This document provides a syllabus for an Introduction to Cultural Anthropology course. It outlines the course description, aims, requirements and evaluation criteria. The core elements that all sections of the course have in common are reading assignments, exams, papers and attendance/participation requirements. Additionally, the department has decided to add a standardized anthropological terms literacy test to help norm content across sections and set expectations for assumed knowledge in upper division courses. The syllabus then details the specific organization and requirements for the section taught by Professor Jennifer Heung, including assignments, readings, grading breakdown and class schedule.
This document provides a syllabus for an Introduction to Cultural Anthropology course. It outlines the course description, aims, requirements and evaluation criteria. The core elements that all sections of the course have in common are reading assignments, exams, papers and attendance/participation requirements. Additionally, the department has decided to add a standardized anthropological terms literacy test to help norm content across sections and set expectations for assumed knowledge in upper division courses. The syllabus then details the specific organization and requirements for the section taught by Professor Jennifer Heung, including assignments, readings, grading breakdown and class schedule.
This document provides a syllabus for an Introduction to Cultural Anthropology course. It outlines the course description, aims, requirements and evaluation criteria. The core elements that all sections of the course have in common are reading assignments, exams, papers and attendance/participation requirements. Additionally, the department has decided to add a standardized anthropological terms literacy test to help norm content across sections and set expectations for assumed knowledge in upper division courses. The syllabus then details the specific organization and requirements for the section taught by Professor Jennifer Heung, including assignments, readings, grading breakdown and class schedule.
This document provides a syllabus for an Introduction to Cultural Anthropology course. It outlines the course description, aims, requirements and evaluation criteria. The core elements that all sections of the course have in common are reading assignments, exams, papers and attendance/participation requirements. Additionally, the department has decided to add a standardized anthropological terms literacy test to help norm content across sections and set expectations for assumed knowledge in upper division courses. The syllabus then details the specific organization and requirements for the section taught by Professor Jennifer Heung, including assignments, readings, grading breakdown and class schedule.
Although this syllabus represents the specific organization that Jennifer Heung brings to Anth 001, there are core elements every section of Anth 001 has in common as discussed in the application. The department has also decided to add a standardized anthropological terms literacy test, which will likely not form part of a student’s grade in the class, but will help the department in norming content across sections and setting expectations for assumed knowledge in our upper division courses. - Members of the SMC Anthropology Department
Anthropology 1:02 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology Fall 2013
Professor Jennifer D. Heung, PhD Office: Garaventa 313 x8322
Saint Mary’s College of California Office Hours: MW 3:00-4:00pm Lecture: MWF 9:15-10:20 GV 140 T 11:30-1:30pm and by appointment Location: Garaventa 140 Email: jheung@stmarys-ca.edu
Course Description: This course introduces students to the field of sociocultural anthropology. Anthropology is the study of human cultures, in all times and places, and in all their forms. While in this course, you will gain a sense of how anthropologist approach and study other cultures. You will learn how to “think like an anthropologist” through the critical examination of other cultures and more importantly through the examination of your own culture.
The material selected for this course presents information about cultural worlds that may be very different from your own, as well as information about cultural worlds that are very close to “home.” The purpose of juxtaposing these types of materials is to challenge you to critically think outside of your own cultural assumptions. I hope through the use of critical tools used by anthropologist, students will begin to examine their own common sense assumptions about society and human nature and in turn come to approach cultural diversity with thoughtfulness and sensitivity.
This course may provoke you. The course may also, at times, offend you. We are presenting controversial material on controversial topics – race, science, religion, gender, sexuality. The course is designed according to the philosophy that an education is worthless if it does not provoke, challenge, disrupt and perhaps cause you to reformulate the assumptions you brought to it in the first place. At the same time, your voice and opinion is essential to this classroom space. Our collective aim in this course is to create a space for intelligent dialogue and discussion where we can all explore these issues important our everyday lives. As much as this class serves to challenge and disrupt your existing assumptions about the world around you, your own perspective is valuable and valid, and this course aims to develop your ability to express your opinion in an intelligent and organized manner.
1 * in Course Reader Course Aims:
Upon completion of the course, students should be able to:
♦ Understand the role of social and cultural anthropology in the holistic approach of the four fields of American anthropology ♦ Define culture, and articulate its historical relationship to the concepts of biological and social identity ♦ Demonstrate mastery of basic socio-cultural anthropology vocabulary words and the analytical ideas that underlie their usage ♦ Apply anthropological terms and concepts in cross-cultural contexts to reflect and write substantively on ways in which human beings find fulfillment in community ♦ Apply anthropological methods of inquiry to cultural data and while engaging in cultural relativism ♦ Demonstrate a capacity for coherent, principled analysis of concrete social problems utilizing emic and etic perspectives. ♦ Contextually recall case studies from around the world to demonstrate the range of human variability in the arenas of traditional anthropological inquiry (e.g., kinship, economics, politics, religion, linguistics) ♦ Display familiarity with a variety of anthropologists and their contributions to the discipline ♦ Read and summarize a peer-review journal article from an appropriate anthropological journal, using anthropological writing and citation styles ♦ Articulate the contribution made by applied anthropology to understanding the contemporary world, including the legacy of colonial world systems, imperialism, and globalization in culture change and extinction ♦ Become familiar with a variety of theoretical perspectives that have been used in anthropology to illuminate micro- and macro-scale social and cultural processes over time and space
Course Requirements and Evaluation:
Attendance and Participation: Attendance at lectures is required and random quizzes will be conducted from time to time. Class begins on time and students are expected to be present at the start of class. Students are expected to be prepared to discuss assigned readings. Active and engaged participation in class is critical to doing well in this course. Critical thinking is developed through the process of reading, writing and discussing concepts and theories with your fellow students and instructors, thus attendance and participation will account for 10% of your final grade. Cultural Events: A portion of your attendance and participation grade will include attending a cultural event and conducting a mini ethnography. This will be a 1-2 page write up of the event and the people you spoke with. Additional details to this assignment will be discussed in class. There will also be one additional required event students must attend. This will be discussed in class. Short papers: There will be three papers in this class. The types of papers expected are explained below:
Regular Papers: (one 3-4 page, and one 5-6 page) Topics for these paper assignments will be announced in class. They will usually concern a topic or subject that was recently discusses or may ask you to integrate several different points of view from class. The 3- 4 page paper will be 10% of your final grade and the 5-6page paper will be 15% of your final grade.
2 * in Course Reader Article Review: To familiarize students with the vast field of anthropology, students will select an article from an academic anthropological journal and review it. More details of this assignment (which journals to use, content etc) will be discussed in class. 3-4 pages are expected for this paper. A library visit is also scheduled to help student familiarize themselves with anthropological journals. This assignment is worth 15% of your final grade
Finally, the papers are designed to give students an opportunity to reflect upon class materials in a creative fashion. This is a chance for you to practice “anthropological” ways of thinking, while integrating new concepts and theories with your own existing knowledge. Papers must be typed, double-spaced, with a 10-12 point font, and standard margins (1 inch). Late papers WILL NOT be accepted.
Exams: There will be two exams in this course, a mid-term (20%) and a final (25%). All exams include a combination of short-answers, multiple-choice, true-false, and short and long essay questions. The exams will draw heavily on materials covered in lectures as well as all the readings. The students will be responsible for all assigned readings, even those which may not have been covered in class.
Readings: Students are expected to complete all reading assignments before the lecture for which the readings are assigned.
There are four required texts for this course, three of which are available for purchase in the SMC bookstore. They have also been placed on reserve in the library. Please note that we will not be reading each text in its entirety, but selected chapters, which will be assigned in class.
Course Reader: In addition to the books listed below, there is a course reader which will be available for purchase. More detail about when and where to purchase this reader will be given in class. The readings provided in this course reader are REQUIRED. Readings in the course reader are marked with an asterix (*) in the schedule of classes.
Required Texts: Bourgios, Philippee (2002) 2nd Edition In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in el Barrio. Cambridge University Press.
Nanda, Serena and Richard L. Warms (2009) Culture Counts: A Concise Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. Wadsworth.
Nanda, Serena (1990) Neither Man Nor Woman: The Hijras of India. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth
3 * in Course Reader Class Schedule **Note: Course schedule subject to modifications to accommodate scheduling changes, developing student interests or other unforeseen incidents.**
Week 1: Approaching Other Cultural Worlds
Wednesday 9/4: Introduction to the course, what is culture, what is anthropology, and the myths of anthropologist.
Friday 9/6 Translation, incommensurability, cultural relativism, and radically different ways of being.
Readings: Nanda and Warms, Chapter 2 “Culture Counts” pp. 23-45
*Horace Miner
Paper assignment: Write a paper that “makes the familiar strange,” as Horace Miner did in “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema.” Do this by conducting your own mini-ethnography of some aspect of SMC or “Lamorinda” life. 3-4 pages. Due: Monday, September 23
PLEASE BRING PAPER COPY TO CLASS *AND* SUBMIT ELECTONICALLY TO
MOODLE.
Week 2 : Tools of the trade. Myth and Culture.
Monday 9/9 - Tools of the Trade: How do anthropologist work and what do they do? Basic anthropological methods: fieldwork, ethnography, ethnology.
Readings: Nanda and Warms, Chapters 1(pp. 1-20) and 3 (pp 47-71) * Laura Bohannan Tiv in West Africa
Wednesday 9/11 Readings: Nanda and Warms, Chapter 12 (pp281-304) *Richard Lee - !Kung in the Kalahari
Friday 9/13 Myth is a reality lived: myths we live by.
Readings: * Womack and Barker, “Adventures in the Field and in the Locker Room” Handout: Chagnon, “Doing Fieldwork among the Yanomamo”
4 * in Course Reader Week 3 : More myth and culture. Monday 9/16 Origin myths, magic, and science Readings: *Malinowski, Magic, Science, and Religion. *Gmelch, George, Baseball Magic
Readings: *Sapolsky, “Why We Want Their Bodies Back” *Daugherty, “Serpent-Handling as Sacrament”
Friday 9/20 Readings: Nanda and Warms, Chapter 12, “Religion”
Week 4: Anthropological Approaches to Religion
Monday 9/23 Introduction to the anthropological study of religion; ways to understand religion in terms of historical origins, functions, cosmology, etc. Sacred/profane, clean/dirty. Religion as a system of ordering the world. How the categories of religion are also implicit in our modes of science, gender.
Reading: * Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London: Ark Paperbacks.
Wednesday 9/25 The concept of race and the rise of anthropology as discipline, why race is bogus biological concept, why race continues to be an important cultural even though bogus; Franz Boas and the origins of modern American anthropology.
Readings: *Gould, Steven J. (1985) The Mismeasure of Man. New York: W.W. Norton and Co.
Friday 9/27 Race, gender, and biology.
Readings * Diamond, Jared “Race Without Color” * McIntosh, Peggy, “White Privilege” Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”
Week 5 : Race, Biology and Culture cont.
Monday 9/30
Readings: Nanda and Warms, Chapter 11, “Inequalities: Race and Ethncity”
Wednesday 10/2 Science as a “myth we live by;” sociobiology
Readings: *Richard Lewinton (1991) Biology as Ideology. New York: Harper Collins.
Friday 10/4 Reading : TBA
5 * in Course Reader Week 6 : Monday 10/7 REVIEW – No Readings.
Wednesday 10/9 Midterm Exam Part 1
Friday 10/11 Midterm Exam part 2
Week 7 Myths of progress; capitalism.
Monday 10/14 Readings: *HANDOUT* Sahlins, Marshall (1972) “The original affluent society,” In Stone Age Economics. Chicago: Althone.
Wednesday 10/16 Readings: Nanda and Warms, Chapter 5, “Making a Living” and Chapter 6, “Economics”
Friday 10/18 Readings: Nanda and Warms, Chapter 8, “Sex and Gender” *Steinem, Gloria (1983) “ Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions. New York: Hold, Rinehart and Winston.
Week 8 Gender, identity, sex and destiny
Monday 10/21 Readings: *Ruth Hubbard (1990) The Politics of Women’s Biology.
Wednesday 10/23 Gender vs. sex; sexuality; history of ideas of sex, gender, love, sexuality in the west and elsewhere.
Readings: *Ann Fausto-Sterling, The Sciences March/April 199.
Friday 10/25 - MIDTERM BREAK – NO CLASSES!
Week 9 Gender, identity, sex and destiny
Monday 10/28 Readings: Serena Nanda (1990) Neither Man Nor Woman: The Hijras of India. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Introduction, Chapters 1-3
Wednesday 10/30 Readings: Serena Nanda (1990) Neither Man Nor Woman: The Hijras of India. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Introduction, Chapter 4
Happy Halloween!
Friday 11/1 Readings: Serena Nanda, Neither Mon Nor Woman: The Hijras of India, Chapter 5
6 * in Course Reader Week 10
Monday 11/4 Readings: Serena Nanda, Neither Mon Nor Woman: The Hijras of India, Chapters 6-8 (pp. 71-112)
Wednesday 11/6 : Readings: Serena Nanda, Neither Mon Nor Woman: The Hijras of India, Chapter 9 “Hijra Lives on Context” AND Chapter 10 “The Hijra in Cross-Cultural Perspective.”
Friday11/8 Readings: Nanda and Warms, Chapter 7, “Marriage, Family and Kinship”
Week 11 :
Monday 11/11 Readings: *Gough, Kathleen (1971) from “Nuer kinship: a reexamination,” in the Translation of Culture, T.O. Beidelman, ed. London: Tavistock, pp. 104-113.
Wednesday 11/13 Readings: *HANDOUT* Angrosino, Michael, “Conducting a Life History Interview” Bourgois, In Search of Respect Preface & Introduction pp. xvii-xxiii, 1-18
Friday 11/15
Readings: Bourgois, Chapter 1 (pp.19-47 )and part of Chapter 2 (pg48- bottom of 62)
Week 12: In Search of Respect
Monday 11/18 Readings: Bourgois, rest of Chapter 2 (pg 62-76) and Chapter 3 (pp. 77-113)
Wednesday 11/20
Readings: Bourgois, part of Chapter 4 (pg 114- 146)
