Books by Monique Layton
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LIFE AT SEA: FROM CARAVELS TO CRUISE SHIPS
FriesenPress, 2017 IN LIFE AT SEA, anthropologist Monique Layton draws on her experiences on modern cruise ships to examine the evolution of sailing from the Age of Exploration to the Age of Tourism. Using historical records and the reports of people who once went to sea through necessity, curiosity, or adventure, she shows the common events that have shaped their voyages and the ingenuity, courage, and determination that characterize mankind's connection with the all-surrounding sea. The book's topics range from the dependence on the wind and manpower through the invention of devices to determine location at sea to modern maritime technology, from the devastation of scurvy and starvation on early ships of exploration and trade to the luxuries of omnipresent food, on-board medical treatment, and professional entertainment available on behemoth cruise ships. The book also delves into the deeper meaning of seafarers' rituals and their harsh lives with severe discipline and few rewards. These aspects along with the horrors of the slave trade and naval warfare, the harrowing crossings of emigrants and convicts, the ambiguities of piracy, and economics of global trade all show the contradictory elements that have consistently shaped travel by sea. |
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THE NEW ARCADIA: TAHITI'S CURSED MYTH
FriesenPress, 2015 SINCE BEING “DISCOVERED ” IN 1767, Tahiti has faced a profound cultural upheaval. From the start, she has been branded with the irresistible dual myth of the Noble Savage’s harmonious Arcadian life and of the vahine’s amorous favours freely granted. People (navigators, missionaries, whalers, slavers) and events (deadly epidemics, atomic testing, and now tourism), all have contributed over time to creating the modern Tahitian quandary: trying to recover an idealized past and losing the benefits of modern life, or continuing as a cog in the French administrative system and losing her soul. Based on historical records, sailors’ journals, Ma’ohi epic poetry, European paintings, folkloric events, the film industry, and novels by modern Tahitian writers, this book follows the passage from Otaheite’s paradisal way of life, through the disastrous encounter with European civilization, ending with French Polynesia’s modern prospects. Most remarkable of all is the enduring Ma’ohi culture’s survival into the twenty-first century. |
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NOTES FROM ELSEWHERE: TRAVEL AND OTHER MATTERS
iUniverse, 2011 NOTES FROM ELSEWHERE: TRAVEL AND OTHER MATTERS FOLLOWS author Monique Laton, a trained anthropologist, through some of life's familiar experiences: introduction to new cultures, the pitfalls of language, regret for the past, and various types of travel. She shares her experiences and adventures in some of the planet's most interesting places in colorful detail. From her childhood in Morocco to a time tinged with loneliness and isolation as she worked in mental hospitals and prisons, she kept an open mind and heart. She survived both the artificial, ephemeral culture of international conferences and attempts to create a semblance of a normal life while living abroad. As an academic, Layton confronts the problems of cultural disconnection as they occur in life and travel and briefly considers what the future might hold for the elderly. As an anthropologist, she is able to provide context and insight into everyday occurrences. As an immigrant, she draws on her own experience to describe the staggered stages of assimilation. |
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STREET WOMEN AND THE ART OF BULLSHITTING
Webzines of Vancouver, 2010 "THE READER OF MONIQUE LAYTON'S ETHNOGRAPHY is invited into the oral tradition of prostitute drug addicts, is encouraged to think about them differently and to learn about their verbal creativity." - Dr. Elvi WhittakerElvi Whittaker, PhD, LlD, professor emerita, University of British Columbia; author of A Baltic Odyssey, The Mainland Haole, and The Silent Dialogue |
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STRUCTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 2
Claude Lévi-Strauss (Translated by Monique Layton University of Chicago Press, 1983 THE EIGHTEEN ESSAYS COLLECTED IN THIS VOLUME have been selected and ordered to give what Lévi-Strauss terms "a bird's-eye view of the problems of modern ethnology." As representative examples, these essays introduce readers to the methods of structural anthropology while affording a glimpse into the mind of one of the foremost anthropologists of our time. |
