Introduction to anthropology
SOCI1003
CPD-LG.01 [RHT on Sep 30, RHT on Oct 21, RHT on Nov 25]
15:30 - 17:20
Monday
1st semester
Lecture venue
Lecture time
Offer semester
SOCI1003 aims to provide students with an understanding of what anthropology is all about; it targets year-1 semester-1 students from the Faculty of Social Sciences, and there are no prerequisites to join except being curious and open-minded. We will begin by looking at anthropology’s four fields: archaeology, bio-physical, linguistic, and sociocultural anthropology. This course focuses mainly on the latter, and we will see what anthropologists do, the role of ethnographic fieldwork, the concept of culture, and some famous theories. Among the “classic” topics, we will explore environmental adaptation, economic systems, kinship, gender, race and ethnicity, political organization, rituals and rites. But we will also look at concepts such as “nation” and “globalization,” and at some specific themes, such as migration, violence and warfare.
Understand what anthropology is and the questions it asks, acquiring a broad understanding of the main anthropological fields and topics.
Build a starter toolkit to look at the world in an anthropological way, thinking anthropologically.
Critically reflect upon the major sociocultural issues, contemporary and historical, and suggest how they might be addressed.
Experience small-scale ethnographic fieldwork as a group, engaging with the community, and sharing research findings.
Tasks
Weighting
Tutorial and lecture participation
20%
Reflective paper
30%
Ethnographic Project (including a Group Presentation 20% and an Individual Report 30%)
50%
Miner, Horace. 1956. “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema,” American Anthropologist, 58(3): 503-507.
Harris, Marvin. 1977. “Murders in Eden,” in Cannibals and Kings: The Origins of Cultures, pp. 11-25. New York: Random House.
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. 2012. “Mother’s Love: Death Without Weeping,” in J. Spradley and D. McCurdy, eds., Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology, pp. 155-164.
Cronk, Lee. 2012. “Reciprocity and the Power of Giving” in J. Spradley and D. McCurdy, eds. Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology, pp. 129-134.
Harris, Marvin. 2012. “Life Without Chiefs,” in J. Spradley and D. McCurdy, eds., Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology, pp. 257-266.
Freed, Stanley A. and Ruth S. Freed. 2012. “Taraka’s Ghost,” in J. Spradley and D. McCurdy, eds., Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology, pp. 283-290.
Bestor, Theodore C. 2012. “How Sushi Went Global,” in J. Spradley and D. McCurdy, eds., Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology, pp. 323-334.
All required and recommended readings will be provided at the beginning of the semester on Moodle. I invite you to check sapiens.com, an online magazine sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation that discusses a broad range of anthropological issues without jargon; we will read a few articles from Sapiens during the course.
