ANT 450 “History of Anthropological Theory”Spring 2009
Mon. & Wed. 2:00—3:15 Room SB 202
Dr. Bill Alexander, Assistant Professor
Office hours: Mon. & Wed. 3:15—4:30, Tues. 11:00—12:00 and by appointment Office SB 100 F (inside archaeology lab)
Phone: 962-2227 Email:
Course Description
This class will survey the development of anthropological theory through the research and writings of key figures in the field. We will pay close attention to the social and intellectual contexts out of which anthropological theories emerge. Having covered the history of the major orientations, guiding principles, intellectual frameworks, and theoretical and methodological shifts of the discipline, we will focus on current themes, issues, and debates through a close reading and discussion of cutting edge work in the field today.
Grading and Requirements
Five quizzes10%
Exam, Feb. 1620%
Exam, March 3025%
Final Essay, May 625%
Attendance & Participation20%
Seven unannounced short quizzes will be given throughout the semester. Your top five scores will be combined and your lowest two scores will be dropped. These quizzes will act as check-ups to help gauge how well you are following the lectures and the readings. If you’re absent on quiz day, that will be your drop score.
Exams will not be comprehensive. They will only cover material covered since the previous exam. The exams are in-class and will consist of a variety of objective questions, including true/false, multiple choice, fill in the blank, short answer, and essay questions.
For the final you will write a ten-page paper covering the readings and class discussion of the final section of the course. At the beginning of the final section, I will hand out a list of essay topics from which you will choose one. It will be due on Wednesday May 6.
You are required to be an active participant in this course. Attending class and taking part in discussion is expected. There will be a sign-in sheet for every class meeting. Your record of attendance and participation will be taken into consideration in figuring your final grade. I reserve the right to drop anyone with chronic absenteeism. Arrive on time and don’t leave early. You will not be given credit for tardies or early departures. Cell phones are not allowed in class. Turn them off and put them away before you enter. It’s very important for you to complete the assigned reading for each section. Lectures and discussions will clarify the texts, but you will have difficulty if you haven’t kept up with the reading. Taking good notes is also necessary as I will often present material not in the books and articles. I encourage you to visit me during office hours or by appointment whenever you feel the need.
Academic dishonesty, cheating, and plagiarism of any kind are not tolerated and will result in a failing grade (or worse…) Please familiarize yourself with the university’s academic honor code:
and the UniversityLearningCenter’s definition of and tips to avoid plagiarism:
Required Texts
Paul A. Erickson and Liam D. Murphy
A History of Anthropological Theory, 3rd. Ed.Toronto: University of Toronto Press (Broadview Press) (2008)
Paul A. Erickson and Liam D. Murphy, eds.
Readings for a History of Anthropological Theory. University of Toronto Press (Broadview Press) (2006)
The Electronic Reserve readings are accessed by going to the library reserves homepage:
After logging in, you can locate the reserve materials searching by course, department, or instructor.
Schedule
The courseis organized in five sections. As a guide that highlights key concepts and provides historical context, the Erickson and Murphy text is an easy to follow accompaniment to the primary source articles in the Readingsbook. I suggest that for each theorist you first read Erickson and Murphy’s discussion of that author before reading them “in their own words.” We will cover the theorists in the order they are given below.
1/12 — 1/26I. EARLY HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEORY: CULTURAL EVOLUTION, HISTORICAL MATERIALISM
** MLK holiday 1/19 no class meeting**
Erickson and Murphy 43-81
Readings for A History Of Anthropological Theory 3-79:
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels “Bourgeois and Proletarians”; Edward Burnett Tylor “The Science of Culture”; Lewis Henry Morgan “Ethnical Periods”; Herbert Spencer “The Organic Analogy Reconsidered”; Charles Darwin “General Summary and Conclusions [The Descent of Man]”; Emile Durkheim“Introduction [The Elementary Forms of Religious Life]”
1/28 — 2/11II. EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY: HISTORICAL PARTICULARISM, CULTURE & PESONALITY, FUNCTIONALISM,
STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONALISM
Erickson and Murphy 93-111; 123-134
Readings for A History of Anthropological Theory 89-105; 114-143; 165-200:
Franz Boas “The Methods of Ethnology”; Alfred Kroeber “What Anthropology is All About”; Margaret Mead “Introduction [Coming of Age in Samoa]”; Ruth Benedict “The Individual and the Pattern of Culture”; A.R. Radcliffe-Brown “Social Structure”; Bronislaw Malinowski “The Subject, Method and Scope of this Inquiry[Argonauts of the Western Pacific]”; Meyer Fortes and E.E. Evans-Pritchard “Introduction [African Political Systems]”
2/16 Exam
2/18 — 3/4III. STRUCTURALISM, LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY,
GENDER LANGUAGE
Erickson and Murphy 84–89; 137–140
EReserve:Claude Levi-Strauss “Harelips and Twins: The Splitting of a Myth” In Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion: An Anthropological Study of the Supernatural, 7th ed., Moro, Myers, & Lehmann (Eds.), Pp. 68-71, New York: McGraw-Hill (2008); Sherry B. Ortner “Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?” In Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History, 2nd. ed., McGee & Warms (Eds.), Pp. 356-368, Mountain View CA: Mayfield Publishing (2000); Benjamin Lee Whorf“The Relation Of Habitual Thought And Behavior To Language” In Critical Theory Since 1965, Adams & Searle (Eds.), Gainesville FL: University Presses Of Florida (1986);
Deborah Tannen “The Relativity of Linguistic Strategies: Rethinking Power and Solidarity in Gender and Dominance” Pp. 19-52 in Gender & Discourse OxfordUK: OxfordUniversity Press (1994); Senta Troemel-Ploetz “Selling the Apolitical” In Language and Gender: A Reader, Coates (Ed.), Pp. 446-458 London: Blackwell Publishers (1998). Louise Lamphere “The Domestic Sphere of Women and the Public World of Men: The Strengths and Limitations of an Anthropological Dichotomy” In Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 3rd. ed., Brettell & Sargent (Eds.), Pp. 100-109, Upper Saddle River NJ: Prentice Hall (2001);
Readings for A History of Anthropological 337–347:
Susan Gal “Language, Gender, and Power: An Anthropological Review”
SPRING BREAK
3/16 — 3/25IV. NEO-EVOLUTIONISM, CULTURAL MATERIALISM,
INTERPRETIVE & SYMBOLIC ANTHROPOLOGY
Erickson and Murphy 141–166
Readings for A History of Anthropological Theory 259–288; 299–336:
Leslie A. White “Energy and Tools”; Marvin Harris “The Epistemology of Cultural Materialism”; Clifford Geertz “Thick Description: Toward and Interpretive Theory of Culture”; Victor Turner “Symbol in Ndembu Ritual”;
EReserve:Julian Steward “The Patrilineal Band” In Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History, 2nd. ed., McGee & Warms (Eds.), Pp. 228-243, Mountain ViewCA: Mayfield Publishing (2000); Jerry D. MooreVisions of Culture: An Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists, 3rd ed. “Julian Steward: Cultural Ecology and Multilinear Evolution”194-203; Mary Douglas “Land Animals, Pure and Impure” In A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion, Lambek (Ed.), Pp. 194-209, London: Blackwell Publishing (2002); Roy Rappaport “Ritual Regulation of Environmental Relations Among a New Guinea People” In Ritual and Belief: Readings in the Anthropology of Religion, 2nd ed., Hicks (Ed.), Pp. 410-420, New York: McGraw-Hill (2002); Clifford Geertz “Chapter Fifteen Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight“ in The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books Publishers, 1973), 412–453
3/30 Exam
4/1 — 4/27V. POLITICAL ECONOMY, CULTURE & POWER,
CRITICAL MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, POST-MODERNISM, CONTEMPORARY ETHNOGRAPHY
This last four weeks of the course will cover some cutting edge issues, trends, and critiques of the last three decades. At the beginning of the section, I will hand out a list of paper topics from which you will choose one. Using the readings and class discussion from this section, you will write a ten page essay that is due on Wednesday May 6th. The “bibliography” for this paper will be the following:
Erickson and Murphy 167–215
Readings for A History of Anthropological Theory 370–402; 422–452:
Eric R. Wolf “Introduction[Europe and the People Without History]”Michel Foucault “The Birth of the Asylum”; James Clifford “Partial Truths”; George E. Marcus and Michael M.J. Fischer “A Crisis of Representation in the Human Sciences”
EReserve:
Philippe Bourgois “From Jibaro to Crack Dealer: Confronting the Restructuring of Capitalism in El Barrio” In Articulating Hidden Histories: Exploring the Influence of Eric R. Wolf, Schneider & Rapp (Eds.) Pp. 125-141, Berkeley CA: University of California Press (1995)
Sidney W. Mintz “Introduction” and “”Food, Sociality, and Sugar” Pp. 3-18 Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History Baltimore: JohnsHopkinsUniversity Press (1985)
Benedict Anderson“Introduction” Pp. 1 – 7 Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 2nd. Ed. London: Verso (1991).
James Ferguson “Of Mimicry and Membership: Africans and the ‘New World Society’ ” in Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order (DurhamNC: Duke University Press, 2006), 155–175.
Kristin Norget “Chapter 6 Spectacular Death and Cultural Change“ in Days of Death, Days of Life (ColumbiaUniversity Press, 2006), 225–264.
Lorna A. Rhodes “Chapter One – Controlling Behavior” in Total Confinement: Madness and Reason in the Maximum Security Prison (BerkeleyCA: University of California Press, 2004), 21–60.
Emily Martin “Medical Metaphors of Women’s Bodies: Menstruation and Menopause” Pp. 27-53 in The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction, 2nd. Ed. Boston: Beacon Press (1992)
Charles Briggs Clara Mantini-Briggs “Preparing for a Bacterial Invasion: Cholera and Inequality in Venezuela” in Stories in the Time of Cholera: Racial Profiling during a Medical Nightmare (2003) BerkeleyCA: University of California Press
Susan Greenhalgh excerpt from Under the Medical Gaze: Facts and Fictions of Chronic Pain (BerkeleyCA: University of California Press, 2001)
Susan McKinnon “Chapter Four: Sex and Gender” in Neo-liberal Genetics: The Myths and Moral Tales of Evolutionary Psychology(Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2005), 72–119.
Edward Said “Orientalism” In The Post-Colonialism Studies Reader, Ashcroft, Griffiths, & Tiffin (Eds.) Pp. 87-91 , London: Routledge (1995).
Renato Rosaldo “Introduction: Grief and a Headhunters Rage” Pp. 1 – 21 in Culture & Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis (1993) 2nd Ed., Boston: Beacon Press (1993).
Michael Taussig excerpts from Law in a Lawless land: Diary of a Limpieza in Colombia, Chicago: University of Chicago Press (2003).
Sugar Turner and Tracy Bachrach Ehlers excerpts from Sugar’s Life in the Hood: The Story of a Former Welfare Mother, Austin TX: University of Texas Press (2002).
Lila Abu-Lughod “A Tale of Two Pregnancies” in Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History, 4th Ed. McGee & Warms (Eds.), Pp. 552-561, New York: McGraw-Hill
Katherine A. Dettwyler “Chapter Thirteen Mother Love and Child Death“ in Dancing Skeletons: Life and Death in West Africa(Prospect Heights IL: Waveland Press, 1994), 149–161.
Vincent Crapanzano “Introduction“ in Tuhami, Portrait of a Moroccan (Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 3–23.
John M. Chernoff “Chapter One Not Bad As Such “ in Hustling is not Stealing: Stories of an African Bar Girl (BerkeleyCA: University of California Press, 2006), 121–156.
Joao Biehl “Introduction: ‘Dead Alive, Dead Outside, Alive Inside’ “ in Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment (BerkeleyCA: University of California Press, 2005), 1–24.
Holly Wardlow “Chapter 1 Tari is a jelas place: The Fieldwork Setting“ in Wayward Women: Sexuality and Agency in a New Guinea Society (BerkeleyCA: University of California Press, 2006), 30–62.
Bilinda Straight “Experience“ in Miracles and Extraordinary Experience in Northern Kenya (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 3–13.