On another matter entirely, I’m curious as to whether you’ve used the Brad Weiss before and how it has gone over. I’m not familiar with that book, but was thinking of using his “Making and Unmaking of the Haya Lived World” in an “intro for majors” that our department has. The issue is whether students find it readable. I ended up using _Nuer Dilemmas_ this time, but decided the Weiss might have been at about the same level of difficulty . (I also though about _Lifebuoy Men…_in this slot , which is essentially for an ethnography that (1) Isn’t about the Pacific, with some preference for Africa, and (2) addresses issues of historical change, colonial context, and possibly commodification. The main drawback is that in this context genre matters: I want a book that takes the world into account while still making a claim to be an ethnography of a particular local non-western place.)

I’ve used Jackson’s work, usually Fables of Abundance, in most iterations of this class, but for whatever reason, the discussion just goes nowhere. I think maybe it’s because the students experience Fables as a reprise of Land of Desire.

I’ve also used Miller every other time I’ve taught the course, but something of the same problem. The major Trinidad book is very difficult for students for some reason. What I might do is assign Miller’s Material World blog in the Things and Meaning class.

(I snuck one chapter of my book in, so soap is there, a bit.)

Sherman, Jacobson is on my “to do” list, but I hadn’t had time to read it this semester so I didn’t put it on for this round. Nightingale is a nice suggestion that I might choose to do instead for the first advertising discussion. I always feel bad about advertising/marketing in this course–the literature is interesting and compelling, but I end up squeezing it out to showcase commodity history and the three major narrative “arcs” I cover in the first half.

DId you follow that discussion on The Valve about … uh, I think it’s Robbins’ article on “commodity histories”? There was a big debate it might be interesting to look into.

And I haven’t read it yet, but I’m interested in _Deluxe: How Luxury Lost its Luster_, which might be interesting to add. Or I might add one of the wal-mart books that’s coming out, considering it’s the single largest employer in the US right now.