On the forming of forms. A review of Don Handelman’s book “Moebius Anthropology: Essays on the Forming of Form” (New York, 2024)

Funk D.A.

412-418 p.


doi.org: https://doi.org/10.22378/he.2026-11-2.412-418
EDN: XHGIVK


Abstract. The review presents a new book by the renowned anthropologist Don Handelman, “Moebius Anthropology: Essays on the Forming of Form” published in open access format by Berghahn Books in 2024. The structure of the book is outlined, including the list of its parts and chapters. The main ideas developed by the author in each of the four parts have been summarized, with more detailed discussion given to some of the author’s key concepts. The use of the book’s central metaphor-the Möbius strip (a geometric object with one surface and one boundary, where “inner” and “outer” continuously transition into each other) as a tool for contemplating the interpenetration and mutual transformation of seemingly opposing principles–is directly relevant to the central thesis argued in each chapter. According to Handelman, anthropology should study not merely finished cultural products, but the very processes that generate certain forms and subsequently transform them; it should examine how acts of classification, representation, and modeling construct social reality. The research perspective chosen by the author of the reviewed book has allowed him to make a significant contribution to the study of bureaucratic logic, including understanding precisely how bureaucracy creates its own cosmology–an ordered, classified world that it itself maintains. The importance for anthropological development of the results obtained by Handelman in addressing such significant social and cultural (as well as temporal and spatial) phenomena as ritual, cinema, terrorism, and the production of urban spaces is highlighted. Overall, Don Handelman’s book “Moebius Anthropology: Essays on the Forming of Form” is assessed as a highly significant anthropological study.


Keywords: Don Handelman; Moebius anthropology; forming of forms; cosmology; ritual; bureaucratic logic; methods of social anthropology

For citation: Funk D.A. (2026) On the forming of forms. A review of Don Handelman’s book “Moebius Anthropology: Essays on the Forming of Form” (New York, 2024). Istoricheskaya etnologiya [Historical Ethnology]. Vol. 11. No. 2: 412–418. https://doi.org/10.22378/he.2026-11-2.412-418 (In Russ.)


REFERENCES

Handelman D. (2024) Moebius Anthropology: Essays on the Forming of Form. Matan Shapiro and Jackie Feldman (eds). New York: Berghahn Books. Open access. ISBN 978-1-80539-668-0 web pdf, https://doi.org/10.3167/9781789208542
 

About the author: Dmitriy A. Funk, Doctor Sc. (History), Professor, Head of the Laboratory of Sociocultural Anthropology, Moscow State Linguistic University (38/1 Ostozhenka St., Moscow 119034, Russian Federation); https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4310-5924; e-mail: d_funk@iea.ras.ru


Received 25.01.2026 Revised 12.02.2026   Accepted for publication 20.02.2026

Published Online 08.06.2026