Instructor: Matti Bunzl
Office: 386B Davenport Hall
Tel.: 265-4068 e-mail: bunzl@uiuc.edu
Office Hours: M 1-3 and by appointment
Course Description:
In the past two decades ethnographic work in Europe has proliferated. This literature has addressed a variety of anthropological problems but has had modernity and the sociocultural processes entailed in it as a nearly constant theme. This course, likewise, organizes the anthropology of Europe around the theme of modernity - the social, cultural, political and economic processes which constitute it and the dilemmas which it creates. The course will offer a theorization of European modernity in the context of the pre- and postmodern, paying particular attention to approaches that intersect history and anthropology. Topics to be addressed include ethnicity, nationalism, and supranationalism; gender and sexuality; class formation; the rural/urban divide; contemporary immigration; the transformations in the formerly socialist states; and the move toward a United States of Europe.
Required Books (available for purchase at the campus bookstore and on reserve at the undergraduate library):
- Étienne Balibar, We, the People of Europe? Reflections on Transnational Citizenship
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004).
- Daphne Berdahl, Where the World Ended: Re-Unification and Identity in the German
Borderland (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).
- Matti Bunzl, Symptoms of Modernity: Jews and Queers in Late-Twentieth-Century Vienna
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004).
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- Jonas Frykman & Orvar Lofgren, Culture Builders: A Historical Anthropology of Middle-Class
Life (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1979).
- Marion Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1999).
- William Kelleher, The Troubles in Ballybogoin: Memory and Identity in Northern Ireland (Ann
Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2003). [AVAILABLE LATER]
- Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (New York:
Viking, 1995).
- Paul Silverstein, Algeria in France: Transpolitics, Race, and Nation (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 2004). [AVAILABLE LATER]
- Katherine Verdery, The Political Lives of Dead Bodies (New York: Columbia University Press,
2000).
Articles are on electronic reserve at http://www.library.uiuc.edu/ugl/ -- click “Electronic
Reserves Course List” and then “ANTH 488”:
- Fredrik Barth, “Ethnic Groups and Boundaries.” In John Hutchinson & Anthony Smith, eds.,
Ethnicity (New York: Oxford, 1996):75-82.
- Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989):31-
82.
- Emile Durkheim & Marcel Mauss, Primitive Classification (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1963):3-26, 81-88.
- Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: An Introduction (New York: Vintage, 1978):15-49,
103-131.
- Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000):69-113.
- Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, “Manifesto of the Communist Party.” In Robert Tucker, ed., The
Marx-Engels Reader (New York: Norton, 1978):469-500.
- George Mosse, Nationalism and Sexuality: Middle-Class Morality and Sexual Norms in
Modern Europe (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985):1-47, 133-152.
- Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1978):1-28.
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- Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Charles Scribner’s
Sons, 1958):12-31, 154-183.
Requirements and Grade Components :
- Class Attendance and Participation (15%)
- Reading Notes (25%)
- Take-Home Midterm (20%)
- Term Paper OR Take-Home Final (40%)
Short reading notes on the assigned texts will be due at the beginning of each class. The reading notes are meant to help you prepare for class by allowing you to reflect on the texts under discussion. Reading notes (which should not exceed one page) are graded as +,  , or - .
Readings marked by an asterisk (*) are required for graduate students, strongly recommended for undergraduate students.
Graduate students are required to complete a term paper. Undergraduates can choose between writing a term paper OR the take-home final.
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Texts with an asterisk (*) are required for graduate students, strongly recommended for undergraduate students. They can be found on electronic reserve.
Week 1
25 August Introduction -- Overview of the Class
Week 2
30 August Europe’s Colonial Modernity
Reading: Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power , Introduction & chs. 1, 2.
Edward Said, Orientalism ,1-28.*
1 September The Imperial World in Europe
S
CREENING OF
F
ILM
“M
Y
B
EAUTIFUL
L
AUNDRETTE
”
Reading: Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power , ch. 3.
Week 3
6 September No Class (Labor Day)
8 September The World System of Power
Reading: Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power , chs. 4 & 5.
Week 4
13 September The Making of the European Nation
Reading: Jonas Fykman & Orvar Löfgren, Culture Builders , Intro. & chs. 1, 2.
Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality , 15-49, 103-131.*
15 September Class and Culture
S
CREENING OF
F
ILM
“G
OSFORD
P
ARK
”
Reading: Jonas Fykman & Orvar Löfgren, Culture Builders , chs. 3 & 4.
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Week 5
20 September The Bourgeoisie and its Others
Reading: Jonas Fykman & Orvar Löfgren, Culture Builders , chs. 5, 6
&Conclusion.
22 September The Invention of Race
Reading: Marion Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair
Zygmunt Bauman,
, Introduction & ch. 1.
Modernity and the Holocaust , 31-82.*
Week 6
27 September Jews and the Genocidal Nation
S CREENING OF F ILM “S UNSHINE ” (P ART I)
Reading: Marion Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair , chs. 2-5.
29 September The Holocaust as National Purification
Reading: Marion Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair , chs. 6-8 & Conclusion.
Week 7
4 October The Liberal State and its Normalizations
Reading: Matti Bunzl, Symptoms of Modernity , Introduction & chs. 1, 2.
George Mosse, Nationalism and Sexuality , 1-47, 133-152.*
6 October Life on the Margins
S
CREENING OF
F
ILM
“S
UNSHINE
” (P
ART
II)
Reading: Matti Bunzl, Symptoms of Modernity , chs. 3 & 4.
Week 8
11 October Trajectories of European Modernity
Reading: Matti Bunzl, Symptoms of Modernity , chs 5, 6 & Conclusion.
Questions for Take-Home Midterm Handed Out
13 October Religion as a Social Category
Reading: William Kelleher, The Troubles in Ballybogoin , Intro. & ch. 1
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic , 12-31, 154-183.*
Week 9
18 October Violence and the European Imaginary
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S
CREENING OF
F
ILM
“S
OME
M
OTHER
’
S
S
ON
”
Reading: William Kelleher, The Troubles in Ballybogoin , chs. 2-5.
20 October Memory as Cultural Practice
Reading: William Kelleher, The Troubles in Ballybogoin , chs. 6-8.
Take-Home Midterm Due at the Beginning of Class
Week 10
25 October The Communist Experiment
Reading: Daphne Berdahl, Where the World Ended , Introduction & chs. 1, 2.
Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, “Manifesto of the Communist Party.”*
27 October Lives Across the Iron Curtain
S
CREENING OF
F
ILM
“S
ONNENALLEE
”
Reading: Daphne Berdahl, Where the World Ended , chs. 3-5.
Week 11
1 November The “Wende” in World-Historical Perspective
Reading: Daphne Berdahl, Where the World Ended , chs. 6, 7 & Epilogue.
3 November The Past and Future of Post-Socialism
Reading: Katherine Verdery, The Political Lives of Dead Bodies , Intro. & Parts I,
II.
Emile Durkheim & Marcel Mauss, Primitive Classification , 3-26, 81-
88.*
Week 12
8 November Failures of History, Icons of Memory
S CREENING OF F ILM “G OOD B YE L ENIN ”
Reading: Katherine Verdery, The Political Lives of Dead Bodies , Part III.
10 November Islam in Europe
Reading: Paul Silverstein, Algeria in France , Intro. & chs. 1-3.
Fredrik Barth, “Ethnic Groups and Boundaries.”*
Week 13
15 November The New Boundaries of the Nation-State
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S
CREENING OF
F
ILM
“L
A
H
AINE
”
Reading: Paul Silverstein, Algeria in France , chs. 4-7 & Concl.
17 November Transnationalism as Project and Reality
Reading: Étienne Balibar, We the People of Europe?
, chs. 1-4.
Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri, Empire , 69-113.*
Questions for Take-Home Final Handed Out
Week 14
29 November The New Bodies of Europe
S CREENING OF
Reading:
F ILM “D IRTY
Étienne Balibar,
P RETTY T HINGS ”
We the People of Europe?
, chs. 5-8.
1 December European Citizenship in a Postmodern Era
Reading: Étienne Balibar, We the People of Europe?
, chs. 9-11.
Week 15
6 December Presentation of Term Papers
Take-Home Final Due at the Beginning of Class
8 December Presentation of Term Papers
Term Paper Due at the Beginning of Class
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