Anth 310 Anthropology Theory Fall 2006

Dr. Phillip McArthur Office: MFB 211, Phone: 293-3907

Course Objectives : In this course we will explore the foundational concepts that underlie the theory, and in many ways the methods, of anthropology. We will approach this theory as an intellectual history in order to see how these ideas have emerged, and to become familiar with a genealogy of a discipline. I am persuaded that the most salient contemporary disciplines in the academy are those that critically direct their gaze on the foundational underpinnings of their own intellectual enterprise. This is not just for some esoteric journey into the mental obsessions of obscure academics, but will be useful for students for three key reasons: One, you will find that anthropological theory reveals much about how we do and can think about members of the human species as social and cultured beings (even many of our most common and everyday assumptions about humans and culture are rooted in anthropological concepts); Two, you will see that when we theorize about the differences of "other" cultures we discover an "otherness" in ourselves; and Three, you will discover how careful attention to anthropological theory can sharpen our ability to think holistically and critically. We will read a great deal in this course and I expect you to read all of it. You are advanced anthropology students in the cultural studies program. That means you choose to read and think through an argument because you want to become competent, rather than seek for ways to maximize your grade with the minimum amount of effort.

Required Text

• Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History , R. Jon McGee and Richard L. Warms.
• Some additional readings can be found on the Blackboard.

Requirements:

• Midterm Exam -- Covers units one and two (30%)
• Final Exam -- Covers units three and four (with some comprehensive return to units one and two). (40%)

• Class Participation - Come to class prepared to discuss the theoretical problematic with the whole class. There will be many occasions in which I will require you to formulate a position, and then argue it before the class and against other students. You may also be asked to think on your feet. Knowing that you may have the possibility of being called upon at any time should ensure that you read the assignment. (30%)

Course Outcomes:

Develop a breadth of knowledge for the range of theoretical perspectives in the history of anthropology.

• Increase capacity to read and think critically, unpack the architecture of a writer’s argument, and place it in the context of other thinkers and writers.
• Respond orally and spontaneously to critical inquiries. Play the role of protagonist and antagonist for any theorist.
• Explore nexus between critical theories, social experience, and personal convictions.

Aug. 30 (wed) Introduction

Unit I Historical Foundations of Anthropological Theory

Nineteenth-Century Evolutionism

Sep. 01 (fri) *Herbert Spencer, “The Social Organism”

04 (mon) HOLIDAY

06 (wed) *Sir Edward B. Tylor, “The Science of Culture”

08 (fri) *Lewis Henry Morgan, “Ethnical Periods”

11 (mon) *Karl Marx &Friedrich Engels, “Feuerbach: Opposition of Materialist and Idealist Outlook”

The Foundations of Sociological Thought

13 (wed) *Emile Durkheim, “What is a Social Fact?” And “The Cosmological System of Totemism and the Ideas of Class”

15 (fri) *Marcel Mauss, excerpts from The Gift

18 (mon) *Max Weber, “Class, Status, Party”

Unit II Cultural Theory in the Early Twentieth Century

Historical Particularism

20 (wed) *Franz Boas, “The Methods of Ethnology”

22 (fri) *A.L. Kroeber, “Eighteen Professions”

25 (mon) *Paul Radin, “Right and Wrong”

Functionalism

27 (wed) *Bronislaw Malinowski, “The Essentials of the Kula”

29 (fri) *A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, “The Mother’s Brother in South Africa”

Oct. 02 (mon) *E.E. Evans-Pritchard, “The Nuer of the Southern Sudan”

Culture and Personality

04 (wed) *Ruth Benedict, “Psychological Types in the Cultures of the Southwest”

06 (fri) *Margaret Mead, “Introduction” to Sex and Temperament…

09 (mon) Catch up and Review

11 (wed) Catch up and Review

13 (fri) Writing Day – Exam Paper due by 5:00 p.m.

Unit III Theory at Mid-Century

Neoevolutionism, Cultural Ecology and Neo-Marxist Thought

16 (mon) *Leslie White, “Energy and the Evolution of Culture”

18 (wed) *Morton H. Fried, “On the Evolution of Social Stratification and the State”

20 (fri) *Marvin Harris, “The Cultural Ecology of India’s Sacred Cattle”

23 (mon) *Philippe Bourgois, “From Jibaro to Crack Dealer: Confronting the Restructuring of Capitalism in El Barrio”

Structuralism

25 (wed) *Claude Levi-Strauss, “Structural Analysis in Linguistics and Anthropology”

27 (fri) *Sherry Ortner, “Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture”

Ethnoscience and Cognitive Anthropology

30 (mon) Harold Conklin, “Honunoo Color Categories”

Nov. 01 (wed) Claudia Strauss, “What Makes Tony Run? Schemas as Motives Reconsidered”

Unit IV Recent Trends in Anthropological Theory

The Feminist Critique

03 (fri) *Sally Slocum, “Woman the Gatherer: Male Bias in Anthropology”

06 (mon) *Eleanor Leacock, “Interpreting the Origins of Gender Inequality”

08 (wed) *Ann L. Stoller, “Making Empire Respectable: The Politics of Race and Sexual

Morality in Twentieth-Century Colonial Culture.

Symbolic and Interpretive Anthropology

10 (fri) *Mary Douglas, “External Boundaries”

13 (mon) *Victor Turner, “Symbols in Ndembu Ritual”

15 (wed) *Clifford Geertz, “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight”

Postmodernism, The Postcolonial and the New Global Context

17 (fri) *Renato Rosaldo, “Grief and the Headhunter’s Rage”

20 (mon) *Roger M. Keesing, “Creating the Past: Custom and Identity in the Con Pacific”

22 (wed) *Haunani-Kay Trask, “Natives and Anthropologists: The Colonial Struggle”

*Roger M. Keesing, “Reply to Trask”

*Jocelyn Linnekin, “Text Bites and the R-Word: The Politics of Representing Scholarship”

24 (fri) HOLIDAY

27 (mon) *Arjun Appadurai, “Global Ethnoscapes: Notes and Queries for a Transnational Anthropology”

29 (wed) *George Marcus, “Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-sited Ethnography”

Dec. 01 (fri) Catch up and Review

04 (mon) Catch up and Review

06 (wed) Writing Day – NO CLASS

08 (fri) Writing Day – NO CLASS

15 (fri) Exam Paper due by 3:00 p.m.

ICS Outcomes

1. ICS graduates will possess a high degree of cultural literacy (history, philosophy, culture) in at least two world areas.
2. ICS graduates should be able to effectively manage cultural differences and conflicts, and be prepared to develop solutions to real world problems.
3. ICS graduates should be able to think critically.
4. ICS graduates should be able to articulate and sustain their views through verbal and written discourse.
5. ICS graduates will enter graduate school or find employment within one year of graduation.

Special Needs

Brigham Young University Hawai’i is committed to providing a working and learning atmosphere, which reasonably accommodates qualified persons with disabilities. If you have any disability that may impair your ability to complete this course successfully, please contact the students with Special Needs Coordinator, Leilani A’una at 293-3518. Reasonable academic accommodations are reviewed for all students who have qualified documented disabilities. If you need assistance or if you feel you have been unlawfully discriminated against on the basis of disability, you may seek resolution through established grievance policy and procedures. You should contact the Human Resource Service at 780-8875.

Preventing Sexual Harassment

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