FALL 2000
This information effective for Fall 2000.
Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.
Prof. Susan Harding
Office: 347 SSI; phone 459-2240
Office hours, T&Th 12:30 - 2:00
September 21, Th: Introduction
September 26, T: What Ethnographies Do
Paul Atkinson, Understanding Ethnographic Texts. R
Mary Louise Pratt, "Fieldwork in Common Places," in Writing Culture, Jms. Clifford and Geo. Marcus, eds. R
Donner, Florinda, Shabono: A True Adventure in the Remote and Magical Heart of the South American Jungle, excerpt. R
Henry Lewis Gates Jr., "'Authenticity,'" or the "Lesson of Little Tree," NY Times Book Review, 1991. R
September 28, Th: What Ethnographies Do
Paul Atkinson, Understanding Ethnographic Texts. R
James Clifford, "Partial Truths," in Writing Culture, Jms. Clifford and Geo. Marcus, eds. R
George Marcus, "Anthropology on the Move," in Ethnography through Thick and Thin, 3-29. R
October 3, T: What Ethnographies Do
James Clifford, "On Ethnographic Authority," Predicaments of Culture. R
Bronislaw Malinowski, "Introduction," Argonauts of the Western Pacific. R
Bronislaw Malinowski, A Diary in the Strict Sense, excerpt. R.
October 5, Th: Colonial Inscriptions
Carolyn Martin Shaw, Colonial Inscriptions, 1-59.
George Marcus, "Imagining the Whole," in Ethnography through Thick and Thin, 33-56. R
October 10, T: Colonial Inscriptions
Carolyn Martin Shaw, Colonial Inscriptions, 60-148.
October 12, Th: Colonial Inscriptions (First Paper Due)
Carolyn Martin Shaw, Colonial Inscriptions, 149-218.
October 17, T: Racial Situations
John Hartigan, Racial Situations, 3-23.
George Marcus, "The Uses of Complicity," in Ethnography through Thick and Thin, 105-131. R
Clifford Geertz, "Notes on the Balinese Cockfight," in The Interpretation of Culture. R
October 19, Th: Racial Situations
John Hartigan, Racial Situations, 24-82.
Paul Atkinson, "Narrative and the Representation of Social Action" and "Character and Type," in The Ethnographic Imagination. R
October 24, T: Racial Situations
John Hartigan, Racial Situations, 83-208.
October 26, Th: Racial Situations
John Hartigan, Racial Situations, 209-283.
October 31, T: Book of Jerry Falwell
Susan Harding, The Book of Jerry Falwell, 3-82.
Bruce Mannheim and Dennis Tedlock, "Introduction," The Dialogic Emergence of Culture, Dennis Tedlock and Bruce Mannheim. R
November 2, Th: Book of Jerry Falwell
Susan Harding, The Book of Jerry Falwell, 83-124.
George Marcus, "Ethnography in/of the World System," in Ethnography through Thick and Thin, 79-104.
November 7, T: Book of Jerry Falwell
Susan Harding, The Book of Jerry Falwell, 124-209.
Donna Haraway, "Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective," in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women.
November 9, Th: Book of Jerry Falwell (Second Paper Due)
Susan Harding, The Book of Jerry Falwell, 209-276.
November 14, T: Lawrence of Arabia
Steven Caton, Lawrence of Arabia, Intro - 99.
November 16, Th: AAA meetings/No class
November 21, T: Lawrence of Arabia
Steven Caton, Lawrence of Arabia, 142-199.
James Clifford, "On Ethnographic Allegory," in Writing Culture, Jms. Clifford and Geo. Marcus, eds. R
November 23: Thanksgiving/No Class
November 28: No class/conferences
November 30: No class/conferences
December 7: Final Paper Due
Books (by Martin Shaw, Hartigan, Harding, Caton; and optional Marcus) are available at the Literary Guillotine on Locust St. The article reader will be available the first day of class, in class; please bring exact change for cost of reader on second day of class, Sept. 26, T.
This seminar examines ethnography as a genre of writing and as a "workshop of cultural production." We will identify the major tropes, styles, voices, rhetorics, and story types and cycles that characterize the genre. And we will examine how various writings produce both the objects (culture, race, religion, and so on) and subjects (natives, ethnographers) of anthropological knowledge. You are expected to develop your skills of both cultural and literary analysis.
1. Class attendance and active participation in seminar discussions are required.
2. Careful reading and re-reading of all the assigned articles and books by the due dates.
3. Five 500-word typed reading commentaries, signed up for in advance and read in class the day they are due in conjunction with the readings. Reading commentaries are a common method of structuring discussion in graduate seminars, and I am asking you to follow the same formula. Here is my paraphrase of Prof. Lisa Rofel's recent rendering of that formula:
Reading commentaries are exegeses of the reading assignment for that day. They should be a very close reading and careful interpretation of the text or texts in question. The closer the better. They should show precisely how a text accomplishes or creates something - an argument, a place, an ethnographer, a fact, a cultural reality, an interpretation. And they should enable a further discussion in class by raising questions about the reading(s).
If, for example, you focus on how an author makes an argument, you might begin with a brief synopsis of the theses. Then you could continue by following closely how the author develops the thesis. What are the author's assumptions, key concepts, images, metaphors? Whom or which ideas is the author arguing against and why? What are the implications of the author's argument and how might we begin to imagine using the author's argument productively? Where do you think the author leaves us and how might we move both with and against the grain of the text?
It would be terrific if at times you read comparatively with previous material we have covered in class. And, again, you should explicitly raise thoughtful and careful questions for discussion. It is important to learn how to be both a generous and creative reader -- to make the most out of a text. At times, you will undoubtedly find yourself disagreeing or being confused by parts of a text, but you should avoid any easy dismissal of the reading. Rather, you should pursue, in detail, the lines of disagreement or confusion. That is, you should engage with the text even more closely. In this way, you will improve your ability to do both literary and cultural analysis.
4. Three connected essays, each one examining the ethnographies under discussion this quarter, and each one rewriting and expanding the previous essay.
The first essay will be 3-4 pages and is due Oct. 12.
The second essay, which rewrites and expands on the second, will be 8-10 pages and is due Nov. 15.
The third essay, which rewrites and expands on the third, will be 15-20 pages and is due Dec. 7.
Please try to accomplish the following three tasks (or demonstrate the following skills) in your essay series, though you may choose to emphasize one more than the others.
Please note: No late papers will be accepted and no incompletes will be given in this course.