Anthropological Theory (Sample Syllabus)

Lecturer: Robey Callahan
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An Introduction to the Course
We shall in this course be examining nine key themes in the history of anthropological theory: Malinowski's Functionalism, Structural Functionalism, Boas and His Students, Cognitive Anthropology, Structuralism, Classification Matters, Agency, and Complexity.  There are, of course, a great many more important theoretical strands we could be reviewing, but our time here is, as always, limited.

As this is an advanced course, most of the readings here are primary sources.  Although I have tried to avoid the more ponderous and turgid of important anthropological texts, I have had to include a few which do not make for quick, or even necessarily pleasant, reading.  You should not worry about this because we shall be tackling all of the readings together in class.

Course Logistics
Each class, save the two on which exams will be given, will be structured thus:

The bulk of the class will consist of an informal lecture on the assigned readings interspersed with your comments and questions (see the information about "question" papers below).  I shall also be adding, wherever helpful, links to data and theory drawn from allied texts not assigned in this class.

With ten or fifteen minutes left in the class, I shall be handing out a sheet of background information and reading notes for the following class's assigned texts.  During this time, I shall also be providing more detailed background information to help you get more from those texts when you read them in preparation for the following class.

Course Requirements
Attendance is required.  Every assigned text must be read prior to the class for which it is assigned.

1. "Question" Papers
Students will write and submit at the start of each class a "question" paper.  In total each student is required to write and submit on time 15 of these "question" papers.

Each "question" paper must be between 125 and 150 words (about half a page typed, double-spaced, 12-point Times Roman).  It must include a brief summary leading up to one or two thoughtful questions relating to the assigned reading(s).  The summary should not encompass the entire reading(s); it should simply be a summary of the parts of the reading(s) relevant to your question(s).  Of course you can ask questions to which you already know the answers.  The purpose here is to get us all thinking about the most important points raised in the readings.

As the semester progresses, you can ask questions which link the currently assigned reading(s) with previous readings.  Fifteen "question" papers are due.  Each is worth 2% of your course grade (for a total of 30%).  You can, of course, submit more than 15 over the course of the semester (there are more than 20 opportunities in all), and I'll take the top 15 into account when figuring your grade.  Note: You should expect to spend at least half an hour writing each of these "question" papers--this does not include the time you'll spend thinking about the readings before writing.

2. Paper
There is a paper due.  Each student must choose an "outside" (i.e., not assigned as required reading in this course) ethnography and fit it into its wider academic context, as we shall be doing throughout the course.  In other words, where does it fit theoretically within the literature?  What theoretical issues is it addressing?  What contributions has it made, both within its own particular theoretical niche and within anthropology more generally?  How has it reinforced and/or changed older theoretical perspectives?

The core focus of your paper must be the theoretical aspects of the ethnography you have chosen.  While you will want to mention in concise terms the relevant evidence presented in that ethnography, I am not interested in lengthy summaries of data (this is not a book report).

This paper must be between 2,000 and 2,500 words in length.  Although, generally speaking, anything you choose should be fine, my approval is still required.  I must approve your choice no later than the date of the mid-term exam; of course, you can contact me earlier to discuss your choice.  The due date for the paper itself is the same day as the final exam; however, you are encouraged to complete and submit it well before that date.

This paper is worth 20% of your grade.

3. Exams
There are two exams: a mid-term and a final.  Both are part multiple-choice and part essay.  The mid-term is worth 20% of your course grade; the final, 30%.

Grading
As noted above, your course grade will be determined in the following manner:
Fifteen "question" papers--30% (2% each)
Paper--20%
Mid-term exam--20%
Final exam--30%

Readings
The bulk-pack of required readings is available at the bookshop.  A copy is also on reserve in the library.

Schedule
Introduction
Week 1 - Class 1
Discussion of class mechanics and a road map of the major themes of the course.
Lecture on useful things to consider when reading ethnographies.

Malinowski's Functionalism
Week 1 - Class 2
Malinowski, Bronisław (1984[1922])
Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, Inc.
Preface, Forward, and Introduction.

Recommended:
Clifford, James (1983)
On Ethnographic Authority. Representations 2:118-146.

Malinowski, Bronisław (1989[1967])
A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Week 2 - Class 1
Malinowski, Bronisław (1922)
Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.
Chs 2-3.

Leach, Edmund R. (1957)
The Epistemological Background to Malinowski's Empiricism. In Man and Culture. Raymond Firth, ed. Pp 119-137. New York: Harper and Row.

Structural Functionalism
Week 2 - Class 2
Durkheim, �mile (1982[1895])
"What Is a Social Fact?". In The Rules of Sociological Method and Selected Texts on Sociology and Its Method. Steven Lukes, ed. Pp 50-59. New York: The Free Press.

Radcliffe-Brown, A.R. (1935)
On the Concept of Function in Social Science. American Anthropologist 37(3(1)):394-402.

Radcliffe-Brown, A.R. (1940)
On Social Structure. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 70(1):1-12.

Recommended:
Homans, George C. (1941)
Anxiety and Ritual: The Theories of Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown. American Anthropologist 43:164-172.

Week 3 - Class 1
Evans-Pritchard, E.E. (1940)
The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pp 3-50.

Boas and His Students
Week 3 - Class 2
Boas, Franz (1889)
On Alternating Sounds. American Anthropologist 2(1):47-54.

Boas, Franz (1920)
The Methods of Ethnology. American Anthropologist 22(4):311-321.

Boas, Franz (1940)
The Limitations of the Comparative Method in Anthropology. In Race, Language, and Culture. Pp 270-280. New York: The Free Press.

Recommended:
Lewis, Herbert S. (2001)
The Passion of Franz Boas. American Anthropologist 103(2):447-467.

Week 4 - Class 1
Sapir, Edward (1924)
Culture, Genuine and Spurious. The American Journal of Sociology 29(4):401-429.

Week 4 - Class 2
Bateson, Gregory (1958[1936])
Naven: A Survey of the Problems Suggested by a Composite Picture of the Culture of a New Guinea Tribe Drawn from Three Points of View. Second Edition. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Pp 1-2.

Benedict, Ruth (1934)
Patterns of Culture. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Chs 2-3.

Recommended:
Mead, Margaret (1928)
Coming of Age in Samoa. New York: William Morrow and Company.

Week 5 - Class 1
Bock, Philip K. (1999)
Rethinking Psychological Anthropology: Continuity and Change in the Study of Human Action. 2nd Ed. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, Inc.
Chs 4-5.

Recommended:
Benedict, Ruth (1946)
The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture. Cambridge, MA: The Riverside Press.

Week 5 - Class 2
Wallace, Anthony (1970)
Culture and Personality. 2nd Ed. New York: Random House.
Pp 1-27 and 34-38.

Cognitive Anthropology
Week 6 - Class 1
D'Andrade, Roy G.
The Development of Cognitive Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chs 1-2.

Recommended:
Goodenough, Ward (1956)
Componential Analysis and the Study of Meaning. Language 32(1):195-216.

Goodenough, Ward (2001)
Conclusion: Muddles in Schneider's Model. In The Cultural Analysis of Kinship: The Legacy of David M. Schneider. Richard Feinberg and Martin Ottenheimer, eds. Pp 205-218. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Week 6 - Class 2
Rosch, Eleanor (1978)
Principles of Categorization. In Cognition and Categorization. Eleanor Rosch and Barbara B. Lloyd, eds. Pp 27-48. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Week 7 - Class 1
Strauss, Claudia (1992)
What Makes Tony Run? In Human Motives and Cultural Models. Roy G. D'Andrade and Claudia Strauss, eds. Pp 197-224. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Recommended:
D'Andrade, Roy G. (1992)
Schemas and Motivation. In Human Motives and Cultural Models. Roy G. D'Andrade and Claudia Strauss, eds. Pp 23-44. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Week 7 - Class 2
Mid-term exam.
Ethnography for the paper must be approved by this date as well. 

Week 8 - Class 1
Fall recess.

Structuralism
Week 8 - Class 2
Lane, Michael, ed. (1970)
Introduction to Structuralism. New York: Basic Books, Inc.
Introduction.

L�vi-Strauss, Claude (1955)
The Structural Study of Myth. Journal of American Folklore 68(270):202-228.

Recommended:
Leach, Edmund (1974)
Claude L�vi-Strauss. New York: Viking Press.

Classification Matters
Week 9 - Class 1
Needham, Rodney (1963)
Introduction. In Primitive Classification. �mile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss. Pp vii-xlviii. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Week 9 - Class 2
Leach, Edmund (1964)
Anthropological Aspects of Language: Animal Categories and Verbal Abuse. In New Directions in the Study of Language. E.H. Lenneberg, ed. Pp 23-63. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Douglas, Mary (1966)
Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London: Routledge.
Ch. 3.

Recommended:
Sperber, Dan (1996)
Why Are Perfect Animals, Hybrids, and Monsters Food for Symbolic Thought? Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 8(2):143-169.

Symbolic Anthropology
Week 10 - Class 1
Turner, Victor (1974)
Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Ch. 1.

Week 10 - Class 2
Geertz, Clifford (1973)
Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture. In The Interpretation of Cultures. Pp 3-30. New York: Basic Books.

Geertz, Clifford (1972)
Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight. D�dalus 101:1-37.

Agency
Week 11 - Class 1
Sapir, Edward (1927)
The Unconscious Patterning of Behavior in Society. In The Unconscious: A Symposium. E. S. Dummer, ed. Pp 114-142. New York: Knopf.

Sapir, Edward (1927)
Speech as a Personality Trait. The American Journal of Sociology 32(6):892-905.

Recommended:
Sapir, Edward (1917)
Do We Need a Superorganic? American Anthropologist 19:441-447.

Week 11 - Class 2
Bourdieu, Pierre (1977[1972])
Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ch. 1 (Section 1 only)

Week 12 - Class 1
Bourdieu, Pierre (1977[1972])
Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ch. 2.

Week 12 - Class 2
Giddens, Anthony (1984)
The Constitution of Society: Outline of a Theory of Structuration. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Ch. 1.

Recommended:
Karp, Ivan (1986)
Agency and Social Theory: A Review of Anthony Giddens.  American Ethnologist 13(1):131-137.

Complexity
Week 13 - Class 1
Redfield, Robert (1940)
The Folk Culture of Yucatan. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Ch. 2.

Mitchell, J. Clyde (1956)
The Kalela Dance: Aspects of Social Relationships among Urban Africans in Northern Rhodesia. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Recommended:
Redfield, Robert, and Milton Singer (1954)
The Cultural Role of Cities. Economic Development and Cultural Change 3:53-73.

Week 13 - Class 2
Barth, Fredrik (1969)
Introduction. In Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference. F. Barth, ed. Pp. 9-38. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.

Week 14 - Class 1
Barth, Fredrik (1989)
The Analysis of Culture in Complex Societies. Ethnos 54(3-4):120-142.

Week 14 - Class 2
Appadurai, Arjun (1991)
Global Ethnoscapes: Notes and Queries for a Transnational Anthropology. In Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the Present. R.G. Fox, ed. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.

Hannerz, Ulf (2001)
Thinking about Culture in a Global Ecumene. In Culture in the Communication Age. James Lull, ed. Pp 54-71. London: Routledge.

Recommended:
Appadurai, Arjun (1990)
Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy. Public Culture 2(2):1-24.

[As Scheduled]
Final exam.
Paper due.