Seminar organization

The seminar will meet for three hours on Thursday mornings.  The first hour will be a screening of a documentary or ethnographic video.  The second hour will usually be a lecture on the week's topic, and the final hour will be reserved for seminar discussion of the lecture and readings.  

 I expect regular attendance.  I would like to be notified in advance if you are unable to come to a session, and you must check with me about assignments and changes before the following session.  I regard your participation in discussions as a gauge of your completion and comprehension of the assigned readings.  That is to say, it figures importantly in your final grade.  No credit/fail is permitted. 

A related page has the syllabus of session topics and reading assignments.  Copies of all assigned books are available at the Textbook Annex of the Yale Bookstore.  A packets of the assigned articles is available for purchase at Yale Copy on York Street.

Generally, I aim in this course to have you read and discuss original ethnographic texts rather than secondary commentary.  This is not to disparage such commentary; there is in fact an impressive and instructive literature on the history of our discipline that is both descriptive and analytical.  I will try to introduce you to some of these works as we go through the semester.  But I prefer you to concentrate on some of the canonical texts for your own reading (if indeed "canon" has any meaning for a discipline like anthropology).

At the same time, I recognize that some of you will have already encountered at least a few of the works that I have assigned.  If so, you have two choices.  The first is to read the work again.  Re-reading is unfortunately a practice that professionals seldom do until they find themselves teaching and writing; only then do they discover how frequently a second reading of a text brings a fresh perspective to the work.  Alternatively, you may substitute something you haven't read for an assignment you have already read, and I will be happy to recommend such possibilities.

 The writing requirements for the seminar will be discussed at the first sessions.  There will some short reading responses that you will prepare, but your major requirement will be the preparation of a web-based research project on a topic directly relevant to the seminar syllabus.  Links to the 1999, 2000, and 2001 projects are available at the class site, and instruction and assistance in the technology of web-page design will be offered those who need it.

Video screenings will begin at the second session. A tentative schedule follows:

9/12:      Guardians of the Flutes

9/19:      Sir Walter Baldwin Spencer (1860-1929): Fieldwork

9/26:      William Rivers (1864-1922): Everything is Relatives      

10/3:      Franz Boas (1858-1942): Shackles of Tradition

10/10:    Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942): Off the Verandah

10/17:    Trobriand Cricket

10/24:    Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard (1902-1973): Strange Beliefs

10/31:    Witchcraft Among the Azande

11/7:      The Pathans

11/14:    Margaret Mead (1901-1978): Coming of Age

12/5:      The Kawelka: Ongka's Big Moka

12/12:    A Man Called Bee