“[Ortner’s] book is a compelling and original combination of Geertz’s literary flair, Bourdieu’s reflexivity, and Sahlins’s comprehensiveness, together with a capacity for synthetic thought that is very much her own.” — Mervyn Horgan, Canadian Journal of Sociology
“[T]his collection of essays is easily accessible to non-anthropologists. . . . [T]he latest work from Ortner would be a valuable addition to one's collection.” — Jenna Dell, International Social Science Review
“[T]his volume presents a strand of Ortner’s own intellectual history while simultaneously engaging recent questions of power, history, the problem of agency, and how to incorporate subjectivity into analyses of culture. . . . Ortner is a master at making complex issues accessible to readers at all levels. — Katherine Pratt Ewing, American Anthropologist
“This is a fascinating set of essays. . . . [A] delightful and challenging intellectual foray into [Ortner’s]theoretical reasoning.” — Chandra Mukerji, American Journal of Sociology
Ortner writes about agency and subjectivity with eloquence and clarity. . . . [T}his is a highly accessible book that should find a home in many people’s libraries (and on several course reading lists), whether they belong to professional anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, or interested members of the public.” — Kostas Retsikas, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
“An important and especially usable collection by one of the most influential essayists in anthropology, introduced by a lucid and original review of key concepts as they have been applied to the remarkable range of Sherry Ortner’s research achievements. Her response to recent challenges to the idea of culture is alone worth the price of the book.” — George Marcus, University of California, Irvine
“At once challenging and admirably accessible, these essays trace the thinking of one of anthropology’s most notable practitioners as she—and her discipline—wrestles with key conundrums facing the late-modern social sciences.” — Jean Comaroff, University of Chicago
“This is vintage Ortner. No one else writes anthropological theory so clear, so down-to-earth, or so accessible to non-anthropologists.” — William H. Sewell Jr., author of Logics of History: Social Theory and Social Transformation