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for a past academic year. Please see the current academic year for up to date information.
| Unit name |
Reading Ethnographic Texts |
| Unit code |
ANTH30004 |
| Credit points |
10 |
| Level of study |
H/6
|
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12)
|
| Unit director |
Dr. Bowie |
| Open unit status |
Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department |
Department of Anthropology and Archaeology |
| Faculty |
Faculty of Arts |
Description including Unit Aims
This unit is an anthropology reading seminar in which students read and discuss in depth an anthropological or ethnographic text each week. The texts are chosen to cover a wide variety of genres, regional interests, theoretical positions and periods. Students will be guided through various trends and fashions in ethnographic writing and will be expected to understand, interpret, and identify certain schools, positions and styles of ethnographic and anthropological writing. They will also discuss what they think works as anthropological and ethnographic writing and why. Students will take it in turns to prepare and present the texts and to lead discussion on them.
Aims:
- To enable students to appreciate a variety of anthropological writings, with an ability to recognise certain fashions, styles, debates and authorial intentions within academic writing.
- To help students gain confidence in discussing written works and in interpreting their content and purpose.
- To give students practice in presenting someone elses work in a coherent, balanced manner, and to lead a focused discussion on it.
Intended Learning Outcomes
- Students will be able to appreciate that amid the enormous variety of ethnographic and anthropological writings there are certain trends, styles, regional variations and genres.
- Students will gain confidence in discussing their views of other peoples work, and to make an assessment as to what is successful, within given parameters, and what is not.
- Students will gain experience in oral and written presentation, and in working with others to present a piece of work and to lead a discussion.
Teaching Information
Weekly Seminar presentations.
Assessment Information
Summative:
- One Essay 2500 words (50%)
- One 15 minute Seminar presentation (25%).
- One Essay write-up of the Seminar presentation 2250 words (25%)
Reading and References
The texts will include journal articles, book chapters and monographs. An indicative list might include the following:
- Abu-Lughod, L. (1982), Veiled Sentiments, Berkely: Univ. of California Press.
- Olivier-de-Sardan (1992), Occultism and the Ethnographic I . Critique of Anthropology, 12:1, 5-25.
- Rosaldo, R. (1993), Death and a Headhunters Rage in Culture and Truth, Beacon Press, 1-21.
- Turner, E. (1994) A visible spirit form in Zambia in D.E. Young and J-G. Goulet (eds.) Being Changed, Broadview Press.
- Vitebsky, P. (1995), From cosmology to environmentalism in R. Fardon (ed.) Counterworks, Routledge, pp.182-203.
