Week #9:

Friday, March 14

A. Learning Objectives for the Day

•	What is kinship and what kind of relationships does it include?

•	What are the universal features of kinship systems?

•	How does incest present a case of moral dumbfounding?

B. Terms to know

kinship

kin

affinal

consanguineal

incest taboo

moral dumbfounding

Week #10:

Monday, March 17

A. Learning Objectives for the Day

•	How does one create and understand diagrams?

•	What are some key features of matrlineal descent?

•	What are the social functions of kinship?

B. Terms to know

matrilineal descent

patrilineal descent

matriarchy

Wednesday, March 19

A. Learning Objectives for the Day

•	What are the social functions of kinship? (Cont'd)

•	Why might the Trobrianders be called "culturally resilient"?

•	How are Trobriand funerary rituals organized?

B. Terms to know

inheritance and succession

social control

Bronislaw Malinowski

kayasa

Trobriand cricket

owners versus workers

sagali/lisaladabu

Week #11:

Wednesday, March 26

A. Learning Objectives for the Day

•	How are Trobriand funerary rituals organized? (Cont'd)

•	What is the economic logic of "bundles"

B. Terms to know

bundles

"Women's wealth" versus "men's wealth"

Friday, March 28

A. Learning Objectives for the Day

•	What is the kula ring, and how does it demonstrate the way a male-centric ethnographic study can prevent one from understanding key social activities?

•	When is magic used by Trobrianders? By American baseball players? How would one characterize such situations?

Focus on the article, "Baseball Magic"

B. Terms to know

kula ring

magic/sorcery

Week #12

Monday, March 31

A. Learning Objectives for the Day

•	What are the key distinctions among the three major belief systems that anthropologists study?

•	What are the minimal categories of religious behavior?

•	How is a shaman different than a "priest"?

•	How can one understand the altered states of consciousness that shamans experience (spirit possession and trance)?

B. Terms to know

witchcraft

religion

ritual

rites of passage

rites of healing

shaman versus priest

spirit possession

trance

Wednesday, April 2

A. Learning Objectives for the Day

•	How can one understand the altered states of consciousness that shamans experience (spirit possession and trance) and how is this experience different from Sita's ghost possession?

discuss the article "Shamans"

discuss the article "Taraka's Ghost"

•	When looking at social differentiation at the local level, what are the three types of societies that anthropologists recognize?

B. Terms to know

social differentiation

egalitarian, ranked & stratified societies

sumptuary rules

leveling mechanisms

Friday, April 4

A. Learning Objectives for the Day

•	What are some characteristics of India's caste society?

discuss "Castaways of Caste"

see film clip "Caste at Birth"

B. Terms to know

Closed versus open system

ascribed versus achieved status

caste

Brahmins

untouchables (aka dalits or harijans)

Week #13

Monday, April 7

A. Learning Objectives for the Day

•	What are the major similarities and differences between a class and caste system?

•	What are some of the key markers of class, and are these markers permanent?

•	How is class "real," in the sense of impacting peoples' material well-being and life-prospects?

•	How is extreme global inequality evident in the world today?

see the slide show "The Miniature Earth"

B. Terms to know

None

Wednesday, April 9

A. Learning Objectives for the Day

•	What are roots of global inequality? (WHY is there so much poverty in the world?)

discuss the article "Baka Beyond"

discuss the film "Trinkets and Beads"

•	Is global inequality decreasing or growing?

B. Terms to know

paradox of the plenty

colonialism

export monoculture

debt crisis

transnational corporations

Friday, April 11

A. Learning Objectives for the Day

•	What is social control? What is conflict resolution?

•	What are some strategies that non-Western societies use to enforce social control and to resolve conflicts?

discuss excerpts from The Forest People ("The Crime of Cephu, the Bad Hunter," and "The Giver of the Law")

discuss "The Kpelle Moot"

B. Terms to know

social control

mediation versus law

Week #14:

Monday, April 14

A. Learning Objectives for the Day

•	How is mediation different than law? (Cont'd)

•	What are some characteristics of "the pure gift" (the ideal vision of gift exchange)?

discuss the article "Too Many Bananas . . ."

B. Terms to know

gift exchange versus market exchange

Wednesday, April 16

A. Learning Objectives for the Day

•	What are the two major systems of exchange that anthropologists identify?

discuss the article "Guarani Economics"

•	How does negative reciprocity inform our understanding of global inequality?

discuss the article "Guarani Economics"

discuss the film "Trinkets and Beads"

discuss the article "Baka Beyond"

•	When considering modernity and social change, what are some of the dysfunctional aspects of a "culture of poverty"? Does such beliefs and practices exemplify traditional, "indigenous" culture?

discuss the article "Death without Weeping"

B. Terms to know

generalized (positive) reciprocity

negative reciprocity

culture of poverty

Friday, April 30

A. Learning Objectives

•	What are the three ways that anthropologists categorize societies experiences modernity and social change, and which way do they tend to emphasize?

•	What examples can we find from this class to illustrate these three trajectories?

B. Terms to know:

ethnocide

homogenization

heterogeneity

indigenization of modernity

Week #15

Monday, April 21

A. Learning Objectives

•	What examples can we find from this class to illustrate these three trajectories? (Cont'd)

See examples from the slide show "Modernity and Social Change"

•	How have the Hmong people undergone radical change while maintaining their unique identity and culture?

B. Terms to know:

none

Wednesday, April 23

A. Learning Objectives

•	How have the Hmong people undergone radical change while maintaining their unique identity and culture?

•	How does Fadiman make the familiar strange, arguing that there are many similarities between the American relationship with their doctors and the Hmong relationship with their shamans (txiv neebs)?

discuss in small groups

•	How does Fadiman make the strange familiar, interpreting Hmong practices and beliefs through the lens of cultural relativism?

discuss in small groups

B. Terms to know:

involuntary refugees

Friday, April 25

A. Learning Objectives for the Day

•	Group-work discussions continued

B. Terms to know

culture broker

role loss

Week #16

Monday, April 28

A. Learning Objectives for the Day

•	What are the reasons for cross-cultural mis-communication and how can one deal with this problem?

compare the book The Spirit Catches You with the article "Shakespeare in the Bush" (note that the film "A World of Differences" is on similar themes)

•	What is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, and what does it tell us about the relationship between language and culture?

discuss "Worlds Shaped by Words"

B. Terms to know

mold theory

cloak theory

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

Wednesday, April 30

A. Learning Objectives for the Day

•	What examples from the English language show that language is always changing and is not inert?

•	What are some examples to support the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?

•	What are the implications of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis–in other words, what are some specific, highly debatable things that it claims?

B. Terms to know

linguistic determinism

linguistic relativity

euphemisms

language police

Thursday, May 1

A. Learning Objectives for the Day

•	What does body art mean to the people who practice it?

discuss segment of "Body Art" (film) and "Body Art as Visual Language"

B. Terms to know

nonverbal communication

body art

Friday, May 2

A. Learning Objectives for the Day

•	What things does an anthropologist pay attention to when conducting an ethnography of communication?

focus on "Bedouin Blues"

focus on "To Give Up on Words"

•	What is language death, why does it occur, and why do some people believe that we should respond with language documentation and revitalization?

discuss "Vanishing Languages"

B. Terms to know

language death

body art

strategic essentialism