Annotated Bibs

The annotated bibliography often strikes students as one of those "busy work" assignments with no end other than themselves, just one more "pointless" activity on the way to earning a grade. Sometimes, students are right to think so. But, as with all the assignments in this course, the annotated bibliography serves the larger purpose of real inquiry. So, what is the point of an annotated bibliography? What's its kairos? Often, annotated bibliographies appear at the end of a book whose subject extends far beyond the scope of its pages, and the author wishes his or her readers to read as much up on the subject as he or she has. And, because the bibliography is annotated (coupled with editorial and/or critical notations), it offers the author a chance to describe the content of a work and possibly cite its strengths and/or weaknesses. As such, the annotated bibliography is a service to potentially interested researchers seeking material in a subject. It is, in other words, one expert on a subject offering a "jump start" to another's research in that subject, the textual equivalent of an expert taking you through a library, handing you a stack of books (or articles or films), and describing each one as they are handed to you ("Look at this one because ... and this one because ...").

You might ask then: who's the expert, and who's the potentially interested researcher? Well, of course, you are the expert—you are the one conducting the major research project. And, as often happens in this class, I serve the role of your unfamiliar academic audience. I will provide feedback for you whether you have offered me enough information to go on and whether your recommendation of works would help me to continue inquiry in this field.

How to proceed

There are no rules for length when it comes to annotated bibliography. Some annotations are a sentence long; some are paragraphs long. For this assignment, however, I want you to write a solid paragraph over each source. You may find that writing a concise paragraph over your sources will resemble some aspects of the discussion section from your Overview & Comment paper. Sometimes, annotated bibliographies have quoted and/or paraphrased material. Other times, material is simply summarized. Because the annotated bibliography is, again, a directed "heads-up" on material in a given subject, experts may wish to point out the value of each source and the limits of its applicability.

Remember, for this assignment, the highly arbitrary number of seventeen (17) sources is due.

Some examples

Berger, Peter L. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological
Theory of Religion. New York: Knopf, 1990.

Peter Berger's The Sacred Canopy is another of the author's ventures into a social constructionist view of reality, this time focused on religion. In his book, Berger lays out his understanding of religion as based solely in social and human factors. His first chapters explain what social forces lie behind the symbolic and linguistic construction of a religious world pulled over a people's existence (hence, the sacred canopy). Following that, Berger begins to focus his theory particularly onto Christian history, focusing on Catholicism and ending finally with the liberalizing elements in modern Protestantism.

While Berger's book lays adequate and comprehensive groundwork for a social constructionist theory of religion, his application of it in the last half of the book leaves something to be desired. Because of its narrow focus on Christianity, one wonders how Berger's theory applies to religions of the East, or even in the two other major Western, monotheistic faiths. Though Berger does mention applications of his theory in other traditions, his primary focus is Christianity, and those interested in reading about in-depth sociological perspectives on other faiths will have to look elsewhere.


Veblen, Thorstein. The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York:
Dover, 1995.

Veblen's famous statement about the relationship between the upper or ("leisure") class and the expenditure of wealth, the book is an interesting mixture of both serious socio-economic study and satiric wit. As a theoretical statement on the flagrant consumptive practices of the upper classes in different cultures—Veblen draws off comparative anthropology as well—Veblen's work remains an important contribution to the fields of sociology and economics. The merciless scrutiny to which he subjects the members of his own contemporary leisure class gives cause for laughter as well as cause for reflection. To modern readers, Veblen's prose appears thick and densely worded, and at times it makes for slow reading. Despite his pedestrian style, however, Veblen has given us important terms such as "conspicuous consumption" and "pecuniary emulation," words which even non-academics have embraced to describe wealth on shameless display.

The scope of Veblen's piece is broad. Beginning with a theoretical anthropological history of class division, Veblen proceeds to describe various practices from an economic and class viewpoint, such as marriage, gambling, throwing parties, religion, and even higher learning. Veblen's coverage makes his book a readily applicable work to current economic trends.