1145 CRN: 84596 This Is a Historical Survey of Watershed Ideas, Intel
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Anthropology 490 History of Anthropology, F. Blake, F’16 p. 1 Fall 2016 COURSE SYLLABUS Fred Blake Saunder 345 HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLOGY 490 Saunders 315 TR: 1030--1145 CRN: 84596 COURSE DESCRIPTION This is a historical survey of watershed ideas, intellectual genealogies, and personalities that form the modern discipline of anthropology. This includes an understanding of the historical and discursive contexts for the advent and spread of these ideas and the personalities whose published writings received the most notoriety. Although our emphasis is on the modern discourses (e.g., theories of social evolution and cultural diffusion, structural functionalism, structuralism and semiotics, linguistic and cognitive, cultural materialism--ecological, functionalist, and Marxist--and practice theories), we also take up the postmodern challenges and intellectual currents (with issues of subjectivity and power and representation) in interpretive ethnography, literary and feminist and other critical theories that have redefined the calling of anthropology and challenged the concept of culture. A new section includes sessions on the historical role and prospects for the application of anthropological knowledge to corporate, government, military, hegemonic, counter-insurgent plus insurgent and counter- hegemonic interests—the historic role of the academy and other agencies in producing knowledge about other cultures. Classes are mostly lectures based on printed outlines and occasional PowerPoint slides for illustrative purposes, although timely and informed questions or comments based on readings or lectures are welcomed. All upper level undergraduate and graduate students seeking a general course on social and cultural theories are welcome (graduate students are held to a different set of performance criteria and system of evaluation). This is a rigorous academic course which requires classroom attendance and active learning. ETHNOLOGY, ARCHAEOLOGY, & BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY Anthropology is a unique discipline, especially the American version to the extent that it tries to combine both the cultural and the biological sides of human behavior. This is often described as the three field approach, or when we separate linguistic from cultural anthropology, the four field approach. To my way of thinking, however, the two primary fields are the cultural and the biological. Ethnology , archaeology, and linguistics are specialized methodologies within cultural anthropology, although each straddles the line that joins the cultural with the biological aspects of behavior. Archeology and linguistics each have a stronger claim to a positive scientific methodology than does ethnology (and ethnography) with its closer ties to history and philosophy—the “mind”--and which has a tougher time disentangling itself from currents of ideology. This course focuses on the history of ethnology mostly because of time constraints not to mention the internal tensions which these basic subdivisions sustain in our academic manner of doing things. The department does offer a course on the history of archaeology which I highly recommend as a necessary counterpart to 490. ETHICS FOCUS This course has a Contemporary Ethical Issues (E) Focus designation. Contemporary ethical issues are fully integrated into the main course material and will constitute at least 30% of the content. About 8 hours of class time will be spent discussing ethical issues. Through the use of Anthropology 490 History of Anthropology, F. Blake, F’16 p. 2 lectures, discussions and assignments, students will develop basic competency in recognizing and analyzing ethical issues; responsibly deliberating on ethical issues; and making ethically determined judgments.” Every session, every topic of discussion, every theoretical perspective we encounter raises ethical questions, and the extent we see them as such, I count the time given over to those considerations part of the minimal 8 hours. Just run your eye down the list of sessions and questions of ethical significance jump out at you. The difficulty is getting a handle on limiting the host of questions to just a few that can be managed in the time given to us. What are the ethical consequences of articulating, studying, researching, or putting into practice the various modern theories of human cultural conduct? While I have no intention of turning this course into a course on ethics per se, I will encourage all of us to raise pertinent ethical questions about the theories discussed in each session. We should keep in mind two things in this endeavor: first is that ethics and morals are closely related, but entirely different. Ethics is less about clear choices between good and evil and more about how to deal with the benefits and losses or tradeoffs accruing to different stake holders in everyday social situations. Ethical arguments usually devolve to which stakeholders are to be preferred or protected. Second is that there are no easy answers to most ethical dilemmas. So-called political correctness is often an impediment to understanding or resolving an ethical dilemma. It can also be the cause of an ethical dilemma. Ironically perhaps the Statement on Ethics of the American Anthropological Association, our principal guide to resolving ethical questions may also offer ethical dilemmas under certain circumstances. Every discussion of ethics requires an open mind and the freedom to think critically. The object is not to leave the issue hanging unresolved. The whole point of having a discussion is that there are means for resolving and doing the ethical thing given a set of circumstances and a multitude of points of view. It is therefore important that we have points of view, that we are in touch with where they come from and can articulate them to others. AAA STATEMENT ON ETHICS: PRINCIPLES OF PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY This course requires that you read this statement and understand it sufficiently to articulate its principal points critically. We will include this statement as one of the ethical issues to be discussed. This statement is available on your Laulima Resources. COURSE REQUIREMENTS First Exam 45 points Second Exam 45 points Participation in Ethics Discussions 10 points PARTICIPATION Class participation is a crucial part of the learning experience. A course requirement is active participation in helping to resolve the ethical dilemmas raised by working in the field of anthropology. A number of sessions highlighted in yellow in the course schedule are aside for the purpose of discussing certain ethical dilemmas raised by the historical encounters of theory Anthropology 490 History of Anthropology, F. Blake, F’16 p. 3 and practice. Each class participant will prepare a brief written statement on how to resolve the ethical dilemma under discussion. These will be turned in before class begins and based on systematic selection used to initiate a discussion. Active participants will be noted. Each contribution will be scored and credited to the students’ attendance record. A missed attendance, tardy or poorly written contribution loses 2 points from the overall accumulation of course points. Otherwise, attendance is not rigorously recorded; however, the benefits of attending class sessions are 1) most of the exam questions come directly from lecture presentations in class sessions and are often specifically indicated in the lecture. 2) where there is doubt or room for maneuver in adding points and in assigning grades, students who have demonstrated a commitment to class sessions will receive the benefit. 3) most of what students remember from having taken a course is from their experience in and of the classroom. 4) apart from how the digital age is rewiring our brains and turning our consciousness’ into ‘the shallows,’ the interpersonal contact with other students and even teachers cannot be fathomed. My attitude is that students who cannot or do not want to attend the sessions, should not register for this course. Commitment or participation is measured by attendance and a show of alertness. Students may ask informed questions and are encouraged to answer questions on a timely basis. “Informed” questions are based on reading assigned materials and active listening. OLD SCHOOL PEDAGOGY Some students have tagged your professor as “old school”. To me this means that he believes in the classical dialectical relationship between teachers and students. I do not accept the new business model that the university produces and sells a commodity called “knowledge” that customers pay money to consume in the form of a grade and a diploma and that to the extent this is a pecuniary exchange, it is between “equals.” More and more there is this idea that participants pay money in exchange for a course grade, which has to be between A and B and after a sufficient number of payments, they—the customers--get a diploma. This new business model compels “the university” to create another level of bureaucracy to help it determine if the customers are actually learning anything, if for no other purpose than for undergirding the economic system upon which our national security and its global reach rests. This operation attempts to evaluate the learning outcomes. Although your instructor, quite apart from the new layer of bureaucratic management, is, and has always been concerned with “learning outcomes,” his old school outlook, under the force of current circumstance, requires the application of the full panoply of letter grades from A to F. STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES