Bilinda
StraightANTH
460
Moore
Hall 118Moore Hall 0118
Phone:387-0409MWF
1-1:50 p.m.
email:Bilinda DOT Straight AT wmich.edu
Office
Hours: M 2-4, W 2-3 pm, F 11-noon
web
page address:http://homespages.wmich.edu/~bstraigh
Money, Consumption,
and Cannibals
What
do vampires, the devil, and cannibals have to do with money or
commodities?Does
money mean the same thing to all people?How
do individuals in different societies make sense of western currencies
and the abundance of goods available to them (whether in reality or
fantasy)?We’ll
answer these and other questions in this course which focuses on the
meaning
of money and commodities cross-culturally.A
growing number of anthropologists are asking questions relating to
global
capitalism that move beyond facile assumptions about the use of money
in
“non-western” economies.In order
to enter into this lively debate, we will begin the course with a few
lectures
and key readings delving into contemporary interpretations of the terms
we will be concerned with throughout the course.We
will also familiarize ourselves with classic anthropological notions
about
the distinction between money and gift economies.The
rest of the course will be devoted to breaking down such distinctions
and
exploring the diverse ways in which individual societies have dealt
with
the problem of money and commoditization.We
will see how money finds its way into practices ranging from weddings
to
spirit possessions and how money and goods are gendered in different
societies.Finally,
we will explore the ways in which money and goods--and often the
whiteness
associated with their introduction--can have literally monstrous
connotations.
Course
Readings
Required
Books:The
following required books are available for purchase at WMU’s
Bookstore:
J.
Parry and M. Bloch, eds. (1989) Money and the Morality of Exchange.Cambridge:
University
of Cambridge Press.
Patricia
Spyer, ed. (1998) Border Fetishisms:Material
Objects in Unstable Spaces.N.Y.:Routledge.
Annette
Weiner (1992) Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of
Keeping-While-Giving.
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Recommended
Book:
Marcel Mauss (1906), The
Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies.N.Y.:W.W.
Norton and Company.
Course
Packet:A
packet of required readings will be on reserve at Waldo
Library.
Grading (See Grading Key for complete instructions)
Attendance 15%
Prospectus
for Final Essay 10%
Responses 20%
Preliminary
Bibliography
15%
Presentations 10%
Final
Essay
30%
In
a class of this kind and size, your presence and participation are
essential
to the quality of the experience for others as well as yourself.Your
attendance grade will be based on the number of days you are absent,
calculated
as points missed on a one-hundred percent scale.Two
are the most absences allowed for an ‘A’, and the grade
will go down with
each a
dditional
day missed.Papers will be graded
on content, style, and mechanics.A
full grade will be deducted for each day a paper is late.Extensions
are given only because of illness or serious extenuating personal
circumstances.Extensions
will not be given because of conflicts with assignments in other
classes.
There
will be no exams in this class.Students
will write weekly one-page responses to the readings (20% of grade).These
should include very brief summaries and at least a paragraph of
critique
(per reading).
Presentations
(10% of grade):
Working
with a partner, all students will sign up to assist in facilitating one
class discussion.Reading additional
sources to present to enhance the discussion is encouraged but not
required.What
is required is that you are well-prepared, with thoughtful questions
and
possibly an activity.
Writing
Assignments:
Prospectus
for Final Essay (10% of grade):This
will be a 2-3 page essay discussing the theoretical perspective and
topic
you will pursue for your final paper.It
should be written in a clear, essay style, containing a preliminary
argument
and topic and the kinds of material (essays, books, popular media,
local
fieldwork) you will use to pursue that argument.
Preliminary
Bibliography (15% of grade):This
will be an annotated bibliography of sources you are using so far in
your
paper.Write a one-paragraph summary
for each of 4 or 5 sources, and a sentence or two of how they
should
be useful to your paper.Include
full bibliographic information for each of these sources, and do
not
include course readings!Course
readings should be used for your paper where appropriate but do not
count
towards this assignment.(Recommended
readings can be used though).You
must limit yourself to one web site source only, and use at least one
book.
Final
Essay (30% of grade):This
will be a 12-15 page research essay.(I
will read slightly longer essays.)It
can be on a topic of your choice, which is relevant to the course
readings.Local
fieldwork and/ororiginal research
with popular media is highly encouraged for this project, and we will
discuss
methods in class.If you have difficulty
in coming up with a topic, please feel free to see me. Include a
bibliography
for anything you cite, and for readings you already know you will be
using.When
you cite, quote, or paraphrase in text, put an in-text citation in
parentheses
(author’s last name, date, page number if a direct quote).It
looks like this:(Straight 1997)
or (Straight 1997: 37).
Bilinda
Straight’s
Grading
Key
All
essay grades appear as a quantitative grade. All quantitative semester
grades are multiplied by the percentage of the spread they represent.
Thus,
if attendance is worth 20% of the grade, it would be calculated as
follows:
If you were absent 5 times out of 30 total class days, you would be
counted
as absent 3 times (2 days of grace). 3 out of 30 is 10 percent absence,
or 90% presence. So you have a 90 on attendance, multiplied by 20% of
the
spread, gives you 18. All grades thus calculated are added together to
equal the total percentage out of one hundred. Your semester grade is
then
calculated as per the key below.
Grade
Scale for Final Grades
97-100A+
94-96A
87-93BA
84-86B
77-83 CB
74-76C
67-73DC
60-66D
below
60E
Reading
Schedule:
PART
ONE:OBJECTS:GIFTS
and FETISHES
Wednesday,
September 4
Introduction
to course plan and requirements.Lecture
on objects, value, meaning.
Individual
sharing about objects.
NO
CLASS FRIDAY, SEPT. 6th—ANTHROPOLOGY FACULTY RETREAT
Monday,
September 9
Read
(CP) Mauss pp. 1-18.
Read
(CP) Mauss pp. 19-46 AND pp. 100-102--footnote 29.
Friday,
September 13
Read
(CP) Levi-Strauss, “Selections from Introduction to the Work of
Marcel
Mauss,”
pp.
45-69.
Monday,
September 16:
Read
(CP) Marx (McLellan, ed.) “On James Mill,” pp. 114-123.
Wednesday,
September 18
Read
Spyer Chapter Seven:Peter Stallybrass,
“Marx’s Coat” (pp. 183-207).
PART
TWO:MONEY
Friday,
September 20
Read
Parry and Bloch, Chapter One:Jonathan
Parry and Maurice Bloch, “Introduction:
Money
and the Morality of Exchange” (pp. 1-32).
Monday,
September 23
Read
Parry and Bloch, Chapter Three:Jonathan
Parry, “On the Moral Perils of
Exchange”
(pp. 64-93).
Wednesday,
September 25
Read
Parry and Bloch, Chapter Four:R.
L. Sirrat, “Money, Men and Women” (pp. 94-
116).
Friday,
September 27
Read
Parry and Bloch, Chapter Five:Janet
Carsten, “Cooking Money:Gender and
the
Symbolic
Transformation of Means of Exchange in a Malay Fishing Community”
(pp.
117-141).
Monday,
September 30
Read
Parry and Bloch, Chapter Seven:Maurice
Bloch, “The Symbolism of Money in
Imerina”
(pp. 165-190).
Wednesday,
October 2
Read
Parry and Bloch, Chapter Nine:M.
J. Sallnow, “Precious Metals in the Andean
Moral
Economy” (pp. 209-231).
Friday,
October 4
Read
Parry and Bloch, Chapter Ten:Olivia
Harris, “The Earth and the State:The
Sources
and Meanings of Money in Northern Potosi, Bolivia” (pp. 232-268).
PART
THREE:CONSUMPTION AND COMMODITIES
AS FETISH
Monday,
October 7
Read
Introduction in Annette Weiner, Inalienable Possessions.
Wednesday,
October 9
Read
Weiner, Chapter One.
Friday,
October 11
Read
Weiner, Chapter Two.
Monday,
October 14
Read
Weiner, Chapter Three. Prospectus Due.
Wednesday,
October 16
Read
Weiner, Chapter Four.
Friday,
October 18
Read
Weiner, Chapter Five and Afterword.
Monday,
October 21
Read
Spyer, “Introduction” (pp. 1-11) and (CP) Appadurai
“Introduction to The
Social
Life
of Things.”
Wednesday,
October 23
Read
Spyer, Chapter One:Webb Keane, “Calvin
in the Tropics:Objects and Subjects
at
the
Religious Frontier” (pp. 13-34).
Friday,
October 25
Read
Spyer, Chapter Two:Susan Legene,
“From Brooms to Obea and Back:Fetish
Conversion
and Border Crossings in Nineteenth-Century Suriname” (pp. 35-59).
Monday,
October 28
Read
Spyer, Chapter Three:Robert J.
Foster, “Your Money, Our Money, the Government’s
Money:Finance and Fetishism in
Melanesia” (pp. 60-90).
Wednesday,
October 30
Read
Spyer, Chapter Four:Peter Pels,
“The Spirit of the Matter:On Fetish,
Rarity, Fact,
and
Fancy” (pp. 91-121).
Friday,
November1
Read
Spyer Chapter Five:Adela Pinch,
“Stealing Happiness:Shoplifting
in Early
Nineteenth-Century
England” (pp. 122-149).
Monday,
November 4
Read
Spyer Chapter Six:Patricia Spyer,
“The Tooth of Time, or Taking a Look at the
“Look”
of Clothing in Late Nineteenth-Century Aru” (pp. 150-182). Preliminary
Bibliography Due.
Wednesday,
November 6
Read
Spyer Chapter Eight:Annelies Moors,
“Wearing Gold” (pp. 208-223).
PART
FOUR:CANNIBALISM
Friday,
November8
Read
(CP) Michael Taussig (2002). The Genesis of Capitalism Amongst a
South
American
Peasantry: Devil’s Labor and the Baptism of Money,” a
reprint of Chapter
Seven
of his The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America (1980).
Monday,
November11
Read
(CP) Peter Gose (1986) “Sacrifice and the Commodity Form in the
Andes”
MAN 21
(2):
296-310.
Wednesday,
November13
Todd
Sanders (eds.) Magical Interpretations, Material Realities. New
York, NY:
Routledge.
Friday,
November15
Monday,
November18
Read
(CP) Brad Weiss (1998) “Electric Vampires:Haya
Rumors of the Commodified
Body,”
pp. 172-194.(In Lambek and Strathern,
eds.).
NO CLASS WED., NOVEMBER 20 AND FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22 (AMERICAN ANTHRO MEETINGS IN NEW ORLEANS)
Monday,
November25
Read
(CP) Pamela Schmoll (1993) “Black Stomachs, Beautiful Stones:Soul-Eating
Among
Hausa in Niger.Pp. 193-220 In Jean
and John Comaroff (eds) Modernity and Its
Malcontents:Ritual
and Power in Postcolonial Africa.Chicago:University
of Chicago
Press.
NO CLASS WED., NOVEMBER 27 AND FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29 (THANKSGIVING)
Monday,
December 2
Read
(CP) Adeline Masquelier (2000). “Of Headhunters and Cannibals:
Migrancy,
Labor
and Consumption in the Mawri Imagination.” Cultural Anthropology 15(1):
84-126.
Wednesday,
December 4
Friday,
December 6
Sharing projects. Conclusion. *Early Bird Final Essay Deadline for 5 bonus
points.*
Monday,
December 9th
Final
Essays Due in My Mailbox. No
Exceptions.