Course Syllabus


SOC 281

SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Fall 2018

Instructor:        Ayfer Bartu Candan         

Email:                ayfer.bartu@boun.edu.tr
Class Time:     Tue 15:00-16:00; Wed. 14:00-16:00
Office Hrs:      Thu. 11:00-13:00

 

Course Description

This course aims to introduce the central issues and concepts in social/cultural anthropology. While discussing the current debates in the field, the students will be exposed to a variety of ways of life and different ways of understanding this diversity. The major goal of the course is to provide students the tools to think critically about the contemporary social and cultural issues.

Course Requirements and Grading
Course requirements include attendance and class participation, one midterm, two exercises, and a final exam. Students are expected to attend the class regularly. The lectures are complementary to the assigned readings. Since the lectures may contain information that is not covered in the readings, class attendance is crucial in following the course material.

Students are expected to attend the class on time and having read the material for that week. Exams will be constituted of essay questions. The final exam will be cumulative. No make-up exams will be given unless an unambiguous medical report is presented. The final grade for the course will be distributed as follows:

Midterm Exam: 30%
Exercise I: 15%
Exercise II: 15%
Final Exam: 40%

FILM SCREENINGS: In order to save class time for lectures and discussions, film screenings will be through vimeo. The films will be put on vimeo during the dates indicated on the syllabus. For copyright purposes, the films will be available on vimeo on those days ONLY!. You will be given a password to have access to them. Please make sure that you follow the dates of the films through the syllabus.

Note: Please make sure that you are familiar with the University Academic Regulations and the Regulations for Student Disciplinary Matters. Please make sure that your cellular phones are off when you come to class!!!

Course Outline

Sept. 25-26 Introduction: Anthropology as a Field of Study
Malinowski, B. (1961) (Orig. 1922) “Introduction: The Subject, Method, and
Scope of this Inquiry” From Argonauts of the Western Pacific. Waveland Press, Inc.

(Film Screening: A World On Display (Eric Breitbart, 1994, 53 min.)

Oct. 2-3 Doing Anthropology: Fieldwork and Theories
Scheper-Hughes, N. (1992) Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday
Life in Brazil. The University of California Press. Pp. 1-30 (Introduction: Tropical

Sadness)


Farmer, P. (2005) “On Suffering and Structural Violence: Social and Economic Rights in the Global Era” In Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor. University of California Press.

Oct. 9-10 Patterns of Production, Distribution, and Consumption: Economic Systems I
Lee, R. B. (orig. 1994) (2000) “The Hunters: Scarce Resources in the Kalahari” In J. Spradley and D. W. McCurdy (eds.) Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology. Tenth Edition. Allyn and Bacon.

Lappe, F. M. and J. Collins (1977) “Why Can’t People Feed Themselves?” From Food First:  
Beyond the Myth of Scarcity. Pp. 99-111 Institute for Food and Development.

Scheper-Hughes, N. (1992) Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday
Life in Brazil. The University of California Press. Pp. 31-64 (O Nordeste: Sweetness and
Death)

Film Screening Darwin’s Nightmare (2004) TBC

Oct. 16-17 Patterns of Production, Distribution, and Consumption: Economic Systems II
Malinowski, B. (orig. 1922) “The Essentials of Kula” In R. J. McGee and R. L. Warms (ed.) Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History. Mayfield Publishing Company.

Fuentes, A. and B. Ehrenreich (orig. 1983) (2000) “Women in the Global Factory” In J. Spradley and D. W. McCurdy (eds.) Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology. Tenth Edition. Allyn and Bacon. 

Bourgois, P. (orig. 1995) (2000) “Workaday World-Crack Economy” In J. Spradley and D. W. McCurdy (eds.) Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology. Tenth Edition. Allyn and Bacon.

Film Screening: Benim Çocuğum/My Child (Can Candan, 2013, 82 min.)

Oct. 23-24 Family, Kinship and Gender I
Peacock, N. (1991) “Rethinking the Sexual Division of Labor: Reproduction and Women’s Work Among the Efe” In M. di Leonardo (ed.) Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge: Feminist Anthropology in the Postmodern Era. University of California Press.

Scheper-Hughes, N. (1992) Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday
Life in Brazil. The University of California Press. Pp. 340-399 ((M)Other Love: Culture, Scarcity, and Maternal Thinking)

Oct. 30-31 Family, Kinship and Gender II
Das, V. (1995) “National Honor and Practical Kinship: Unwanted Women and Children” In F. D. Ginsburg and R. Rapp (eds.) Conceiving the New World Order: The Global Politics of Reproduction. University of California Press.
EXERCISE I (LIFE HISTORY) DUE THIS WEEK

Nov. 6-7 REVIEW and MIDTERM

Film Screening: Iki Dil Bir Bavul/On the Way to School (Orhan Eskiköy, Özgür Doğan, 2008, 81 min.)

Nov. 13-14 Language and Culture
Ochs, E. and B. B. Schieffelin (2001) “Language Acquisition and Socialization: Three Developmental Stories and Their Implications” In A. Duranti (ed.) Linguistic Anthropology: A Reader. Blackwell Publishers.

Gal, S. (1991) “Between Speech and Silence: The Problematics of Research on Language and Gender” In M. di Leonardo (ed.) Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge: Feminist Anthropology in the Postmodern Era.  University of California Press.

Nov. 20  No Class due to Official Engagement
Nov. 21 Religion I
Selections from B. Malinowski Magic, Science and Religion

Nov. 27-28 Religion II
Readings TBA

Dec. 4-5 Power and Politics
Stoler, A. (1991) Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Gender, Race, and Morality in Colonial Asia. In M. Di Leonardo (ed.) Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge: Feminist Anthropology in the Postmodern Era. University of California Press.

Ferguson, J. “Governing Extraction: New Spatilizations of Order and Disorder in Neoliberal Africa” In Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order. Duke University Press.

Fuller, M. (1992) “Building Power: Italian Architecture and Urbanism in Libya and Ethiopia” In N. AlSayyad (ed.) Forms of Dominance: On the Architecture of Urbanism of the Colonial Enterprise. Avebury.

Film Screening: Duvarlar/Mauern/Walls (Can Candan, 2000, 83 min.)

Dec. 11-12 Anthropology of Cities I
Bozdoğan, S. (2001) “Architecture of Revolution” From Modernism and Nation Building: Turkish Architectural Culture in the Early Republic. University of Washington Press.

Kolluoğlu-Kırlı, B. (2002) The Play of Memory, Counter-Memory: Building Izmir on Smyrna’s Ashes. New Perspectives on Turkey, 26: 1-28.

Dec. 18-19 Anthropology of Cities II
Tugal, C. (2009) The Urban Dynamism of Islamic Hegemony: Absorbing Squatter Creativity in Istanbul Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 29 (3): 423-437.

Bartu-Candan, A. and Biray Kolluoğlu (2008) Emerging Spaces of Neoliberalism: A Gated Town and a Public Housing Project in Istanbul. New Perspectives on Turkey, no. 39: 5-46.

Kuyucu, T. (2014). Law, property and ambiguity: the uses and abuses of legal ambiguity in remaking Istanbul's informal settlements. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research38(2), 609-627.

EXERCISE II (NEWS ANALYSIS) DUE THIS WEEK



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