the pot of gold at the end of my reading rainbow*
dear friends,
i don't know what a meme is, but apparently they are the new "fill in this survey and send it to all your friends email", and since i was a sucker for those... here it goes optimuscrime
number of books that i own: well hard to say since most of them have been packed for their somewhat soon move to jersey. there are currently 4 bankers boxes full. and, there are about 25 books on the shelf that i consider too vital to my daily life to pack yet.
last book bought:
kingdom of children: culture and controversy in the homeschooling movement, mitchell stevens
haven't had a chance to read it yet... but this is the definitive work on homeschooling in the us. i bought his book even before our phone meeting when i learned that he is also nice.
last book read:
villa victoria: the transformation of social capital in a boston barrio, mario luis small
i love reading ethnographies while i travel, and this weekend i brought along villa victoria for the train ride home. i got this gratis when princeton was still foolish enough to think i needed convincing to go there. ha. mario is a prof in the department and will be teaching part of the ethnography sequence that i think could get my cwl project back on track.
five books that mean a lot to you:
making democracy work, robert putnam
you can take the girl out of poli-sci, but you can't take the poli-sci out of the girl. i have read this book in two disciplines and three courses. criticisms duly noted, i am consistently overwhelmed by the scope of the project (20 years of research!) and the novelness of the theory. i believe in political culture, and this is the book that resurrected the legacy of almond and verba. social capital is in here too, although not in the same sense as in bowling alone, another book that means a lot to me. and as i will likely say for the rest of my life because i still find it so exciting. i had dinner with him.
god's peoples: covenant and land in south africa, israel and ulster, donald harmon akenson
i read this book the summer before i took akenson's irish history seminar. i like to do thorough background checks on profs before i take their courses. in akenson's case i was intimidated from the start. winner of the molson prize. writer of non-fiction and fiction. teaches just one half-credit course a year at queen's which is joint graduate and undergraduate. he screens admission. there were 6 of us, 3 grads and 3 undergrads. he wrote us individualized final exam questions. we had 24 hours to answer and return it to his office at the mqup (of which he is editor). one of my classmates got to write a radio play. my question began with the preface. "ms. cam, this is tough question but you're smart" and proceeded to quote william james and ask me which concepts were useful to the study of irish history and which lead to bloomin' buzzin' confusion. the final product is one of my favourite pieces of work. akenson wrote me some letters for grad school and sent me a nice note that said, "you have a brilliant future, i'm looking forward to watching it happen". i should say the same of him, and am looking forward to future masterpieces.
anne of green gables, l.m montgomery
i have a reproduction of the lady of shalot because i love this book so much. it is one of the first books i read as a child and i immediately identified with anne-with-an-e. i am not an orphan, i did not live with an elderly brother and sister, i do not have red hair the leads to ridicule. but i do want gilbert blythe to love me.
meaning and moral order: explorations in cultural analysis, robert wuthnow
social theory is trecherous terrain. contemporary theory is often garbage (yep, that's a shout out to you po-mos). but this book represents exactly what theory should be- pragmatic, challenging, instructive and not circular. the chair is really there. people really do participate in rituals. and i really can study them. this is also the work that sets bob apart. he may be one of america's foremost sociologists of religion, but this work in particular is extremely important to all disciplines and subdisiplines that work with the study of culture. and he's my supervisor.
the seven storey mountain, thomas merton
i discovered "the four walls of my new freedom" in the vast catholic studies section of the university of notre dame book store, which is quite possibly one of the largest bookstores i have ever been in [picture lots of books on saints, lots of go irish! football gear, and plenty of copies of rudy]. i often refer to it as a book that changed the course of a summer, but it really did more than that. i have recommended it to friends, one of whom must have liked it so much that it has not been returned. i am sure we will meet up years from now and i will get my book back and we will both talk about how much the book still epitomizes that thing about catholicism that is so hard to explain to non-believers.
anyway, i think it is high time i return to the comforts of data cleaning. unfortunately i only know four web-diaryists not originally tagged in this fun little game. so whatcha gonna do: ms. p, ms. d, ms. thn and mr. l (and ms. s and ms. i i want to spend my time at work reading yours too)
hope you find a pot of gold at the end of your reading rainbow**,
cam
* i am not serious about this title and hereby acknowledge its lameness. but it's turkey tuesday.
** and again
i don't know what a meme is, but apparently they are the new "fill in this survey and send it to all your friends email", and since i was a sucker for those... here it goes optimuscrime
number of books that i own: well hard to say since most of them have been packed for their somewhat soon move to jersey. there are currently 4 bankers boxes full. and, there are about 25 books on the shelf that i consider too vital to my daily life to pack yet.
last book bought:
kingdom of children: culture and controversy in the homeschooling movement, mitchell stevens
haven't had a chance to read it yet... but this is the definitive work on homeschooling in the us. i bought his book even before our phone meeting when i learned that he is also nice.
last book read:
villa victoria: the transformation of social capital in a boston barrio, mario luis small
i love reading ethnographies while i travel, and this weekend i brought along villa victoria for the train ride home. i got this gratis when princeton was still foolish enough to think i needed convincing to go there. ha. mario is a prof in the department and will be teaching part of the ethnography sequence that i think could get my cwl project back on track.
five books that mean a lot to you:
making democracy work, robert putnam
you can take the girl out of poli-sci, but you can't take the poli-sci out of the girl. i have read this book in two disciplines and three courses. criticisms duly noted, i am consistently overwhelmed by the scope of the project (20 years of research!) and the novelness of the theory. i believe in political culture, and this is the book that resurrected the legacy of almond and verba. social capital is in here too, although not in the same sense as in bowling alone, another book that means a lot to me. and as i will likely say for the rest of my life because i still find it so exciting. i had dinner with him.
god's peoples: covenant and land in south africa, israel and ulster, donald harmon akenson
i read this book the summer before i took akenson's irish history seminar. i like to do thorough background checks on profs before i take their courses. in akenson's case i was intimidated from the start. winner of the molson prize. writer of non-fiction and fiction. teaches just one half-credit course a year at queen's which is joint graduate and undergraduate. he screens admission. there were 6 of us, 3 grads and 3 undergrads. he wrote us individualized final exam questions. we had 24 hours to answer and return it to his office at the mqup (of which he is editor). one of my classmates got to write a radio play. my question began with the preface. "ms. cam, this is tough question but you're smart" and proceeded to quote william james and ask me which concepts were useful to the study of irish history and which lead to bloomin' buzzin' confusion. the final product is one of my favourite pieces of work. akenson wrote me some letters for grad school and sent me a nice note that said, "you have a brilliant future, i'm looking forward to watching it happen". i should say the same of him, and am looking forward to future masterpieces.
anne of green gables, l.m montgomery
i have a reproduction of the lady of shalot because i love this book so much. it is one of the first books i read as a child and i immediately identified with anne-with-an-e. i am not an orphan, i did not live with an elderly brother and sister, i do not have red hair the leads to ridicule. but i do want gilbert blythe to love me.
meaning and moral order: explorations in cultural analysis, robert wuthnow
social theory is trecherous terrain. contemporary theory is often garbage (yep, that's a shout out to you po-mos). but this book represents exactly what theory should be- pragmatic, challenging, instructive and not circular. the chair is really there. people really do participate in rituals. and i really can study them. this is also the work that sets bob apart. he may be one of america's foremost sociologists of religion, but this work in particular is extremely important to all disciplines and subdisiplines that work with the study of culture. and he's my supervisor.
the seven storey mountain, thomas merton
i discovered "the four walls of my new freedom" in the vast catholic studies section of the university of notre dame book store, which is quite possibly one of the largest bookstores i have ever been in [picture lots of books on saints, lots of go irish! football gear, and plenty of copies of rudy]. i often refer to it as a book that changed the course of a summer, but it really did more than that. i have recommended it to friends, one of whom must have liked it so much that it has not been returned. i am sure we will meet up years from now and i will get my book back and we will both talk about how much the book still epitomizes that thing about catholicism that is so hard to explain to non-believers.
anyway, i think it is high time i return to the comforts of data cleaning. unfortunately i only know four web-diaryists not originally tagged in this fun little game. so whatcha gonna do: ms. p, ms. d, ms. thn and mr. l (and ms. s and ms. i i want to spend my time at work reading yours too)
hope you find a pot of gold at the end of your reading rainbow**,
cam
* i am not serious about this title and hereby acknowledge its lameness. but it's turkey tuesday.
** and again
posted by Ms. Cam at 20:34
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