Course Requirements

Class Participation 25%

Mid-term short essay exam 25%

Final short essay exam 25%

Weekly Reading Summary 25%

Course Schedule

Week 1: Introduction

10 September

Read:

Nader; Laura. 2011. “Ethnography as Theory.” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 1(1):211. (http://www.haujournal.org/index.php/hau/article/view/hau1.1.008).

Lederman, Rena and Rena Lederman. 2017. “Remapping ‘Magic’: Extending the Terrain of an Already Capacious Category.” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 7(3):373–375. (https://www.haujournal.org/index.php/hau/article/view/1275).

Jones, Graham M. 2017. “Magic, an Appreciation.” Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 7(3):399–407. (https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.14318/hau7.3.026).

Introduce individual research projects and student/instructor interests

Course Objectives; ACE-A reading;

Week 2: Cultural Relativism, Function, and Structure

17 September

Beyond Phenology

Boas, Franz. 1938. The Mind of Primitive Man. Preface and Introduction (Read)

1000. Bronislaw. 1939. “The Group and the Individual in Functional Analysis.” American Journal of Sociology 44(6):938–64.

Further reading

Boas, Franz. 1974. “On Alternating Sounds.” Pp. 72–77 in A Franz Boas Reader. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Boas, Franz. 1940. “The Ethnological Significance of Esoteric Doctrines.” in Race, Language and Culture. New York: The Macmillan Co.

Week 3: Symbols and Interpretations

24 September

Beyond Structure and Function

Geertz, Clifford. Interpretation of Cultures. The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man; Thick Description

Significant Symbols

Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger. Introduction, Chapter 1, Religious Uncleanness, Chapter 2, Secular Defilement.

Csordas, Thomas J. 2013. “Morality as a Cultural System?” Current Anthropology 54(5):523–46.

Week 4: Ritual and Magic

1 October

Ritual:

Bell; C. M. 1992. Ritual Theory; Ritual Practice. New York: Oxford University Press

Magic:

Taussig, Micheal. 2003. “Viscerality, Faith, and Skepticism: Another Theory of Magic.” in Magic and Modernity: Interfaces of Revelation and Concealment, edited by B.Meyer andP.Pels. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Week 5: Structure Unbound

8 October

Symbols and Structures

Lévi-Strauss, C. 1963. The Structural Study of Myth. In Structural Anthropology. New York, London: Basic Books.

Levi-Strauss, C. (1973). Structuralism and ecology. Social Science Information, 12(1), 7–23.

Habitus

Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge, U.K.; New York: Cambridge University Press. Section 2. Structures and the habitus; Section 4. Structures, Habitus, Power: Basis for a Theory of Symbolic Power.

Embodiment

Mauss; M. 1973. “Techniques of the Body ∗.” Economy and Society 2(1):70–88.

Week 6: Frames, Liminality, and Anti-Structure

15 October

Frame Analysis

Goffman, Erving. 1974. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. New York: Harper & Row. Introduction and Chapter 7: Out-of-Frame.

Liminality and Anti-Structure

Turner, Victor Witter. 2008. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. New Brunswick, N.J: Aldine Transaction.

Chapter 3: Liminality and Communitas; Chapter 4: Model and Process

Week 7: Post and Multi

22 October

Post-Structural

2147483647. M. 1977. Discipline and Punish: the birth of the prison. New York: Pantheon Books.

Post-Colonial

Spivak, G. C. 1988. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, 271–312. University of Illinois Press.

Gender

Strathern, M. (1988). The Gender of the Gift. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Introduction (pp. 1-40)

Multi-Genders and Species

Haraway, D. J. 1991. “Animal Sociology and a Natural Economy of the Body Politic: A Political Physiology of Dominance”. In, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The reinvention of nature. New York: Routledge.

Week 8: Gifts, Debt, and Markets

29 October

The Gift

Mauss, Marcel. 1967. [1950] The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies. New York: Norton. Introduction, Chapter 1 and 2 (pp. 1-45).

Markets

Graeber, David. 1996. “Beads and Money: Notes toward a Theory of Wealth and Power.” American Ethnologist 23(1):4–24.

Debt

Gregory, Chris A. 2012. “On Money Debt and Morality: Some Reflections on the Contribution of Economic Anthropology.” Social Anthropology 20(4):380–96.

Week 9: Midterm Examination- No Class

Exam Due- 8 November, 5pm

Take-home exam

Open-book

Short Essay answers

Week 10: Ontologies

12 November

Read

Descola, Philippe. 2013. Beyond Nature and Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Introduction, Chapters 1-3 (p.1-88)

Week 11: Medical Ethnography

19 November

Read

Kleinman, Arthur. 1980. Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture: An Exploration of the Borderland between Anthropology, Medicine, and Psychiatry. University of California Press.

Read: Chapter 1: Orientations 1: The Problem, the Setting, and the Approach; Chapter 2: Orientations 2: Culture, Health Care Systems, and Clinical Reality; Chapter 4: The Cultural Construction of Illness Experience and Behavior, 1: Affects and Symptoms in Chinese Culture; and, skim Chapter 9: The Healing Process

Week 12: Feminist Ethnography

26 November

Read:

Mahmood, Saba (2005). Politics of piety: the Islamic revival and the feminist subject. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Week 13: Ethnography of Place

3 December

Read:

Dell’Orto, Alessandro. 2002. Place and Spirit in Taiwan: Tudi Gong in the stories, strategies, and memories of everyday life. London: RoutledgeCurzon.

Introduction, Chapter 1, 2, 4, 6.

Week 14: Urban Ethnography

10 December

Read:

Fassin, Didier. 2013. Enforcing Order: An Ethnography of Urban Policing. Malden, MA: Polity Press. Prologue, Chapter 1-3,5,7.

Week 15: Multi-Ethnography

17 December

Read:

Tsing; Anna Lowenhaupt. 2015. The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Read Part I: What’s Left?, and Part II: After Progress: Salvage Accumulation

Week 16: Multi-Ethnography

24 December

Tsing; Anna Lowenhaupt. 2015. The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Read Part III: Disturbed Beginnings: Unintentional Design and Part IV: In the Middle of Things.

Week 17: Course Review

31 December

Review:

Final Exam review and Prep

Take-home, open-book exam

Week 18: Final Exam- No Class

Exam Due 5pm 9 January

Course Requirements

Class Participation 25%

Mid-term short essay exam 25%

Final short essay exam 25%

Weekly Reading Summary 25%

Learning Outcomes:

Students will have a strong grasp of the intellectual and political history of ethnographic investigations, as well as an understanding of the foundational and current theories of ethnography.

Critical analysis is key to this course and students will be able to apply it to all kinds of documents using the Elements of Critical Assessment and Analysis (ACE-A).

Exams:

Exams are designed for learning, not testing. Take-home, open-book exams will consist of 4-6 short essay questions.

Policy on Absence and Lateness:

Students are expected to attend all classes and to arrive on time. If a class is missed, the student is responsible for making up missed work, for turning in assignments on time, and for getting class lecture notes from other classmates.

Academic Integrity

All students are expected to write their own papers. Please read [university policy] and be aware of issues concerning plagiarism.

Bell, Catherine M. 1992. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. New York: Oxford University Press. (optional)

Dell’Orto, Alessandro. 2002. Place and Spirit in Taiwan: Tudi Gong in the stories, strategies, and memories of everyday life. London: RoutledgeCurzon.

Fassin, Didier. 2013. Enforcing Order: An Ethnography of Urban Policing. Malden, MA: Polity Press.

Mahmood, Saba (2005). Politics of piety: the Islamic revival and the feminist subject. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Kleinman, Arthur. 1980. Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture: An Exploration of the Borderland between Anthropology, Medicine, and Psychiatry. University of California Press.

Mauss, Marcel. 1967. [1950] The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies. New York: Norton.

Tsing; Anna Lowenhaupt. 2015. The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton: Princeton University Press.