Anthropology 32:

Seminar in Contemporary Anthropological Issues

 

Deborah Gewertz                                                 Spring, 2004

Morgan 203C                                               Office Hours:  Wed. 2-5 and

Amherst College                                            by appointment

dbgewertz@AMHERST.EDU

 

Course Organization and Requirements:

 

1)  The success of seminars is largely dependent upon consistent attendance, careful reading and engagement with other members of the class in discussions.  Just do it!

 

2)  Two take-home exams will be due on March 8th and April 19th.  Each will consist of a question or questions of my choosing about central course issues.  I will distribute the questions well in advance of the due-dates.  In addition, you will be expected to complete a final project:  an N.S.F. (or comparable) proposal describing and justifying anthropological research you would like to accomplish.  These projects will be due on May 12h.

 

 

Required Books:

 

Gewertz, Deborah and Frederick Errington,  Emerging Class in Papua New Guinea (Cambridge, 1999).

 

Lindstrom, Lamont, Knowledge and Power  in A South Pacific Society, (Smithsonian, 1990).

 

Obeyesekere, Gananath, The Apotheosis of Captain Cook (Princeton, 1992)

 

A large packet of photocopied articles.

 

 

Books are available for purchase at Amherst Books.  Articles and a photocopied book are available from my secretary at Morgan Hall, 205.

Topics and Reading Schedule:

 

 

Jan 28:      Introduction to Course 

 

Feb. 4:       Setting the stage(s): Anthropology, the Colonial  Encounter and the Power of Comparison

             

              Read:        1)  Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson, First Contact, Viking,  photocopy.

 

Feb. 11:     Occidentalism and Orientalism

 

                 Read:        1)  Carrier, James, "Christmas and the Ceremony of the Gift," In Gifts and Commodities,  Routledge, pp. 168-189, photocopy.

                 

                                        2)  Gewertz, Deborah and Frederick Errington,

"The Hidden Injuries of Class," In Emerging Class in Papua New Guinea,  Cambridge University Press, pp. 84-103.

 

3)  Nadel-Klein, Jane, "Occidentalism as a Cottage Industry," In Occidentalism:  Images  of the West, James Carrier, ed., Oxford,  pp. 109-134, photocopy.

      

4)  Lindstrom, Lamont, "Cargoism and Occidentalism," In Occidentalism:  Images of the West, James Carrier, ed., Oxford,  pp. 33-60, photocopy.

 

Feb. 18:     Do Folks Want Our Stuff?

Read:        1)  Thomas, Nicholas, "The Indigenous Appropriation of European Things," In Entangled Objects, Harvard University Press, pp. 83-124, photocopy.

 

2)  Sahlins, Marshall, "Cosmologies of Capitalism" Proceedings of the British Academy, LXXIV, 1-51, photocopy.

 

3)  Gewertz, Deborah and Frederick Errington,  "The Realization of Class Exclusions," In Emerging Class in Papua New Guinea, Cambridge University Press, pp. 60-83.                     

 

Feb. 25:     Film:        1)  In and Out of Africa

 

March 3:    Multiple Modernities

 

              Read:        1)  Tambiah, Stanley, "Transnational Movements, Diaspora and Multiple Modernities, Daedalus, Vol. 129, pp. 163-194, photocopy.

 

2)  Knauft, Bruce, "The New Spirit," In Exchanging the Past, University of Chicago Press, pp. 140-173, photocopy.

 

3)  LiPuma, Edward, "Education and the  Discipline of Modernity," In Encompassing Others, University of Michigan Press, pp. 275-295, photocopy.

 

4)  Knauft, Bruce, "Subaltern Modern," In Exchanging the Past, University of Chicago Press, pp. 236-248, photocopy.

 

March 8:    FIRST PAPER DUE

March 10:   Culture and Relativism

              Read:        1)  Abu-Lughod, Lila, "Writing Against Culture," In Recapturing Anthropology, Richard Fox, ed., School of American Research Press, pp. 137-162, photocopy.

      

2)  Merry, Sally, "Human Rights Law and the Demonization of Culture, Anthropology News, Feb. 2003, pp. xx-xx, photocopy.

 

3)  Gewertz, Deborah and Frederick Errington, "Margaret Mead and the Death of Alexis Gewertz Shepard," Amherst Magazine, Spring, 2002, pp. 5-10, photocopy.

 

March 24:   Knowledge. Power, and Hegemony

 

              Read:        1)  Lindstrom, Lamont, Knowledge and Power,  preface and chps. 1, 2, 5, 6.

 

March 31:   Sex, Gender and Power, HIV/AIDS

 

              Read:        1)  Hammar, Lawrence, "Bad Canoes and Bafalo:   The Political Economy of Sex on Daru Island,"  Genders, Vol. 23, pp. 212-243, photocopy.

 

2)  Hammar, Lawrence, "Caught Between Structure  and Agency:  Parameters and Punishments of  Prostitution in Papua New Guinea," photocopy

 

3)  Hammar, Lawrence, "4,275 and Counting:  Telling Stories about STDs on Daru," manuscript to appear in the Papua New Guinea Medical Journal,  photocopy.

 

4)  Gewertz, Deborah and Frederick Errington,  "Class and the Definition of Reasonability,"  Emerging Class in Papua New Guinea, Cambridge University Press, pp.  120-140. 

 

April 7:      Power and Colonial Wish-fulfillment

       

              Read:        1)  Gananath Obeyesekere, The Apotheosis of Captain Cook, pp. xiii-73, 109-153, 177-191.

 

                 Film:         1) Babakueria

 

April 14:     Inequality, Social Justice, Modernity and the Grassroots

 

              Read:        1)  Gewertz, Deborah and Frederick Errington,  "How the Grass Roots Became the Poor,"  In Emerging Class in Papua New Guinea, Cambridge University Press, pp. 42-59.

 

2)  Kirsch, Stuart, "Lost Worlds:  Environmental Disaster, 'Culture Loss,' and the Law," Current Anthropology, Vol. 42, pp. 167-198, photocopy.

 

3)  West, Paige, "Environmental Activism and Ethnographic Inquiry," Social Analysis, Vol. xx, pp. xx-xx, photocopy.

 

4)  Ferguson, James and Akhil Gupta, "Spatializing States," American Ethnologist, Vol. 29, 981-1002, photocopy.

 

April 19:     SECOND PAPER DUE

 

April 21:     The Greatest

 

                 Read:        1)  Selected journals, to be announced

 

April 28:     The Latest

 

                 Read:        1)  Selected grant proposals, to be announced.

 

May 5:       Conclusion

 

May 12:     THIRD PAPER DUE        

 

 

 

 

Upload: 6/08/2004