SYLLABUS
SOCI 202 SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Spring 2010
Instructor: Deniz Yükseker
e-mail: dyukseker@ku.edu.tr
Class: Tue-Thurs, 9:30-10:45
Place: CAS 124
Office hours: Wednesday, 11:30-12:30, Thursday 15:30-17:00, and by appointment
Office: SOS 254
Phone: x 1309
(Check the Courseware pages for SOCI 202 regularly for additional material and
announcements)
COURSE DESCRIPTION: What is culture? How do societies organize different
aspects of social life using culture? How are different cultures affected by processes such
as globalization? These are some of the questions that we will try to answer in this
course. The purpose of the course is to offer an understanding of what an anthropological
perspective on the world is, and how it would aid us in understanding the world we live
in. We will focus on several major themes in anthropology such as culture, family,
language, gender, economy, religion, culture change and globalization.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: The course is based on readings,
lectures, discussions, two homework assignments, and several film screenings. Students
are required to do the weekly readings BEFORE coming to class and actively participate
in the discussions. Regular attendance is a must. There will be one midterm exam, a final
exam and one fieldwork assignment. Assignments will be on topics covered in the
classroom, and will involve participant observation and interviews on a relevant issue.
Assignments are due on the last day of classes. Students will also write reviews of four
films that will be shown in the classroom. The film reviews will be centered on questions
that I will provide, which will be on the relevant subject matters in the course. The due
dates for these will be indicated during the semester.
Breakdown of grading:
Midterm exam: 30 percent
Assignment: 20 percent
Film reviews: 5 points x 4 = 20 percent
Final exam: 30 percent
Readings: Course readings will be available as a course pack at the Xerox Office.
Additional reading material will be posted on the Courseware. Most of the readings in the
course pack come from the following three books.
*Robert H. Lavenda and Emily A. Schultz. 2002 (2nd ed.) Core Concepts in Cultural
Anthropology, Boston: McGraw Hill.
*James Spradley and David W. McCurdy. 2003 (11th ed.) Conformity and Conflict.
Readings in Cultural Anthropology. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
*Sylvia Wing Önder. 2007. We Have No Microbes Here. Healing Practices in a Turkish
Black Sea Village. Durham: Caroline Academic Press.
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SOCIOLOGY DEPARTMENT GUIDELINES ON ACADEMIC HONESTY
Plagiarism, cheating and unauthorized collaboration will not be tolerated and will bring a
grade of “0” and possible disciplinary action. Please see Courseware for the Sociology
Department Guidelines on Academic Honesty.
COURSE SCHEDULE
Week 1: February 16, 18
Introduction
“Anthropology,” Core Concepts, pp. 1-12.
Week 2: February 23, 25
Culture and Ethnography
“Culture,” Core Concepts, pp. 13-29.
“Eating Christmas in the Kalahari,” Conformity and Conflict, pp. 15-22 (Richard Borshay
Lee)
“Shakespeare in the Bush,” Conformity and Conflict, pp. 23-32 (Laura Bohannan)
Newspaper clippings on the newly found tribes in the Amazon forest (available on
Courseware)
Week 3: March 2, 4
Language and Communication
“Language,” Core Concepts, pp. 31-50
“Body Art as Visual Language,” Conformity and Conflict, pp. 70-77 (Enid Schildkrout)
“The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: Worlds Shaped by Words,” Conformity and Conflict, pp.
78-89 (David Thomson).
Film screening: “The Alphabet Book” (Al Jazeera-Witness)
Week 4: March 9, 11
Family and Kinship
“Kinship and Descent” Core Concepts, pp. 147-167.
“Marriage and Family” Core Concepts, pp. 169-181.
“Mother’s Love: Death without Weeping,” Conformity and Conflict, pp. 217-226 (Nancy
Scheper-Hughes)
Film screening: “Kidnapped Brides” (Al Jazeera-Witness)
Week 5: March 16, 18
Family and Kinship (cont’d)
“Matrilineal Kinship: Walking Marriage in China,” Conformity and Conflict, pp. 235-240
(Lu Yuan and Sam Mitchell)
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Kimberly Hart, “Love by Arrangement: the Ambiguity of “Spousal Choice” in a Turkish
Village,” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (available on courseware)
Film Screening: “A Marriage in the Yuntdağ” (director: Kimberly Hart)
Week 6: March 23, 25
Religion and Magic
“Religion and Worldview” in Core Concepts, pp. 67-82.
“Baseball Magic,” Conformity and Conflict, pp. 348-357 (George Gmelch)
Sylvia Wing Önder, “Faith, Religion and the Supernatural,” in We Have No Microbes
Here, pp. 123-152.
Week 7: March 30, April 1
Social Organization: Caste, Class, Race, Ethnicity
“The Dimensions of Social Organization,” Core Concepts, pp. 83-97.
“Mixed Blood” Conformity and Conflict, pp. 270-280 (Jeffrey M. Fish)
Film screening: “Colours” (Al Jazeera – People and Power)
SPRING BREAK: April 5-9
Week 8: April 13, 15
Midterm exam this week!
Gender
“Gender” Core Concepts, pp. 97-100.
“Society and Sex Roles” Conformity and Conflict, pp. 261-269 (Ernestine Friedl)
Week 9: April 20, 22
Gender, cont’d.
Leyla Keough (2006) “Globalizing Post-Socialism: Mobile Mothers and Neoliberalism
on the Margins of Europe” Anthropological Quarterly, vol. 79, pp. 432-461 (available on
courseware)
Film Screening, “Oyun” [The Play]
Week 10: April 27, 29
Economic Anthropology: Subsistence versus the Market
“Economic Anthropology” Core Concepts, pp. 123-144.
“The Hunters: Scarce Resources in the Kalahari,” Conformity and Conflict, pp. 109-123
(Richard Borshay Lee).
Newspaper clippings on the current conditions of the Kalahari tribes (available on
Courseware)
“Cultivating the Tropical Forest,” Conformity and Conflict, pp. 134-143 (Richard Reed).
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Week 11: May 4, 6
Anthropology and globalization
“Globalization and the Culture of Capitalism” Core Concepts, pp. 183-199.
“Cocaine and the Economic Deterioration of Bolivia,” Conformity and Conflict, pp. 170180 (Jack Weatherford)
“Workaday World – Crack Economy” Conformity and Conflict, pp. 181-190 (Philippe
Bourgois)
Week 12: May 11, 13
Anthropology and Globalization, cont’d.
“How Sushi Went Global” Conformity and Conflict, pp. 201-211 (Theodore C. Bestor)
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, “The Global Traffic in Human Organs,” in The Anthropology of
Globalization Reader, pp. 270-308.
Week 13: May 18, 20
Medical Anthropology
Sylvia Wing Önder, “A Traditional Healer” and “Institutions of Clinical Medicine” in We
Have No Microbes Here, pp. 153-172 and 203-224.
Week 14: May 25, 27
Film screening: “Sangoma” (Al Jazeera-Witness)
Course review
Fieldwork assignments due on May 28!
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