While researching for my current paper (on symbolic exchange in open source software), I stumbled across this excellent blog by Erik Davis, a PhD candidate in History of Religions at the University of Chicago.

When my prof suggested I read Marcel Mauss's book The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies, I'll admit that I was less than thrilled, for several reasons.

First, I'm sick of reading theory translated from French... it tends to be exhausting, circuitous, and self-involved, and I've simply read too much of it lately.