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Anthropology
ANT 1100
Fordham University at Rose Hill/ Fall 2014

Instructor: Dr. Laura Pearl Kaya
Contact: laura.pearl@gmail.com
Office Location: Dealy 408 B
Office Hours: Tuesday, 1:00-2:00
Credits/Hours: 3.000
Time: Tuesday, Friday 11:30-12:45
Location: Dealy Hall 308



We live in a shrinking international arena that demands greater sensitivity to the diversity of cultural
patterns surrounding us. In this course, students investigate human beliefs and behavior, particularly in
regard to forms of communication, marriage and the family, adaptions to the environment and to political,
economic and religious institutions in a variety of past and present cultures.

There is no textbook for this course. Readings will be available on Blackboard. If any student ever has
difficulty accessing the readings on Blackboard, s/he should email the professor immediately so that
alternative arrangements can be made.

A note about the readings:
Course readings vary somewhat in length and greatly in difficulty. This is necessary in order to expose
you to the breadth of the field of cultural anthropology in one short semester. Each reading fits into one or
more of the following categories:
1. Dense but readable summaries of a branch of anthropology.
2. Classic theoretical texts.
3. Texts that introduce you in depth to a particular culture.
In planning your time, it will be useful to check the lengths of the readings and to consider which type of
reading is assigned for a given day. In general, the anthropological classics will require the most time and
attention. These are starred below.

Course Schedule:

I. Introduction
A. September 5
What is Anthropology?
B. September 9
Culture
Reading:
1. Conrad Kottak. 2010. Culture. In Mirror for Humanity, pp. 23-45. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
2. *Bronislaw Malinowski. 1932. Method in Ethnography/III, IV. In Argonauts of the
Western Pacific, pp. 4-8. New York: E.P. Dutton.
C. September 12
Culture (continued)
Reading: *Clifford Geertz. 1973. Thick Description: Towards an Interpretive Theory of
Culture. In The Interpretation of Culture, pp. 3-30. New York: Basic Books.
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II. The Practice of Anthropology
A. September 16
Fieldwork
Reading: Napoleon Chagnon. 1983 (1968.) Doing Fieldwork among the Yanomamo.
In Yanomamo: The Fierce People, pp. 4-41. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
B. September 19
Anthropological Ethics
Reading: Borofsky, Robert What Exactly is the Yanomami Controversy, The Larger
Questions, Keeping Yanomami Perspectives in Mind From Yanomami: The Fierce
Controversy and What We Can Learn from It, pp. 11- 14, 15- 17, 61-71. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
III. Economics I: Production
A. September 23
Foraging and Horticulture
Reading: Richard Lee. 2013 (1984). Subsistence: Foraging for a Living. In The Dobe
Ju/hoansi, pp. 41-63. Belmont: Cengage.
B. September 26
Agriculture and I ndustrialism
Reading: Holly Peters-Golden. 2009. The Aztecs. In Culture Sketches, pp. 18-37.
IV. Economics II: Distribution
A. September 30
Reciprocity and Redistribution
Reading: *Marshall Sahlins. 1972. On the Sociology of Primitive Exchange. In Stone
Age Economics, pp. 185-230. Chicago: Aldine.
B. October 3
Market Economies
Reading: *Michael Taussig. 1977. The Genesis of Capitalism amongst a South
American Peasantry: Devils Labor and the Baptism of Money. Comparative Studies in
Society and History 19(2): 130-155.
V. Kinship
A. October 7
Relatedness: biological or cultural?
Reading: Thomas Trautmann, Gillian Feeley-Harnik and John Mitani. 2011. Deep
Kinship. In Deep History, Andrew Shryock and Daniel Lord Smail, eds., pp. 160-188.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
B. October 10
Kinds of relatives
Reading: Maha A.Z. Yamani. 2008. The Character of the Polygamous Relationship.
In Polygamy and Law in Contemporary Saudi Arabia, pp. 163-208. New York: Ithaca
Press.




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VI. Gender
A. October 14
Male, Female, and Gender Stratification
Reading: *Sherry Ortner. 1972. Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture? Feminist
Studies 1(2):5-31.
B. October 17
Beyond Male and Female/ Review for Midterm
Reading: Don Kulick. 1997. A Man in the House: The Boyfriends of Brazilian Travesti
Prostitutes. Social Text 52/53:133-160.

OCTOBER 21: MIDTERM EXAM

VII. Religion
A. October 24
The Concept of Religion
Reading: *Talal Asad. 2002 [1982.] The Construction of Religion as an
Anthropological Category. In A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion, Michael
Lambek, ed, pp.114-132. Massachusetts: Blackwell.
B. October 27
Religious Beliefs and Practices
Reading: Beth Conklin. 1995. Thus Are Our Bodies, Thus Was Our Custom:
Mortuary Cannibalism in an Amazonian Society. American Ethnologist 22(1):75-101.
VIII. Language
A. October 30
World Languages: Similarities and Differences
Reading: *Franz Boas. 1911. The Characteristics of Language. In Introduction to The
Handbook of American Indian Languages, Volume One, pp. 15-43. Bureau of American
Ethnology, Bulletin 40. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.
B. November 4
Sociolinguistics
Reading: Rosina Lippi-Green. 2004. Language Ideology and Language Prejudice. In
Language in the USA: Themes for the Twenty-first Century pp. 289-305. Edward
Finegan, Charles Albert Ferguson, Shirley Brice Heath, and John R. Rickford, eds.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
IX. Space
A. November 7
Culture Expressed Spatially/ Space Used Culturally
Reading: Carol Delaney. 2004. Spatial Locations. In Investigating Culture, pp.35-63.
Massachusetts: Blackwell.
X. Political Organization
A. November 11
Band, Tribe, Chiefdom, State
Reading: Ted Lewellen. 2003. Types of Preindustrial Political Systems. In Political
Anthropology pp. 15-41. Westport: Praeger.
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XI. Race, Ethnicity, Class
B. November 14
Stratification in State Societies
Reading: Katherine Newman. 2000. Working Lives. In No Shame in My Game, pp. 3-
35. New York: Knopf.
C. November 18
Race and Ethnicity
Reading: Donna Goldstein. 1999. Interracial Sex and Racial Democracy in Brazil:
Twin Concepts? American Anthropologist 101(3): 563-578.
XII. Colonization
A. November 21
European Colonialism: First Phase
Reading: Serena Nanda and Richard Warms. 2011. Power, Conquest, and a World
System. In Culture Counts, pp. 281-304. New York: Cengage.
B. November 25
European Colonialism: Second Phase
Reading: *Albert Memmi. 1965. Does the Colonial Exist? The Mythical Portrait of
the Colonized. In The Colonizer and the Colonized, pp. 3-18, 79-89. Boston: Beacon
Press.

NOVEMBER 25: TERM PAPER DUE

XIII. Globalization
A. December 2
Movement of people, goods and ideas
Reading: Ulf Hannerz. 1990. Cosmopolitans and Locals in World Culture. Theory
Culture Society 7:237-251.
B. December 5
The World System
Reading: Gerald Berthoud. 2010. Market. In Development Dictionary, Wolfgang
Sachs, ed. pp. 74-93. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
XIV. Review
A. December 9
Review for Final Exam

DECEMBER 16, 1:30 PM: FINAL EXAM









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Course Requirements
Attendance and participation are required and will affect students grades. If a student must miss
class, s/he should notify the instructor of this fact by email in advance of the class meeting and
should obtain notes from a classmate.
Make sure that you have read the assigned reading by the date listed on the schedule above.
There will be a midterm and a cumulative final exam based on readings and class
lectures/discussions.
An 8-10 page paper on an ethnography of your choice will be due on November 25. Details will
be discussed in class.

Accommodation for Students with Disabilities
Students with disabilities who require accommodations for this course must contact the Office of
Disability Services. ODS will determine which accommodations are appropriate and ensure that these are
provided.

Policy on Plagiarism and Academic Integrity
Plagiarized papers and dishonest exams will receive a grade of zero and may not be resubmitted/retaken.
A paper will be considered to be plagiarized if it contains any phrases or ideas copied from any source
without proper citation. Students who are unsure how or when to provide documentation should seek help
from the instructor.

Policy on Submission of Assignments and Missed Work
All students must attend both the Midterm and the Final Exam.
Papers are due at the beginning of class unless another arrangement has been approved in advance
by the instructor.
All papers must be submitted as hard copies before they are graded. In exceptional circumstances,
the instructor may agree to accept a paper by email in order to document that it has been
completed. Such papers must later be submitted as hard copies. If a hard copy is not submitted
by the last day of class, the paper will be marked down two letter grades.
Students must retain electronic copies of their papers.
Paper extensions will be grated on a case-by-case basis to students who request them in advance.
Otherwise, late papers will be marked down one letter grade for each week that they are late. No
written work will be accepted after the last day of class.

Evaluation
Midterm Exam 25%
Term Paper 35%
Final Exam 30%
Attendance and Class Participation 10%