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Lahore University of Management Sciences
ANTH 100 – Introduction to Cultural Anthropology Spring 2015‐2016 Instructor Room No. Office Hours Email Telephone Dr. Ayaz Qureshi New SS Wing TBA [email protected] COURSE BASICS Credit Hours Lecture(s) Recitation/Lab (per week) Tutorial (per week) 4 2 lectures per week Nbr of Lec(s) Per Week Nbr of Lec(s) Per Week Duration 1hr 50mins Duration Duration COURSE DESCRIPTION This course introduces students to the discipline of anthropology, paying particular attention to cultural anthropology—the arm of the discipline that explores the social and cultural diversity of human experience, practice, and knowledge. Students taking this course will be exposed to the key schools of thought, concepts and domains covered within cultural anthropology as well as the methods through which cultural anthropologists ‘produce’ knowledge. Furthermore, by presenting a variety of case studies from different parts of the world, this course will also shed light onto the diversity of cultural systems prevalent in the world, enabling students to “make sense” of the behavior and cultures of peoples unlike themselves, as well as gain insights into their own behavior and society. These case studies will also help facilitate a nuanced understanding of the concept of culture and cultural change. This means paying particular attention to the manner in which encounters between different peoples and cultures—for instance, through the media, migration, and globalisation—are constantly shaping culture, and recognizing that people also actively shape the cultural world they inhabit through their everyday decisions. COURSE OBJECTIVES This introductory course addresses goal 1 as outlined in the learning goals identified by the Anthropology and Sociology Stream. Goal 1: Instill in the students an awareness of the overall unifying concerns of the discipline of anthropology. Provide them with a solid grounding in the core concepts, theoretical perspectives, and bodies of knowledge used and produced by the discipline. Students should, by the end of the course, be able to; Objective # 1: Demonstrate the ability to summarize, analyze, critique, and compare the key concepts, bodies of knowledge, and perspectives used by anthropologists. Lahore University of Management Sciences
Objective # 2: Demonstrate their ability to apply the key concepts, methodologies, and perspectives to real world issues, both historical and contemporary. The process of meeting goal 1 will allow students to; 1. Become familiar with an anthropological way of understanding the world 2. Gain an enhanced conceptual understanding of “culture” 3. Examine the processes bringing about cultural change 4. Acquire knowledge of multiple cultural systems in order to recognize the variants and parallels of belief systems and reflect upon the nature of one’s own culture in this larger context EVALUATION 1. Class attendance and participation: 10% 2. Seminars and group presentation: 25% 3. Kinship assignment: 15% 4. Mid‐term exam: 20% 5. Final exam: 30% CLASS PARTICIPATION Students must read the articles for each session and be prepared to critically comment on them during the teaching sessions. The list of readings for each session may be further adapted. Students will be informed of any such changes well in time for preparations for a given session. All readings are compulsory. SEMINARS AND GROUP PRESENTATION There are a number of seminar sessions in this course. The class will be divided into groups that will make presentations in these seminars. Each group will be given a pre‐assigned topic on which to make a 25‐30 minute presentation. This will allow students a greater level of interaction and engagement with course material. It will also give greater flexibility in terms of breadth of material covered. Groups will be expected to research the topics and present new material on them. Simply reiterating what has been said in lectures will not get students good marks. Once a presentation is made and comments made by the class, the presentation should be revamped by making links between the presentation content and Pakistan, given a new format (e.g. photo essay, documentary) and submitted. As a group students will have some flexibility to decide what final shape their project will take. Detailed instructions for the group project will be provided once the semester commences. All members in a group will get the same points for their collective work unless a student does not contribute sufficiently/does not pull his or her weight. KINSHIP ASSIGNMENT This individual assignment will require students to make their family tree and then analyze it by relying upon relevant course content (particularly that related to “kinship and marriage”). Detailed instructions will be provided once the semester commences. MID‐TERM AND FINAL EXAM These exams will assess your comprehension of the course material and your ability to engage with, discuss and apply key anthropological concepts, theories, and terms. Different types of questions—
ranging from multiple‐choice and true/false to those requiring short and long answers—will be utilized for this purpose. PLAGIARISM AND CHEATING Lahore University of Management Sciences
Any existing written work used by the students should be acknowledged and properly cited. If they take an idea or argument from any text, book, newspaper or any other source (including the internet), then they must give its due credit to the original author. Cheating, plagiarism or any other violations of plagiarism policy will be dealt with according to LUMS policies and procedures. CLASS SCHEDULE Session 1: Introduction PART1 FOUNDATION Session 2: What is Anthropology? Gary Ferraro’s “What is Anthropology,” 2‐14, in Cultural Anthropology: An Applied Perspective, 1995, West Publishing Company. Thomas Hylland’s “Introduction: Comparison and Context” 1‐2 (excerpt), in Small Places, Large Issues, 2001, Pluto Press. Joy Hendry’s “Introduction” 1‐7 (excerpt), in An Introduction to Social Anthropology, 2008, Palgrave Session 3: Cultural anthropology: History and Key concepts Gary Ferraro’s “The Growth of Anthropological Theory,” 56‐82, in Cultural Anthropology: An Applied Perspective, 1995, West Publishing Company. Jack David Eller’s “The Anthropological Perspective” 12‐19 (excerpt), in Cultural Anthropology: Global Forces, Local Lives, 2009, Routledge. Session 4: Fieldwork Murray Wax’s “Tenting with Malinowski” 1‐12, in American Sociological Review 37(1) Film: Tales from the Jungle: Malinowski. BBC Documentary. Session 5: Fieldwork (continued) Alma Gottlieb’s and Philip Graham’s “Choosing a Host” 24‐57, in Parallel Worlds, 1993, University of Chicago Press. Thomas Hylland’s “Fieldwork and its Interpretation” 24‐39, in Small Places, Large Issues, 2001, Pluto Press. Session 6: Culture and its characteristics Lahore University of Management Sciences
James Spradley’s “Culture and Ethnography” 13‐17, in Conformity and Conflict, James P. Spradley and David W. McCurdy (eds), 1994, Harper Collins. Session 7: Culture and its characteristics II Jack David Eller’s “Understanding and Studying Culture” 24‐35 (excerpt), in Cultural Anthropology: Global Forces, Local Lives, 2009, Routledge. Susan Wadley’s “From Sacred Cow Dung to Cow Shit: Globalization and Local Religious Practices in Rural North India" 1‐25, in the Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies 12. PART 2 TAKING A CLOSER LOOK Session 8‐9: Economic Systems “The Kung San,” “Tahiti” & “The State in North China” 264‐265, 317‐319 & 334‐335 “Economic Systems” & Lee Cronk’s “Reciprocity and the Power of Giving” 157‐67, in Conformity and Conflict, James P. Spradley and David W. McCurdy (eds), 1994, Harper Collins. Thomas Hylland Eriksen’s “Exchange” 176‐192 in Small Places, Large Issues, 2001, Pluto Press Film: Nanook of the North Session 10‐11: Political Systems & Social Stratification Jack David Eller’s “Politics: Social Order and Social Control” 207‐229, in Cultural Anthropology: Global Forces, Local Lives, 2009, Routledge. “A Mother’s Work” 27‐32, in Personal Encounters, Linda Walbridge and April K. Sievert (eds), 2002, McGraw‐Hill. Session 12‐13: Kinship and Marriage “Kinship and Family” & Jack McGiver Weatherford’s “Kinship and Power on Capitol Hill” 197‐199 & 308‐
317, in Conformity and Conflict, James P. Spradley and David W. McCurdy (eds), 1994, Harper Collins Session 14: mid‐term exam Session 15‐16: Gender Film: Tales from the Jungle: Margaret Mead. BBC 4 Documentary. 60mins Frances Mascia‐Lees and Nancy Black’s “The History of the Study of Gender in Anthropology,” Gender and Anthropology. Long Grove: Waveland Press. 2000. Pgs. 1‐12 Lahore University of Management Sciences
Session 17: Seminar‐Presentation Session 18: Worldviews and Ways of Knowing Jack David Eller’s “Religion: Interacting with the Non‐human World” (excerpts) 236‐241, 258‐259, in Cultural Anthropology: Global Forces, Local Lives, 2009, Routledge. Evans‐Pritchard’s “The Notion of Witchcraft explains Unfortunate Events” 18‐32, in Witchcraft, Magic, and Oracles Among the Azande, 1976, Oxford University Press. Session 19: Worldviews and Ways of Knowing II “Religion, Magic & Worldview” and George Gmelch’s “Ritual and Magic in American Baseball” 319‐321 & 351‐361 in Conformity and Conflict, James P. Spradley and David W. McCurdy (eds), 1994, Harper Collins. Joy Hendry’s “Cosmology II: Witchcraft, Shamanism and Syncretism, 132‐144, in An Introduction to Social Anthropology, 2008, Palgrave. “Magic: Theory and Practice”88‐92. Session 20: Seminar‐Presentations Session 21: Creative Expression Lowell Holmes and Kim Schneider’s “The Arts—Forms & Functions” 459‐489, in Anthropology, 1987, Waveland Press. Session 22: Seminar‐Presentations PART 3 CURRENT ISSUES AND PATHWAYS Session 23: Cultural Change Jack David Eller’s “Cultural Dynamics: Continuity and Change” 267‐288, in Cultural Anthropology: Global Forces, Local Lives, 2009, Routledge. Thomas Rhys Williams “Three Case Studies of Cultural Change”344‐347, in Cultural Anthropology, 1990, Prentice Hall. George Ritzer’s “The Globalization of Nothing” 189‐199, in the SAIS Review 23(2). Session 24: Seminar‐presentations Session 25: Cultures and Identities Thomas Hylland Eriksen’s “Identification” 156‐169 in What is Anthropology?, 2004, Pluto Press. Lahore University of Management Sciences
Film: Don’t Ask Why Session 26: What anthropologists do “US Army Enlists Anthropology in War Zones” 1‐, in The New York Times, 2007. “ESRC ‘ignores’ danger fears” 1‐2, in the Times Higher Education, 2007. David W. McCurdy’s “Using Anthropology” 419‐430, in Conformity and Conflict, James P. Spradley and David W. McCurdy (eds), 1994, Harper Collins. Gary Ferraro’s “Applied Anthropology,” “The Future of Anthropology”& “Anthropology and Jobs” 38‐54, 350‐353 & 355‐357, in Cultural Anthropology: An Applied Perspective, 1995, West Publishing Company Session 27: Seminars‐presentations Session 28: Revisions and reflections