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Transcript
Introduction to Cultural Anthropology University College, St. Louis, MO Tuesday, 6:30-9:00pm Fall 2015 Anth 101 Seigle Hall 106 Elyse Ona Singer [email protected] Office Hours: TBA Thurs. 3:00-6:00pm Or by appointment Course description and objectives: Cultural anthropologists take culture as their principal object of study, underscoring its centrality in shaping human behavior. Cultural anthropologists seek to understand human diversity in all of its forms in all corners of the world. They investigate and theorize about diverse aspects of human behavior including: how people adapt to their environments, the symbolic systems they develop for communication and the religious systems that regulate their lives, their economic and political organization, what they do for a living, how they make meaning in their lives and more. At the end of this course you should have an understanding of the central axes that ground social organization cross-culturally as well as the particularities inherent to diverse cultural contexts. Examining how “other” people live both expands our understanding of this ever-shrinking world and pushes us to question key assumptions about our own culture(s). The course is divided into five sections and each week we will change thematic focus. In Part I you will be oriented to the sub-field, learning what anthropologists mean by “culture”, what are the origins of the discipline, what kind of questions cultural anthropologists ask and how they carry out their work. In this section we will also discuss the range of ethical issues that anthropologists routinely confront. In Part II we will discuss a few central axes that guide both human identification and anthropological analysis including gender, sex, sexuality, race and ethnicity and the key differences between these fundamentally cultural categories. Along with these more ubiquitous identities, we will discuss a few examples of “alternative” identifications to shine light on the fact that all such categories are culturally constructed but experientially real. In Part III we will review forms of social organization on a large scale (including a discussion of diverse forms of economic and political organization) as well as on a smaller-scale 1 (including discussion of kinship and marriage). In the fourth section we examine the ways that anthropology has been used to effect change in the world (typically geared towards promoting social justice) and also the ways in which is has been misused (often in the promotion of wars or corporate interests). In this section we also review an important sub-field of cultural anthropology, medical anthropology. We close the course by discussing the dramatic increase in global flows of information, technologies, commodities and ideas and what this means for our changing world and changing lives. Expectations: Reading: Read the articles assigned for each week BEFORE that week’s class. You are expected to come to class with opinions, doubts, questions, and critiques about the readings. Disagreeing with the author is okay! Participation: I understand some students have a more vocal or non-vocal learning style. We will work together to create a safe classroom environment for all to feel comfortable speaking and sharing thoughts. Technology: Cell phones off. Laptops may be use for note taking only although I prefer notebooks. Class time is for engaging and being present. I can circulate slides and lectures if students want. Ethics: All submitted work must be one’s own. No copying from other students or from the internet. If you have questions about proper citation, ask me! Plagiarism is a serious academic offense. Grading Fieldwork Essay (25% of final grade): As we learn about anthropological methods in week 5, students will carry out their own participant observation exercise in a (safe) place where they do not usually spend time (e.g. in a store, park, etc.), or in a familiar space but viewing it through a different lens. Students are required to spend at least 3 hours there, ideally in a continuous block, observing, writing fieldnotes, and engaging in casual conversation if possible. During and after students should take detailed fieldnotes. The final essay (5 pages double-spaced) will be both a reflection on the research process and an analysis of research findings and should address the following questions: Where did you carry out your fieldwork? How did you feel in that space? How did people react to your presence? What did you observe? How do your findings relate to class readings? Fieldnotes and final essay are due in class on week 7. Late essays will lose 4 points for each day they are late. Midterm Exam (30% of final grade): Exams will be a mixture of true/false, fill-in-the-blank, and short answer questions, and are designed to last about one hour. Participation/attendance/in-class assignments (15% of final grade): Come to class having completed the readings and ready to discuss them. Occasionally we will have in-class assignments, which will also inform your participation grade. 2 Final Exam (30% of final grade): The final exam will be cumulative, structured in the same way as the mid-term, and last an hour. Required textbook and readings: There will be one required textbook to help guide our class discussions: 2014 Kenneth J. Guest, Cultural Anthropology: A Toolkit for a Global Age, WW Norton and Co. All assigned articles will be scanned and available online through Blackboard. On average you will be assigned three academic articles per week. In addition, occasionally I also assign short snippets from the newspaper and certain passages from the textbook, for lighter reading. Absence policy: 2 excused absences for emergencies only. On the third absence I will need to bring the issue to administration. Course schedule (subject to modification) Part one: The scope of cultural anthropology Week 1: Introduction to course Personal introductions Review syllabus and course expectations *In-class activity: Brainstorm about ideal first date behavior. Intro to anthropology lecture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0S0jN1wb3Q (Sahlins) Week 2: Defining Anthropology, Defining Culture: A moving target Read before class: Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight, Clifford Geertz Body Ritual Among the Nacirema, Horace Miner Textbook Pg. 33-42 and Pg. 46-59. Week 3: The origins and history of the discipline: Colonialism and its discontents Textbook Pg. 82-88. Introduction to Europe and the People Without History, Eric Wolf Introduction to Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond Week 4: Cultural relativism and its limits Human Rights Law and the Demonization of Culture, Sally Engle Merry Cultural Relativism and Universal Human Rights, Jack Donnelly Rites and Wrongs. In Female “Circumcision” in Africa. Lynne Rienner (Ch. 14) Do Muslim women really need Saving? Lila Abu-Lughod *In-class discussion: What are the positives and negatives of human rights law? Who gets to establish such laws? How do we account for cultural variation and sensitivity? 3 Week 5: Ethical Considerations with anthropological research Textbook : Pg. 97-102. Up the Anthropologist: Perspectives Gained from Studying up, Laura Nader After Cultural Competency: Research practice and moral experience in the study of brand pirates and Tobacco farmers, Peter Benson and Kedron Thomas Week 6: Doing Anthropology: Methods and practice Textbook: Pg 78-81. Ethnography and Participant Observation, Paul Atkinson/Martyn Hammersley Notes on Fieldnotes, James Clifford Excerpt from Elyse Singer’s fieldnotes Assign: Fieldwork activity due in class week 7. Part two: Identities Week 7: Race, Ethnicity, Nationality Textbook Pg. 195-230 and 237-244 and 254-265 White Privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack, Peggy Mkintosh One Hundred Percent American, Ralf Linton *Contemporary topics: Ferguson, MO police abuse and social protest MTV documentary White privilege http://www.lookdifferent.org/videos/113-white-people Week 8: Gender, Sex, Sexuality Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture? Sherry Ortner Chapter one from The Meanings of Macho: Being a man in Mexico City, Mathew Gutmann Pick another article on sexuality from Feminist Reader in Anthropology Week 9: “Alternative” identities (subject to omission) Critical Therapeutics: Cultural Politics and Clinical Reality in Two Eating Treatment Centers, Rebecca Lester Intimacy, chapter In Coming of Age in Second life, Tom Boellstorff Chapter 1 from In Search of Respect, Philippe Bourgois Social Organization and Power Structures Week 10: Economic Systems Textbook Pg. 441-474 The Laborer in the Culture of Capitalism, Chapter 2 In Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, Richard Robbins The Original Affluent Society, Marshall Sahlins Chapter of Sidewalk 4 In the news: Mackeral Economics in Prison: http://whofishesmatters.blogspot.com/2012/05/mackerel-behind-bars.html Week 11: Family, Kinship, and Marriage Textbook Pgs. 349-351, 360-371 Strategic Naturalizing: Kinship in an infertility clinic, Charis Thompson “Is there a Family?” Roger Lancaster (ed.). The Gender/Sexuality Reader. New York: Routledge, Jane Collier In the news: 8 Adults, 3 Children, 1 House, Hartford Courant http://www.courant.com/community/hartford/hc-hartford-scarborough-zoning1121-20141120-story.html Contemporary topics: Gay marriage Practicing Anthropology: Uses and misuses Week 12: Medical Anthropology The Egg and the Sperm, Emily Martin On suffering and structural violence: A view from below, Paul Farmer Chronic Pain: The Frustrations of Desire In Illness Narratives, Arthur Kleinman The Mindful Body: A Prolegomenon to Future Work in Medical Anthropology, Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Margaret Lock Week 13: Uses and Misuses of Anthropology AAA Statement on Human Terrain System, http://www.aaanet.org/issues/AAAOpposes-Human-Terrain-System-Project.cfm Anthropology and the Development Encounter: The making and marketing of development anthropology, Pablo Escobar Reclaiming Applied Anthropology: Its past, present and future, Barbara RylkoBauer, Merrill Singer and John Van Willigen Recommended: Beyond the Ivory Tower: Critical praxis in medical anthropology, Merrill Singer Globalization and the changing contours of culture Week 14: Textbook Pg. 19-31 and 66-71. Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996, pp. 27-65. *In class full movie: Mardi Gras: Made in China Week 15: In-class review and final 5