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Seminar Logistics

This is a seminar that focuses on the close reading of a small set of monographs. We won't be doing much secondary reading about the monographs, although I'll suggest the several contexts that surround each text and some of the many lines of further inquiry you could peruse. But I'd prefer to stay fairly close to the texts themselves. Attentive and timely reading is critical.

This is also a seminar that will depend on our collective deliberations about these texts. I'll have something to say about each, but I'd prefer a format that maximizes discussion and minimizes my lecturing. Thus the seminar demands your commitment to participate actively in sustaining an intellectual conversation. I'm not going to try to bully you into talking; I'm simply going to expect an effort by everyone to contribute.

The texts are available for purchase at the Yale bookstore. Several that are out of print are available online as pdf files (although for copyright reasons, you must access the web site through Yale servers).

As I indicated on the home page, this seminar is primarily for graduate students and advanced undergraduate majors in sociocultural anthropology. It is not for those without previous formal background in the subject. It is also not open to auditors.

As we discuss in class, our reading and discussion of these texts will be organized around an evaluation of eight points of analysis. I look forward to your suggestions and refinements of these points as we advance in the semester, but they can hopefully serve as a continuing framework for comparison. In advance of each session, students will prepare a brief written comment on one of these features (assigned so that all eight are covered each week). These should be posted before class time at the course forum on the Yale classes V-2 server.

Beyond this, your writing for the seminar may take one of two forms:

• As I will express in seminar, I have strong feelings about the need for almost all of us professional scholars to develop regular writing routines (to be "constant" writers rather than "binge" writers)--and about our neglect in promoting, training, and rewarding this in our teaching (both at the undergraduate and doctoral levels). Thus, I am offering you the opportunity to sign a Writing Contract with me, the expectations of which are detailed in the contract itself. I do hope I can persuade as many of you as possible to try this. [See, for instance, Tara Gray on this issue.]
• If you prefer not to sign the Writing Contract (or if the writing routine proves to be unsustainable), your alternative is to prepare a 2500-word essay that addresses one, some, or all of the summary seminar issues in terms of the ten texts that we are taking up during the term. This is due on Wednesday, December 14. I strongly encourage you to submit a rough draft for comment, and I will respond to any such drafts if received before December 7.

In addition, I will expect at least one formal oral presentation from each of you, in a schedule and format to be determined. These presentations will be digitally recorded and I will go over them with you afterwards. The model for this is the presentation requirement I have previously used in Anthropology 531. I will post streaming versions of these presentations here.