This course will offer an overview of key theoretical trends in anthropology from the late nineteenth century to the present. We will begin with a selection of readings on some of the most prominent philosophical traditions in which contemporary social theory is rooted. Following this, we will follow a topical, rather than strictly chronological, outline in order to see the continuity between current theoretical issues and their historical antecedents. We will also spend a significant amount of our time grappling with the relation between our theories and ethnographic practices.
 

Required texts:

Anthropology Theory McGee and Warms

The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies Marcel Mauss

Readings From Emile Durkeim Kenneth Thompson

Mules and Men Zora Neal Hurston

COURSEPACK, available at the Bookstore.

Additional readings will be on reserve at Waldo Library. The first reserve reading is also in the anthropology library, in case Waldo does not process the reserve in time. (Recommended readings and a few common readings are on reserve in order to reduce the cost of the coursepack.)
 

Course Format

The course format will include lecture, classroom discussion, and student-led presentations/discussions. In a course of this size and subject matter, student participation is absolutely essential to the learning process. We will spend Mondays and Wednesdays in lecture and discussion of the week’s readings. Fridays will be student-led discussions of the recommended readings and of issues that will deepen everyone’s understanding of all readings and the week’s topic. A sign-up sheet will be provided for Friday discussions, and it is expected that everyone will lead Friday discussions twice during the semester (with pairing as necessary).
 

Assignments and Grading

Grading will be done on the standard grading system. The following assignments will be weighted, as described below, to produce your final grade.

Attendance 15% Prospectus for Final Essay 10%
Reading Responses 20% Annotated Bibliography 15%
Presentations 15% Final Essay 25%
 

Description of Assignments

Attendance: Attendance will be taken at each class and a grade computed based on percentage of class time attended. More than two unexcused absences will adversely affect your grade.)

Reading Responses: (2 pp each) You will be expected to turn a two-page response to the week’s readings each Friday. These should consist of a paragraph of synopsis and a paragraph of feedback for each chapter, book excerpt, or article. The synopsis should be brief, stating main points and highlights. The feedback should include your questions, critique, and/or the usefulness of this work to you, including if you wish, how this piece relates to something else we have read. Do not stress out about these responses--they should be typed but fairly informal. Grading of them will be Pass, High Pass, Not Pass. (If you complete all of them at an average of Pass or better, you would receive an ‘A’ for your reading responses.).

Presentations: When it is your day to present, you should come prepared having read at least one recommended assignment for the week (if none are listed, you may choose your own or I will suggest something). You should come prepared to describe the recommended reading for the rest of the class, discussing it in terms of how it relates to the week’s topic and the common readings. Finally, you should be prepared with questions to generate discussion on the reading you have presented and on an aspect (or aspects) of the common readings which we did not discuss (or which merits further discussion). You will be graded on the quality of your presentation and discussion questions.

Prospectus for Final Essay: (1-2 pp) This essay describes your intentions for the final essay. The final essay will be on a topic of your choice, which is integrally related to the course’s themes. For the prospectus, you should have a general sense of what your topic should be, have a preliminary thesis statement, and a sense of where you are going with the topic and what kinds of readings you might be looking for. DUE OCTOBER 6th

Annotated Bibliography: (3-5 pp) This should consist of synopses and critical paragraphs (similar to your weekly reading responses) for at least five readings which you expect to use in your final essay. The five readings in the annotated bib must not duplicate common readings for class! (Recommended readings may be used however.)  DUE NOVEMBER 3rd

Final Essay: (12-20 pp) This is a research essay on a topic of your choice. It can be on a specific social theorist or on a particular theoretical problem which you would like to explore in depth and push further. If you choose to focus on a single theorist, you must do more than offer a biography--that would merely be preliminary. You must choose an aspect of that person’s writing to discuss in terms of how it relates to that person’s life-time of ideas and to anthropology as a discipline (as that person’s ideas affected anthropology during the person’s life-time, as that person’s ideas continue to affect contemporary anthropology, or both). If you choose to work on a particular theoretical problem, try to make it as specific as possible, draw upon several theorists, and try to present as nuanced a discussion of the problem, including your own critical sense of it, as possible. DUE DECEMBER 1st, WITHOUT EXCEPTION.

All assignments, including reading responses, must be typed except with special permission of the instructor.
 

Academic Honesty

Cheating and plagiarism will not be tolerated in any form. Any student found to have cheated or plagiarized will receive no credit for the exam or assignment in which this offense has occurred, and may be subject to further action. Students are expected to know, understand, and act in accordance with the University's policies on academic honesty (see pages 59-60 of the 1997-1999 Undergraduate Catalog).

It is expected that all work which you turn in for this course will be your own independent creation, produced specifically for this course. You are, of course, expected to make appropriate use of published materials, which you should cite appropriately when quoting or paraphrasing.
 

Late assignments and Incompletes

Late assignments may not be accepted, unless with prior consent of the instructor. A late assignment will typically be docked 5% for each working day which it is late. Incompletes will be granted only in cases where unusual circumstances render it unfair to expect that a student will be able to complete course requirements within the time frame allowed by the course schedule.
 
 

COURSE SCHEDULE

History of Ideas in Perspective

Wednesday, August 30: Introduction

Friday, September 1:

**on reserve: Solomon and Higgins:

                    pp.25-43 (pre-Plato); pp.49-53 (Plato)
                    pp. 205-223 (Kant, Hegel, rationalism and romanticism); and
                    pp. 243-263 (Nietzsche, Husserl, Freud, Weber, Dewey)

Monday, September 4: NO CLASS

Evolutionary and Ecological Approaches

Wednesday, September 6:

common readings:

in McGee and Warms:

Sir Edward Burnett Tylor, "The Science of Culture"
Lewis Henry Morgan, "Ethnical Periods"

recommended reading:

in McGee and Warms: Herbert Spencer, "The Social Organism"

Monday, September 11:

common readings:

in McGee and Warms:

Leslie White, "Energy and the Evolution of Culture"
Marvin Harris, "The Cultural Ecology of India’s Sacred Cattle"
Roy A. Rappaport, "Ritual Regulation of Environmental Relations Among a New Guinea People"

recommended readings:

in McGee and Warms:

Julian Steward, "The Patrilineal Band"
Morton H. Fried, "On the Evolution of Social Stratification and the State"

Relativism, Part I

Wednesday, September 13:

common readings:

in McGee and Warms: Franz Boas, "The Methods of Ethnology"

in Readings from Emile Durkheim: "The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life" pp. 117-135"

recommended reading:

**on reserve: Mary Douglas, "Preface 1975" (pp. xi-xx).

Functionalism and Structural-Functionalism

Monday, September 18:

common readings

in Readings from Emile Durkheim: "The Rules of Sociological Method," pp.62-89.

in McGee and Warms:

**on reserve: Robert C. Ulin (pp. 1-22)

in McGee and Warms: A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, "The Mother’s Brother in South Africa"

Structuralism

Wednesday, September 20:

common readings:

*in CP: Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss pp. 10-26 and pp. 81-88.
*in CP: F. de Saussure pp. 8-17; pp. 65-70; and pp. 110-120.

Monday, September 25:

common readings:

in McGee and Warms:

Claude Levi-Strauss, "Structural Analysis in Linguistics and in Anthropology"
Edmund Leach, "Genesis as Myth"

Wednesday, September 27:

common readings:

**on reserve: Michel Foucault pp. 92-102.
**on reserve: Anthony Giddens pp. 162-206.

recommended reading:
in McGee and Warms:  Sherry B. Ortner, “Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?”

Objects and Exchange

Monday, October 2:

common reading:

read Marcel Mauss [(1967) 1925]. Ian Cunnison (transl). The Gift.

Wednesday, October 4:

common readings:

**on reserve: Karl Marx (David McLellan, ed.) pp. 114-123.

*in CP: Claude Levi-Strauss pp. 29-41.

recommended reading:

**on reserve: Gayle Rubin (Rayna R. Reiter, ed.) pp. 156-210.

Friday, October 6: Prospectus Due.

Monday, October 9:

common readings:

**on reserve: Marilyn Strathern pp. 66-97.

recommended reading:

**on reserve: J. Parry and M. Bloch pp. 1-32.

Symbolic Anthropology

Wednesday, October 11:

common readings:

in McGee and Warms:

Mary Douglas, "External Boundaries"
Clifford Geertz, "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight"

recommended reading:

in McGee and Warms:

Victor Turner, "Symbols in Ndembu Ritual"
 

The Individual and Society:

1. Psychological Anthropology, Culture and Personality

Monday, October 16:

common readings:

in McGee and Warms:

Ruth Fulton Benedict, "Psychological Types in the Cultures of the Southwest"
Margaret Mead, "Introduction to Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies"

recommended reading:

**on reserve: Edward Sapir (David G. Mandelbaum, ed.) pp. 509-521.

2. Evolutionary Psychology

Wednesday, October 18:

common readings:

in McGee and Warms:

Edward O. Wilson, "The Morality of the Gene"
Jerome H. Barkow, "The Elastic Between Genes and Culture"
 

3. Embodiment

Monday, October 23:

common reading:

*in CP: Pierre Bourdieu pp. 72-95.

recommended reading:

**on reserve: Thomas J. Csordas (Henrietta L. Moore, ed.) pp. 172-205.
**on reserve:  Michel Foucault pp. 3-31.

Critical Approaches:

1. Feminism, Gender, and Anthropology

Wednesday, October 25:

common readings:

*in CP: Henrietta L. Moore pp. 151-171.
*in CP: Oyeronke Oyewumi pp. 1049-1062.

recommended reading:

**on reserve: Ruth Behar pp. 1-29.

2. Marx, Structural Marxism

Monday, October 30:

common reading:

**on reserve: Karl Marx (David McLellan, ed.) pp. 415-470.

Wednesday, November 1:

common readings:

*in CP: Sherry B. Ortner pp. 138-144 (excerpt of article); Jonathan Friedman pp. 26-61.

Friday, November 3: Annotated Bibliography Due.

3. Colonialism

Monday, November 6:

common reading:

*in CP: Scott Michaelsen pp. 84-106.

Wednesday, November 8:

common readings:

**on reserve: B. Malinowski (Immanuel Wallerstein, ed.) pp. 11-24.
*in CP: Frederick Cooper and Ann L. Stoler pp. 609-621.

recomended reading:

**on reserve: G. Balandier (Immanuel Wallerstein, ed.) pp. 34-61).

4. Reflexivity and Experience

Monday, November 13:

common readings:

Zora Neal Hurston [(1990) 1935] Mules and Men. pp. 1-179 (entire work is recommended).
*in CP: Renato Rosaldo pp. 1-21.

recommended reading:

**on reserve: Douglas Cole (George W. Stocking, Jr., ed.) pp. 13-52).

Wed/Fri, November 15/17: NO CLASS (AAA MEETINGS)

5. Relativism Part Two, and the Rationality Debates

Monday, November 20:

common readings:

*in CP: Paul F. Schmidt (Robert A. Manners and David Kaplan, eds.) pp. 169-174.
*in CP: Robert B. Edgerton (E.L. Cerroni-Lang, ed.) pp. 55-75.

Wed/Fri, November 22/24: NO CLASS (THANKSGIVING)

Monday, November 27:

common readings:

*in CP: E. E. Evans-Pritchard (Grinker and Steiner, eds.) pp. 303-311.
*in CP: Peter Winch (Grinker and Steiner, eds.) pp. 312-326.

recommended readings:

**on reserve: Robert C. Ulin pp. 23-41.

6. Recent Approaches to Interpretation Within Anthropology

Wednesday, November 29:

common readings:

**on reserve: Robert C. Ulin pp. 91-125.
*in CP: Dennis Tedlock and Bruce Mannheim pp. 1-32.

recommended reading:

**on reserve: Robert C. Ulin pp. 126-172.

Friday, December 1: Final Essay Due IN CLASS (or counted late).
 
 

Coursepack Contents:

1. From Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss [(1963) 1903]. Rodney Needham (transl), Primitive Classification. Chicago: University of Chicago Press: "Chapter Two: The Australian Type of Classification" (pp. 10-26) and "Conclusions" (pp. 81-88).

2. From F. de Saussure ((1983) 1916]. Roy Harris (trans.) Course in General Linguistics. London: Duckworth: Introduction, "Chapter III: The Object of Study" (pp. 8-17), Part One, "Chapter I: Nature of the Linguistic Sign" (pp. 65-70) and Part Two, "Chapter IV: Linguistic Value" (pp. 110-120).

3. From Claude Levi-Strauss (1969) The Elementary Structures of Kinship. Boston: Beacon Press: Chapter III: The Universe of Rules" (pp. 29-41).

4. from Pierre Bourdieu (1977) R. Nice (transl) Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press: "Chapter Two: Structures and the Habitus," pp. 72-95.

5. from Henrietta L. Moore (ed.) (1999) Anthropological Theory Today. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press: Henrietta Moore, "Whatever Happened to Women and Men? Gender and Other Crises in Anthropology" (pp. 151-171).

6. Oyeronke Oyewumi, "De-confounding Gender: Feminist Theorizing and Western Culture, a Comment on Hawkesworth’s "Confounding Gender" (SIGNS 23(4): 1049-1062).

7. excerpt from Sherry B. Ortner (1984) Theory in Anthropology Since the Sixties. Society for Comparative Study of Society and History, 26(1): 138-144.

8. Jonathan Friedman (1974) "The Place of Fetishism and the Problem of Materialist Interpretation," Critique of Anthropology 1: 26-61.

9. from Scott Michaelsen (1999) The Limits of Multiculturalism: Interrogating the Origins of American Anthropology. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press: "3: Amerindian Voice(s) in Ethnography: Ely S. Parker, Lewis Henry Morgan" (pp. 84-106).

10. Frederick Cooper and Ann L. Stoler (1989) "Introduction: Tensions of Empire: Colonial Rule and Visions of Rule." American Ethnologist 16(4): 609-621.

11. rom Renato Rosaldo (1989) Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis. Boston: Beacon Press: "Introduction: Grief and a Headhunter’s Rage" (pp. 1-21).

12. from Roy Richard Grinker and Christopher B. Steiner (eds) (1997) Perspectives on Africa: A Reader in Culture, History, and Representation. Oxford, UK: Blackwell:

14. from E.L. Cerroni-Lang (ed) (1999) Anthropological Theory in North America. Westport, CONN: Bergin and Garvey: Robert B. Edgerton, "Maladaptation: A Challenge to Relativism" (pp. 55-75).

15. from Dennis Tedlock and Bruce Mannheim (1995) The Dialogic Emergence of Culture. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press: Bruce Mannheim and Dennis Tedlock, "Introduction" (pp. 1-32).

Reserve Readings (Waldo Library)

1. Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins (1996) A Short History of Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press:

3. Robert C. Ulin (1984) Understanding Cultures. Austin: University of Texas Press:

4. From Anthony Giddens (1984) The Constitution of Society. Berkeley: University of California Press: "4: Structure, System, Social Reproduction" (pp. 162-206).

5. From David McLellan (ed) Karl Marx: Selected Writings. Oxford: Oxford University Press: "On James Mill" (pp. 114-123) and excerpt from "Chapter 32, Capital" (pp. 415-470).

6. From Rayna R. Reiter (ed) (1975) Toward an Anthropology of Women. New York: Monthly Review Press: Gayle Rubin"The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex" (pp. 156-210).

7. From Marilyn Strathern (1988) The Gender of the Gift. Berkeley: University of California Press: "4: Domains: Male and Female Models" (pp. 66-97).

8. From J. Parry and M. Bloch (1989) Money and the Morality of Exchange. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: "Introduction: Money and the Morality of Exchange" (pp. 1-32).

9. From David G. Mandelbaum (ed) Edward Sapir: Selected Writings in Language, Culture, and Personality [(1985) 1932]. Berkeley: University of California Press: "Cultural Anthropology and Psychiatry" (pp. 509-521).

10. from Henrietta L. Moore (ed.) (1999) Anthropological Theory Today. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press: Thomas J. Csordas, "The Body’s Career in Anthropology" (pp. 172-205).

11. from Ruth Behar and Deborah A. Gordon (eds) (1995) Women Writing Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press: Ruth Behar, "Introduction: Out of Exile" (pp. 1-29).

12. from Immanuel Wallerstein (ed) (1966) Social Change: The Colonial Situation. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc: