Anthropology 415:A1
History of Anthropological Theory
Winter Term 2013
Prof. Jean DeBernardi
(780) 492-0131
jean.debernardi@ualberta.ca
Website: http://jeandebernardi.squarespace.com
Office Hours: Wednesday 12:10-1
and by appointment
The Course
History of Anthropological Theory investigates major trends in social and cultural
anthropology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The focus will be on the history of the
discipline as it has developed globally, including England, France, and North America, with some
attention to Russia, China, and Africa. Topics covered will include evolutionist anthropology and
the comparative method, historical materialism, functionalism, structuralism, symbolic and
interpretive anthropology, Marxist and historical anthropology, practice theory, postmodernist
anthropology, and globalization theory.
Requirements include in-class examinations on February 13th (25%) and March 20th (25%),
and a final examination on April 19th at 9 am (25%). Each student will also do an in-class
presentation, prepare a study guide/handout that will be distributed via email, and write a 4-6 page
paper based on the presentation (paper=20%). Participation, including the presentation and the
study guide, will count for 5% of the final grade. I do not consider papers late until I have graded
and returned the set of papers.
Students will sign up to discuss the works of selected anthropologists in in-class
discussions. Each student will also write a short paper based on his or presentation, which will be
due one week after the discussion.
Books
The following book is required, and has been ordered at the bookstore:
R. Jon McGee and Richard L. Warms, Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History. 5th
Edition. New York: McGraw Hill.
Additional required and recommended readings are available as electronic resources.
Recommended books:
Fredrik Barth, Andre Gingrich, Robert Parkin, and Sydel Silverman. 2005. One Discipline, Four
Ways: British, German, French, and American Anthropology. Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press.
Alan Barnard. 2000. History and Theory in Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. [This book can also be accessed through the on-line reserve.]
Week 1 Introduction
January 7 - 11
Tylor, three articles on Totems and Totemism (1898). Electronic resource
recommended: Alan Barnard, Chapter 1 "Visions of Anthropology"; Chapter 2 "Precursors of the
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Anthropological Tradition"; " in History and Theory in Anthropology (henceforth HTA), Electronic
resource.
Film 1: "Sir Walter Baldwin Spencer: Fieldwork"
Week 2 Evolutionism
January 14 - 18
McGee and Warms, "Introduction" and "Nineteenth-century Evolutionism" in McGee and Warms,
Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History (henceforth AT).
1. Herbert Spencer, "The Social Organism" (1860), p. 13-30 (AT) (skim)
2. Sir Edward Burnett Tylor, "The Science of Culture" (1871), 30-45 (AT)
3. Lewis Henry Morgan, "Ethnical Periods" (1877), pp. 45-57 (AT)
Friday January 18:
Discussion 1 Cultural Evolutionism
Week 3 Marx and Cultural Evolutionism
January 21 – 25
4. Karl Marx, "Feuerback: Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook" (1845-1846) pp. 57-73 (AT)
Yuri Slezkine, "The Fall of Soviet Ethnography, 1928-38" (1991) Current Anthropology 32 (4): 476-484.
Electronic Resource.
Recommended: Frederick Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1891)
Electronic resource.
Wednesday January 22: Discussion 2 Marxism and Anthropology
25 January:
Shackles of Tradition (video)
Week 4 Boas and his Students
January 28 – February 1
McGee and Warms, "Historical Particularism" 112-117 (AT)
8. Franz Boas, "The Methods of Ethnology" (1920) 117-124) (AT)
9. A. L. Kroeber, "Eighteen Professions" (1915) 125-131 (AT)
10. Benjamin Whorf, "The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language" (1939) 131-149 (AT)
Recommended: Barnard, Chapter 4 "Diffusionism and Culture-area Theories" in HTA.
Friday February 1:
Discussion 3 Boas and the Boasians
Week 5 Functionalism
February 4 - 8
Monday February 4: Off the Veranda (video)
McGee and Warms, "The Foundations of Sociological Thought" 74-77 and "Functionalism" 150-154 (AT)
11. Bronislaw Malinowki, "The Essentials of the Kula" (1922) 154-170 (AT)
6. Marcel Mauss, excerpts from The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies (1925)
84-97(AT)
5. Emile Durkheim, "What is a Social Fact?" (1895), 78-84 (AT)
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12. A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, "On Joking Relationships" (1940), 170-80 (AT)
A. R. Radcliffe-Brown,"On Social Structure." Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain
and Ireland 70 No 1 (1940): 1-12. Electronic resource.
13. Max Gluckman, "The Licence in Ritual" (1956) 181-194 (AT)
Recommended: Barnard, Chapter 5 "Functionalism and Structural-functionalism" in HTA
Friday February 8: Discussion 4 Functionalism
Week 6 Midterm 1
February 11 – 15
February 11: In-class review
February 13: Midterm
February 15: Film
Week 7 Reading Week
February 18 - 22
February 18:
February 19-22:
Holiday
Reading Week
Week 8 Structuralism and Semiotics
February 25 – March 1
McGee and Warms, "Structuralism" 320-322 (AT)
Sherry Ortner. 1984. "Theory in Anthropology since the Sixties," Comparative Studies in Society and History
Vol. 26 Electronic resource
22. Levi-Strauss, "Four Winnebago Myths" (1960) 323-330 (AT)
23. Sherry Ortner, "Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?" (1974) 330-343 (AT)
Alexandra Maryanski and Jonathan H. Turner. 1991. "The Offspring of Functionalism: French and British
Structuralism." Sociological Theory 9 (1):106-115. Electronic resource
Recommended: Barnard, Chapter 7, "From Relativism to Cognitive Science': Chapter 8, "Structuralism,
From Linguistics to Anthropology"
Friday March 1: Discussion 5 Structural and Semiotic Anthropology
Week 9 Symbolic and Interpretive Anthropology
March 4 - 8
McGee and Warms, "Symbolic and Interpretive Anthropology" 438-440 (AT)
31. Mary Douglas, "External Boundaries" (1966) 440-449 (AT)
32. Victor Turner, "Symbols in Ndembu Ritual" (1967) 449-476 (AT)
33. Clifford Geertz (1973) "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cock Fight" (1971) 467-487 (AT)
Recommended for weeks 9 and 10: Barnard Chapter 9 Poststructuralists, Feminists, and (other) Mavericks
and Chapter 10 Interpretive and postmodernist approaches (HTA) Electronic resource
Friday March 8: Discussion 6 Symbolic Anthropology
Week 10
Practice Theory and Postmodernism
March 11 – 15
McGee and Warms "Background to Postmodernism" 488-492 and "Postmodernism and its Critics" 520-524
(AT)
3
Sherry Ortner (1984) "Theory in Anthropology since the Sixties," Comparative Studies in Society and
History Vol. 26 No. 1 (Jan. 1984): 126-166. Electronic resource.
7 Max Weber "Class, Status, Party" (1922) 97-110 (AT)
34. Pierre Bourdieu, "Structures, Habitus, Practices" (1980) 492-507 (AT)
36. Renato Rosaldo, "Grief and a Headhunter's Rage" (1989) 524-538 (AT)
37. Lila Abu-Lughod, "A Tale of Two Pregnancies" (1995) 539-548 (AT)
38. Allan Hanson, "The Making of the Maori: Cultural Invention and its Logic" (1989) 548-564 (AT)
Friday March 15: Discussion 7 Postmodernism
Week 11
Midterm 2; Neo-Evolutionism; Eric Wolf
March 18 - 22
Monday March 18
Review
Wednesday March 20 Midterm
Friday March 22
Neo-Evolutionism/Eric Wolf
McGee and Warms, "The Reemergence of Evolutionary Thought" 220-223 "Neomaterialism etc." 259-262
(AT)
17. Julian Steward, "The Patrilineal Band" (1955) 243-258 (AT)
18 Morton Fried, "On the Evolution of Social Stratification and the State" (1960) 263-277 (AT)
21. Eric Wolf, "Peasantry and its Problems (1966), 306-319 (AT)
Eric Wolf. 1990. "Facing Power: Old Insights, New Questions." American Anthropologist Vol. 92, Issue
3:586-596. Electronic Resource.
Week 12
Historical Anthropology/Marshall Sahlins
March 25 – 29
Marshall Sahlins. 1993. "Goodbye to Tristes Tropes: Ethnography in the Context of Modern World History."
Journal of Modern History 65(1):1-25. Electronic resource
Marshall Sahlins. 1999. "What is Anthropological Enlightenment? Some Lessons of the Twentieth-Century."
Annual Review of Anthropology 1999, Vol 28. Electronic resource
Wednesday March 27: Discussion 8 Sahlins and Wolf
March 29: Good Friday (University Closed)
Week 13
Transnationalism and Globalization
April 1 – 5
April 1:
No class [Easter Monday]
McGee and Warms, "Globalization, Power and Agency" 565-567 (AT)
39. Arjun Appadurai, "Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy" (1990) 567-587 (AT)
41. Theodore Bestor, "Kaiten-Zushi and Konbini: Japanese Food Culture in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction" (2006), 603-615 (AT)
Ulf Hannerz, "The World in Creolization," Africa 57 (4) (1987) Electronic Resource
Ulf Hannerz, "Diversity is our Business," American Anthropologist Vol. 112:4, pp. 539-551. Electronic
resource.
Week 14
Postcolonial Anthropology: Africa and China
April 8 - 12
Monday April 8: Discussion 9 Appadurai and Hannerz [can be presented on April 5 th]
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Francis M. Deng (1998) "The Cow and the Thing Called "What": Dinka Cultural Perspectives on Wealth
and Poverty," in Journal of International Affairs, Fall 1998, Vol. 52 (1): 101-129. Electronic
resource
"China and World Anthropology: A conversation on the legacy of Fei Xiaotong (1910-2005)" Anthropology
Today Vol. 27:6, published online 1 Dec 2011. Electronic resource
April 12:
Wrapup and Review
Final Examination: April 19 at 9 am
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