Download Seminars in Anthropological Theory 人類學理論專題研究

ANTH 6010 (Fall 2016):
Seminar in Anthropological Theory for Research Postgraduates
(Version 3.0)
Prof. Matthew West
Course Location: NAH 401
Course Time: Wednesdays, 6:30 – 9:15 pm
Office and Office Hours: NAH 302
Telephone: 3943-7675
Email: [email protected]
This course is designed to give research postgraduate students a solid foundation for
understanding both the historical beginnings and the breadth of contemporary sociocultural
anthropological theory. While the readings are sometimes both long and difficult, they have
been carefully curated to give an introduction to a selection of the most important scholars,
writings, debates, and theoretical concepts that have shaped the discipline. As future
anthropologists (no matter where you practice your anthropology), these readings and this
syllabus will serve as stable re-entry points into the larger body of work produced by key
scholars of anthropology, those who have built on or preceded them, and those who have
debated and critiqued them. In light of each student's own fast-approaching forrays into “the
field,” the course is designed to introduce students to theory both as a lens through which to
view the world (and thus pose new and significant research questions) as well as as a set of
useful conceptual tools that will help in recognizing and analyzing what one does “see” in the
field.
The first part of the course will focus on five foundational “figures” working in the 19 th and
early 20th centuries whose theoretical approaches have had an especially lasting impact on the
overall shape of the discipline today, even as individual anthropologists may trace their
theoretical inclinations back only to one or two of the group. The second half will then
concentrate on more recent trends and developments, aiming to provide a perspective on
where the discipline has been and, through course discussions and written assignments, where
students' research may be taking it next.
As this is a seminar course rather than a lecture, students will be expected to come to class
not only having read the assigned readings for that day, but also ready with questions and
comments that will facilitate our discussion of the readings. The written assignments which
will determine the majority of a student's final grade are designed to continue to facilitate
learning in multiple ways: wrestling with new theoretical ideas and concepts in writing,
inspiring and extending in-class discussions beyond the classroom, applying theoretical
concepts and approaches to contemporary real-world research questions, mapping out
personal and theoretical connections among the disciplines key figures, and practicing the
critical work of determining for oneself which scholars and which writings are worth a deeper
look. Keep an eye on due dates listed! Course grades will be determined as follows:
Active In-Class Participation: 10%
Weekly Reactions and Response (300-500 words each): 10%
4 Short Analytical Papers on Selected Topics (4-5 pages each): 40% (10% each)
Final Paper (~16 pages, due December 11 at midnight): 40%
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Notes on Readings and Assignments
Readings should be read by the day they are listed below. Students must also submit their
“weekly reactions and response” on the week's readings by noon on the date they will be
discussed. Some of the readings also appear with very helpful footnotes in the following
extremely useful theory compilations that have been placed on reserve (as well as in other
such compilations): McGee, R. Jon and Richard L. Warms. 2000. Anthropological Theory:
An Introductory History. Boston: McGraw-Hill. Erickson, Paul A. and Liam D. Murphy.
2006. Readings for a History of Anthropological Theory. Toronto: University of Toronto
Press. There are many editions of these books, but even the earliest are good for historical
anthropology articles.
We will be reading all or nearly all of the following two books. As such, these will not be
available on blackboard. Please acquire your own copy of the Weber book through a
bookstore or a library (or read it via the reserve copy in New Asia Library). The Mauss book
is available online as well as in hardcopy via Hau Books (Fishpond carries it, I think). Please
get the version listed below so that we will be referring to the same page numbers. Both are
important works and are a worthwhile addition to your academic bookshelves!
 Mauss, Marcel. 2016. The Gift, Expanded Edition, selected, translated and annotated
by Jane I. Guyer. Chicago: Hau Books.
 Weber, Max. 2001. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Translated by
Talcott Parsons. With an Introduction by Anthony Giddens. Routledge Classics.
Details on each of the four short analytical papers on selected topics will be handed out in
class at least two weeks prior to their due dates. One of these will be a group project aimed at
producing and discussing a visual representation of the connections between early
anthropologists. The second paper will entail a close look at an important anthropologist—at
both the person and their work—with whom we will not be dealing directly in class time.
Both of these first papers will be shared with the class as another tool to expand our
understanding of the now quite large corpus of anthropological work. The third and fourth
papers will be chosen depending on the content and direction of discussions in class. Each
paper will be worth 10% of your final grade.
In the final paper, you will discuss your own prospective anthropological field research by
contextualizing it within five of the different theoretical approaches to sociocultural
anthropology that we have considered over the course of the semester. What advantages and
disadvantages do these different theoretical frameworks provide to you? What sorts of
questions and data would you need to answer and collect if guided by these perspectives?
Which of the five could work together within your work and which are contradictory? How
might the results of your research speak back to any of these five theoretical perspectives?
This paper will challenge you to integrate what you have learned in the class with your own
research, engaging “deeply” or “thickly” both with the theories and theoretical concepts
themselves as well as with your own research plans, assumptions, and questions. This paper
will account for 40% of your grade. Full details will be provided on October 12.
A Last Note, on Electronic Devices
You are allowed to use electronic devices in class ONLY if you are willing to use them
exclusively for the class. That means no social media checking, no email checking, and no
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internet browsing etc beyond what is in service of the class. Generally, I have found that
computers and mobile devices tend to be much more of a distraction then a help while in
class especially since this is a discussion class. As a discussion class, regardless of your way
of taking notes, I expect you to have eyes up looking at your colleagues and joining in the
conversation for most of the time. Please turn all of your devices to silent mode and put them
away so as not to disturb the class! If you do not have the discipline to focus on class instead
of on your device, you will be asked to switch them off and will be required to take notes
with paper and pen instead.
Note on Plagiarism
Students are required by university policy to submit all papers to VeriGuide (the Chinese
University Plagiarism Identification Engine System). This includes non-CUHK students! Be
sure to leave enough time for this. The 2 page weekly reactions and response writings also
may not include plagiarism (they must be entirely your own work), but do not need to be
submitted via VeriGuide. For more information on how to submit papers through VeriGuide,
please point your browser to http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/policy/academichonesty/.
Part One: Foundations
Week 1:
September 7: Introduction: What is Anthropology, Theory?
Asad, Talal. 1973. “Introduction” In Talal Asad ed., Anthropology and the Colonial
Encounter. Pp. 9-20. London: Ithaca Press.
Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1922. “The Subject Method and Scope of this Inquiry.” In
Argonauts of the Western Pacific, Pp. 1-26.
https://archive.org/details/argonautsofthewe032976mbp
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1940. “Introduction.” In “The Nuer.” Pp. 1-15.
https://archive.org/details/nuerdescriptiono00evan
Recommended
Lutz, Katherine. 1995. “The Gender of Theory.” In Ruth Behar and Deborah Gordon eds.,
Women Writing Culture. Pp. 249-266.
Pels, Peter and Oscar Salemink. 1994. “Introduction: Five Theses On Ethnography As
Colonial Practice.” History and Anthropology 8(1-4):1-34.
Calvino, Italo. 1995. “The Flash.” (to read in class)
****First Short Paper Topic Distributed****
Week 2:
September 14: Franz Boas: Evolution, Race, and Cultural Relativism
Boas, Franz. “The Aims of Ethnology (1888),” “The Limitations of the Comparative
Method of Anthropology (1896),” “The Methods of Ethnology (1920),” and “The
Aims of Anthropological Research (1932).” In Race, Language, and Culture, Pp. 626638, 270-280, 281-289, and 243-259. https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/jaro2015/SOC785/rd/
Franz_Boas__1940__Race__Language__and_Culture.pdf
Mead, Margaret. [1935]. “Introduction (to Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive
Societies).” In McGee and Warms eds., Anthropological Theory: An Introductory
History. Second Edition. Pp. 219-224.
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Benedict, Ruth. 2009 [1932]. “Configurations of Culture in North America.” In Jerry D.
Moore ed., Visions of Culture: An Annotated Reader, Pp. 63-87. Lanham, Maryland:
AltaMira Press.
Recommended:
Johannes, Fabian. 1983. “Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object.”
Chapters 2 and 3. New York: Columbia University Press. (on “coevalness”)
Tylor, Edward Burnett. 1883. “The Science of Culture”. Pp. 1-25.
https://archive.org/details/primitivecultur09tylogoog
Morgan, Lewis Henry. 1877. “Ethnical Periods.” Pp. 3-18.
https://archive.org/details/ancientsociety00morggoog
See Second Paper Topic for more recommended Post-Boas work!
Week 3:
September 21: Emile Durkheim: Society and Structure; Structural Functionalism
Durkheim, Emile. 1893. The Division of Labor in Society, Pp. 1-7, 126-146, (179180+182-186+192-195), 291-309, 329-341.
Durkheim, Emile. 1915. Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Pp. 1-8, 36-47, 141-156,
and 206-229. https://archive.org/details/elementaryformso1915durk
Radcliffe-Brown, A.R. 1940. “On Social Structure” and “On Joking Relationships.” In
Structure and Function in Primitive Society. Pp. 188-204 and 90-104.
https://archive.org/details/structurefunctio00radc
Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1945. “The Functional Theory of Culture.” In Phyllis M. Kaberry
ed., The Dynamics of Culture Change: An Inquiry into Race Relations in Africa. New
Haven: Yale University Press. Pp. 41-51.
Recommended
Durkheim, Emile. 1951 [1897]. Suicide: A Study in Sociology, John A. Spaulding &
George Simpson trans. New York: The Free Press of Glenco.
Kipnis, Andrew. 2005. “Political Economy after Mao: towards a Neo-Durkheimian
Theory” Asian Anthropology 4:59-90.
Arkin, Kimberly. 2013. Rhinestones, Religion, and the Republic: Fashioning Jewishness
in France. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
****Initial Presentation of Group Visualizations****
Week 4:
September 28: Karl Marx: Capitalism, Materialism, Mystification and Value
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. “The German Ideology,” In McGee and Warms eds.,
Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History. Second Edition. Pp. 53-66.
Marx, Karl. 1976 (1867). Capital, Volume 1. Pp. 125-187, 198-212, 247-257, 266-269,
270-275. https://archive.org/details/MarxCapitalVolume1ACritiqueOfPolitical
Economy.
Recommended
Harvey, David. 2008. http://davidharvey.org/reading-capital/.
Graeber, David. 2001. Toward An Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of
Our Own Dreams. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gates, Hill. 1996. China's Motor: A Thousand Years of Petty Capitalism. Ithaca, NY:
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Cornell University Press.
****First Short Paper Due****
****Second Short Paper Topic Distributed****
Week 5:
October 5: Max Weber: Capitalism's Iron Cage
Giddens, Anthony. 1976. “Introduction.” In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism, Pp. vii-xxiv.
Weber, Max. 1930 (1904-1905). The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Pp. 380, 92-125.
Recommended
Lindholm, Charles, ed. 2013. The Anthropology of Religious Charisma: Ecstasies and
Institutions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Keane, Webb. 2007. Christian Moderns: Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Sharma, Aradhana and Akhil Gupta, eds. 2006. The Anthropology of the State: A Reader.
Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Kalberg, Stephen. “Max Weber's Types of Rationality: Cornerstones for the Analysis of
Rationalization Processes in History” The American Journal of Sociology 85(5):11451179.
Week 6:
October 12: Marcel Mauss: The Power of the Gift
Mauss, Marcel. 2016. The Gift, Expanded Edition, selected, translated and annotated by
Jane I. Guyer. Chicago: Hau Books. (Focus on “Part II” skim/browse the rest)
Recommended
Godelier, Maurice. 1999. The Enigma of the Gift, Nora Scott trans. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Weiner, Annette. 1992. Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping-While-Giving.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Strathern, Marilyn. 1988. The Gender of the Gift: Problems with Women and Problems
with Society in Melanesia. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Sahlins, Marshall. 1972. “The Spirit of the Gift.” In Stone Age Economics, pp. 148-184.
New York: Aldine De Gruyter.
Levi-Strauss, Claude. 1969. The Elementary Structures of Kinship. New York: Beacon
Press.
****Second Short Paper Due****
****Third Short Paper Topic Distributed****
****Final Paper Information Formally Distributed****
Part II: Thinking with Theory
Week 7:
October 19: From Interpretation to Post-Modernism
Turner, Victor. 1967. “Symbols in Ndembu Ritual.” In The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of
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Ndembu Ritual. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Geertz, Clifford. 1973. “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture”
and “Ritual and Social Change: A Javanese Example.” In The Interpretation of
Cultures, Pp. 3-33 and 142-170.
“Clifford Geertz: Unabsolute Truths.” New York Times Magazine, April 9, 1995, Pp. 4447.
Clifford, James. “Introduction: Partial Truths.” In Writing Culture: The Poetics and
Politics of Ethnography, Pp. 1-26.
Recommended
Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1959 [1910-1911]. Course in General Linguistics. Charles Bally
and Albert Reidlinger eds., Wade Baskin trans. New York: Philosophical Library.
https://archive.org/details/courseingenerall00saus
Rosaldo, Renato. 1988 [1984]. “Grief and the Headhunter's Rage:On the Cultural Force of
Emotions.” In Text, Play, and Story: The Construction and Reconstruction of Self and
Society, Edward M. Bruner ed., Pp. 178-195. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.
Crapanzano, Vincent. 1991. “The Postmodern Crisis: Discourse, Parody, Memory.”
Cultural Anthropology 6(4): 431–446.
Behar, Ruth. 1993. Translated Woman:Crossing the Border with Esperanza's Story.
Boston: Beacon Press.
Week 8:
October 26: From Structuralism to Post-Structuralism
Levi-Strauss, Claude. 1967. “The Structural Study of Myth.” In Structural Anthropology,
Pp. 202-228.
Leach, Edmund. 1973. “Structuralism in Social Anthropology.” In David Robey (ed.),
Structuralism: An Introduction, Pp. 37-56.
Douglas, Mary. 1972. “Deciphering a Meal.” Daedalus: Myth, Symbol, and Culture. Pp.
61-82.
Ortner, Sherry. 1974. “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture.” In Michelle Z. Rosaldo
and Louise Lamphere eds., Woman, Culture, and Society. Pp. 67-88.
Foucault, Michel. 1979. Discipline and Punish. Pp. 22-31, 135-139, 141-145, 149-156,
(pictures between 169 and 170), 195-210, 216-221, 227-228.
Niranjana, Tejaswini. 2000. “Alternative frames? Questions for comparative research in
the third world.” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 1:1:97-108
Recommended
Abu Lughod, Lila. 1995. “A Tale of Two Pregnancies.” In Ruth Behar and Deborah
Gordon eds., Women Writing Culture, Pp. 339-349.
See also works by Roland Barthes, Jean Baudrillard, Walter Benjamin (a pre-poststructuralist), Judith Butler, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, more Michel Foucault
(Madness and Civilization/Knowledge are good too), Antonio Gramsci, Julia Kristeva
and Jacques Lacan among many others.
Week 9:
November 2: Practice Theory: How we shape the structures that shapes us
Sherry Ortner. 1984. “Theory in Anthropology Since the Sixties,” Comparative Studies in
Society and History 26(1): 126-166.
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Pierre Bourdieu. 1977. “Structures and the Habitus.” In Outline of a Theory of Practice,
Pp. 72-95.
Richard Jenkins. 1992. “Pierre Bourdieu.” Pp. 66-102. H4477.F8J46
Sherry Ortner. 2006. “Updating Practice Theory,” “Power and Projects: Reflections on
Agency.” In Anthropology and Social Theory, Pp. 1-18, 129-153.
Recommended
Jerry D. Moore, “Ortner,” “Bourdieu,” in Visions of Culture: An Introduction to
Anthropological Theories and Theorists (Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press, 2004), p.
303-337.
Berger, Peter and Thomas Luckmann. 1966. The Social Construction of Reality. New
York: Doubleday.
Week 10:
November 9: Biology, Bodies, and Culture
Wilson, E.O. 1975. “The Morality of the Gene.” In Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Pp.
3-6, 547, 562-564.
Marshall Sahlins, “Introduction,” “Critique of the New Sociobiology,” The Use and
Abuse of Biology, in Paul A. Erickson and Liam D. Murphy, eds., Readings for a
History of Anthropological Theory (Peterborough CA: Broadview, 2006), p. 289-298.
Csordas, Thomas. “Embodiment and Cultural Phenomenology.” In Gail Weiss and Honi
Fern Haber eds., Perspectives on Embodiment: The Intersections of Nature and
Culture, Pp. 143-164.
Kitanaka, Junko. 2008. “Diagnosing suicides of resolve: Psychiatric practice in
contemporary Japan.” Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 32(2):152-76 at
https://www.academia.edu/1616562/Diagnosing_suicides_of_resolve_Psychiatric_pra
ctice_in_contemporary_Japan.
Ingold, Tim. 2000. “Chapter 18: On weaving a basket.” In The Perception of the
Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill, Pp. 339-348. New York:
Routledge.
Tallbear, Kim. 2007. “Narratives of Race and Indigeneity in the Genographic Project.”
Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics 35(3): 412-424.
Recommended
Luhrmann, Tanya M. [2006]. “Subjectivity.” (Emotion) In Henrietta Moore and Todd
Sanders eds., Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology, Second Edition, Pp.
186-190.
Goodman, Alan. 2013. “Bringing Culture into Human Biology and Biology back into
Anthropology.” American Anthropologist 115(3):359-373.
Abu El Haj, Nadia. 2007. “The Genetic Reinscription of Race,” Annual Review of
Anthropology, 36:283-300.
Martin, Emily. 1987. The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction.
Boston: Beacon Press.
Kitanaka, Junko. 2011. Depression in Japan: Psychiatric Cures for a Society in Distress.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
****Third Short Paper Due****
****Fourth Short Paper Topic Distributed****
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Week 11:
November 16: Globalization
Lavenda, Robert H. and Emily A. Schultz. 2000. “Globalization and the Culture of
Capitalism.” In Core Concepts in Cultural Anthropology, Pp. 169-183.
Mintz, Sidney. 1985. “Introduction,” “Power,” and “Eating and Being.” In Sweetness and
Power, Pp. xv-xxx and 151-214.
Hannerz, Ulf. 1996. “The Local and the Global: Continuity and Change,” “The Global
Ecumene as a Landscape of Modernity,” “The Withering Away of the Nation?” In
Transnational Connections, Pp. 17-29, 44-55, and 81-90.
Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.”
In Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Pp. 27-47.
Mathews, Gordon. “Chungking Mansions: A Center of ‘Low-End Globalization.’”
Ethnology XLVI(2): 169-183.
Recommended
Myers, Fred ed. 2001. The Empire of Things: Regimes of Value and Material Culture.
Santa Fe, NM: SAR Press.
Weller, Robert. 2006. Discovering Nature: Globalization and Environmental Culture in
China and Taiwan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. 2004. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Riles, Annelise. 2011. Collateral Knowledge: Legal Reasoning in the Global Financial
Markets. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Week 12:
November 23: The Material Turn
Appadurai, Arjun. 1986. “Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value.” In Arjun
Appadurai ed., The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective.
(selections)
Kopytoff, Igor. 1986. “Social Biographies of things: Commoditization as Process.” In
Arjun Appadurai ed., The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective,
Pp. 64-93.
Latour, Bruno. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern. Pp. 1-8, 10-29, 32 (chart), 91-106,
117-122, 136-138.
Bennett, Jane. 2005. The agency of assemblages and the North American blackout. Public
Culture 17(3):445-65.
Keane, Webb. 2003. “Semiotics and the social analysis of material things.” In “Words and
Beyond: Linguistic and Semiotic Studies of Sociocultural Order” Special Issue of
Language & Communication 23(3-4): 409-425.
Recommended
Ingold, Tim et al. 2007. Archaeological Dialogues 14(1): 1-38.
Law, John. 1992. “Notes on the Theory of the Actor-Network: Ordering, Strategy, and
Heterogeneity.” Systems Practice 5:379-393.
Law, John. 2009. “Actor Network Theory and Material Semiotics.” In Bryan S. Turner
ed., The New Blackwell Companion to Social Theory, Pp. 141-158. Malden:
Blackwell Publishing.
Miller, Daniel. 2005. Materiality: an introduction. In Materiality, edited by Daniel Miller,
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pp. 1-50. Duke University Press.
****Fourth Short Paper Due****
Week 13:
November 30: Who we are, How we're defined, and the Spaces Between These
Goffman, Erving. 1959. “Performances.” In The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Pp.
28-82.
Barth, Frederick. “Introduction.” In Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social
Organization of Culture Difference, Pp. 9-38.
Hall, Stuart. 1992. “The Question of Cultural Identity.” In S. Hall, D. Held, and T.
McGrew, eds., Modernity and its Futures, Pp. 274-316.
Gupta, Akhil and James Ferguson. 1997. “Beyond ‘Culture’: Space, Identity, and the
Politics of Difference.” In Gupta and Ferguson, eds., Culture, Power, Place:
Explorations in Critical Anthropology, Pp.33-51.
Mathews, Gordon. 2000. “On the Meanings of Culture,” In Global Culture / Individual
Identity: Searching for Home in the Cultural Supermarket, Pp. 1-23.
Recommended
Tan Chee-Beng. 2004. Chinese Overseas: Comparative Cultural Issues. Hong Kong
University Press.
Antrosio, Jason. 2012. “Race is a Social Construction.” Living Anthropologically Blog.
http://www.livinganthropologically.com/2012/02/18/race-is-a-social-construction/
Ortner, Sherry. [2005.] “Subjectivity and Cultural Critique,” In Henrietta Moore and Todd
Sanders eds., Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology, Second Edition, Pp.
186-190.
Week “14”:
December 11
****Final Paper Due****
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