ANTHROPOLOGY 470
MULTIDISCIPLINARY SEMINAR IN VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY
4 units, 10672, Fall 2009, TTh 2-3:20, GFS 228
Dr. Alexander Moore
“Application of broadcast journalism, cinema, and anthropology to ethnographic
filmmaking.”
Such was the original course formulation. To that we add the internet as
resource and alternate site for ethnography. We shall deal with several
ethnographic texts and one novel, in conjunction with documentary and
feature films. Our dominant themes concern ethnography as the study and
documentation of process. We look at a number of sequential processes in
human behavior---conflict, ritual, narrative, performance, migration, selfdefinition, and resolution processes. These construct personal and gendered
identity and generate policy issues concerning social control. In addition
students must view films, DVDs, and videos of their own choice outside of
class, presenting seven two-page critiques of such viewings over the course
of the semester
After the fifth week student will select their own site, on campus or
on-line, to conduct a mini-ethnography. They will videotape or shoot still
shots of an event, or do an equivalent exercise on line. They will then
interview participants or find equivalent documentation on line. Their final
project will be to write up their findings briefly, and then to write treatments
of their project, as an ethnographic film, as a fiction feature film, as a social
issues documentary, and as an “objective, two-sides to every question”
documentary.
READINGS & CLASS SCREENINGS:
>Peter Biella et al, Yanomamo Interactive, website (Films: Ax Fight, the
Feast, Tapir Distribution). Themes: social drama as process, ritual redress,
alliance theory & process.
> Fernando Vallejo, trans. Hammond
, Our Lady Of The Assassins, Serpent's
Tail,
(novel about hired hit men in Medellín, Colombia) (Film: Our Lady of the
Assassins, Span: Nuestra Senora de los Sicarios). Themes: blood fued as
process, autobiography as narrative source; poetic resolution to conflicts.
> Paul Stoller, The Cinematic Girot: the Ethnography of Jean Rouch, Chicago.
(films: Jaguar, Les Maitres Fous, Le Pyramide Humaine), Themes: career in
ethnography compared to career in ethnographic film; story-telling in
ethnographic film; narrative as process.
ANTH 470, Dr.Alexander Moore, Fall 2009, 2
>Elisenda Ardevol, short treatments of Facebook entries of Spanish youth in
Madrid subways. Theme: the internet as a new visual anthropology site.
>Tom Boellstorf, Coming of Age in Second Life: an Anthropologist Explores the
Virtually Human, Princeton. Theme: the internet as an alternate ethnographic
field site.
>Angela, McCracken, chapters excerpted on-line from Beauty Has a Price, USC
doctoral dissertation on quinceañera celebrations in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mex.
(film: Quinceañera). Themes: ritual process, rites of passage, construction of new
rites and renewed selves.
>Esther Newton, Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America, Chicago.
(Films: Paris is Burning, Princesa). Themes: dramatic performances as
(substitute) rites of passage, redefining gender & personhood.
>Alexa Albert, Brothel: Mustang Ranch and Its Women, Ballantine. (Film:
Chicken Ranch). Themes: prostitution as a social issue, as a labor issue; medical
models for controlling behavior.
>Gwen K. Neville, Kinship and Pilgrimage: Rituals of Reunion in American
Protestant Culture, Oxford. (Film: Bright Leaves). Themes: (internal) migration
and the self; documentary as personal pilgrimage and exploration of a social
issue (tobacco).
>Ruth Mandel, Cosmopolitan Anxieties: Turkish Challenges to Citizenship and
Belonging in Germany, Duke. (Film: Edge of Heaven). Themes: ethnography of
transnational and transethnic migration; fiction film as a vehicle for resolving
transnational identity.