|
|
Social Theory in Anthropology: Culture
& Praxis
ANTH 503 (Fall 2003) Wed 3:10-5:40, MAR
117 - Dr. Anderson
This is a course on intellectual and analytical settings
of anthropological theory. It focuses on key problems around which theory is
generated, paradigms from naturalism through the socialization of culture to
contemporary emphases on practice and identity in global settings. It
takes a hands-on approach to the principal theoretical capital of
anthropological thinking, substantive issues that have framed the subject and
central concept of culture, and methodological issues of objectivity,
causality, and representation in the study of social life, its loci, and their
comparison. The aim of this course is to develop understanding of the
dual settings of theory in social science (i.e., in ideas about the world) and
in research problems from which anthropology has developed positive
understandings, research strategies, methods and characteristic topics.
REQUIRED
· Emile Durkheim, The Rules of Sociological Method (Free Press, 1982)
· Emile Durkheim, Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (Free Press, 1995)
· Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic & The Spirit of Capitalism (Penguin, 2002)
·
Gillian Feeley-Harnik, The
Lord's Table (
·
Marshall Sahlins, Culture &
Practical Reason (
·
Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a
Theory of Practice (
·
Patrick Gaffney,
The Prophet's Pulpit (
·
Manuel Castells, The Rise of
the Network Society (Blackwells, 2000)
·
RECOMMENDED (particularly for graduate students)
·
Marcel Mauss, The Gift (
some
articles (in the syllabus, on reserve and available in the Anthropology
Department).
The books are
available in the CUA bookstore and in Mullen Library. A set of the
articles is available in the Anthropology commons room, and may not be removed.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS include preparation to discuss the required readings in
class as a seminar. Undergraduates will write three papers, and graduate
students four. The first, ca. 3000 words (8-10 pages), comparing the treatments
and problematizations of "objectivity" by Durkheim and Weber is due at MID-TERM and required of all students. A second, 3000 words
on how Durkheimian and Weberian
themes are combined in The Lord's Table,
is due Oct 17. The third, 3000 words on how Gaffney relates practice to
structure and meaning, is due Nov 14th. A fourth, 3000 words on themes in
Appadurai, Castells, and Ong, is due Dec 14. Undergraduates may omit one of the second, third or fourth
papers. Graduate students may substitute for one of those a critical
research paper on a topic that is covered in the course. There is no final
exam.
FORMAT: The course falls into successive
parts on
(1) idioms of scientific method and ideas about society
and culture which culminate in social naturalism
(2) the sociological realism of Emile Durkheim
and Max Weber and applications by anthropologists that develop an historical
and social science of culture, and contemporary debate about
(3) relations of action and value that join culture and
praxis and
(4) problems of identity and power in a globalizing world.
In each, we look
first at of three broad themes.
(1) What have anthropologists meant by ‘culture’? What have they found with it? What does it equip us to see, and how does it
shape comprehensions of the world. We will
look at the career of this concept as a series of moments or formulations that
link social theory on which anthropological conceptions of culture and at
changing databases of anthropological study whose properties theories about culture
generalize.
(2) Comparative methods and the search for holistic frames
of study?
(3) Relations of culture and practice such as whether
cultural is a natural phenomenon or a mental one, has objective features,
organizes subjectivity, is derived from practical activity or structures it,
and how it may be operationally understood in relation
to other perspectives on meaning in social action.
S Y L L A B U S
* indicates required reading
Conceptualizing
Humankind's "Second Nature"
(Aug 29) Settings & characteristics of anthropological theory.
*Clifford Geertz, "The Impact of the
Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man," in The Interpretation of
Cultures (1973)
*Marshall
Sahlins, Culture & Practical Reason, Ch. 1
Wolf Lepines, Between
Literature & Science (1988)
Louis Dumont, From Mandeville to Marx (1977).
(Sep 5) Sciences of history & the romance of naturalism.
*George Stocking, "Franz Boas & the culture concept."
Amer. Anth. 68(1966)
*Marshall Sahlins, Culture & Practical Reason,
Ch. 2
Robert Beider,
Science Encounters the American Indian, 1820-1880 (1986)
J.W. Burrow, Evolution & Society: Victorian Social Thought (1966)
L.H. Morgan, Ancient Society (1877)
Sir Henry Maine, Ancient Law (1861)
Richard Slobodin, W.H.R. Rivers (1977)
Emile Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society
(1893)
Richard Rorty, Philosophy & the Mirror of Nature
(1979).
(Sep 12) Sociological realism: scientific methodology & modernism
*Durkheim, The Rules
of Sociological Method (1938)
*Durkheim, Elementary Forms of the Religious Life
Intro & Book I. J.S. Mill,
"Logic & the methodology of social science," v. 4 of A System of
Logic (1875)
Steven Lukes, Emile Durkheim.
(1976).
(Sep 19) Sociological thought &
action
*Durkheim, Elementary Forms of the Religious
Life (1915), Books II & III.
Victor Turner, The
Rodney Needham, Structure & Sentiment
(1962)
(Sep 26) The data of
culture: history, reflexivity & uncertainty
*Weber, "Objectivity in the social sciences & social
policy."
*Weber, The Protestant Ethic & the Spirit
of Capitalism, Pt. I
J.E.T. Eldridge, ed. Max Weber: The Interpretation of Social Reality (1971),
Introduction.
(Oct 3) Multiplicities of consciousness & purpose in complex societies.
*Weber, The Protestant Ethic & the Spirit
of Capitalism (1958), Pt. II.
Benjamin Nelson, "Weber's Protestant
Ethic: its origins, wanderings and forseeable
futures." In Beyond the Classics: Essays in the Scientific Study of
Religion, G.Y. Glock & P.E. Hammond, eds. (1973)
Robert Bellah, Tokugawa Religion (1985)
James Peacock & Ruel
Tyson, Pilgrims of Paradox (Washington, 1990)
Edward Sapir,
"Culture, Genuine & Spurious," American Journal of Sociology
29(1924) and "Symbolism," Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences v. 14,
(1934); both reprinted in Selected Writings of Edward Sapir,
D.G. Mandelbaum, ed. (1963)
MID-TERM - FIRST
PAPER DUE
Contemporary Anthropologies: Social
action from meaning & structure, to practice & diversity
(Oct 10) The authority of symbols: structuralism raw and cooked
*Feeley-Harnik, The Lord's
Table (1995)
*T.O. Beidelman,
"Swazi Royal Ritual,"
Marcel Mauss, The Gift (1966)
T.O. Beidelman,
"The moral imagination of the Kaguru," Ameican. Ethnologist 8(1980)
Claude Levi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology (1963), Chs. 2-3
(Oct 17) The autonomy of culture: meaning and the primacy of the local
*Sahlins, Culture
& Practical Reason (1976), remainder
J.W. Anderson, "Social Structure and the
Veil," Anthropos
(1982)
Malcolm Crick, Explorations in Language & Meaning (1976)
Michael Herzfeld, The Poetics of Manhood: Contest & Identity in a Cretan Mountain
Village (1985)
(Oct 24) Retheorizing
meaning and action.
*Bourdieu, Outline
of a Theory of Practice (1977), Chs. 1-2
Anthony Giddens, Central Problems in Social Theory (1979),
Ch. 1
Edward LiPuma,
"The Concept of Culture in a Theory of Practice." Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives, ed. Craig
Calhoun (
Pierre Bourdieu,
(Oct 31) In Practice: New
objects for anthropology.
*Bourdieu, Outline
of a Theory of Practice (1977), Chs. 2-4;
Pierre Bourdieu &
Jean-Claude Passeron, Reproduction: In Education, Society and Culture. Richard
Nice, trans. (1977)
George Marcus & Michael Fischer, Anthropology
as Cultural Critique (1986)
Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction
(1990)
Craig Calhoun, "Habitus,
Field, and Capital: The Question of Historical Specificity." Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives, ed. Craig Calhoun (
(Nov 7) Praxis Theory: symbolic power & domination, the theory of social fields.
*Parts II & III Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production (1993)
*Patrick Gaffney, The Prophet's Puplit
(1994), Chs. 1-5)
Pierre Bourdieu, Language
& Symbolic Power (1991)
(Nov 14) Culture as Practice in a Postmodern World: identity and problematic boundaries.
* Patrick Gaffney, The Prophet's
Pulpit (1994), Chs. 6-11
Jean-François Lyotard,
The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge
(Minnesota, 1984)
Clifford Geertz, “Slametan,
A Javanese funeral that failed,” American
Anthropologist (1957)
“Thick Description” In The Interpretation of Cultures (1973)
Arjun Appadurai,
“Disjunction and difference in the global cultural economy” Public Culture (1990).
(Nov 21)
Thanksgiving vacation begins, NO CLASS
(Nov 28) Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Assn. NO CLASS
(Dec 5) After postmodernism: networked societies & transnational cultures.
*Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society (Blackwells,
1996)
Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at
Large (Chicago 1996)
Aigwa Ong, Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality (California 1999)
Mike
Featherstone, ed. Global Culture:
Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity (Sage 1990) - see chapters
by Wallerstein,
Final Paper due no later than Fri., Dec
14
(REV: June 2003)