Anthro 527

Core Seminar in Socio-Cultural Anthropology, II

Professor Erik Mueggler

Course Description

This core course (also known as Traditions in Ethnology, II) seeks to provide professional training in socio-cultural anthropology as an academic discipline. We shall examine the relations among several major orientations that have shaped the history of the discipline in the late twentieth century. Our emphasis will be on ideas and debates, in particular on the historical and philosophical foundations of particular orientations and on their significance for the social sciences in general. When we engage with specific problems in methodology or accumulated empirical findings, our emphasis will be on their conceptual foundations. In this course, we will treat an understanding of the history of the discipline as a crucial component of our contemporary practice. This means taking seriously the intellectual genealogies out of which, or against which, contemporary thought has emerged. It also means paying attention to relationships between situated modes of knowledge and power, as well as relationships between "the west" and "the rest."

Course Requirements

All students are expected to attend every class and to do the week's reading beforehand. We will combine lectures, presentation, and discussion. Active participation by all students is indispensable.

Each week every member of the seminar, with the exception of that week's presenters, will compose a brief list of questions or comments on the readings, no more than about a page long. This message must be posted on the Discussion section of the Coursetools site for this course, before 8:00 am on Wednesday the day before the Thursday seminar.

We will divide the class into several groups. Each week, one group will give a presentation on the readings. Other students will respond to the presentation with comments and questions. A student or pair of students will write a summary of key points or unresolved issues from the discussion to circulate to the class the next meeting.

Student presenters are responsible for presenting close readings of the texts for the week. Presenters should engage the texts, commenting critically on their definitions, categories, logics, problems, erasures, etc. The group of presenters may decide to make each presenter responsible for particular texts or themes.

There are two written assignments. The first (maximum 2100 words) will be due on February 23. The second (about 4500 words) will be due on April 13. Both papers will be in response to a selection of essay questions, distributed about a week in advance.

Grades will be based upon class participation, weekly reaction papers, presentations, and the two written assignments. Again, energetic and insightful participation in class discussion is crucial for this seminar.

Department of Anthropology | Doctoral Program in Anthropology and History | Center for Chinese Studies