ANTH 104 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology Spring 2006 M/Th 9:50-11:00, PNE 139 Gregory Ruf Visiting Associate Professor PNE 346 Office Hours: M/Th 11:00-1:00 (and by appointment) Email: gruf@wellesley.edu Course Description: This course offers a comparative approach to the concept of culture and an analysis of how culture structures the worlds in which we live. It examines human societies from their beginnings to the postindustrial age, and considers the development of various forms of social organization and their significance for family and kinship, economics, politics, and religion. Required Readings: The following books have been ordered through the Wellesley College bookstore:

• Richard Klein and Blake Edgar, 2002, The Dawn of Human Culture, NY: John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 0-471-25252-2 (cloth) [$28] [GN281 .K548 2002] (also available in E-Book format)

• Richard Lee, 2002, The Dobe Ju/’Hoansi, 3rd ed., Ontario: Wadsworth, ISBN 0-15-506333-2 (pbk) [$26] [DT1058.K86 L44 2003]

• Sidney Mintz, 1985, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History, NY: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-009233-1 [$13.95] [GT2869 .M56 1985]

• Yolanda Murphy & Robert Murphy, 2004, Women of the Forest, NY: Columbia University Press, ISBN 0-231-13233-6 (pbk) [$25] [F2520.1.M8 M83 1985]

• Margery Wolf, 1960, The House of Lim: A Study of a Chinese Farm Family. Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-394973-7 (pbk) [$16] [HQ668.95 .W63]

• Kirk Endicott and Robert Welsch (eds.), 2004, Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Anthropology, 3rd edition, Dubuque, Iowa: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-310202-4 (pbk) [$25]

Evaluation and Grading: Class sessions will entail a lecture component combined with discussion of assigned readings. Regular attendance is expected of all participants; absences will be excused (or extensions granted) only in special circumstance, judged in conformity with College practice. Assigned readings must be completed prior to class-time, and each student should prepare notes and questions for discussion. Course grades will be based on the following criteria:

• Participation = 15% • 3 Short Papers (~5-7 pages each) = 20% each • a series of in-class Quizzes = 25%

Details regarding assessment exercises will be announced at appropriate junctures of the course. Please Note: Students with disabilities who are taking this course and who need disability-related accommodations are encouraged to work with Barbara Boger, the Director of Programs of the Pforzheimer Learning and Teaching Center (if you have learning or attention disabilities), and Jim Wice, the Director of Disability Services (if you have a physical disability or are uncertain) to arrange these accommodations. Their offices are located in the Pforzheimer Learning and Teaching Center in Clapp Library.

Recommended Resources: This course does not employ a formal introductory ‘textbook,’ although students are encouraged to consult such texts on their own initiative throughout the semester as a supplement to lectures and discussion. Moreover, there are now a large number of anthropologically-related websites accessible on the internet. NB: Not all sites are created equal; some contain accurate data, but others may not; browse sensibly. Here are a few suggested starting places for those looking to learn more: • The American Anthropological Association (AAA) offers a number of useful links to web-based

resources: http://www.aaanet.org/resinet.htm • McGraw-Hill publishers maintains an on-line learning center based on Conrad Kottack’s

introductory textbook, Cultural Anthropology: http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072500506/student_view0/

• The University of Manitoba offers an web-based tutorial on kinship systems:

http://www.umanitoba.ca/anthropology/kintitle.html • Dennis O’Neil of Palomar College offers several helpful on-line tutorials for students of

anthropology: http://anthro.palomar.edu/tutorials/. For his suggested anthropology links, see: http://www.palomar.edu/anthropology/#Anthropology%20Web%20Links

• Human Evolution and Archaeology http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/index.html • Arizona State University’s Institute for Human Origins http://www.becominghuman.org/ • Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Natural History website on Human Origins

http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ • University of California at Berkeley’s Museum of Paleontology http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/ • Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology

http://www.peabody.harvard.edu/ • Prehistoric (including Paleolithic and Neolithic) Art:

http://witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTHprehistoric.html • Alan Petersen’s Stone Age art images:

http://www.coco.cc.az.us/apetersen/_ART201/stoneage.htm • National Geographic’s Hominid Family Photo Album:

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/features/outpost/ax/metacontent_fs.html?interpret_f1_fs

Course Outline PART I: Culture and Evolution

Week 1

Monday, Jan. 30 – Introducing Anthropology: The Ethnographic Looking-Glass Read: • Horace Minor, 1956, “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema,” American Anthropologist 58:3

(http://www.msu.edu/~jdowell/miner.html) Thursday, Feb. 2 – What Makes Us Human? Read: • Klein and Edgar, “Dawn at Twilight Cave” & “Nature or Nurture Before the Dawn” (in The

Dawn of Human Culture), pp. 11-27 & 257-277 • Endicott & Welsch, Issue 9 (Science) Recommended: • Richard Leakey, 1994, “The Language of Art,” in The Origin of Humankind, NY: Basic Books,

pp. 101-118. • Chauvet Pont-D’Arc (France): http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/chauvet/en/

Week 2 Monday, Feb. 6 – Evolutionary Theory Read: • Ian Tattersall, 1998, “Evolution: For What?” in Becoming Human: Evolution and Human

Uniqueness, NY: Harcourt Brace, pp. 78-108. • Endicott & Welsch, Issue 1 (Race) Recommended: • Frans de Waal, 1996, “Darwinian Dilemmas,” in Good Natured: The Origins of Right and

Wrong in Humans and Other Animals, Cambridge: Harvard, pp. 6-24. Thursday, Feb. 9 – Early Human Origins Read: • Klein and Edgar, “Bipedal Apes” and “The World’s Oldest Whodunit” (in The Dawn), pp. 29-

61 and 63-89. • Endicott & Welsch, Issue 2 (Violence) Recommended: • Ian Tattersall, 1998, “Starting Out” in Becoming Human, op cit., pp. 109-134. • Richard Leakey, 1994, “The First Humans,” in The Origin of Humankind, op cit., pp. 1-20. • Alan Walker & Pat Shipman, 1997, Wisdom of the Bones, Vintage.

Week 3 Monday, Feb 13 – Dispersal & Proliferation Read: • Klein and Edgar, “The First True Humans” and “Humanity Branches Out” and “Neanderthals

Out on a Limb” (in The Dawn), pp. 91-131, 133-167, and 169-215. • Morwood, M.J., et al, “Archaeology and age of a new hominin from Flores in eastern

Indonesia,” Nature 431 (Oct 2004):1087-91 [JSTOR] • Endicott & Welsch, Issue 3 (Neandertals) Recommended: • Ian Tattersall, 1998, “Becoming Human” in Becoming Human, op cit., pp. 135-187. • Richard Leakey, 1994, “A Crowded Family” and “A Different Kind of Human,” in The Origin of

Humankind, op cit., pp. 21-41 and 42-58. • M. Ingman, et al., 2000, “Mitochondrial Genome Variation and the Origin of Modern

Humans,” Nature 408:708-713 [JSTOR]

• Lindell Bromham et al., 2003, “Mitochondrial Steve: Paternal Inheritance of Mitochondria in Humans,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 18(1):2-4 [JSTOR]

• Flores Man Special -- http://www.nature.com/news/specials/flores/index.html • National Geographic website on Flores finds:

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0504/feature1/index.html Thursday, Feb 16 – Anatomy, Language, & Consciousness Read: • Klein and Edgar, “Body Before Behavior” (in The Dawn), pp. 217-255. • Ian Tattersall, 1998, “Being Human,” in Becoming Human, op cit., pp. 188-235. • Endicott & Welsch, Issue 8 (Cognition) Recommended: • Richard Leakey, 1994, “The Art of Language” and “The Origin of Mind,” in The Origin of

Humankind, op cit., pp. 119-157. • Alison Jolly, 1999, Lucy’s Legacy: Sex and Intelligence in Human Evolution, Harvard. • Daniel Dennett, 1991, Consciousness Explained, Boston: Little, Brown.

Week 4 Monday, Feb 20 – No Classes – Presidents’ Day Thursday, Feb 23 – Culture, ‘Human Nature,’ & Primate Behavior Read: • Frans de Waal, 1996, “Getting Along,” in Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in

Humans and Other Animals, Cambridge: Harvard, pp. 163-200. • Endicott & Welsch, Issue 7 (Apes) Recommended: • Ian Tattersall, 1998, “The Brain and Intelligence: Humans and Apes,” in Becoming Human,

op cit., pp. 30-77. • Frans de Waal (ed.), 2001, Tree of Origin: What Primate Behavior can tell us about Human

Social Evolution, Harvard. • Frans de Waal, 2001, The Ape and the Sushi Master, NY: Basic Books

PART II: Culture and Society Week 5

Monday, Feb 27 – Human Communities of the Late Pleistocene -- Paper 1 DUE Read: • Mithen, 2004, After the Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000-5000 BC, Cambridge: Harvard,

Chs. 2 (pp. 8-16); 3-6 (pp. 20-54); 25 (pp. 229-235); 37 (pp. 337-347) • Endicott & Welsch, Issue 4 (New World) Recommended: • Marshall Sahlins, “The Original Affluent Society,” in Stone Age Economics, REF (online version

available at http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=cache:Xf9oEmP6E34J:puredebt.com/Sahlins.pdf+original+affluent+society

Thursday, Mar 2 – Neolithic Revolutions Read: • Mithen, After the Ice, Chs. 7-9 (pp. 56-79); 30 (pp. 274-285); 39 (pp. 359-369); 51-52 (pp.

490-503) • Kent Flannery, 1965, “The Ecology of Early Food Production in Mesopotamia,” Science

147:1247-1256 (reprinted in A. Vayda (ed.), 1969, Environment & Cultural Behavior: Ecological Studies in Cultural Anthropology, Garden City: Natural History Press, pp. 283-307 [Clapp GF51 .V35])

• Endicott & Welsch, Issue 6 (Cannibalism)

Recommended: • Melinda Zeder, 1994, “After the Revolution: Post-Neolithic Subsistence in Northern

Mesopotamia,” American Anthropologist 96(1):97-126 [JSTOR]

Week 6 Monday, Mar 6 – Field Orientations & Paradigmatic Perspectives Read: • Lee, Chs. 1-2 • Murphy & Murphy, Ch. 3 • Endicott & Welsch, Issue 10 (Samoa) Thursday, Mar 9 -- Ecology & Subsistence Read: • Lee, Chs. 3-4 • Murphy & Murphy, Chs. 1-2 • Wolf, Chs. 1-2 • Endicott & Welsch, Issue 13 (San)

Week 7 Monday, Mar 13 – Exchange & Reciprocity Read: • Susan Kent, 1993, “Sharing in an Egalitarian Kalahari Community,” Man 78(3):479-514

[JSTOR] • Lee, Appendix A: “Eating Christmas in the Kalahari” (orig. Natural History December 1969

[JSTOR]) Recommended: • Yunxiang Yan, 1996, The Flow of Gifts: Reciprocity & Social Networks in a Chinese Village,

Stanford. • Janet Carsten, 1997, The Heat of the Hearth: The Process of Kinship in a Malay Fishing

Community, Oxford Thursday, Mar 16 -- Film: < N!ai – Story of a !Kung Woman > Recommended: • Marjorie Shoshtak, 2000 [1981], Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman, Harvard • Marjorie Shoshtak, 2000, Return to Nisa, Harvard

* SPRING BREAK * [Sat 3/18 thru Sun 3/26]

Week 8 Monday, Mar 27 – Kinship & Descent Read: • Lee, Ch. 5 • Murphy & Murphy, Ch. 4 • Endicott & Welsch, Issue 12 (Adoption) Thursday, Mar 30 – Residency & Domestic Groups Read: • Murphy & Murphy, Ch. 6 • Wolf, Chs. 3-4 Recommended: • Robert Murphy, 1956, “Matrilocality and Patrilineality in Mundurucu Society,” American

Anthropologist 3:414-434 [JSTOR]

Week 9 Monday, Apr 3 -- Marriage & Affinity I Read: • Lee, Ch. 6 • Murphy & Murphy, Ch. 7 Thursday, Apr 6 – Marriage & Affinity II Read: • Wolf, Chs. 6-10 Recommended: • Rubie Watson, 1981, “Class Differences and Affinal Relations in South China,” Man (ns)

16(4):593-614 [JSTOR] • Linda Stone and Caroline James, 1995, "Dowry, Bride-Burning, and Female Power in India,"

Women’s Studies International Forum 18(2):125-43 [JSTOR]

Week 10 Monday, Apr 10 – Family, Gender, & Personhood Read: • Lee, Ch. 7 • Murphy & Murphy, Ch. 9 • Wolf, Chs. 11-12 Recommended: • Rubie Watson, 1986, “The Named and the Nameless: Gender and Person in Chinese Society,”

American Ethnologist 13(4):619-631 [JSTOR] • David Gilmore, 1987, “Machismo,” in Aggression and Community: Paradoxes of Andalusian

Culture, New Haven: Yale, pp. 126-153 [HN590.A5 G55 1987] • Thomas Gregor, 1987, Anxious Pleasures: The Sexual Lives of an Amazonian People, Chicago

[F2520.1.M44 G725 1985] Thursday, Apr 13 -- Film: < Small Happiness >

Week 11 Monday, Apr 17 -- NO CLASSES PATRIOTS DAY Tuesday, Apr 18 -- MONDAY SCHEDULE -- Political Organization Read: • Lee, Ch. 8 • Marshal Sahlins, 1963, “Poor Man, Rich Man, Big Man, Chief: Political Types in Melanesia and

Polynesia,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 5(3):285-303 [JSTOR] • Endicott & Welsch, Issue 5 (Matriarchy) Recommended: • Richard Lee, 1982, “Politics, Sexual and non-Sexual, in an Egalitarian Society,” in Politics and

History in Band Societies, Cambridge, pp. 37-59 [ILL] • Maria Lepowsky, 1990, “Gender in an Egalitarian Society: A Case Study from the Coral Sea,”

in P. R. Sanday and R. G. Goodenough (eds.), Beyond the Second Sex, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, pp. 171-223 [GN479.7 .B48 1990]

Thursday, Apr 20 – Film: < The Feast &/or The Ax Fight > – Paper 2 DUE Recommended: • Napoleon Chagnon, 1997, Yanomamö, 5th Edition, Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace • There are numerous websites with information pertaining to the Yanomami of lowland South

America. For a relevant site with an anthropological tutorial case-study, visit http://www.umanitoba.ca/anthropology/tutor/case_studies/yanomamo/; See also ‘Understanding the Ax Fight’ http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/projects/axfight/

Week 12

Monday, Apr 24 – Symbolism, Ritual, & Myth Read: • Murphy & Murphy, Ch. 5 • Kertzer, David, 1988, “Virtues of Ambiguity,” in Ritual, Politics, and Power, New Haven: Yale,

pp. 57-76 [GN492.3 .K47 1988] • Alan Dundes, 1978, “Into the Endzone for a Touchdown: A Psychoanalytic Consideration of

American Football,” Western Folklore 37(2):75-88 [JSTOR] Recommended: • Turner, Victor, 1967, “Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites of Passage,” and

“Symbols in Ndembu Ritual,” in Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual, Cornell [DT963.42 .T8]

Thursday, Apr 27 – Religion and Magic Read: • Lee, Chs. 9 • Endicott & Welsch, Issue 14 (Illness) • George Gmelch, “Baseball Magic” http://www.dushkin.com/text-data/articles/27128/body.pdf

Week 13 Monday, May 1 -- Development, Global Capitalism, and Environmental Change Read: • Lee, Chs. 10-12 • Murphy & Murphy, Ch. 8 • Paul Farmer, 2004, Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the

Poor, California, Ch.1 (“On Suffering and Structural Violence: Social and Economic Rights in the Global Era”): http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9875/9875.ch01.html

Recommended: • Brosius, Peter, 1997, “Endangered People, Endangered Forests: Environmentalist

Representations of Local Knowledge,” Human Ecology 25(1):47-69 [JSTOR] • S. Brian Burkhalter & Robert Murphy, 1989, “Tappers and Sappers: Rubber, Gold and Money

among the Mundurucu,” American Ethnologist 16(1):100-116 [JSTOR] Thursday, May 4 -- Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism Read: • Lee Ch. 13 • Endicott & Welsch, Issues 11 (Tradition) and 15 (Ethnic Conflict) • Mintz, Sweetness & Power, Intro + Chs. 1-2 [GT2869 .M56 1985]

Week 14 Monday, May 8 -- Concluding Discussion: Modern World System Read: • Mintz, Sweetness & Power, Chs. 3-5 • Endicott & Welsch, Issues 16-18 (Ethics) Paper 3 DUE – Wednesday, 10 May 2005