Readings

Required Book

[DH] = Buy at Amazon Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. Routledge, 1979. ISBN: 9780415039499.

SES # TOPICS READINGS
1 Introduction to the class  
2 Does culture matter?

Buy at Amazon Bourgois, Philippe. "Understanding Inner-City Poverty: Resistance and Self-Destruction under U.S. Apartheid." In Exotic No More: Anthropology on Front Lines. Edited by Jeremy McClancy. The University of Chicago Press, 2002, pp. 15–32. ISBN: 9780226500133.

Buy at Amazon Lutz, Catherine A., and Jane L. Collins. "A World Brightly Different: Photographic Conventions 1950–1986." In Reading National Geographic. University Of Chicago Press, 1993, pp. 87–117. ISBN: 9780226497242.

Class Handouts

Three Levels of Culture (PDF)

Sir Edward B. Tylor's Definition of Culture (PDF)

3 What is culture?

Buy at Amazon Geertz, Clifford. "The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man." In The Interpretation of Cultures. Basic Books, 1973, pp. 33–54. ISBN: 9780465034253. [Preview with Google Books]

Bohannan, Laura. "Shakespeare in the Bush." Natural History 75 (1966): 28–33.

Rubin, Caroline. "Writing Against MIT Culture." (PDF) 21A.112 final paper, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2008.

4 Thinking anthropologically

Buy at Amazon Evans-Pritchard, E. E. "The Notion of Witchcraft Explains Unfortunate Events." In Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande. Oxford University Press, 1976, pp. 18–32. ISBN: 9780198740292.

Buy at Amazon Rosaldo, Renato. "Border Crossings." In Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis. Beacon Press, 1993, pp. 196–217. ISBN: 9780807046234.

5 Fieldwork now and then

Buy at Amazon Malinowski, Bronislaw. "Introduction: The Subject, Method and Scope of Inquiry." In Argonauts of the Western Pacific. Waveland Press Inc, 1984, pp. 1–25. ISBN: 9780881330847.

Buy at Amazon Clifford, James. "Spatial Practices: Fieldwork, Travel, and the Disciplining of Anthropology." In Anthropological Locations: Boundaries and Grounds of a Field Science. Edited by Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson. University of California Press, 1997, pp. 185–222. ISBN: 9780520206809. [Preview with Google Books]

6 Place and space in anthropological field methods

Buy at Amazon Bestor, Theodore. "Introduction and Chapter One." In Neighborhood Tokyo. Stanford University Press, 1989, pp. 1–46. ISBN: 9780804714396. [Preview with Google Books]

Buy at Amazon Desjarlais, Robert R. "Five Coefficients—On the Basketball Court." In Shelter Blues: Sanity and Selfhood among the Homeless. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997, pp. 39–87. ISBN: 9780812216226.

7 Public space and public culture (thick description)

Buy at Amazon Geertz, Clifford. "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture." In The Interpretation of Cultures. Basic Books, 1973, pp. 3–30. ISBN: 9780465034253. [Preview with Google Books]

Farquhar, Judith. "The Park Pass: Peopling and Civilizing a New Old Beijing." Public Culture 21, no. 3 (2009): 551–76.

8 Spaces of inequalities

Low, Setha M. "The Secret, the Unspeakable, the Unsaid: Spatial, Discourse, and Political Economic Analysis." City & Society 13, no. 1 (2001): 161–5.

Caldeira, Teresa P. R. "Imprinting and Moving Around: New Visibilities and Configurations of Public Space in Sao Paulo." Public Culture 24, no. 2 (2012): 385–418.

9 Bodies in space

Buy at Amazon Foucault, Michel. "Docile Bodies" In Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Pantheon Books, 1977, pp. 135–70. ISBN: 9780394499420.

Boas, Franz. "Changes in Bodily Form of Descendants of Immigrants." American Anthropologist 14, no. 3 (1912): 530–62.

10 Power, discipline, and space

Buy at Amazon Foucault, Michel. "Panopticism." In Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Pantheon Books, 1977, pp. 195–231. ISBN: 9780394499420.

Shearing, Clifford D., and Phillip C. Stenning. "From the Panopticon to Disney World: the Development of Discipline." Perspectives in Criminal Law: Essays in Honour of John LL.J. Edwards 45, no. 2 (1986): 334–5.

11 Interpretive turn: search for meaning

Buy at Amazon Geertz, Clifford. "Deep Play: Notes on Balinese Cockfight." In The Interpretation of Cultures. Basic Books, 1973, pp. 412–55. ISBN: 9780465034253. [Peview with Google Books]

Fine, Gary Alan. "The Depths of Deep Play: The Rhetoric and Resources of Morally Controversial Leisure." Play & Culture 5 (1992): 246–51.

Millar, Susan. "On Interpreting Gender in Bugis Society." American Ethnologist 10, no. 3 (1983): 477–93.

12 Agency, gender and culture Kaplan, Martha. "Panopticism in Poona: An Essay on Foucault and Colonialism." Cultural Anthropology 10, no. 1 (1995): 85–98.
13 Laughter, carnival, and folk festivities Buy at Amazon Bakhtin, Mikhail. "Introduction." In Rabelais and His World. Indiana University Press, 1984, pp. 1–59. ISBN: 9780253348302.
14 Subculture and resistance [DH] pp. 1–45.
15 The meaning of style [DH] pp. 46–101.
16 Symbols and consumption

Buy at Amazon Kearney, Richard. "On Terror." In Strangers, Gods and Monsters: Interpreting Otherness. Routledge, 2002, pp. 109–41. ISBN: 9780415272575. [Preview with Google Books]

Buy at Amazon Tuleja, Tad. "Trick or Treat: Pre-Texts and Contexts." In Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life. Edited by Jack Santino. University of Tennessee Press, 1994, pp. 82–94. ISBN: 9780870498121.

17 Student presentations

Clark, Cindy Dell. "Tricks of Festival: Children, Enculturation, and American Halloween." Ethos 33, no. 2 (2005): 180–205.

Lam, Sunny S. K. "'Global Corporate Cultural Capital' as a Drag on Glocalization: Disneyland's Promotion of the Halloween Festival." Media, Culture, and Society 32, no. 4 (2010): 631–48.

18 Student presentations (cont.) Buy at Amazon Kugelmass, Jack. "Wishes Come True: Designing the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade." In Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life. Edited by Jack Santino. University of Tennessee Press, 1994, pp. 187–215. ISBN: 9780870498121.
19 Student presentations (cont.) Buy at Amazon Belk, Russell W. "Carnival, Control, and Corporate Culture in Contemporary Halloween Celebrations." In Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life. Edited by Jack Santino. University of Tennessee Press, 1994, pp. 106–12. ISBN: 9780870498121.
20 No class—work on papers  
21 Resistance and subversion [DH] pp. 101–40. Finish the book.
22 The fun of the politic and politics of fun

Bayat, Asef. "Islamism and the Politics of Fun." Public Culture 19, no. 3 (2007): 433–59.

Buy at Amazon Rofel, Lisa. "Rethinking Modernity: Space and Factory Discipline in China." In Culture, Power, Place: Explorations in Critical Anthropology. Edited by Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson. Duke University Press Books, 1997, pp. 155–77. ISBN: 9780822319405. [Preview with Google Books]

23 Gender, style, and space

Bhattacharjee, Anannya. "The Habit of Ex-Nomination: Nation, Woman, and the Indian Immigrant Bourgeoisie." Public Culture 5, no. 1 (1992): 19–42.

Murray, Sarah E. "Dragon Ladies, Draggin' Men: Some Reflections on Gender, Drag and Homosexual Communities." Public Culture 6, no. 2 (1994): 343–63.

24 Movie

View in class:

Trobriand Cricket. Directed by Gary Kildea and Jerry Leach. Color, 53 min. 1975.

Select clips from:

Memoirs of a Geisha. Directed by Rob Marshall. Color, 145 min. 2005.

Dersu Uzala. Directed by Akira Kurosawa. Color, 144 min. 1975.

25 Reading Buy at Amazon Bakhtin, Mikhail. "Popular-Festive Forms and Images in Rabelais." In Rabelais and His World. Indiana University Press, 1984, pp. 196–277. ISBN: 9780253348302.
26 Wrap-up