Anthropology 100
Dr. Judkins
Spring 2013
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
This course is an introduction to cultural anthropology, which is the study of the variety of shared "ways of life" of the living and recent peoples of the world. An overview of the development and the practice of cultural anthropology is the body of the semester's work, with a special orientation to acquiring ethnographic skills - learning the content and the logic of specific cultural systems from around the world, as well as learning how to learn that which is essential in any cultural system.
GRADING:
Required paper, three tests, plus Final Exam, each = 20% of Grade
No extra work permitted; official, written excuse required for make-up exam
Required paper: five pages outside class; topic assigned after mid-semester; due at Final Exam.
TEXTS:
Mangione. Mount Allegro: A Memoir of Italian American Life. New York Classics Series.
Syracuse University Press
Turnbull. The Forest People. Simon & Schuster
Simmons. Sun Chief: The Autobiography of a Hopi Indian. Yale University Press
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
- The study of the ways of life of the living peoples of the world, AND an overview of the development and practice of Cultural Anthropology.
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
- Student mastery of the data of the field, particularly in regard to learning about the ways of life of the living peoples of the world, will be tested in examinations and on the required terms paper, and confirmed in a Final Examination.
- Student proficiency re. the development of Cultural Anthropology is demonstrated on exams.
- Students acquisition of knowledge of the practice of the field of Cultural Anthropology will be demonstrated both on examinations and by means of a five page term paper.
OFFICE:
Office: Sturges 15B Hours: T/Th: 11:30-1:00 Wed: 11:00-12:30 (by appointment only)
Phone: 245-5433 e-mail: judkins@geneseo.edu
FINAL EXAM DATE & TIME: Tuesday, May 14, 2013 (Noon - 3:00)
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY - COURSE PROGRAM
INTRODUCTORY PERSPECTIVES & ORIENTATION (Jan 22 & 24) [Week 1]
- Review of syllabus
- Introduction to the texts and their authors
- Introduction of TA’s and their roles in the course
- Introduction to Anthropology
- “Ethnography” what & why: the key to the course
Video: Robert Flaherty’s “Nanook of the North” (1922)
SECTION 1 - FUNDAMENTALS + ETHNOGRAPHY [Weeks 2-4]
Text: Mangione, Mount Allegro: A Memoir of Italian American Life (all)
Key concepts: concept of culture (cf. phrasing of Ashley Montagu)
culture vs. society/culture and adaptation
ethnography/holism/fieldwork/objectivity/cultural relativism
culture shock/ethnocentrism/emic/etic/diachronic/synchronic
ethos/world view
Introduction to Anthropology (Week 2: Jan 29 & 31)
Major contributions of each of the Four Fields
Ethnography and field-work: objectivity, observation, comparison
Fieldwork: goals & standards/ethos & accomplishments
Reading Mount Allegro as ethnography
Application of “key concepts” to assigned reading in Mount Allegro
Anthropology: history & development (Weeks 3 & 4: Feb 5-14)
Anthropological thought: unique origins --> present ubiquity
Morgan; Tylor; Frazer; Durkheim;
Radcliffe-Brown; Malinowski; Boas
[Kroeber; Benedict; Evans-Pritchard; Turner; Levi-Strauss; Geertz]
Test #1: Thursday, Feb 14
SECTION 2 - SUBSISTENCE & ETHNOGRAPHIC TYPES: [Weeks 5-7]
ETHNOGRAPHY IN A HUNTING-GATHERING BAND
Text: Turnbull, The Forest People (all)
- “Subsistence Types” handout (memorize + apply to this to all the other case
study ethnographies we use for the rest of semester)
Videos: “The Pygmies” + “The Hunters” or “Desert People”
- Goal #1: visual images of cultural/hunting-gathering activities of the Mbuti
- Goal #2: correlation of film observations with ethnographic description in text
key concept: subsistence strategies, levels & organizational correlates
hunting-gathering, band-level organization, and “mobility”
Universal subsistence strategies/political correlates (Week 5: Feb 19, 21)
Hunting-Gathering Bands: adaptive efficacy of “generalization”
temporal duration: ca. 40,000 years plus
adaptational costs vs. benefits of the hunting-gathering model
evolutionary definitions of “success:” maintenance, expansion of territory
functional roles of demography, nuclear households, age and gender distinctions (“division of labor,” plus generalized hunter-gatherer model, re. evolutionary and temporal success of H. sapiens
Mbuti as hunters-gatherers (Weeks 6-8: Feb 22-Mar 14)
Mbuti culture - Mbuti society
Ethnography of the BaMbuti
Ethnography and the ethnographer: rules, limits and insights
molimo: social solidarity, collective experience, world view, core rituals
key symbols: layers of meaning, significance and reference
Test #2: Thursday, March 14
SECTION 3 - SOCIAL ORGANIZATION - SOCIAL STRUCTURE:
TRIBES: HORTICULTURALISTS / AGRICULTURALISTS / PASTORALISTS
[Weeks 9-12]
Reading: Simmons, Sun Chief, pp. 1 - 298, Appendix B
Videos: “Song of the Fourth World: the Hopi”
Key concepts: “Culture Area”
Horticulture and social organization
Kinship
descent systems (clans/lineages/UDG)
cognatic systems (bilaterality)
social corporation
pedigree charts/lineage diagrams: logic and kinship
Culture Area Concept - case study: American SW (Week 9: Mar 26, 28)
Language, culture and ethnicity
Prehistory, including Mesoamerican influences and interactions
Landscape and adaptation, patterns of change in the Southwest
Settlement patterns, economics, architecture
Subsistence patterns: kinship and religion
Major SW culture patterns: Pueblo, valley farming, hunter-gatherer
Convergence toward “Southwestern culture core”
Kinship: Descent/Cognatic (Weeks 10-12: Apr 2-18)
Introduction to Hopi geography, ecology & ethnography
Subsistence systems and adaptational perspectives
Descent: lineage, clan, social corporation, “stasis,” group-focus
Cognatic systems: kindred, “mobility,” individual-focus
Family, marriage, and household
Cousin terminology systems
Test #3: Thursday, April 18
(required papers assignment to be given out at this point)
SECTION 4 – RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS & PERSONALITY & CULTURE [Weeks 13-15]
Videos: Trance and Dance in Bali (Indonesia) + Three Worlds of Bali
Key concepts: rites of passage/sacred and profane/rituals of reversal
systems of modification and maintenance of meaning
Systems Theory & self-regulating systems, thermostatic controls
process vs. structure: culture as adaptation revisited/change
“Culture-bound syndromes”
Classical Myth, ritual and symbol analysis (Week 13: Apr 23, 25)
- Arnold van Gennep: rites of passage
- Emile Durkheim: sacred & profane
- Marcel Mauss: prestation: exchange and reciprocity
- Functionalism
Complex societies: SE Asia (Week 14: Apr 30, May 2)
- Personality and Culture
- Indonesia/Bali: Jane Belo and “The Balinese Temper”
- Rituals of Reversal: renewal/re-set, maintenance mechanisms
Culture Bound Syndromes: (Week 15: May 6)
- Latah, Amok, “Arctic Hysteria” (piblotoq), “Windigo Psychosis”
*************************************************************
FINAL EXAM: Tuesday, May 14 (Noon - 3:00 PM)
Papers DUE at the start of the Final Exam; those received after Exam begins will be Late.