After hearing for the last few years that it took a WWII book program to bring The Great Gatsby into fashion, I think it's pretty awesome that Stein saw Fitzgerald's brilliance back in 1933.
Actual rating: 3.5 starsI was probably one of the only people in my class to like reading this book, then again a lot of the other students in my class have not encountered a lot of scholars who are steeped in post-modernist thinking (like I have). I liked how Tsing looked at the idea of "Friction" in the global environment, and it was an interesting read.
Reading a few chapters every few months is probably not the best way to approach politically dense ethnographic analysis. I was following the arguments for most of it, but I honestly cannot say whether or not Lowenhaupt Tsing's analysis of the philosophical interdependence of universal and local makes any sense whatsoever. I take it on faith and read on for the bits about middle-aged chemists who construct personal environmentalisms out of Islam and the global environmental movement.
Reading a few chapters every few months is probably not the best way to approach politically dense ethnographic analysis. I was following the arguments for most of it, but I honestly cannot say whether or not Lowenhaupt Tsing's analysis of the philosophical interdependence of universal and local makes any sense whatsoever. I take it on faith and read on for the bits about middle-aged chemists who construct personal environmentalisms out of Islam and the global environmental movement.
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