In the Fall 2008 course, we read from two books that organized much of the students' thinking about expertise in relation to people-made culture:

Paul Willis' Common Culture, which "provides a wealth of examples of young people's use of cultural commodities and the cultural media." He writes: "young people feel more themselves in leisure than they do at work. Though only 'fun' and apparently inconsequential, it's actually where their creative symbolic abilities are most at play."[cit]

Robert Stebbins' Serious Leisure "illustrates how leisure takes on different forms, levels of intensity, and duration across various social contexts. Stebbins shows that leisure can range from casual, fleeting engagements, to intensive short term projects, to more serious lifetime commitments that require a great deal of time, money, and energy." [cit]