SYLLABUS
SOCI 202 SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Fall 2007
Instructor: Deniz Yükseker
Class: Tue-Thurs, 9:30-10:45 at CASB07
Office hours: Wednesday, 11:30-12:30, Thursday 14:30-16:00, and by appointment
e-mail: dyukseker@ku.edu.tr
Office: SOS 254
Phone: x 1309
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course provides an introduction to some of the central
conceptual and methodological issues in social/cultural anthropology. 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. The course will seek to
do this through readings of classical and contemporary ethnographies. We will focus on
several major themes in anthropology such as family, language, gender, economy,
religion and the body.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING: The course is based on readings,
lectures, discussions, an assignment, and several film screenings. Students are required to
do the weekly readings BEFORE coming to class and to actively participate in the
discussions. Regular attendance is a must. There will be two midterms, five reading
summaries, a final exam and a fieldwork assignment.
Fieldwork assignment: Each student will choose a topic to conduct some fieldwork and
write up a short “ethnographic” account of it. Possible topics and methods of research
will be explained in the classroom during the course of the semester. The fieldwork will
include participant observation and interviews with people.
Breakdown of grading:
Two midterms: 2 x 20 = 40 percent
Assignment: 20 percent
Attendance and participation: 10 percent
Final exam: 20 percent
Reading summaries: 5 x 2 points = 10 percent
NOTE ON ATTENDANCE:
0-2 absences: - 0 points
3-4 absences: - 5 points
5-6 absences: - 7 points
More than 6 absences: - 10 points
SOCIOLOGY DEPARTMENT GUIDELINES ON ACADEMIC HONESTY
Plagiarism:
Plagiarism is a serious academic offense and students are responsible for learning what constitutes
plagiarism. The university defines plagiarism as “borrowing or using someone else’s writing or ideas
without giving written acknowledgment to the author”; therefore, by definition, plagiarism is a form of
cheating. In some instances, such as copying an entire paper from the internet, submitting papers someone
else wrote for the student (other students, online services, parents, etc.), or selling papers to other students,
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plagiarism is intentional. In other cases, plagiarism may occur unintentionally. However, even when
unintentional, plagiarism reflects the student’s unwillingness to conform to university policies and course
requirements. Therefore, all acts of plagiarism will be severely penalized regardless of intention.
In order to avoid plagiarism, students must give credit to the author when they use someone else’s
idea, theory, statistics, or fact from any source (e.g., journal or newspaper article, book, the internet, etc.),
unless that piece of information is considered common knowledge. How to give credit to the author may
depend on the instructor’s guidelines, but students usually need to provide citations in the text with the
source identified in a bibliography or in footnotes. Direct quotations from any source should be put in
quotation marks and cited. Paraphrasing (i.e., using someone else’s ideas but explaining them in your own
words) without citation is also a form of plagiarism. It is the students’ responsibility to check with the
instructor if an act would constitute plagiarism before submitting their work.
Plagiarized work will receive a zero for that assignment. Depending on the severity of the offense,
the instructor may give the student an F for the entire course and pursue disciplinary action.
Cheating:
Cheating is, in an examination or an assignment, using materials (such as textbooks, class notes,
dictionaries, or other students’ work) that are not explicitly allowed by the instructor. Any student caught
cheating or helping others to cheat receives a zero for the specific examination or assignment. The
instructor may give the student an F for the entire course and pursue disciplinary action.
Week 1: September 18-20
Introduction
Spradley and McCurdy, “Culture and Ethnography,” Conformity and Conflict. Readings
in Cultural Anthropology [11th edition], 2003, pp. 1-5.
Lavenda and Schultz. 2002. (2nd ed.) “Anthropology,” Core Concepts in Cultural
Anthropology, pp. 1-12.
Week 2: September 25-27
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)
“Fieldwork on Prostitution in the Era of AIDS,” Conformity and Conflict, pp. 33-45
(Claire Sterk)
Week 3: October 2-4
Theoretical Approaches in Anthropology
“Theory in Cultural Anthropology,” Core Concepts, pp. 201-222.
Erickson and Murphy, eds. 2001. “Classical Cultural Evolutionism,” Readings for a
History of Anthropological Theory, pp. 6-11.
“Ethnical Periods” Readings for a History of Anthropological Theory, pp. 43-55 (Lewis
Henry Morgan)
Week 4: October 9 (no class on October 11)
Language and Communication
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Spradley and McCurdy, “Language and Communication,” pp. 59-62.
“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.
78-90 (David Thomson).
Week 5: October 16-18
Family, Kinship and Gender
“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)
“Matrilineal Kinship: Walking Marriage in China,” Conformity and Conflict, pp. 235-240
(Lu Yuan and Sam Mitchell)
“Uterine Families and the Women’s Community,” Conformity and Conflict, pp. 241-247
(Margery Wolf)
Kimberly Hart, “Love by Arrangement: the Ambiguity of “Spousal Choice” in a Turkish
Village,” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, forthcoming. (available on
the internet through the course web page.)
Film Screening: “A Marriage in the Yuntdağ” (director: Kimberly Hart)
Week 6: October 23-25
Review and 1st midterm
Week 7: October 30- November 1
Religion and Magic
“Religion and Worldview” in Core Concepts, pp. 67-82.
“Baseball Magic,” Conformity and Conflict, pp. 348-357 (George Gmelch)
“Cargo Beliefs and Religious Experience,” Conformity and Conflict, pp. 371-380
(Stephen C. Leavitt)
Week 8: November 6-8
Anthropology and the Economy: 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).
“Cultivating the Tropical Forest,” Conformity and Conflict, pp. 134-143 (Richard Reed).
Week 9: November 13-15
Anthropology and the Economy, cont’d.
“Cocaine and the Economic Deterioration of Bolivia,” Conformity and Conflict, pp. 170180 (Jack Weatherford)
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“Workaday World – Crack Economy” Conformity and Conflict, pp. 181-190 (Philippe
Bourgois)
Week 10: November 20-22
Anthropology, Gender and Globalization
Caitrin Lynch, chapters 1 and 3 in Juki Girls, Good Girls, pp. 18-49 and 87-120
Film Screening, “Oyun” [The Play]
Week 11: November 27-29
Anthropology, Globalization and the State
James Ferguson, chapters 2 and 3 in Global Shadows. Africa in the Neoliberal World
Order, pp. 50-88.
Film excerpt: “Darwin’s Nightmare”
Week 12: December 4-6
Review and 2nd Midterm
Week 13: December 11-13
Anthropology and the Body
Paul Farmer, “On Suffering and Structural Violence,” in Pathologies of Power, pp. 29-50
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, “The Global Traffic in Human Organs,” in The Anthropology of
Globalization Reader, pp. 270-308.
Week 14: December 18
Cont’d
Week 15: December 25-27
Presentation of fieldwork assignments
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