ANT 253
Anthropology of Ethnicities (Fall 2005)
T/TH 12:45-2:05 BCA 161
Films: Sundays 2:10 PM -ARH 224(mark your calenders-- films will be placed on reserve in AV Center
on Thursday afternoon for those who are unable to participate in Sunday group screenings)
K. Gibel Azoulay (ARH 121 Tel. 4324/ 990-6159)
Fall 2005 Office Hours: Tues 4-5 – Thurs 10-12
(other days by appointment)
Overview: An examination of the concepts race, ethnicity and ethnicities and the ways in which these
social notions are conceptualized, perceived and represented. Looking at manifestations of ethnic, racial
and nationalist identities from a global perspective (whose point of reference depends the site from which
each individual student is situated), we will explore the themes of racism as a system, the relationship
between education and acculturation, class and ethnicity, as well as nationalism and identities.
Primary Text: Race and Ethnicity: Comparative and Theoretical Approaches
Supplementary texts: films and articles (JSTOR, Project Muse and Black Board).
(I) As the semester progresses, I reserve the right to make changes to the syllabus in
line.
(II) Please note that in the event that I am absent (due to hazardous driving
conditions), class will still meet to discuss the material; two students should be chosen
to take discussion notes and post them on Blackboard.
Class Format
Generally, classes will begin with an introduction and move into a class-participatory discussion
of the assigned readings. Every individual student is expected to arrive prepared to contribute to and
engage in active class discussion.
Objective:
sharpen critical thinking through the act of speaking
reviewing, reassess and, sometimes, revising ideas.
Course Requirements
This course aims to sharpen skills of critical reading and thinking in order to consider various
approaches, interpretations, and the social and political implications of studying ethnicity and ethnic
identities. This course does not include any exams -- however extensive writing and active participation in
class discussion are expected and will be graded. In order to facilitate this process, students will be
expected to adhere to the following requirements:
1. Attendance is mandatory. Students who miss more than three classes will receive an
automatic reduction in the final grade. Class begins on time -- if anyone has scheduling conflicts which
will cause tardiness, please discuss this with me at the beginning of the semester.
2. Film Evaluations (10%). We will see several films which are related to the themes we are
exploring. The objective is to critically evaluate the visual and sensual representations, as well as
effectiveness, of film to that of the "academic" text whose audience is more limited.
3. Reading Journal (40%)/ Every student must keep a reading journal which notes the main
points of the reading assignment.
I.
What is the central question and/or hypothesis? How does the author address this? What
is the central conclusion? Why is it significant? What constitutes identities named
“ethnic,” “national,” “racial”? Which concepts are used to label identities and why? How
do collective ethnic, racial, national identities affect individual perspectives? How does
language (vocabulary) invoke difference? Difference compared to what?
Your writing represents a conversation with the text, the author(s) and class discussions. By mid-semester
you should be considering the following questions before you write your weekly journal entry::
II.
What did you learn? Why not? Are there points of identity between your life experience
and what you found in the reading? Where are the differences?
How is "difference" a learned phenomenon?
The readings are grouped according to similar themes although many of these themes (and
therefore foci of essays) intersect, overlap and/or flow into one another.
Format of Journal Entries: The journals are to be dated, typed, and paginated. You will be
expected to write at least two pages for each reading assignment. Journal entries are due each week by
Friday at 5 pm (drop off in my mailbox in Carnegie academic support staff office). If absolutely needed,
the automatic extension Monday by 10 am. (No other extensions except under dire circumstances)
Your ideas will not be graded as "correct" or "incorrect" -- rather this is an opportunity to explore, engage
with and challenge ideas. A separate hand-out describes in detail the Guidelines for Writing Journal
Entries. REFER BACK AND FOLLOW THE GUIDELINES!
The format for typing your entries is as follows:
Left Margin 1.5"/Right Margin 1" Double spaced and standard font. Pages must be
numbered and each entry should be dated (the dates are for you to track and review
the development of your thoughts at the end of the semester.)
The journal entries count toward your final grade (40%) however during the first half of the
semester you will not receive individual grades. The second half of the semester, journals will be graded
as follows:
A = insightful/original linkages between course material, citations, main themes, contextualization of
material to outside information (significance)
A- = linkages between course material, citations, main themes, contextualization of material to outside
information (significance)
B+/B/B- = linkages to course material, a theme, a comment: varying degrees of B depend on content and
more than a reiteration of class discussion.
C and below = generalizations, vague linkage:
3. Leading Discussions (10%) For each class, one pair of students will bring in an outline of the
main points of the reading and will address the central question(s) of the text in relation to previous texts:
how and why the text is significant and, as the semester progresses, the relevance to issues which have
received attention in previous class discussions and readings. Your prepared presentation should be no
longer than 10 minutes.
5. Class Discussions (10%): Active participation in class discussion is absolutely required -- in
order to fulfill this requirement you need to come to class with reading notes, ideas sparked by the reading
and their relation to previous readings and films. The texts provide the information, analysis and stimulus
for the conversations in class – skim once, then read carefully!
It is appropriate for there to be differences of opinion. This furthers our own understanding of the
topic. Sometimes it is even important to be the "devil's advocate." Critical thinking and an engaging
exchange of ideas depends on listening carefully to another person's perspective and responding
respectfully. The focus should be specifically on what and why there are points of agreement or
disagreement -- how is one interpretation different and in what ways should it be valued as more or less
persuasive?
Personal experience is important, but you may draw on it as an additional resource -- not a
substitute -- for information or evidence from the texts we will be reading. In other words, class
discussion and journal entries are anchored by and situated within the context of the readings. These
may be supplemented with outside sources.
6. Family Research Project: Roots and Routes (20%) You will write one paper which
historicizes your public racial/ethnic/national/religious identities and considers them from
the analytic and theoretical contexts drawn from the course readings. This paper will be
due Dec 6: Who are your people? Where do you come from? What was retained and lost
on the way?: Roots & Routes in your family history – this paper is not to be centered
around your feelings on personal/subjective identity(ies) but rather about representations
of ethnicities which reflect the politics of memory and amnesia.
7. 4-6 page self-evaluation (10%) on what you learned and unlearned in the course of the semester. This
is a reflective essay which reviews and comments on your intellectual sojourn over the past 14 weeks.
Week 1
Thurs 25 Aug Introductions
vocabulary, social categories and ideas
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Film: Race: Power of an Illusion (Part I)
Read Encyclopedia Selections on BLACKBOARD: Compare the definitions of “ethnicity” –
what are the roots & history of the term.
Read U.S. Federal Government Racial and Ethnic Classifications for U.S. Census 2000 (Office of
Management & Budget): Blackboard or located at:
http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/race/Ombdir15.html
Assignment to be submitted Tues 30/8 beginning of class based on the
Encyclopedia readings on BlackBoard: How are “racial categories” defined?
How many race categories are listed on the U.S. 2000 Census? Which group is
listed as an “ethnic category?” How many race categories can be marked for
people who mark the ethnic category? What reason does the U.S. Census provide
for using “racial categories” as a social category? How is this reason similar to, or
different from asking questions about age or income or number of children under
18 in a household?
Week 2 Making and Changing meaning of vocabularies of “difference”
Tues 30 Aug
{Project Muse} Bartlett, Robert. “Medieval and Modern Concepts of Race and
Ethnicity.” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies - Volume 31, Number 1, Winter
2001, pp. 39-56.
{Project Muse} Hahn, Thomas (Thomas G.) “The Difference the Middle Ages Makes:
Color and Race before the Modern World .”Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies -
Volume 31, Number 1, Winter 2001, pp. 1-37 - Article
Thurs 1 Sept
Print transcript from Black Board:
SHAARE TEFILA CONGREGATION, ET AL., Petitioner v. JOHN WILLIAM
COBB, ET AL. No. 85-2156 SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
1987 U.S. TRANS LEXIS 186 – we will listen to the oral arguments in class but
you should skim it in advance. The oral argument can also be heard on
Blackboard.
19th century anthropological perspectives on Jews:
{JSTOR}
Joseph Jacobs, “On the Racial Characteristics of Modern Jews.” The Journal of
the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 15. (1886), pp.
23-62.
A. Neubauer, “Notes on the Race-Types of the Jews” The Journal of the
Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 15. (1886), pp. 16-23.
Week 3
Tues 6 Sept
eds. Stone & Dennis, R&E: read all of Part I pp. vii-54 “Setting the Agenda: Du Bois,
Weber, and Park” -- bring typed outline of main points in each article to class. (Use the
introduction as a guide to the chapters)
{JSTOR} G. M. Morant, “Racial Theories and International Relations.” The Journal of
the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 69, No. 2. (1939), pp.
151-162.
Thurs 8 Sept
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To be Read in the following order (bring your outline of these readings to class):
(1) (Blackboard) F. Barth (1969) “Introduction” Ethnic Groups and Boundaries.
(2) eds. Stone & Dennis R&E pp.55-71 “Emerging Theoretical Perspectives”
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Film: “Ethnic Man” written, produced and directed by Teja Arboleda, Barbara Wilson Arboleda
(Distributed by AGC/United Learning, c2000)
{See Blackboard} The World of Ethnic Man!
Week 4
Tues 13 Sept
{Project Muse}Richard F. Hamilton and William H. Form, “Categorical Usages and
Complex Realities: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in the United States.” Social Forces 81.3
(2003) 693-714.
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Film in Class: Race: Power of an Illusion (Part 2)
Thurs 15 Sept
{Blackboard} Anders Linde-Laursen (1994) Small Differences-Large Differences: The Making
and Remaking of a National Border South Atlantic Quarterly.
Week 5
Tues 20 Sept
{Project Muse} Laurier Turgeon and Madeline Pastinelli, “‘Eat the World’: Poscolonial
Encounters in Quebec City’s Ethnic Restaurants.” Journal of American Folklore 115, 456
(2001), 247-268.
Thurs 22 Sept
{Project Muse} Greenhill, Pauline. “Folk and Academic Racism: Concepts from Morris
and Folklore.” Journal of American Folklore - Volume 115, Number 456, Spring 2002, pp. 226246.
Week 6
Tues Sept 27: No class meeting -Prepare readings for Thurs and Work on family research projects
Who are your people? Where do you come from? What was retained and lost on the way?: Roots
& Routes in your family history – this is not about the personal identity(ies) which you have
chosen to project or with which you consciously self-identify.
Submit on Thurs 6 Oct: (to the best of your ability, and based on checking in with
family members) using a map, trace migration routes of your ancestors; when did
they come to the U.S.? where did they come from? what motivated their
migration? why did they choose to settle where they did? Speculate on reasons for
what is remembered and forgotten (amnesia and erasure in the family memory).
What legacies or hints from these pasts have been preserved in your family(ies)?
This may be food, stories, photos, pictures, songs, nursery rhymes, language, etc.
Consider the contexts within which these legacies appear.
Thurs Sept 29
{Blackboard}Fiona Bowie (1993) “Wales from Within: Conflicting Interpretations of Welch
Identity.” In ed. S. Macdonald Inside European Identities (Providence/Oxford: Berg), 167-193.
{Blackboard}Chris Bierwirth (1999) The Lebanese Communities of Cote d’Ivoire. African
Affairs 98, 390: 79-99.
Week 7
Tues 4 Oct – NO CLASS (Rosh Hashana)
Thurs 6 Oct (family maps & speculation notes due in class)
Film: AfroArgentines
{Project Muse} Anagnostu, Yiorgos. “Forget the Past, Remember the Ancestors!
Modernity, "Whiteness," American Hellenism, and the Politics of Memory in Early Greek
America.” Journal of Modern Greek Studies - Volume 22, Number 1, May 2004, pp. 25-71
Week 8
Tues 11 Oct –
In Class: Matters of Race Part 3: We’re Still Here
review website: http://www.pbs.org/mattersofrace/prog3.shtml and the following
questions (consider the premise and purpose of posing these questions -- then consider your own
responses) –
{JSTOR} Thomas Hylland Eriksen (1991). “The Cultural Contexts of Ethnic Differences.” Man
(New Series 26) pp. 127-144.
{JSTOR} Anthony P. Cohen “Personal Nationalism: A Scottish View of Some Rites,
Rights, and Wrongs.” American Ethnologist 23, 4 (Nov 1996), pp. 802-815
Thurs 13 Oct NO CLASS (Yom Kippur) -
Journal entries for this week are due Fri 12 Oct by 2pm (sorry but no
exceptions)
FALL BREAK
Week 9
Tues 24 Oct
– bring to class 3 visual examples of an ethnic stereotype and be prepared to explain how it
appeals to and reinforces a group’s representation. One of the examples must be a
representation of the ethnic group to which you are most frequently assigned by strangers.
{Project Muse} Phyllis Pease Chock, “The Irony of Stereotypes: Toward an Anthropology of
Ethnicity.” Cultural Anthropology 2, 3 (August 1987), 347-368.
Thurs 27 Oct
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Film: “Hope in my heart: mündliche Poesie”: May Ayim / Regie, Maria Binder ; Produktion,
Dagmar Schultz, Maria Binder (Third World Newsreel, 1997?)
{Project Muse} Michelle Maria Wright. “Others-from-Within from Without: AfroGerman Subject Formation and the Challenge of a Counter-Discourse.” Callaloo 26, 2 (Spring
2003), pp. 296-305.
{Project Muse} Yara-Colette Lemke Muniz de Faria
"Germany's 'Brown Babies' Must Be Helped! Will You?": U.S. Adoption Plans for Afro-German
Children, 1950-1955.” Callaloo 26, 2 (Spring 2003), pp. 342-362.
Week 10
SUN 30 Oct: FILM – ARH 224
dir. Jim Sheridan Some Mother’s Son (1993)
Tues 1 Nov
{Black Board} Mike Tobin, “The Revolutionary Next Door.” clevescene.com [archive].
Orig. Cleveland Scene 22 April 1999.
{JSTOR} Begona Aretxaga, “Dirty Protest: Symbolic Overdetermination and Gender in
Northern Ireland Ethnic Violence.” Ethos 23, 2 (Jun 1995), 123-148.
Thurs 3
eds. Stone and Dennis R&E Part IV 137-186 “Conflicting Ethnonational Claims”
Week 11
SUN Film Sometimes in April –ARH 224
Tues 8 Nov
Read www.hbo.com website for Sometimes in April
Thurs 10 Nov
eds. Stone and Dennis R&E Part V pp. 187-233 “Violence, Genocide & War”
Week 12
SUN 13 Nov: ARH 224 - Vendetta Based on a true story; based on the book by Richard
Gambino. Producers, Tony Mark, Sue Jett ; screenplay, Timothy Prager ; director, Nicholas
Meyer (HBO 1999)
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for background – please read: {JSTOR} George Cunningham, “The Italian, a Hindrance
to White Solidarity in Louisiana, 1890-1898.” Journal of Negro History 50, 1 (Jan 1965),
pp. 22-36.
Tues 15 Nov
Film: Mississippi Triangle producer [and] project director, Christine Choy ; co-directors,
Christine Choy, Worth Long, Allan Siegel (Third World Newsreel, c1987)
{Project Muse} Stephen H. Sumida. “East of California: Points of Origin in Asian American
Studies.” Journal of Asian American Studies - 1, 1 (February 1998), pp. 83-100.
{Project Muse} Susan Koshy, “ Morphing Race into Ethnicity: Asian Americans and Critical
Transformations of Whiteness.” boundary 2 28, 1 (2001).
Nazil Kibria (1997) “The construction of ‘Asian American’: reflections on intermarriage and
ethnic identity among second generation Chinese and Korean Americans.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 20,
3: 523-543.
{Blackboard} David Chen. “In China, It’s Easier to Get Lost in the Crowd” New York
Times Sun16 Nov.
Thurs 17 Nov
{Project Muse} Zecker, Robert."’Where Everyone Goes to Meet Everyone Else’:
The Translocal Creation of a Slovak Immigrant Community.”Journal of Social History - Volume
38, Number 2, Winter 2004, pp. 423-453
Week 13 Migration(s) and Positionality in a Transnational World
SUN 20 Nov: ARH 224 Film: Sammy and Rosie Get Laid Produced by Tim Bevan and Sarah
Radclyffe ; written by Hanif Kireishi ; directed by Stephen Frears Produced by Tim Bevan and
Sarah Radclyffe ; written by Hanif Kireishi ; directed by Stephen Frears (1987)
{Black Board} Read asap after watching film: Ranita Chatterjee (1996) “An Explosion of
Difference: The Margins of Perception in Sammy and Rosie Get Laid.” In eds. Deepika Bahri and Mary
Vasudeva. Between the Lines (Temple UP), 167-184.
Tues 22 Nov
eds. Stone and Dennis R&E Part VI pp. 233-287 “Migration in a Transnational World”
Ahiwa Ong, “Cultural Citizenship as Subject-Making: Immigrants Negotiate Racial and
Cultural Boundaries in the United States.” Current Anthropology, Vol. 37, No. 5. (Dec., 1996), .
737-762.
{Blackboard} Hazel Carby (1990) “On Zora Neale Hurston’s Seraph on the Suwanee.”
Thurs – No Class - Thanksgiving
On your own, see film, What’s Cooking*. A copy will be on reserve at Burling
library and the film can be rented from Family Video in town. (Try to see
this in groups. If you rent the video, please inform the class by email so
everyone knows where to locate a copy or whom to contact).
*What’s Cooking written by Gurinder Chadha, Paul Mayeda Berges ; produced by Jeffrey
Taylor; directed by Gurinder Chadha (Trimark Home Video, c2000)
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Your analysis of the film as a counter-representation of social groups and their
interactions will be incorporated into your Roots and Routes paper. You should look up
information on Chadha and be attentive to the ways in which she is represented (what
kind of information is presented, vocabulary, etc)
Week 14
Tues 29 Nov
eds. Stone and Dennis R&E Part VII 287-334
Film: Devil’s Playground Wellspring in association with Stick Figure Productions, Cinemax
Reel Life and Channel Four ; directed by Lucy Walker ; producer, Steven Cantor
(Wellspring, c2002)
{Blackboard} Kobena Mercer. “Black Hair/Style Politics” New Formations 3,(1987).
Pp32-54.
Thurs 1 Dec
Film: Afro@digital co-production, Akangbe Productions, TV10 Angers, Dipanda Yo! ; a
film by Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda (California Newsreel, c2003)
Week 15
Tues 6 Dec
Roots and Routes Paper due in class!! 5-6 minute presentation on your findings and what you
learned from the investigation process. Integrate analytical comments on What’s Cooking into
your discussion.
Thurs 8 Dec – last meeting
Folder with semester’s journal entries and 4-6 page paper (which
addresses the following question: “what did you learn and unlearn this
semester?”) inside a stamped self-addressed envelope (if mailing to
campus address, then the envelope should have your name and campus
box) are due on Thurs Dec 8 by 5pm. (Do not reprint your journal
entries).