavioral scientists have wrestled with for a long time. This volume is an interesting indicator of where that struggle currently stands."--James W. Bradley, director, Robert S. Peabody Museum, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts"A useful, interesting, and up-to-date introduction to how scholars are using material culture to better understand Native American life. Nassaney and Johnson have done a fine job of bringing together a useful edited reader on material culture and the lives of Native Americans."--American Antiquity"Nassaney and Johnson's volume reminds scholars of the considerable benefits of combining the fruits of archaeological, ethno-historic, and material culture data sources into fuller richer understanding of Native societies of the Contact period."--Journal of Middle Atlantic Archaeology "A thoughtful, disciplined, and useful work. . . . The issue of how to interpret North American native cultures, in all their complexity and diversity, is one that historians, archaeologists, and other behavioral scientists have wrestled with for a long time. This volume is an interesting indicator of where that struggle currently stands."--James W. Bradley, Robert S. Peabody MuseumBringing together the perspectives of archaeologists, ethnohistorians, and art historians, these tightly integrated case studies highlight the significance of material objects to the study and interpretation of Native North American culture, history, and identity. The authors contend that archaeological remains and ethnographic specimens can, and indeed should, be analyzed in tandem with other souces of historical data (e.g., written texts, oral accounts) to expand our understanding of Native culture change and continuity from the pre-Columbian era through the present.The essays in this collection begin with concrete, tangible expressions of Native American culture which, in most cases, were made and used to meet basic human needs or to participate in social and religious life. Material objects invite interdis-ciplinary study because they are a rich source of information about how human societies and social identities were created, reproduced, and transformed. While this volume serves to complement and enhance our historical and cultural understanding of native peoples throughout North America, the theoretical approaches and research methodologies showcased here have implications for studies anywhere people left material traces of their activities, identities, and lives.
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The Archaeological Northeast
Mary Ann Levine, Michael Nassaney, and Kenneth E. Sassaman
Despite the advances made in archaeology over the past generation, the Northeast remains the most misunderstood of all the archaeological regions of North America. With a complex environmental history shaped by ice sheets from the last glaciation, and highly acidic soils characteristic of the area, the kinds of organic artifacts found in other areas have been destroyed in the Northeast. The result is a sometimes evasive, particularly complicated, and always fragmentary archaeological record. As the chapters in this volume demonstrate, the Northeast is a region that inspires the development of innovative research designs and thoughtful and relevant questions. Each author has been a graduate student of Dena Dincauze, who has done much to foster understanding of the prehistory of Northeastern North America.
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Muslim Women and Politics of Participation
Mahnaz Afkhami and Erika Friedl
This volume is about the ways of promoting women's participation in the affairs of Muslim societies: from raising consciousness and changing codes of law, to penetrating the economic markets and influencing national and international policies.