ANTH 440: History of Anthropological Theory
Course Instructor: Professor Cheryl Mattingly
Time: Thursdays 2 – 4:50
Office Hours: Thursday 12 – 2
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course considers the history of anthropology primarily through an
investigation of contemporary issues, problems, and directions in cultural
anthropology. This is, in other words, a history of the present. How did the kinds of
issues that concern anthropology today emerge in conversation with its history?
How do anthropologists today frame their concerns and interests in light of some
historical perspective, including a critique or “problematizing” of that history?
In many ways, this is an exciting moment in the history of anthropology – a time of
flux and reinvention. The discipline continues to generate new kinds of problems to
study and to rethink traditional modes of carrying out fieldwork, and of
representing and analyzing that field. This course begins with a look at how
anthropologists have responded to the rethinking and reframing of “culture” as a
core construct. This challenge induced immense reflexivity into the discipline and
continues to feed current thinking even as “culture” has gained ascendance in
culture studies, ethnic studies and other disciplines. Anthropologists continue to
debate such fundamental matters as what constitutes the “field” and how to
represent it, what an “anthropological subject” is, and how to speak about social
collectives while taking heterogeneity into account.
New kinds of questions and methods have developed as anthropologists have tried
to attend to matters that were not focal points of traditional anthropology, e.g.
bureaucratic power and postcolonial regimes, globalization, post-modernity, mass
media, emergent technologies and especially a re-thinking of morality.
Anthropologists have also explored new ways to bring in history, social structure
and lived experience into their analytic frames. They have also ventured into a
number of interdisciplinary conversations. In this class, we will especially attend to
an increasingly lively conversation between anthropology and philosophy.
In this course, students will not only consider topics not only as matters of theoryin
some abstract sense but will also explore how they influence visual representations
of cultural life. Analysis of documentaries, popular films, videotaped “raw” footage
from ethnographic fieldwork and other visual artifacts will be interwoven with
discussion of anthropological texts.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS COURSE OUTLINE MAY BE SLIGHTLY REVISED,
ALTHOUGH THE REQUIRED BOOKS WILL NOT CHANGE.
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COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
CLASS CONTENT AND STUDENT PARTICIPATION
ANTHRO 440 meets once a week as a 3 hour seminar. There will be some lectures
but a great deal of the course will center upon discussions based upon assigned
readings. Students will be expected to contribute to these conversations and,
periodically, to lead them with short presentations.
COURSE BOOKS:
The following books are required reading for the course. Some are edited collections
that offer a range of chapters contributed by key anthropologists in the field. In
addition, a number of journal articles and book chapters will be distributed to
students as individual readings.
Title: The Fate of Culture: Geertz and Beyond (1999)
Author (editor): Sherry Ortner
Title: The Pastoral Clinic (2010)
Author: Angela Garcia
Title: The Paradox of Hope (2010)
Author: Cheryl Mattingly
Title: The Ground Between: Anthropologists Engage Philosophy (2014)
Author (editors): Veena Das et al.
Title: The Subject of Virtue (2013)
Author: James Laidlaw
GRADING:
“READING THEORY”: A SHORT PAPER (20% of Grade)
During the semester, one short (three to five page) paper will be required. In this
paper, students will be asked to take a particular reading and summarize the key
points that the author makes. The point of this assignment is to learn to discern the
theoretical structure and underlying arguments of an author. What are the author’s
primary arguments? Who or what is the author arguing for and/or against? What
kinds of evidence (especially ethnographic evidence) does the author draw upon to
persuade readers of his or her position?
FINAL PAPER (50% of Grade)
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A final paper will be based upon analysis of a particular ethnographic or visual text
that draws upon class readings and discussions. The analysis can be – and should be
– a creative exercise. The final paper itself should be approximately twenty-five
pages, double-spaced, including references. In the final two class sessions, students
will be expected to orally present an early version of their final papers to the class
where they can also receive some feedback that can help in the preparation of the
paper.
CLASS ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION (30% Grade)
Class attendance and meaningful participation will account for thirty percent of the
course grade. As part of class participation, students will be expected to turn in
small weekly papers that address that week’s readings. Taking each reading in turn,
students will be expected to: 1) write a brief paragraph that identifies and
summarizes the major points the author is making; and 2) write one question the
student would like to put to the author. These papers, especially the questions and
puzzles that students bring to class, will provide a focal point for class discussion. I
will collect papers each week but these will not be graded. In addition, once during
the term, students will come prepared to discuss one or more of the day’s readings
by bringing to class some “visual artifact” that illustrates or raises key points made
in the reading(s).
University Policies on Disability and Academic Integrity
Statement for Students with Disabilities
Any student requesting academic accommodations based on disability is required to
register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of
verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from the DSP. Please be
sure the letter is delivered to me as early in the semester as possible. DSP is
located in STU 301 and is open 8:30am5:00pm, Monday through Friday.The phone n
number for DSP is (213) 740-0776.
Statement on Academic Integrity—USC seeks to maintain an optimal
learning environment. General principles of academic honesty include the
concept of respect for the intellectual property of others, the expectation that
individual work will be submitted unless otherwise allowed by the instructor,
and the obligations both to protect one’s own academic work from misuse by
others as well as to avoid using another’s work as one’s own. All students are
expected to understand and abide by these principles.
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Syllabus
SECTION ONE: Framing (and Reframing) Culture
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We begin a consideration of culture as a concept with the work of Clifford Geertz. As
Ortner notes, “Clifford Geertz is one of the foremost figures in the reconfiguration of
the boundary between the social sciences and the humanities for the second half of
the twentieth century…in insisting that human social life is a matter of meaningful
activity only very imperfectly studeied through objectifying methods of (certain
kinds of) Science, he constructed an important alternative to the then-ascendant
scientism of the social sciences, an alternative that continues to grow in influence in
virtually every social science discipline to this day” (The Fate of Culture, pg. 1).
Consideration of how Geertz employs “thick description” in his seminal essay “Deep
Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight.” A discussion of how Geertz’ approach to
understanding cultural practice is taken up, discussed, debated and amended by
Ortner, Greenblatt and Rosaldo.
WEEK ONE (8/28): Cultural Interpretation as “Thick Description”
A general introduction to the course readings, structure and assignments. Lecture
and discussion of the culture concept, especially Geertz’ interpretive contribution
and his influential notion of “thick description.” An introduction to how it has
served as a focal point for numerous debates within the field.
WEEK TWO (9/4):
Geertz, “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight” (to be distributed)
Ortner, “Introduction” in The Fate of Culture
SECTION TWO: OBSERVERS OBSERVED: PUTTING THE ETHNOGRAPHER IN
THE ETHNOGRAPHIC SCENE
One line of critique or amendment of Geertz’ classic discussions of both cultural
interpretation and the role of ethnographer has arisen from critical accounts of how
researchers and implicated, and become part of, the objects they construct. Marcus
discusses this especially from a perspective that highlights the entangled
relationship between anthropologists and colonialism.
WEEK THREE: (9/11)
Marcus, “The Use of Complicity in the Changing Mise-en-Scene of Anthropological
Fieldwork” in FC
Rosaldo, “A Note on Geertz as a Cultural Essayist” in FC
Greenblatt, “The Touch of the Real” in FC.
SECTION THREE: CULTURE AS A BORDERLAND – “SOCIAL IMAGINARIES” AND
THE EXPLORATION OF MODERNITY
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One of the most interesting developments that has emerged out of a rethinking of
cultural holism and cultural isolation is a re-invention of the field of study. We take
this up in this section. Although traditionally, anthropologists tended to describe
cultural communities as separate cultural worlds that had a holistic homogeneity, as
we have already seen, things have changed considerably. Not only has the world
changed (with an increase of global communication and immigration) but
anthropologists have become more attentive to their own earlier neglect of how
people live not only (and never simply) within a single cultural community but
travel among them. Put differently, cultural communities themselves are not simple
collectivities of shared beliefs and practices. They are always comprised of subgroups and of members who adopt a range of perspectives and have a variety of
social and cultural allegiances. At the same time, communities do inevitably develop
certain shared (or semi-shared) rituals, beliefs, and routines. The challenge for
anthropologists, in light of this, is how to explore and represent any cultural
community BOTH as a shared community (with rules, roles, etc.) and as a border or
contact zone. The rethinking of the traditional field site is not all about an
intellectual re-evaluation, however. It has also been sparked by historical events –
including the global flow of goods like television throughout the world and the
changing shape of post-colonialisms.
WEEK FOUR (9/18)
Ortner, “Thick Resistance: Death and the Cultural Construction of Agency in
Himalayan Mountaineering” in The Fate of Culture
Mattingly, The Paradox of Hope, Chapters 1,2,3
WEEK FIVE (9/25)
Abu-Lughod, “The Interpretation of Culture(s) After Television” in FC
Mattingly, The Paradox of Hope, chs 4, 5, 6,
WEEK SIX (10/2)
Mattingly, Paradox of Hope, chs 7, 8
Garcia, The Pastoral Clinic, (Introduction, Chs 1, 2)
WEEK SEVEN: (10/9)
Garcia, The Pastoral Clinic, (Chs 3 – 5, Conclusion)
THEORY PAPER DUE
SECTION FOUR: POWER AND THE FORMATION OF SELF, SOCIETY AND THE
MORAL ORDER – SUBJECTIVITY AND SUBJUGATION
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We have already seen with essays by Ortner and others, as well as Garcia’s and
Mattingly’s ethnographies, that a current intellectual tradition emphasizes the play
of power in social life. While the topics of power, social hierarchy and political
organization are certainly not new for anthropology, poststructualist theorists –
especially Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault – have generated new ways of
understanding the role of power in shaping social life and the self. They have also
generated powerful critiques of those anthropologists who have focused either on
culture as a system of meaning or a text (as in Geertzian interpretive anthropology),
or who have a strong phenomenological bent that is not – to their minds –
sufficiently mindful of the way experienced is shaped by power. Foucault’s work
cannot be underestimated in this regard.
WEEK EIGHT (10/16)
Foucault, “Panopticism” (to be distributed)
Rhodes, “Dreaming of Psychiatric Citizenship” (to be distributed)
Foucault, “Right of Death and Power Over Life”(to be distributed)
WEEK NINE (10/23)
Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1, “We ‘Other Victorians.” Pp 1 – 13. (to be
distributed)
Foucault, “From the Repressive Hypothesis to Bio-Power” (to be distributed)
Petryna, “Biological Citizenship: The Science and Politics of Chernobyl-Exposed
Populations” (to be distributed)
SECTION FIVE: THE NEW ANTHROPOLOGY OF MORALITY
An emerging anthropology of morality or ethics has been developing over the pat
decade in anthropology. While anthropologists have always taken morality
seriously, they have – in another way – not theorized this topic sufficiently. (At
least, this is a current complaint voiced by many anthropologists.) But in recent
years, a host of new books have emerged that try to rethink or “problematize”
morality. Often, Foucault is a major influence, both his early and middle works on
structure and power, and especially his later works on “care of the self.” In addition,
“experience near” approaches to morality have emphasized moral experience in
existentialist, phenomenological, or person-centered ethnographies that focus on
the relational and the intersubjective. Along somewhat different lines, it has
generated a concern to look at the role of “freedom” and “agency” within people’s
everyday lives. Within this recent moral turn in anthropology, one can see
anthropology’s continuing effort to develop theoretical frameworks that pay
attention to power and its institutional forces but also to try to provide an
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“experience-near” focus that does not ignore the particularities of life history or a
focus on events.
WEEK TEN (10/30)
Joel Robbins “Beyond the Suffering Subject” (to be distributed)
Laidlaw, The Subject of Ethics, Chs 1 - 3
WEEK ELEVEN (11/6)
Laidlaw, The Subject of Ethics (chs 4 - 6)
SECTION SIX: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THEORY AND ETHNOGRAPHIC
DESCRIPTION – AND THE BORDERS BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND
ATHROPOLOGY
This final section marks a return to some questions that were already being asked in
the first readings – what is the role of theory in ethnographic description and in the
practice of ethnographic fieldwork? Why is it useful? Why is it problematic? What
are the roles of theories that come from other fields and are introduced into
anthropology, especially the influence of philosophy? How ought anthropologists
read philosophy? What does such a reading entail? As a focal point for discussion,
the final readings are taken from a recent edited text in which several pre-eminent
anthropologists reflect upon their own use of philosophy in their work.
WEEK TWELVE (11/13)
Jackson, “Ajala’s Head” in The Ground Between:
Fassin, “The Parallel Lives of Philosophy and Anthropology” in The Ground Between
Kleinman, “The Search for Wisdom” in The Ground Between
WEEK THIRTEEN (11/20)
Hage, “Eavesdropping on Bourdieu’s Philosophers” in The Ground Between
Singh, “How Concepts Make the World Look Different” in The Ground Between
THANKSGIVING BREAK (11/27)
AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGY ASSOCIATION MEETINGS (12/4)
WEEK FOURTEEN (TO BE SCHEDULED WITH CLASS: 12/11??)
Das, “Action, Expression and Everyday Life” in The Ground Between
Han, “The Difficulty of Kindness” in The Ground Between
FINAL PAPER DUE: Monday, 12/15
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SECTION SIX: STUDENT PRESENTATIONS.
There will be no further readings in the final two sessions. Rather, time will be
taken for students to present their individual projects that are “in progress.”
WEEK FOURTEEN 11/24
Student Presentations of Final Paper Projects
WEEK FIFTEEN 12/1
Student Presentations of Final Paper Projects
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