ANTH 3450/5450:
Language,
Mind, and Culture
Spring
2007
Tues 6-8:30 PM
Moore
Hall
Rm 1121
Office: 1001
Moore Hall
Office Hours: T 3:30-4:30; F 1-2 or by appointment
Office: 1016
Moore Hall
Office Hours: T/Th 3:30-4:30
or by appointment
1. Straight,
Bilinda. Miracles and Extraordinary
Experience in
Northern Kenya. (2006)
2. Wertsch, James. Voices of the Mind.
(1991)
3. Geurts, Kathryn. Culture and the Senses: Bodily Ways of
Knowing in an African Community.
(2002)
4. Coursepack of a
reading
that is otherwise out of print.
Course
Requirements:
Participation:
q
Regular
attendance and
preparation prior to each class session
q
Participation
in class
discussions
Assignments:
q
Weekly
Discussion Board
posting to course WebCT and response to another student’s posting.
q
Take-Home
Mid-term or
Annotated Bibliography
q
Take-Home
Final, or
Final Research Project (paper or website)
Explanation of
assignments:
Reading
assignments
All readings must
be
completed before completing discussion board postings (due Sunday AM)
and
coming to class. We highly recommend
that you annotate and/or write notes on each week’s readings,
which you will
need to bring to each class. Students
registered for Anth 5450 will need to do any additional/recommended
readings
for each week and be sure to discuss these in Discussion Board postings.
WebCT
Discussion Board Posting and Response
You must post a
thoughtful,
concise one-paragraph response to the readings on the WebCT discussion
board
each week. This must be posted by 10AM
Sunday. Your posting should address the
questions listed on the course schedule for the upcoming week through a
discussion that reflects synthesized consideration of the week’s
readings. You must also read other
students’ postings
and respond to at least one each week.
Your response to another student’s posting should be a
brief paragraph
and must be posted by 5PM Monday.
Annotated
Bib/Mid-term Take-Home Exam
Anth 3450 students
will be
given a take-home mid-term exam. Anth 5450 students may choose mid-term
and
final take-home exams or an annotated bib and final project (research
paper or
well-constructed web site). Anth 5450 students opting to do a final
project
must commit to a project with a paragraph précis by February 20th.
They must then prepare an annotated bib for their project due on March
20th,
the same date as the mid-term exam. The annotated bib must provide a
brief
introduction outlining their research thesis or problem, followed by a
one-paragraph summary and 2-sentence relevance paragraph (explaining
the
relevance of the source for the project) for each of five non-class
reading
sources.
Final
Research Project/Take-Home Exam
Anth 3450 students
will be
given a take-home final exam. Anth 5450 students opting to do a final
project
will choose a research topic that allows you to explore issues central
to the
course in one culture or by comparing two cultures.
You will need to submit a paragraph description of your topic by
February 20th, then prepare an annotated bibliography of
your
sources by mid-semester. Your final
product can be a research paper or website/multimedia presentation.
Research
papers should be 10-12 pages in length and should cite at least 4
course
readings in addition to at least five external sources. Web pages and
multimedia presentations must also cite sources, provide a bibliography
at the
end, and demonstrate thoughtful consideration of the topic chosen.
Examples are
available through http://www.anthropology.wmich.edu.
Attendance and
Participation:
15%
Postings and
responses:
25%
Mid-term and Final:
30%
Each
OR for 5450
students who choose
this option:
Annotated Biblio
with
Proposal in Advance: 25%
Final Project:
35%
A: 92-100 % C: 72-77.9 %
BA: 88-91.9 % DC: 68-71.9 %
B: 82-87.9 % D: 62-67.9 %
BC: 78-81.9 % E: Below 62 %
Week 1:
Introduction to the course:
Culture-language-mind
Tues, Jan 9
Weeks 2
& 3:
Language and thought
Questions
for posting: What is the relationship
between language and mind? Between
thought and word (sign)? How does
language shape our thinking?
Tues, Jan 16
Read: Eco, Chs 1-3
(e-reserve)
Whorf, “The
relation of habitual thought and behavior
to language” AND “Science and
linguistics” (e-reserve)
5450 Supplement:
Lucy, John. Linguistic relativity. Annual
Review of Anthro 26(1) (1997). (e-reserve)
Harré &
Gillett. “Discourse and the
brain,” AND “The
discursive origins of the sense of self,” in
The
Discursive Mind, (1994), pp.80-96, 97-111.
(e-reserve)
Tues,
Jan 23
Read:
Parmentier, “Peirce divested
for nonintimates,” Signs in Society (e-reserve)
Straight: Ch 1 and
Appendix 1
5450 Supplement: Urban, Greg. Metasignaling
and language origins. (2002) AA 104(1). (e-reserve); and Parmentier,
“Peirce’s concept of semiotic mediation,” Signs
in Society
(e-reserve)
Weeks 4
& 5:
Intersubjectivity and mind
Questions
for posting: In what sense is
consciousness intersubjective (that is, a
product of social interactions)? What are some models for thinking
about mind
as social, rather than individual? How does the concept of the
unconscious fit
into all this?
Tues, Jan 30
Read: Voloshinov,
p.15, Chs
2-3, 5, 8-9 from Freudianism: A Critical Sketch
(coursepack)
5450 Supplement: Krips,
pp. 18-44 (e-reserve)
Tues, Feb 6
Read: Straight,
Chs 2, 4, 5
Questions
for posting: What does an examination of
learning tell us about the social nature of mind and cognition? How is gaining knowledge related to gaining
identity?
Tues, Feb 13
Read:
Wertsch,
James Chapters 2-4, Voices of the
Mind
5450 Supplement:
Read Wertsch, James Chs 1
and 6, Voices of the Mind
Tues, Feb 20
Read:
O’Connor, "Communicative practice, cultural
production, and situated learning:
Constructing and contesting identities of expertise in a
heterogenous learning
context,"
In Wortham and Rymes. (e-reserve)
Wortham, “Interactionally situated cognition: A classroom
example.”
Cognitive Science,
25, 37- 66 (2001). (e-reserve)
Wortham “Socialization beyond the speech event.” Journal
of Linguistic Anthropology
15(1)
(2005). (e-reserve)
DUE: Anth
5450 students: One-paragraph typed description of your final project
topic and
plan.
Week 8:
Embodiment and phenomenology
Questions
for posting: Instead of thinking about mind
versus body, how can we productively think about the embodied mind? What do phenomenological approaches tell us
about consciousness as embodied?
Tues, Feb 27
Read: Jackson,
“Introduction,” Things as They Are (e-reserve)
Straight, Chs
3, 7
5450
Supplement: Read Lakoff &
Johnson, Ch 3 of Philosophy in the Flesh
(e-reserve)
MAR
5-9: SPRING BREAK, NO CLASSES
Week 9
Embodiment
and Location: Space, place, and perception
Questions
for posting: How do we orient ourselves in
space? How do our bodies limit or shape that process of orientation?
Tues, Mar 13
Read: David Howes,
“Skinscapes: Embodiment, Culture and the Environment (e-reserve)
John Hull, “Rainfall and the Blind Body” (e-reserve)
Hay, “The Development of Some Aspects of the Ojibwa Self
and Its Behavioral
Environment”
(Ethos 1977, e- reserve)
5450
Supplement: Read Hertz,
“Death and the Right Hand” (e-reserve)
TO BE
HANDED OUT: Mid-term
Take-Home Exam
Week 10
Embodiment
and Technology: Cinema Bodies, Virtual Bodies
Questions
for posting: How do our bodies navigate,
sense, and respond to cinematic and virtual technologies? How virtual
is
virtual experience? Consider your own bodies responses to computing,
web
surfing, and movie watching this week and bring in some ideas.
Tues, Mar 20
Read: David
MacDougall, “The
Body in Cinema” (e-reserve)
Kristin Veel, “The Irreducibility of Space”
(e-reserve)
Straight, Ch 9
5450
Supplement: Read Stoller,
“Artaud, Rouch, and the Cinema of Cruelty” (e-reserve)
DUE:
Mid-term Take-Home Exam or Annotated bibliography for final project:
provide
complete citation information for each of five sources, one summary
paragraph,
and with two sentences explaining how each of the sources is useful to
your
project.
Weeks
11 & 12
Culture
and the senses
Questions
for posting: To
what extent
are our sensory experiences shaped by our culture?
Are the basic senses, and our perception of them, the
“same”
across cultures? What
are some issues researchers face in trying to answer these questions?
Tues, Mar 27
Read: Guerts,
Culture and the Senses, Chs 1-5
Tues, Apr 3
Read:
Guerts, Culture
and the Senses, Chs 6-10
Weeks
13 & 14
Ecstatic
experience and altered states of awareness
Questions
for posting: What
do
cross-cultural comparisons of ecstatic experience and altered states of
awareness tell us about the human brain’s capacity for such
experiences and the
role of culture in shaping them?
Tues, Apr 10
Read: Stoller,
“Embodying
Colonial Memories” (American Anthropologist 1994, e-reserve)
Winkelman,
“Shamanism as the Original Neurotheology”
(Zygon 2004, e-reserve)
Newberg et al.
Chs 1-3 in Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and
the Biology of
Belief (e-reserve)
Tues, Apr 17
Wirtz,
“From
Skepticism to Faith:
Narratives of Religious Experiences”
(e-reserve)
Straight,
Ch 8
DUE: Final
project (printed out paper or CD containing web pages)
TO BE
HANDED OUT: Take-Home Final
(due on final exam day)