Patrick (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} patrickj86) wrote,@ 2009-01-04 01:20:00 |
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Obligatory New Year/Old Semester Post
A semester in grad school made me even more of an archy-nerd. I’ve always looked around used book stores for out of print archaeology books, where $50 buys you almost everything you want combined, unlike..say...every college bookstore...ever. But I realized just how bad it’s gotten: this Christmas, I was more excited about the shit-ton of books I got than the iPod. Kinda wrong, but to be fair, the books combined are worth more.
The most valuable and useful include two artifact analysis books, another devoted to symbolism/meaning, two edited history/archaeology volumes, and two books relating history to archaeology in the Southeast.
Dad got promoted, but now has a smaller office, meaning he had to get rid of several bookshelves worth– I picked out most everything ever written about Mobile’s history, including a collection of Bartram’s writings and three site reports, as well as lots about regional history, including several journals and two edited volumes. Odds are something’ll make it into that vague, slippery thesis. Three good books discussing slavery that’ll come in handy in a class or two.
Less obviously useful, but no less interesting, are the books relating to sociology and French, both of which Dad studied. Marc Bloch, from what I understand, seems to be the Luke Skywalker of historians in not only a “Not the last of the old, the first of the new” sense, but also in fighting The Dark Side (Nazis). His four most important books rest in the center of my bookshelves, and the most influential (unfinished due to the pesky Nazis, maybe he's more of an Obi-Wan figure now that I think about it) appears on a reading list for next semester. Otherwise, I have most of what Durkheim, Levi-Strauss, and Foucoult wrote, as well as a book by Marcel Mauss. Unfortunately, none of Mauss’s best (The Gift is at the top of my wish list), and I’m still lacking Structural Anthropology, but other acquisitions include Margaret Mead, E.E. Evans Pritchard, Marvin Harris, Stephen Jay Gould, as well as a few volumes discussing religion and others describing fieldwork. As for sociological "fieldwork," I now have about 30 books describing statistics in the social sciences. Overkill, even for Dan Shea.
If you add up the semester, Paperbackswap’s granted me Marshall Sahlins, two cultural anthro volumes, three archaeology books, and five history books (including one written for the non-academic public) as well as the funny Dave Barry and a bunch of gifts. For another $4 at a used bookstore maybe two weeks ago I got three cultural anthro books and three history, particularly of the Contact period in Mexico.
The total of books I didn’t pay for over the past four months comes to between 110 and 120, counting duplicates. If I were a used book dealer, would that make me a pimp or a whore?
I also burned maybe a dozen DVDs, pretty much a low for me. I think that’ll be a New Year’s Resolution! To my credit, I did download plenty of TV. Also, since I managed two Star Wars references where none would have sufficed, here's a somewhat related video demonstrating the nonexistence of geek restraint.
In other news, on Tuesday I’m sharing a 20 hour drive to Toronto, where the Society for Historical Archaeology meeting will give me a chance to drink archaeological theory, methods, and results with the best of them. That following Tuesday will lead to classes and digging!
A semester in grad school made me even more of an archy-nerd. I’ve always looked around used book stores for out of print archaeology books, where $50 buys you almost everything you want combined, unlike..say...every college bookstore...ever. But I realized just how bad it’s gotten: this Christmas, I was more excited about the shit-ton of books I got than the iPod. Kinda wrong, but to be fair, the books combined are worth more.
The most valuable and useful include two artifact analysis books, another devoted to symbolism/meaning, two edited history/archaeology volumes, and two books relating history to archaeology in the Southeast.
Dad got promoted, but now has a smaller office, meaning he had to get rid of several bookshelves worth– I picked out most everything ever written about Mobile’s history, including a collection of Bartram’s writings and three site reports, as well as lots about regional history, including several journals and two edited volumes. Odds are something’ll make it into that vague, slippery thesis. Three good books discussing slavery that’ll come in handy in a class or two.
Less obviously useful, but no less interesting, are the books relating to sociology and French, both of which Dad studied. Marc Bloch, from what I understand, seems to be the Luke Skywalker of historians in not only a “Not the last of the old, the first of the new” sense, but also in fighting The Dark Side (Nazis). His four most important books rest in the center of my bookshelves, and the most influential (unfinished due to the pesky Nazis, maybe he's more of an Obi-Wan figure now that I think about it) appears on a reading list for next semester. Otherwise, I have most of what Durkheim, Levi-Strauss, and Foucoult wrote, as well as a book by Marcel Mauss. Unfortunately, none of Mauss’s best (The Gift is at the top of my wish list), and I’m still lacking Structural Anthropology, but other acquisitions include Margaret Mead, E.E. Evans Pritchard, Marvin Harris, Stephen Jay Gould, as well as a few volumes discussing religion and others describing fieldwork. As for sociological "fieldwork," I now have about 30 books describing statistics in the social sciences. Overkill, even for Dan Shea.
If you add up the semester, Paperbackswap’s granted me Marshall Sahlins, two cultural anthro volumes, three archaeology books, and five history books (including one written for the non-academic public) as well as the funny Dave Barry and a bunch of gifts. For another $4 at a used bookstore maybe two weeks ago I got three cultural anthro books and three history, particularly of the Contact period in Mexico.
The total of books I didn’t pay for over the past four months comes to between 110 and 120, counting duplicates. If I were a used book dealer, would that make me a pimp or a whore?
I also burned maybe a dozen DVDs, pretty much a low for me. I think that’ll be a New Year’s Resolution! To my credit, I did download plenty of TV. Also, since I managed two Star Wars references where none would have sufficed, here's a somewhat related video demonstrating the nonexistence of geek restraint.
In other news, on Tuesday I’m sharing a 20 hour drive to Toronto, where the Society for Historical Archaeology meeting will give me a chance to drink archaeological theory, methods, and results with the best of them. That following Tuesday will lead to classes and digging!
