A key theme of our readings over the past several weeks has been the connections between power and forms of knowledge: the science of sexuality; sexuality and race under colonialism; ingrained patterns of thought and behavior that are connected to class status; conceptions of gender and identity politics; the power relations immanent in claims to knowledge of people and individuals. How is what we know connected to regimes of power? What are those regimes? If they shape what one knows, how can one possibly conceive of different forms of knowledge that might alter power systems or relations? What role do culture and agency play in the relationship between power and knowledge?

In this 5 to 7-page essay, you are asked to explore the connections between meaning, knowledge and power by addressing critically how TWO authors whom we have read IN DIFFERENT WEEKS OF THE COURSE have conceptualized this relationship (i.e. how might they respond to some aspect of the questions posed above?). By placing them in a dialogue, how can we see the strengths, weaknesses, and significance of their individual contributions? Based upon your assessment of their ideas, how should anthropologists understand the connections between meaning, knowledge, and power?

In framing your discussion, pay particular attention to such issues as definitions, analytical frameworks, underlying assumptions, and evidence -- these will help you to critique each author's approach, enable comparison between the two, and help you to develop a thesis statement which explains how your critical analysis of the two authors points to a better way of understanding the connections between meaning, knowledge, and power.

Since this is a short essay, you should choose two authors who can easily be placed in dialogue with each other. Use this dialogue to formulate your own argument in answer to the question and be sure to include a clear, interesting thesis statement in your opening paragraph. While your essay should focus primarily on two authors from different weeks of the course, feel free to refer to other relevant readings. Your two primary examples should be drawn from weeks 7-10 (Foucault-Butler).

TEXT REFERENCES
These (including references to personal communications) are placed in the body of the text, not as notes. For each quotation or statement specific enough to need a reference, place the citation in parentheses (author's name, year of publication of work quoted or referred to, page(s) cited), thus: (Doe 1968) or (Rowe 1893:115-119).

NOTES
All notes follow the text as endnotes, beginning on a new page, and are restricted to material that cannot be included in the text. Notes are numbered consecutively throughout the text by superscript numerals.

REFERENCES CITED
Do not include any publication not cited in the text. References Cited must begin on a new page, and all entries must be double-spaced, listed alphabetically by last name of senior author, and chronologically for two or more titles by the same author(s). The typed layout should conform to the printed layout as follows:

Driver, Harold E.

1956 An Integration of Functional, Evolutionary, and Historical Theory by Means of Correlations. Bloomington: Indiana University Publication in Anthropology and Linguistics, Memoir 12.

1966 Geographical-Historical versus Psycho-Functional Explanations of Kin Avoidances. Current Anthropology 7:131-182.

Miller, George A.

1954 Psycholinguistics. In Handbook of Social Psychology II. Gardner Lindey, ed. Pp. 693-708. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Thibault, John W., and Harold H. Kelley

1959 The Social Psychology of Groups. New York: John Wiley.

 

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