Department of Anthropology
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Anthropology 629
Fall 2004
Wednesday 6-9 pm
Eielson 304
Syllabus (Full
bibliography can be found on Blackboard)
Sept.
8 Rhetoric, Logic, Science and Argument
No
required reading
Sept.
15 The Research Process in Science and the Humanities
Required: Latour and Woolgar – Laboratory
Life
Recommended: Kuhn – The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions
Sept.
22 Evolutionary Argument
Morgan
– Ancient Society, pp. 3-60
Sahlins
and Service – Evolution and Society, pp. 12-44
Spencer – "On the Tempo and Mode of State Formation: Neoevolutionism Reconsidered"
Recommended
Reading:
Stocking
– "The Dark-Skinned Savage:
The Image of Primitive Man in Evolutionary Anthropology" in Race,
Culture and Evolution
September
29 Durkheimian School
paper 1 due
Durkheim
– Rules of Sociological Method, Chapters 1-2: pp. 1-46 (book) or pp. 50-84 (photocopy)
Mauss
– Seasonal Variations of the Eskimo, pp. 19-62
October 6 Boasian Anthropology
Boas
- "Alternating Sounds," "The Ethnological Significance of
Esoteric Doctrines," "The Documentary Function of the Text,"
"The Mythology of the Bella Coola Indians," ""The Study of
Geography"
Benedict
- "The Science of
Custom"
October
13 Politicized and Applied Anthropology
Boas – ÒThe NegroÕs PastÓ
Das – Critical Events ch. 6, pp. 137-174
Merry – "Legal Pluralism and Transnational Culture: The Ka Ho'okolokolonui Kanaka Maoli
Tribunal, Hawai'i, 1993"
Sundar – ÒToward an anthropology of culpabilityÓ
October 20
Biological Argument - The OlÕ Polygenous-Monogenous Debate
Wolpoff and Thorne
– "The Multiregional Evolution of Humans"
Stringer – "Replacement, continuity and the origin of Homo sapiens"
Stocking,
"The Persistence of Polygenist Thought in Post-Darwinian
Anthropology"
October
27 Models, Metaphors and Themes
paper 2 due
Howell
- "Nature in culture or culture in nature? Chewong ideas of ÔhumansÕ and other species"
Ortner
- "Patterns of History:
Cultural Schemas in the Foundings of Sherpa Religious
Institutions."
Feld
- "The boy who became a muni bird," Chapter 1 in Sound and
Sentiment
November
3 Archaeological
Argument – Bering Strait Prehistory
Rainey – Eskimo Prehistory: The Okvik Site on the Punuk Islands
Ackerman – "Prehistory of the Asian Eskimo Zone"
Fitzhugh and Arutiunov – "Prehistory of Siberia and the Bering Sea"
November
10 Ethnographic Writing
Geertz,
Clifford – "Thick Description"
Narayan,
Kirin – ÒEthnography and Fiction:
Where is the Border?Ó
Das,
Veena – Critical Events,
ch. 2, pp. 24-54
Additional recommended reading:
Malinowski
- "Introduction" in Argonauts of the Western Pacific
Evans-Pritchard
- "Fieldwork and the Empirical Tradition," Ch. 4 in Social
Anthropology
November
17 Indigenous Issues and Anthropological Argument
Keskitalo – "Research as an Inter-Ethnic Relation"
Moore – "The changing nature of anthropological knowledge"
Das - Critical Events, pp. 84-117
November 24
Culture as a System
paper 3 due
Geertz
- "Person, Time and Conduct in Bali"
Sahlins
- "La PensŽe Bourgeoise – Western Society as Culture"
Ortner
– "Theory in Anthropology since the 60s"
December
1 Gender and Culture
Goodale
- "Gender, sexuality and marriage:
a Kaulong model of nature and culture"
Collier
and Rosaldo - "Politics and gender in simple societies"
Shapiro
- "Transsexualism: Reflection
on the Persistence of Gender and the Mutability of Sex"
Das
Critical Events ch. 3, pp. 55-83,
ch. 5, pp. 118-136
December
8 Language and Culture
Whorf - "The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language"
Rosaldo,
Knowledge and Passion, Chapter 3
"Knowledge, identity, and order in an egalitarian world"
Friedrich
- "Poetic Language and the Imagination: A Reformulation of the Sapir Hypothesis"
Additional
Recommended Reading:
Sapir
- "The Unconscious Patterning of Behavior in Society"
Final paper (4) due December
16, 4pm.
Requirements:
Required reading and class
participation (20% of grade)
Class assignments - 5-minute
presentation most class periods (20%)
4 papers (5-8 pages) with assigned
questions, topics and lengths - (60%)
