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=**Introduction to Cultural Anthropology**= Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute STSS-1510 T, F 10-11:50 Sage 4203

Prof. Michael Fortun Sage 5112 X6598 Office Hours: M, R 9-10; also by appointment. fortum@rpi.edu

The most recent version of the syllabus can be found at http://introculanth.wikispaces.com/


 * Learning Outcomes**

The two main goals of this course are 1) to learn about the theories, practices, and practitioners of cultural anthropology as a discipline, and 2) to learn about other peoples in other cultures, different than "our own" yet illuminating it, and in process defamiliarizing what might seem natural, normal, or universal about what we think and do.

Some of the questions to be asked and addressed include:
 * What does it mean to think anthropologically?
 * Why does it mean that "anthropology is the most humanistic of the sciences, and the most scientific of the humanities"?
 * Who have been some of the most noteworthy practitioners of cultural anthropology?
 * How have people invented different ways to organize economies, create families, live with differences of belief and desire, communicate with each other, start or end conflict, and validate knowledge?
 * What is "culture" anyway?


 * Texts**

The required text for this class is Michael G. Kenny and Kirsten Smillie, //Stories of Culture and Place: An Introduction to Anthropology// (University of Toronto Press), which is available in the RPI Bookstore. Other required on-line readings appear in the syllabus below.

The grading scheme is as follows: 93 - 100 =A; 89-92 A-; 86 - 88=B+; 80 – 85=B; 78 - 79=B-; 76-77=C+; 71-75=C; 68-70=C-, 63 – 67=D+; 60 - 62 D, 0 – 59=F.
 * Course Requirements and Grading**


 * Quizzes** **(35%)**: there are five quizzes scheduled regularly throughout the semester. These are primarily multiple choice and questions requiring short answers, and are based almost entirely on the material in the Kenny and Smillie text and the in-class presentations building on it. If you read Kenny and Smillie regularly and carefully, attend class, take good notes, and review before each quiz, you should do well on the quizzes.

You may turn these in at any time, but at least one of these is due by the date indicated in the syllabus below, October 18, and all must be completed and turned in by the last day of class, December 6.
 * Four short (3-5pp) papers** **(32%)**: you will write 4 "review and response" short papers by the end of the semester. One of these must be based on an article in the course syllabus; the other three may be based on a course reading, another essay of your choice from the Kenny and Smillie references, a video shown in class, or another article or topic which has received my approval. More specific criteria will be discussed as the course progresses; here's a short checklist of requirements and/or suggestions:
 * err on the side of review, rather than response
 * think of your paper as a condensation of the author's essay or a video's main narrative, briefly supplemented by your own analysis and questions
 * your paper should grapple with presenting MOST if not all of the author's arguments on the subject
 * try to address the question, "what does this author/director, in this essay/video, tell us about what kind of pursuit anthropology is?"
 * stay close to the text/video; there should be a number of direct quotes that convey the flavor and/or substance of the author's analysis
 * there should be at least one new paragraph mark in each of your pages!


 * Class attendance and participation (33%):** informed, respectful, enthusiastic, and deep participation are essential to being a cultural anthropologist; they are also essential to making this a successful and enjoyable course for everyone, and to a good grade for you. You should attend every class, coming to each meeting with the readings you have completed along with your notes, and you should contribute regularly to class discussions. Attendance is not taken, but I reserve the right to deduct points if you establish a pattern of lateness, silence or non-participation, or unexcused absence. Quite simply, it is foolish not to come to class and there is no way to do well in the course if you miss class more than absolutely necessary.

Here is how you will build this portion of your grade. Each week, **EVERYONE MUST SUBMIT ONE QUESTION BY MIDNIGHT THURSDAY**, on the Discussion Board. I will try to address some of the questions in class, but won’t have the time or knowledge to answer all of them; the main point in any case is to RAISE the question. As you do the reading, you should not have a problem coming up with something that enlightens you, puzzles you, confuses you, or simply makes you wonder about something. It might be about a person, an argument made by an author, an unfamiliar concept or term, or whatever else the course material made you curious about. It doesn’t have to be long, and it doesn’t have to contain exact quotes (although these are always good.) **BUT YOUR POST MUST DO 3 THINGS**: 1. Refer directly to one of the readings, videos, or lectures. Your questioning should be grounded in the material. 2. Actually frame a question, and one that does not simply ask for my opinion. 3. I would prefer it to be sent Monday night, but it must be sent by MIDNIGHT THURSDAY.

These questions will not be graded, and you are NOT REQUIRED to submit one each week, but you will receive either a 0, 1, or 2 that will count toward your class participation grade. If you do not submit a question for a particular week, if it arrives late, or if I judge it to be a non-serious effort, you receive a zero for that week; otherwise you receive a 1, toward a possible total of 26 for the semester (13 posts). Sustaining a pattern of thoughtful questions can do a lot, from making up for shyness in discussion to putting you over a borderline grade.

The other way to participate and build up this portion of your grade is to post on the Pop Culture Watch discussion board. You can do this occasionally or regularly, but I expect you to do it at least four times this semester (each for a possible 2 points, or 8 all together). These posts can be brief or longer, and should be based on (and provide the link to) an entry on one of the anthropology blogs listed on the "Resources" page, some other blog post of cultural interest, a newspaper or magazine article, a YouTube clip, or the like. We will discuss guidelines for this more in class, and examples will be forthcoming.


 * Academic Dishonesty Policy**

You should read the Rensselaer Handbook of Student Rights and Responsibilities so that you understand all the acts that constitute a violation of the Institute’s academic dishonesty policy. Plagiarism is the most frequent violation, sometimes because students are unfamiliar with what constitutes plagiarism. You should read the brief but thorough description found at Indiana University's plagiarism page ([|http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/wts/plagiarism.html]).

I have a policy of zero tolerance for plagiarism or any other act of academic dishonesty. If you commit any such act, you will – at minimum – receive an F for that assignment and be subject to RPI’s judicial process. Failure of the entire course is also within my rights as instructor.

__Week 1 //Got Culture?//__ T Sep 1 F Sep 4 READ: Joe Bageant, "Escape from the zombie food court," http://www.coldtype.net/Assets.09/pdfs/0509.Joe.Speech.pdf Excerpt from Raymond Williams' //Keywords//: "[|Culture]"

__Week 2 //Foundations and Foundational Problems//__ T Sep 8 READ: Kenny and Smillie, Introduction and Chapter 1 (xvii-xxxiii, 1-24) Horace Miner, "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema," American Anthropologist 58/3 (1956): https://www.msu.edu/~jdowell/miner.html

F Sep 11 Marks, J. (2009) [|__The nature of humanness__]. In: The Oxford Handbook of Archaeology, ed. B. Cunliffe, C. Gosden, and R. Joyce. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 237-253.

__Week 3 //Foundations and Foundational Problems (cont.)//__ T Sep 15 READ: Kenny and Smillie, Chapters 2-3 (pp. 25-68)

F Sep 18 READ: Annette B. Weiner, "Ethnographic Determinism: Samoa and the Margaret Mead Controversy," [|American Anthropologist], New Series, Vol. 85, No. 4 (Dec., 1983), pp. 909-919 []

__Week 4 //Kinship//__ T Sep 22 READ: Kenny and Smillie, Chapter 4 (pp. 60-91) QUIZ 1

F Sep 25 READ: Video: The Linguists

__Week 5 //How Does Culture Mean?//__ T Sep 29 READ: Kenny and Smillie, Chapter 5 (pp. 93-116) David Thomson, [|"Worlds Shaped by Words"] Guy Deutscher, "Does Language Shape the Way You Think?", New York Times, August 29.2010, []

F Oct 2 READ: Alessandro Duranti, "Linguistic anthropology: Language as a non-neutral medium"

Going further: A website to explore, Daniel Chandler's "Semiotics for Beginners": []

__Week 6 //The Politics of Culture//__ T Oct 6 READ: Kenny and Smillie, Chapter 6 (pp. 119-143)

F Oct 9

READ:

__Week 7 //Understanding Gender//__ T Oct 13 NO CLASS (MONDAY SCHEDULE)

F Oct 16 Quiz 2 READ: Kenny and Smillie, Chapter 7 (pp. 145-165) Jonathan Marks, [|"Nulture,"] at popanth.com Lila Abu-Lughod, "The Muslim Woman", []

__Week 8 //Gender (cont.)//__ T Oct 20 (NYSSBA) READ:

F Oct 23 READ: Christine Walley, "Searching for "Voices": Feminism, Anthropology, and the Global Debate over Female Genital Operations," //Cultural Anthropology//, Volume 12. Issue 3. August 1997 (Pages 405 - 438) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.libproxy.rpi.edu/doi/ [|10.1525/can.1997.12.3.405/pdf]

FIRST REVIEW AND RESPONSE PAPER DUE

__Week 9 //This/Other Worlds//__ Quiz 3 T Oct 27 READ: Edith Turner, "The Reality of Spirits: A Tabooed or Permitted Field of Study?," Anthropology of Consciousness 4:1 (1993):9-12

F Oct 30 READ: Tanya Luhrmann et al., "The Absorption Hypothesis: Learning to Hear God in Evangelical Christianity," American Anthropologist 112:1 (2010):66-78

__Week 10 //Race, Science, and Diversity//__ T Nov 3 READ: Kenny and Smillie, Chapter 8 (pp. 167-192)

F Nov 6 READ: Marks, J. (2010) [|Ten facts about human variation]. In: Human Evolutionary Biology, edited by M. Muehlenbein. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 265-276.

__Week 11 //Globalization//__ T Nov 10 Quiz 4 READ: Kenny and Smillie, Chapter 9 (pp. 193-220) Peter Hessler, [|"Learning to speak lingerie,"] The New Yorker, August 10, 2015.

F Nov 13 READ: [|Women and Globalization]

__Week 12 //Unequalizing with Each Other//__ T Nov 17 READ: Matthew Sparke, [|"How research on globalization explains structural violence"] Janelle Taylor,[| "Explaining Difference" Culture," "Structural Violence," and Medical Anthropology"]

F Nov 20 READ:

__Week 13__ T Nov 24 READ:

Thanksgiving Break

__Week 14 //Current Anthropology//__ T Dec 1 READ: Phillipe Bourgois, "Recognizing Invisible Violence: A Thirty-Year Ethnographic Retrospective," pp. 18-40 in //Global Health in Times of Violence//, Santa Fe: SAR Press, 2009.

F Dec 4 READ: Gleb Raygorodetsk, [|"Maria and the Ukok Princess: Climate Change and the Fate of the Altai,"] //Cultural Survival Quarterly// 37:3

__Week 15__ T Dec 8 READ: Daniel Lende, "A Vision of Anthropology Today -- and Tomorrow" http://blogs.plos.org/neuroanthropology/2011/02/11/a-vision-of-anthropology-today-%E2%80%93-and-tomorrow/ Quiz 5

F Dec 11

READ:

ALL RESPONSE PAPERS DUE IN CLASS