Coming of Age in New Jersey

<div> <div>With Kinseyesque diligence [Moffatt] catalogues the sexual habits and fantasies of his students. . . . His book vibrates with quirky authenticity. --New York Times Book Review Useful for understanding the student experience . . . throughout the United States. . . . Beautifully written carefully researched . . . a classic.--John Thelin Educational Studies Michael Moffatt is a multitalented multidisciplinary scholar . . . who writes without a trace of gobbledygook. He deserves a wide following. --Rupert Wilkinson Journal of American Studies One of the most thoughtfully crafted case studies of undergraduate culture . . . ever written . . . a book every professor should read. --Paul J. Baker Academe 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 is full of student voices: naive and worldy-wise vulgar and polite cynical humorous and sometimes even idealistic. But it is also about American culture more generally: individualism friendship community bureaucracy diversity race sex gender intellect work and play. As an example of an ethnography written about an anthropologist's own culture this book is an uncommon one. As a new and revealing perspective on the much-studied American college student it is unique.</div> </div>