The Psychology of Culture: A Course of Lectures

By Edward Sapir

Book Overview

This work presents Sapir's most comprehensive statement on the concepts of culture, on method and theory in anthropology and other social sciences, on personality organization, and on the individual's place in culture and society. Extensive discussions on the role of language and other symbolic systems in culture, ethnographic method, and social interaction are also included. Ethnographic and linguistic examples are drawn from Sapir's fieldwork among native North Americans and from European and American society as well. Edward Sapir (1884-1939), one of this century's leading figures in American anthropology and linguistics, planned to publish a major theoretical state - ment on culture and psychology. He developed his ideas in a course of lectures presented at Yale University in the 1930s, which attracted a wide audience from many social science disciplines. Unfortunately, he died before the book he had contracted to publish could be realized. Like de Saussure's Cours de Linguistique G n rale before it, this work has been reconstructed from student notes, in this case twentytwo sets, as well as from Sapir's manuscript materials. Judith Irvine's meticulous reconstruction makes Sapir's compelling ideas - of surprisingly contemporary resonance - available for the first time.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 3110172828
• ISBN13: 9783110172829
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: de Gruyter Mouton
• Length: 289 Pages
• Weight: 0.97 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.9" x 8.8"
• Age Range: 22 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary

Customer Reviews

Essential Sapir

For anyone either studying anthropology or harboring an independent interest in it, the foundational work of Edward Sapir is not to be missed; though his notoriety and influence were gradually obscured by the more copious contributions of Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict, the thoughts and themes he chose to ponder remain eerily relevant and uniquely nuanced to this day. There was someting intellectually vibrant about this text that won me over instantly. If you're fond of conceptually rich, deeply reasoned and fluidly explored experiments of thought, Sapir's lectures are definitely something of a revelation. My only qualm with the book is that the reconstructed portions filled in by the editor are bracketed in a way that I found really distracting. Still, very much worth a look.