The Catholic University of America

 

Department of Anthropology
ANTH 200 – Core Perspectives in Anthropology (3 credits)
 
(Fall 2009) TTh 2:10-3:25 MARI 109
Dr. Jon W. Anderson (anderson@cua.edu)
Office Hours: Wed 1-3 (10 Marist)

ANTH 200 is an introduction to core perspectives in Anthropology and how they guide research to specific data and frame questions. Further steps – research design and conduct – are the subject of ANTH 201, taught in the Spring semester. ANTH 200 is concerned with the movement from what is interesting to what is necessary to know, specifying relevant data and all the steps in between. It is not a survey of anthropological theories but a critical explication of perspectives that define anthropology as a discipline, and not just as a topic.  It deals with changing notions of what makes an analysis whole and what constitutes objectivity.
 
Goals of the course are to teach how anthropologists think, and so how to think like an anthropologist, about integrating data about social structure, meaning and action, from small-scale societies to today’s global networks. Students will learn the whys and wherefores of wholistic analysis and its multiple respecifications for studying communities, meaning and practice and contemporary phenomena of globalization through a mix of critical and empirical analyses, including a pair of model ethnographies and a selection of articles.
 
Readings will include 4 books, including one textbook (written for students as surveys and guides), a theoretical critique, and two proof texts:

Stanley R. Barrett, Anthropology: A Student’s Guide to Method and Theory (1996)
E.E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer (1940)
Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (1977)
Biao Xiang, Global Body-Shopping: An Indian Labor System in the Information Technology Industry (2006)
 
In addition to these books, Students will read, discuss, and write papers about a group of articles, which are available on an electronic BlackBoard for this course. These are what scholars write for each other – in other words, primary material that you need to become familiar with and able to read anthropologically.
 
Recommended for Majors: Thomas Barfield, ed. The Dictionary of Anthropology (1997). Majors should keep this book as their master glossary and prep for senior comprehensives.

Grades will be based on eight set of notes on the readings (5% each) and three comparative papers (20% each). Templates for the notes and instruction on how to construct them are available on the course Blackboard, along with other study guides and all readings not contained in the books. There are no exams or major term papers for this course. 
 
 
Schedule of Readings & Assignments (Fall 2009)

September 1: Introduction to the course and its aims. What are core perspectives?
Overview of Wholism, Structural-Functionalism, Agency and Meaning, and Networks and Globalization.
ASSIGNMENT: Make a list of issues that Barrett identifies as “meta” issues and frames for anthropology. Keep for reference

I. Wholism – a perspective that differentiates Anthropological research from sociology’s or economics’ search for unit causes, how local settings matter more than universal types in accounting for cultural data, and what constitutes ‘objectivity’ in anthropological research.

READ: Barrett, Chapter 1.

September 3: CLASS CANCELLED FOR UNIV MASS

September 8: Ethnocentrism and Orientalism. READ: F. Boas, “Limitations of the Comparative Method.” 
 

 

- remainder of the syllabus is on Blackboard for enrolled students -