Foothill College
Business and Social Science
INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL/CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
COURSE CONTENT
Week 1
9/20-9/23
Course Overview & Introduction to Culture
Mirror For Humanity Chapter 1
Week 2
9/29-10/2
Ethnographic Methods
Mirror For Humanity Chapter 2
Ties That Bind
Chapter 1 Minorities and Drugs
Chapter 2 Urban Ethnography
Culture and Conflict (1) Ethnography and Culture ~ Spradley
(3) Shakespeare in the Bush ~ Bohannan
(4) Fieldwork on Prostitution ~ Sterk
Week 3
10/6-10/9
Ethnicity
Mirror For Humanity Chapter 3
Ties That Bind
Chapter 3 Gerald by His Own Bootstraps
Chapter 4 Akosua’s Ties That Bind
Culture and Conflict (26) Mixed Blood ~ Fish
(27) Blood on the Steppes ~ Weatherford
Monday – Project Proposal Due
Week 4
10/13-10/16
Language and Communication
Mirror For Humanity Chapter 4
Culture and Conflict (6) Homo grammaticus ~ Nowak
(7) Body Art as Visual Language ~ Schildkrout
(8) The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis ~ Thomson
(9) The Military Name Game ~ Boxer
Monday - Geography Quiz #1 – Latin America
Week 5
10/20-10/23
Ecology and Subsistence
Mirror For Humanity Chapter 5
Culture and Conflict (11) The Hunters ~ Lee
(12) Adaptive Failure: Easter’s End ~ Diamond
(13) Cultivating the Tropical Forest ~ Reed
(15) Reciprocity and the Power of Giving ~ Cronk
Monday - Geography Quiz #2 Asia and Middle East
Thursday - TAKE-HOME QUIZ #1
Week 6
10/27-10/30
Family & Gender
Mirror For Humanity Chapter 6 & 8
Ties That Bind
Chapter 6 – Denise’s Family Fault Lines
Chapter 5 – Dread: The Baccra Maasa
Chapter 7 – Liz: The Cultural Broker
Chapter 8 – Where Do We Go From Here?
Culture and Conflict (20) Mother’s Love ~ Shepard-Hughes
(22) Matrilineal Kinship ~ Yuan and Mitchell
(23) Uterine Families ~ Wolf
(24) Symbolizing Roles~ Fernea and Fernea
(25) Society and Sex Roles ~ Friedl
Monday - Geography Quiz #3 – Africa
Week 7
11/3-11/6
Religion, Magic, and Worldview
Mirror For Humanity Chapter 9
Culture and Conflict (32) Taraka’s Ghost ~ Freed and Freed
(33) Baseball Magic ~ Gmelch
(34) Witchcraft Tswana Style ~ Burke
(35) Cargo Beliefs ~ Leavitt
Thursday - MID-TERM EXAM
Week 8
11/10-11/13
Law and Politics
Mirror For Humanity Chapter 7
Culture and Conflict (29) Law and Order ~ Spradley and McCurdy
(30) Cross-Cultural Law ~ Sutherland
(31) Life without Chiefs ~ Harris
Thursday – Fieldnotes Due
Week 9
11/17-11/20
The Modern World System & Development
Mirror For Humanity Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Culture and Conflict (21) Family and Kinship ~ McCurdy
(16) Cocaine ~ Weatherford
(17) Workaday World – Crack ~ Bourgois
(18) Illegal Logging ~ Williamson
TAKE-HOME QUIZ #2
Thursday - Rough Draft of Research Project Due
Week 10
11/24-11/27
Cultural Survival
Mirror For Humanity Chapter 12
Culture and Conflict (36) The Kayapo Resistence ~ Turner
(28) New Americans ~ Shandy
(14) Domestication and the Evolution ~ Diamond
TAKE-HOME QUIZ #3
Week 11
12/1-12/4
Applied Anthropology
Mirror For Humanity Chapter 13
Culture and Conflict (37) Medical Anthropology ~ Patten
(38) Using Anthropology ~ McCurdy
(39) Career Advice ~ Omohumdro
Thursday - Ethnographic Research Project Due
Week 12
12/8 Final Exam Preparation
Tuesday – FINAL EXAM