Week 1: Introduction

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-FA reading;

Week 2: Cultural Relativism, Function, and Structure

Beyond Phenology

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

Malinowski, 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

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 Habitus

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.

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

Week 5: Myths and Frames

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.

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.

Week 6: Anti-Structure and Post-Structural

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

Post-Structural

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

Week 7: Gender and Ontologies

Gender

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

Ontologies

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

Week 8: Midterm Examination- No Class

Take-home exam; Open book; Short Essay answers

Week 9: Economic Anthropology

Read

        Graeber, D. (2011). Debt: the first 5,000 years. Melville House.

      Chapts 1, 2, and 7

Week 10: Medical Ethnography

Read

Karchmer, Eric I. "Prescriptions for Virtuosity: The postcolonial struggle of Chinese Medicine." In Prescriptions for Virtuosity. Fordham University Press.

Week 11: Feminist Ethnography

Read:

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

Yueh,

Week 12: Ethnography of Place

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 13: Urban Ethnography

Read:

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

Yonucu, Deniz. 2022. Police, Provocation, Politics: Counterinsurgency in Istanbul. Cornell University Press.

Week 14: Networks and Multi-Species

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 15: Networks and Multi-Species

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 III: Disturbed Beginnings: Unintentional Design and Part IV: In the Middle of Things.

Week 16: Final Exam – No class

      Take Home, Open Book

      Due 5pm on the last day of finals week

Course Requirements

Class Participation 25%

Mid-term short essay exam 25%

Final short essay exam 25%

Weekly Reading Summary 25%

Course Time commitment 

This will be a difficult course for most students and will require the maximun number of hours per credit. Plan to spend 9 hours per week attending class, doing the readings, and writing short (max 2-page) essays each week outlining the main points of the week's readings. Hopefully, you will enjoy the work. 

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. Exams will be evaluated according to the student's ability to demonstrate understanding of relevant theoretical approaches and concepts, and how they work together. 

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.

Karchmer, Eric I. "Prescriptions for Virtuosity: The postcolonial struggle of Chinese Medicine." In Prescriptions for Virtuosity. Fordham University 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.