Finding the African Americans that Middletown Left Out: The Field Notes of a Sociologist
Author: | Dennis, Rutledge M. |
Year: | 2012 |
Pages: | 536 |
ISBN: | 0-7734-2623-X 978-0-7734-2623-8 |
Price: | $299.95 |
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The author provides journals of field work, and interviews with the African American members of a community depicted in a famous sociological study, in which they were previously ignored. Dr. Dennis lives in the community and carefully annotates his findings by reporting on the religious, political, educational, and ethnic beliefs, values, and behaviors displayed by members of the community.
Reviews
In this work, Dennis provides a painstaking account of life in the field, its vagaries and rewards. What emerges is a sense of what life was like, and how ‘blacks’ in Middletown made sense of each other.”
Prof. Susan R. Trencher,
George Mason University
“Dennis is able to name what he saw in Muncie because, however modestly he presents himself in this text, he has the quiet courage to record was he sees honestly.”
Dr. Hugh Gusterson,
George Mason University
Table of Contents
Foreword by Rutledge M. Denis
Preface by Susan R. Trencher
Introduction by Hugh Gusterson
Chapter 1: Entering the Field
Chapter 2: First Acquaintances
Chapter 3: Getting to Know the Community
Chapter 4: Getting Started: Student Workers, Background Research and Networking
Chapter 5: Conversations, Opinions, and Confidences
Chapter 6: Searching for Self: Religion and Conversion, Black Issues and Identity
Chapter 7: Interviewing in Earnest
Chapter 8: Wrapping Up and Leave-Taking