|
|
ANTH 401/501.001 anthropological theory |
|
instructor:
Samuel Collins MW,
12:30-1:45 pm Li-113 |
office
hours: Mondays
and Wednesdays, 2-3:30 pm Room
Li-318A Phone:
x3199 (e-mail)
scollins@towson.edu homepage:
pages.towson.edu/scollins |
course
description: theory as a Russian nested doll
Anthropologists
ordinarily think of their field as revolving around a body of more-or-less autochthonous
ideas: functionalism, structural-functionalism, situational analysis, social
drama, etc. But anthropological
theory, as Hoon Song (2005) has said in a different context, suffers from an “excess
of representation,” that is, an over-determination of theory at once both
eclectic and neurotic. Understanding this means more than just acknowledging
anthropology’s apical ancestors: Darwin, Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Freud. Together
with those, there are occasionally articulated philosophic contexts (phenomenology,
methodological individualism, empiricism, positivism, linguistic pragmatism, hermeneutics) as well as almost entirely sublimated
theoretical cladistics: temporality (Newtonian, possibly messianic), teleology
(Spencerian), subjectivity (Sartre, Levinas), intentionality (Searle, Austin), ontogeny
(Piaget), drama (Aristotelian, Brechtian).
But it’s even more complicated than this. For one thing, theory in anthropology is
dynamic, developing in the interstices of the anthropological encounter—a
process of continuous revelation.
Within the (colonial) spaces of Melanesian, African and North American
encounters, anthropologists have generated theoretical understandings of
kinship, exchange, magic, religion, ritual, labor, gender, family and
aesthetics that are as illustrative of the self (the imperial contexts of the
19th and 20th centuries) as they are of the other. Finally, shadowing the neo-liberalism in
which anthropologists are simultaneously critical and complicit,
anthropologists regularly appropriate theoretical fashions from other
disciplines in a perpetual search for novelty: art and literature (modernism,
postmodernity), intellectual history (Foucault), the philosophy of science
(Deleuze, Serres), cultural studies (Stuart Hall, Paul Gilroy), postcolonial
theory (Bhaba, Gaonkar), political economy (Charles Taylor, Giorgio Agamben,
Antonio Negri).
What
to make of this theoretical “mangle” (Pickering)? It’s not so much that anthropological
theory is a set of Russian nested dolls (матрёшка) than a set of dolls run through a tree shredder, dumped in
the ocean, collected along the sea shore and re-assembled according to tables of
random numbers. In any other
discipline, this would be cause for alarm, but it is in this “mid-range” that
anthropology thrives, theory as a continuous boundary object.
And rather than apprehend this theory through just-so
genealogies that make up histories of anthropology, in this course we will instead
put anthropology in the role of analysand in a kind of negative psychoanalysis
where we deny the false closure implied in “ego”. That is, rather than arrive at
definitive conclusion vis-a-vis anthropology’s theory we will strive to enjoin
this messy dialogue and add our own critical voices this polyvocality of
theory.
In order to do this, students will need to maintain a high
level of engagement: reading, critical discussion, critical reviews, debate. Given its strident eclecticism, no one
can be the unequivocal “expert”—each of us, therefore, will have something to contribute.
Learning
Outcomes
Learning outcomes include:
1) an understanding of anthropology’s historical, social, political and cultural
contexts; 2) a sense of current debates in ethnographic theory and practice; 3)
a sense of major theorists outside of anthropology who have influenced the
course of anthropological theory; 4) improved communicative and interpretive
skills evidenced in both written papers and oral reports, and 5) opportunities
to synthesize knowledge and apply knowledge to new contexts.
Required
Reading:
Allison,
Anne (2006).
Millenial Monsters. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Bracken,
Christopher (2007).
Magical Criticism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ferguson,
James (2006).
Global Shadows. Durham: Duke University Press.
Ong,
Aihwa (2006).
Neoliberalism as Exception. Durham: Duke University Press.
Valentine,
David (2007). Imagining
Transgender. Durham: Duke University
Press.
Recommended Reading:
Collins,
Samuel (2008). All Tomorrow’s Cultures.
New York: Berghahn Books.
Additional
materials listed below.
Graded Assignments
Book
Reviews (Due on assigned days) Students will each complete 3 short
book reviews selected from the five required texts this semester. Each book review assignment will have 2
components: 1) a 2-3 page, written review following standard anthropological
formats (see example on Blackboard); 2) an in-class, participatory component in
which students lead discussion and participate actively in debate. 75 pts.
Book
Review Essay (1st draft due April 21st; final draft
due May 12th). Utilizing required texts from class and at least 3, additional
recommended readings, students will write a 10-15 page review essay 75 pts.
Final
Examination Students will demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of
course readings and ideas through a comprehensive, short answer
examination. 50
pts.
Explanation
of Grading:
A+ 186+
A-
180-185
B+
174-179
B
166-173
B-
160-165
C+
154-159
C
140-153
D+
134-139
D
120-133
F
<120
class schedule:
|
|
Text |
Topics |
Additional
Readings |
Theoretical
Contexts |
|
Week 1
(1/28-1/30) |
|
Introduction
to Course |
|
|
|
Week 2
(2/4-2/6) February
5: Change of schedule period ends. |
Neoliberalism
as Exception |
Capitalism Globalization Neoliberalism Ideology Space
and Place |
Kelly,
John (2003). “U.S. Power, after
9/11 and before it.” Public
Culture 15(2): 347-69. |
Critique
of Cultural Evolutionism |
|
Week 3
(2/11-2/13) |
Neoliberalism
as Exception |
Governmentality Citizenship Cosmopolitanism
|
Gaonkar,
Dilip P. (1999). “On Alternative
Modernities.” Public Culture
11(1): 1-19. |
Critique
of Functionalism |
|
Week 4
(2/18-2/20) |
Neoliberalism
as Exception |
Power Biopolitics Gender |
Deutscher,
Penelope (2008), “The Inversion of Exceptionality.” South Atlantic Quarterly 107(1):
55-70. |
|
|
Week 5
(2/25-2/27) |
Imagining
Transgender |
Sexuality Identity |
Hayden,
Cori (2007). “Kinship theory,
Property, and the Politics of Inclusion.” Signs 32(2): 337-345. |
Essentialism/
Social Constructionism |
|
Week 6
(3/3-3/5) |
Imagining
Transgender |
Discourse The
Body |
Mitsuhashi,
Junko (2006). “The Transgender
World in Contemporary Japan.”
Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 7(2): 202-227. |
Critique
of Culture and Personality |
|
Week 7
(3/10-3/12) |
Millennial
Monsters |
Cyborg Assemblage Network |
Ramón-Ochoa,
Todd (2007). “Versions of the
Dead.” Cultural Anthropology
22(4): 473-500. |
Ideology
Interpellation |
|
Week 8
(3/17-3/19) Spring
Break |
|
|
|
|
|
Week 9
(3/24-3/26) |
Millennial
Monsters |
Cultural
Imaginary Deterritorialization |
Kelty,
Christopher (2004),
“Culture’s Open Sources.”
Anthropological Quarterly 77(3): 499-580. |
Cultural
Studies “Textual
Poaching” |
|
Week
10 (3/31-4/2) |
Millennial
Monsters |
Commodity
Fetishism |
|
|
|
Week
11 (4/7-4/9) April
7: Last day to withdraw. |
Global
Shadows |
Modernity
and Modernization Underdevelopment |
Comaroff,
John and Jean Comaroff (1999) “Occult economies and the violence of
abstraction.” American Ethnologist 26(2): 279-303. |
Critique
of “underclass” theories |
|
Week
12 (4/14-4/16) |
Global
Shadows |
Imperialism Orientalism |
Caton,
Steve (2006). “Coetzee, Agamben
and the Passion of Abu Ghraib.”
American Anthropologist 108(1): 114-123. |
Critique
of “National Character” Studies |
|
Week
13 (4/21-4/23) |
Magical
Criticism |
Representation Savage
Slot |
Marcus,
George (2007). “Ethnography Two
Decades After Writing Culture.”
Anthropological Quarterly 80(4): 1127-1146. |
Ethnographic
Writing Cultural
Critique |
|
Week
14 (4/28-4/30) |
Magical
Criticism |
Poststructuralism Surrealism |
|
|
|
Week
15 (5/5-5/7) |
Magical
Criticism |
Utopia Time |
Gekle,
Hanna (1988). “The Wish and the
Phenomenology of the Wish.” New
German Critique 45: 55-81. |
|
|
Week
16 (5/12) |
|
Review |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
notes
1. Although exams and
graded work will remain as stated above, I may have to change different
readings
or films on the syllabus throughout the semester. I will, in any case, try to
give you
ample
warning of any syllabus changes.
2. Cheating and
Plagiarism policy: Our department has the following policy on
academic dishonesty:
The faculty
of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology & Criminal Justice take
a strong stand against Academic Dishonesty of all forms. Academic
dishonesty will not be tolerated in any class. It includes, but is not
limited to, any form of cheating or unapproved help on an exam or academic
exercise, copying someone else’s written work without citation, presenting
fabricated information as legitimate, any unauthorized collaboration among students,
or assisting someone to cheat in any way. All students have the ethical
responsibility for doing their own work. A student who is uncertain about
whether or not something constitutes academic dishonesty in a particular class
has the obligation to see their instructor for clarification. Consistent
with university policy, the minimum penalty for academic dishonesty in any form
is determined by the individual faculty member in each class, and may consist
of “a reduced grade (including “F” or zero) for the assignment; a reduced grade
(including “F”) for the entire course,” or other options as stipulated in
Appendix F of the Undergraduate Catalog. Students who are charged with
academic dishonesty must remain enrolled in the course and cannot withdraw.
Instructors who make the determination that academic dishonesty has occurred
will notify the student in writing of the finding, the penalty, and the process
for appeal. The same written notice will be forwarded to the Office of
Judicial Affairs on campus, the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, and to the
Chair’s Office in the department. Academic Dishonesty undermines
the legitimate efforts of students and involves serious repercussions.
The faculty of the department urge all our students to act with integrity with
regard to work submitted. (Approved Spring 2004)
In addition, Students are
expected to familiarize themselves with the University’s policy:
http://wwwnew.towson.edu/provost/resources/studentacademic.asp
3. Students with learning
disabilities should register at the Disability Support Services Office. DSS will contact me with necessary
accommodations.
4. Late homework: Late assignments
will be accepted at 10% penalty (1-2 days late) or 20% penalty (3-4 days late).
After 4 days, late assignments will
no longer be accepted.
5. Make-up Work: Under
extraordinary circumstances, documented by physicians, police, etc., students
may be allowed to make-up missed work.
6. Students who are
disruptive may be dismissed from class.
7. This course may be repeated only once without the prior permission of the
Academic Standards Committee.
explanation
of grading
explanation
of grading
Consistent with University
policy, the following grades will be assigned according to the designated
criteria:
A: A superior performance
surpassing assigned work in unique and novel ways and
integrating
diverse ideas from a wide range of sources in addition to those discussed in
class.
A-
B+
B: Excellent work
surpassing the expectations of the assignment and demonstrating initiative
and
a willingness to move beyond the basic requirements of the assigned work.
B-
C+