Anthro 399 Honors Ethnology, II Professor Erik Mueggler The Honors Ethnology course sequence in cultural anthropology is designed for senior undergraduate anthropology majors who have applied for senior honors in cultural anthropology. The course is intended to give you the opportunity to carry out an independent, in-depth research project on a topic of interest to you. By this sencond semester of the course, you will have refined your topic, selected an advisor, completed all or most of your research, and begun to write. During this semester you will complete your research, present your results to the group, and write your thesis. The result should be a publishable paper, displaying original research and integrating your interests. Assignments This semester, you will hand in portions of your thesis in draft form, on dates spaced through the semester, as follows. 1. First fragment. Due January 24. A written piece of 5 to 10 pages. This should be a first try at composing a part of your thesis. It should be an attempt to grapple with some detail of your project. It should not be a repeat of any of the general oral or written statements you have made about your research and its goals. Outside of this, it may be anything: an analysis of an interview, part of a literature review, part of an argument you will be making, an attempt at an introduction or conclusion. Regard this as a fragment of the larger work -- it needn't be a short paper in itself. You may use this as a proto-working paper, rewriting and expanding it to make your first working paper. Those of you who sign up to give a working paper on this date may simply make this fragment your first working paper. 2. Working papers During the first class meeting, you will be asked to choose four dates to present working papers to the class. The first date available will be January 18. A working paper should be a draft of a chapter or part of a chapter of your thesis. Its length may vary from 7 to 20 pages. This is an opportunity to get detailed advice on style, theory, framing, sequencing, etc. from an audience of intelligent colleagues. Working papers must be posted to the c-tools site for this course Monday at 10:00 AM, the day before you are to present, in my mailbox. All students must read all working papers before class and be prepared to offer questions, comments, and constructive criticism. 3. Chapter drafts Drafts of chapters are due to your advisors and myself on the following dates. February 7 A chapter draft may be a rewritten, expanded and polished version of a working paper, or it may be an entirely new piece. It might be one chapter or several. (Many thesis might be more than three chapters). Your advisors and I will make suggestions on these drafts, which you can incorporate into the final version of your thesis. 4. Final Presentation 5. Final version of thesis. Due Tuesday, April 25, 5:00 pm. Those who wish to apply for the Virginia Voss Memorial Award for Senior Women Writers (and if you are a woman, you should!) need to give a final version to the Honors office a week in advance: deadline still to be set by honors office (and posted on their website), but on or around Tuesday, April 18. |
Department of Anthropology | Doctoral Program in Anthropology and History | Center for Chinese Studies |