Course Description

This seminar provides an in-depth and historical exploration of the ways in which anthropologists have theorized culture since the discipline's founding in the 19th century. We will study some of the key trends, concepts, and models in anthropological theories of culture: evolution, Marxism, exchange theory, functionalism, interpretive anthropology, feminist anthropology, postmodernism, globalization, and neoliberalism. A central concern will be how anthropologists have defined culture, conceptualized its processes, and theorized how individuals interact with culture in ways that challenge or reproduce power relations, political economy, and social structures.

Learning Objectives

Students completing this seminar in anthropological theory will be able to:
(1) Identify the different ways that culture has been defined and used by anthropologists to analyze social phenomena;
(2) Critically read and interpret anthropological studies;
(3) Identify major theoretical traditions in sociocultural anthropology.

Class meetings

The class meets one time per week and follows a seminar format. Students will be expected to attend all class meetings (attendance will be taken), to complete the readings as scheduled on the syllabus, and to come to class prepared to engage in a focused discussion of the issues raised by the readings. Most weeks, students will write a brief response paper (2-3 pages) on an assigned topic. These will serve as the basis for group discussion.

Course Requirements

Course grades will be based on written work and class participation, broken down as follows:

1. Class Discussion and Participation (15%)

This advanced seminar promotes an active approach to learning. Not only are you required to attend all class meetings, but you will also be expected to engage actively in group discussions in ways which demonstrate your critical reflection on the readings. Because involvement in class activities is so important, more than one unexcused absence during the semester will result in the lowering of your participation grade by two percentage points for each additional class missed.

2. Response papers (30%)

In preparation for most class meetings, you will be asked to write a short response paper (2-3 pages) on an assigned question related to the readings. These papers require you to reflect on the readings, either by developing your own insights or by evaluating the methods used by their authors. There are ten assignments over the course of the semester. Each is worth three points, for a total of 30 points and 30% of your course grade. Late papers will not be accepted. Papers are to be emailed to Prof. Leshkowich before class.

3. Two 5-7 page essays (25%)

In weeks 6 and 10, you will be asked to submit a 5-7 page (double-spaced) essay on an assigned question. These essays will require you to make a critical, insightful, and compelling argument that synthesizes issues raised by readings from the previous weeks. Each paper will count for 12.5% of your course grade. Papers will be due by 3pm on a Friday following the course meeting (i.e., October 24 and November 21) and should be emailed to Prof. Leshkowich. Unexcused late papers will be penalized one portion of a grade (e.g. an A becomes an A-) for each day late.

4. Take Home Final Exam (30%)

At the end of the semester, you will complete a final exam (12-15 pages) in which you will answer two essay questions that require you to evaluate critically several readings in order to explore central themes of the course. The questions for the final exam will be distributed during the last class session. Exams will be due by email to Professor Leshkowich on Friday, December 19 by 3 p.m. Unexcused late exams will be penalized one portion of a grade (e.g. an A becomes an A-) for each day late.

Academic Honesty

In coming to Holy Cross, students and faculty have joined an intellectual community dedicated to learning together through the open exchange of ideas. For us to feel comfortable sharing our perspectives, we need to be confident that our ideas will be respected as our own. All of us share responsibility for creating an environment conducive to open exchange by holding to principles of trust, integrity, and honesty. Academic dishonesty, including plagiarism, fabrication, cheating, and collusion, violates these fundamental principles. As a student, you are responsible for reading and knowing the College Policy on Academic Honesty, as stated in the College Catalog. As your professor, I am available to help you understand this policy and to guide you in following appropriate methods of research and citation.

In response to a growing number of infractions of the college policy on academic honesty, all written work for this course will be archived. All response papers and essays for this class must be submitted in electronic form so that they may be permanently stored.

This class adheres to a zero tolerance policy for academic dishonesty. Any work that, upon investigation, is found to violate the college policy will receive a grade of zero and a report will be submitted to the college administration. Further information about these procedures is contained in the College Catalog.

Grade Calculation

The 5-7 page essays, final paper, and course grades will be calculated according to a 100-point scale. The grading scale is as follows:

A, 93 and above	C+, 77-79.99
A-, 90-92.99	C, 73-76.99
B+, 87-89.99	C-, 70-72.99
B, 83-86.99	D+, 67-69.99
B-, 80-82.99	D, 60-66.99
	F, 59.99 and below

Office Hours

My office hours are listed at the top of this syllabus, and I encourage you to visit with me during the semester. I am available to discuss specific issues arising from the course, as well as to exchange more general insights and chat about experiences from your studies or my research.

Course Website (http://college.holycross.edu/faculty/aleshkow/320/320.html)

The website for this course is a center for important information: syllabus, writing assignments, study guide questions, essay questions, and announcements. Please check it frequently and feel free to pass along suggestions for additional links and information which should be included. Also, check out my homepage at:
http://college.holycross.edu/faculty/aleshkow/homepage.html

Readings

The following books (marked with ** on the reading list) are available for purchase:

Engels, F. 1990. The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State. International Publishers. ISBN: 0717803597
Mauss, Marcel. The Gift. W.W. Norton & Company, 2000. ISBN: 039332043X
Evans-Pritchard, E.E. 1940. The Nuer. Oxford University Press. ISBN: 0195003225
Foucault, Michel. 1978. The History of Sexuality, Volume I. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0679724699
Stoler, Ann. 2010. Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule, 2nd edition. Berkeley: University of California Press, ISBN 9780520262461
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 052129164-x
Butler, Judith. 1999 [1990]. Gender Trouble. Routledge. ISBN: 0415924995
Rosaldo, Renato. 1989. Culture and Truth. Boston: Beacon Press. ISBN 080704623-x
Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. 2003. Global Transformations: Anthropology and the Modern World. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0312295219.
Ong, Aihwa. 2006. Neoliberalism as Exception. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-3748-5

All other readings are available through Moodle.

Course Schedule

Week 1: September 8
INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
What is anthropological theory? How does it relate to ethnography? Discussion of course organization and requirements. Preview of next week's topic (for handout, click here).

Note: For helpful overviews of some of the major topics of this course, check out the following website developed by students at the University of Alabama: http://www.as.ua.edu/ant/Faculty/murphy/anthros.htm.

Week 2: September 15
EVOLUTION
Early anthropologists were centrally concerned with issues of evolution, particularly models that explained social and cultural transformation. At the same time, anthropologists generally were suspicious of attempts to ascribe human behavior to purely biological factors or to see human differences such as race as primarily biological. What tensions between biological and sociocultural evolution lay at the roots of anthropological theory? How did early anthropologists seek to practice cultural relativism? How were some nonetheless complicit in reproducing a sense that Western society was somehow more "evolved"? How did they envision anthropology as a science? What lessons and relevance do their ideas have for us today?
Readings: Tylor, "The Science of Culture" (Moodle article)
**Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, Chapters 1, 2, and 9 (You may also wish to read the introductory materials for background on Engels' work and its significance)
Boas, "The Methods of Ethnology" (Moodle article)
Writing Assignment #1 due before class.
For tips about crafting response papers, click here.

Week 3: September 22
KARL MARX AND ETHNOGRAPHY
Karl Marx is, along with Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, one of the founders of contemporary social science. What are the major elements of his philosophy of the relationship between human action and economics, social structure, culture, and historical change? Anthropologists, while frequently sympathetic to Marx's critique of capitalist inequality and commodity fetishism, often argue that his theory of history, agency, and socioeconomic transformation is a specific response to the conditions of Western European history. How is Marx's analysis of labor and exchange relevant to more recent anthropological understandings of culture and globalization?
Readings: Marx, Capital, pp. 125-244 (Moodle article)
Taussig, "The Genesis of Capitalism amongst a South American Peasantry: Devil's Labor and the Baptism of Money" (Moodle article)
Writing Assignment #2 due before class
For tips about crafting response papers, click here.

Week 4: September 29
ALTERNATIVES TO CAPITALIST EXCHANGE
As theorists such as Marx, Durkheim, and Weber contemplated the rise of capitalism in Western Europe and North America, anthropologists in the first part of the 20th century used their studies of non- or partially capitalist societies to question assumptions about human behavior. How have anthropologists analyzed exchange in non-capitalist settings? How does the exchange of objects or money constitute relations between people? What is the relationship between culture and economics? Click here for a handout on this week's reading.
Readings: Malinowski, "Kula" (Moodle article)
**Mauss, The Gift, Introduction, Chapters 1, 2, and 4.
Writing Assignment #3 due before class
For tips about crafting response papers, click here.

Week 5: October 6
FUNCTIONALISM
According to Bronislaw Malinowski, "The functional view of culture lays down the essential principle that in every kind of civilization every custom, material object, idea, and belief fulfills some vital function, has some task to accomplish, and represents an indispensable part of the working whole." While functionalism's proponents lauded the model's scientific theory and methodology, it has been strongly criticized for, among other things, being ahistorical, too schematic, and neglectful of the complexity of individual interactions with cultural systems and meanings. What are the elements of functionalism? How can we assess the theory's strengths, weaknesses, and impact?
Readings: Malinowski, "The Group and Individual in Functional Analysis" (Moodle article)
**Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer (entire book)
Writing Assignment #4 due before class.
For tips about crafting response papers, click here.

Week 6: October 20
INTERPRETIVE ANTHROPOLOGY
Interpretive anthropology, exemplified in the work of Clifford Geertz, emerged as a reaction to anthropological theories, such as functionalism and structuralism, that focused on culture as rules, structures, or systems separate from human actions, meanings, and interpretations. Geertz advocated for interpreting culture as a system of symbols and meanings that shape how human beings interpret the world. Their interpretations, in turn, can transform culture. What are the major elements of an interpretive approach to culture? What are its strengths and weaknesses?
Readings: Geertz, "Thick Description," "Deep Play," and "The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man" (Moodle article)
Roseberry, "Balinese Cockfights and the Seduction of Anthropology" (Moodle article)
No response paper due this week.
First 5-7 page essay due on Friday, October 24 by 3pm, delivered by e-mail.

Week 7: October 27
POWER
While interpretive anthropology focused on how meanings and symbols are both individual and shared, do all individuals within a society see things similarly? Or is one's perspective shaped by one's position? Combining a concern for meaning and knowledge with attention to how knowledge is implicated in inequality and structures of control, the work of Michel Foucault proved groundbreaking in its theorization of power. What does Foucault mean by power? How are culture and interpretation implicated in power? What room does Foucault leave for agency? To explore these questions, we'll consider Foucault's ideas on human sexuality and scientific knowledge.
Readings: **Foucault, The History of Sexuality (entire book)
Writing Assignment #5 due before class.
For tips about crafting response papers, click here.

Week 8: November 3
SEX, BODIES, AND COLONIAL POWER
Foucault provides a broad and provocative theory of power/knowledge and sexuality, but how can we understand the effects of these processes on individuals and on broader political relations between peoples and states? In Carnal Knowledge, Ann Stoler studies the sexualization and racialization of daily life in contexts of European colonialism. How is sexual control linked to political control? Does Foucault's analysis of the body suffer from a lack of attention to issues of race? How does studying colonialism allow us to see links between race, sex, and power?
Readings: **Stoler, Carnal Knowledge (entire book)
Writing Assignment #6 due before class.
For tips about crafting response papers, click here.

Week 9: November 10
STRUCTURE, AGENCY, AND PRACTICE
Marx and Foucault both tend to emphasize how broader structures shape human behavior, with the sense that what we perceive to be our agency or choice may in fact be predetermined. Anthropologists, however, tend to focus in our research on individuals' perceptions, experiences, and actions. How can we see those actions as to some extent shaped by context, yet also subject to improvisation and individuality in ways that might affect broader social and cultural systems? Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice attempts to provide a model for a dynamic relationship between structure and agency. What are the strengths and weaknesses of his approach?
Readings: **Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (selections)
Writing Assignment #7 due before class.
For tips about crafting response papers, click here.

Week 10: November 17
GENDER
In the 1970s, as political feminism gathered momentum, many anthropologists began to question whether their own field suffered from an androcentric bias. They considered the power relations embedded in fieldwork, the absence of women's perspectives in ethnography, the sources of gender inequalities in different cultural contexts, and the sociocultural construction of gender itself. We'll explore these issues by considering Ortner's explanation for what she perceived to be women's universal subordination to men. What assumptions is she making about gender, nature, and culture? Has her argument withstood the test of time? How have other theorists, such as Judith Butler, questioned the distinction between sex and gender so central to feminist theory? What role do biology and culture play in the formation of gendered subjectivities and behaviors?
Activity: Over the weekend, attend the performance of CLOUD 9 (day and time TBA).
Readings: Ortner, "Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?" (Moodle article)
Ortner, "So, Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?" (Moodle article)
**Butler, Gender Trouble, Preface 1999 (it may be helpful to read this last), Preface 1990, Chapter 1 (pp. 1-46), pages 127-150, pages 175-203
No response paper due this week
Second 5-7 page essay due on Friday, November 21 by 3pm, delivered by e-mail.

Week 11: November 24
RETHINKING ETHNOGRAPHY
Anthropology began as an attempt to document culture objectively. But from the start, the method of participant observation and the goal of understanding others' points of views contained an inherent subjectivity. Postmodernism takes subjectivity as its starting point to question the nature of knowledge and claims to truth. How has postmodernism influenced anthropological theory and the practice of fieldwork? If all knowledge is contested and contingent, how can we ever say anything? If we can't generalize, how can we theorize? Finally, we'll consider Lutz's arguments about the links between gender, power, and knowledge within the field of anthropology.
Readings: Clifford, "Introduction: Partial Truths" from Writing Culture (Moodle article)
**Rosaldo, Culture and Truth (entire book)
Lutz, "The Gender of Theory" (Moodle article)
Writing Assignment #8 due before class.
For tips about crafting response papers, click here.

Week 12: December 1
GLOBALIZATION
In addition to the questioning of power relations underlying the production of ethnographic knowledge that we explored last week, the critical turn in anthropology has led scholars to explore culture as always globally in motion and in flux, crosscut by hierarchies and power relations, most especially those associated with capitalism. How should anthropologists consider culture in a context of globalization? How might we understand the interaction between what Trouillot terms the "geography of imagination" and the "geography of management" (3)? What role should history play in our examinations of these geographies?
Readings: **Trouillot, Global Transformations: Anthropology and the Modern World (entire book)
Writing Assignment #9 due before class.
For tips about crafting response papers, click here.

Week 13: December 8
NEOLIBERALISM
Throughout the history of anthropology, certain keywords have burst onto the scene to capture the concerns of the moment. For the past two decades, "neoliberalism" has been one such term. We'll end the theory course by exploring neoliberalism, its possibilities, and its limitations for anthropological study. What is neoliberalism? What does it convey about current global conditions? What are the alternatives to neoliberalism? In a neoliberal world in which flows of people, money, things, and ideas move with increasing speed and in increasing numbers, how should we understand culture? Is the world post-cultural? With individuals' lives shaped by such diffuse forces, how should we think about agency? Do individual actions matter? How can anthropologists contribute to our understanding of the global power processes associated with neoliberalism?
Reading: **Ong, Neoliberalism as Exception, introduction, chapters 1, 3-6, 9-10
Writing Assignment #10 due before class.
For tips about crafting response papers, click here.
Final exam questions will be distributed.

Friday, December 19
FINAL EXAMS DUE by 3 p.m. by email to Prof. Leshkowich.

For more information, contact: aleshkow@holycross.edu