Coming of Age in New Jersey: College and American Culture

by Michael Moffatt

Book Overview

Coming of Age is about college as students really know it and--often--love it. To write this remarkable account, Michael Moffatt did what anthropologists usually do in more distant cultures: he lived among the natives. His findings are sometimes disturbing, potentially controversial, but somehow very believable. Coming of Age is a vivid slice of life of what Moffatt saw and heard in the dorms of a typical state university, Rutgers, in the 1980s. It...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813513596
• ISBN13: 9780813513591
• Release Date: March 1989
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Length: 376 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

An Incredible Book

Most books on "college kids" are nothing but anti-youth statistical messes. Moffat's generous phenomenological approach to the subject and refusal to make any broad generalizations make this book a truly amazing document. His analysis of "friendliness" as the dominant trope in American society, demonstrated in the micro-society of the dorm, is superb, as are his eye-opening conclusions about the trends that govern undergraduate sexuality.

An Anthropological Study of University Students

The author is a faculty member in the Anthropology department at Rutgers University who decided to do a study of the students in traditional immersion fashion. To do this, he joined the incoming freshman class as an older student returning to school and lived in the dorm. The resulting book is a fascinating read, particularly for someone who was actually entering college around the same time as Moffatt's study. Moffatt covers the group dynamics, the forming and shifting of groups, and many of the aspects of college life.

I couldn't put it down!

One of the few college texts I actually READ. Required for a freshman anthropology class (this is almost 8 years ago now), I was thrilled by every word in this book... Easy to read, interesting, entertaining... I mistakenly loaned it to someone who never gave it back and have regretted it ever since. A must read for anyone interested in a look at college culture through the eyes of someone doing it again, 20 years after graduation.