For undergraduate courses in introductory cultural anthropology.
This book is a collection of readings that illustrate key concepts in cultural anthropology. Each section has an introduction written by the editors that provides an overview of the topic and provides a context for the readings. Every reading concludes with a set of critical thinking questions for the student to consider.
Kevin Rafferty, Ph.D. is an archaeologist, and a graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His areas of specialization are the archaeology of the Great Basin and northern Southwestern United States, hunter-gatherer archaeology, and educating future generations of scholars. His secondary personal interests include the anthropological study of religion and Christian theology.
Prior to joining the College of Southern Nevada in 1989, he worked for the Bureau of Land Management’s Las Vegas District Office (1980-1983), ran the cultural resource management office in the Museum of Natural History at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas (1983-1989), and ran his own small cultural resource management firm (1989-1994). In his role as a cultural resource specialist he has authored or co-authored hundreds of reports. In addition to presenting papers at numerous regional and national professional conferences, he has published articles in Kiva, Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology, North American Archaeologist, and Nevada Archaeologist, and has contributed chapters to several books. He is currently involved in writing an introductory text for archaeology students as well as co-editing this edition of Faces of Anthropology: A Reader for the 21st Century (Rafferty and Ukaegbu, 6th edition).
Dorothy Chinwe Ukaegbu, Ph.D, is a cultural anthropologist of Igbo origin, and a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Her core areas of specialization under the rubric of cultural anthropology are political anthropology, interpretive / symbolic anthropology, development anthropology (grassroots participatory development); and African historiography. Her group areas of concentration are Africa and African diaspora with an emphasis on Igbo studies. Her research interests include gender studies, folklore, the anthropology of film, ethnicity, contemporary immigrant populations, and the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Prior to joining the College of Southern Nevada in 1995, she was a visiting professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia (1992-1994), where she taught Cultural Anthropology, New Perspectives of African Women, and African Culture Through Oral History and Storytelling. She is currently involved with Equiano research and has discovered Equiano's Tinmah and Elese. She is the founder of 'Tales Afrique: African Storytelling Series,' an educational video collection for college instruction. She is the author of, 'Writing In Anthropology: the Summary and the Critique Paper. A Handbook for Beginners. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Pearson/Prentice Hall. 2004. She co-edited an Anthropology Textbook, 'Faces of Anthropology: A Reader for the 21st Century. Eds. Rafferty and Ukaegbu. 5th Edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. 2007. She is on the editorial board of Mbari: The International Journal of Igbo Studies.
