Graduate Course in Ethnohistory for Spring, 2004

ANTH 605: Biography and Material Culture

In this course we will apply an anthropological approach to everyday and precious objects. Treating biography broadly to include cultural biographies as well as individual biographies, we will ask questions like: How do objects relate to people’s understandings of themselves as individuals and as participants in specific cultural communities? How do cultural understandings, personal biographies, and public historical events come together in unique objects touched, worn, used, or inhabited by living, breathing human beings? What happens to objects we discard and what meanings are associated with such objects possibly valued, loved, and then refused? How do we relate to ‘things’ over the course of people’s lives from birth to death? What is the relationship between the biographies of things and the biographies of persons? We will answer these and other questions by reading classic and contemporary cultural anthropological writings about ‘things’—stuff. We will also spend some time discussing the similarities and differences between cultural and archaeological approaches to objects. Some hands-on participant-observation, oral history, or other form of original research will be an integral and required component of this course.

Required Books

Ø The Sari. Daniel Miller (co-author). 2003. New York, NY: Berg.

Ø Waste and Want. Susan Strasser. 2000. Owl Books.

Ø Car Cultures. Daniel Miller (editor). 2001. New York, NY: Berg.

Ø Purchasing Power: Black Kids and American Consumer Culture. Elizabeth Chin. 2001. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Ø Selected Articles

Grading (See Grading Key for complete instructions)

Attendance 15% Prospectus for Final Essay 15%

Responses 20% Annotated Bibliography 20%

Final Essay 30%

Attendance

In a class of this kind and size, your presence and participation are essential to the quality of the experience for others as well as yourself. Your attendance grade will be based on the number of days you are absent, calculated as points missed on a one-hundred percent scale.

Reading Responses

There will be no exams in this class. Students will write weekly 1-2 page responses to the readings (20% of grade). These should include very brief summaries of all readings and at least a paragraph of critique. They must be typed.

Writing Assignments:

Prospectus for Final Essay (15% of grade): This will be a 2-3 page essay discussing the theoretical perspective and topic you will pursue for your final paper. It should be written in a clear, essay style, containing a preliminary argument and topic and identification of the kinds of material (essays, books, popular media, local fieldwork) you will use to pursue that argument.

Annotated Bibliography (20% of grade): This will be an annotated bibliography of sources you are using so far in your paper. Write a one-paragraph summary for each of 4 or 5 sources, and a sentence or two of how they should be useful to your paper. Include full bibliographic information for each of these sources, and do not include course readings! Course readings should be used for your paper where appropriate but do not count towards this assignment. You must limit yourself to one web site source only, and use at least one book.

Final Essay (30% of grade): This will be a 15-25 page essay based on original research. It can be on a topic of your choice, which is relevant to the course readings. Original research can be in the form of, for example, local fieldwork, archival work, or contemporary media work. If you have difficulty in coming up with a topic, please feel free to see me. Include a bibliography for anything you cite, and for readings you already know you will be using. When you cite, quote, or paraphrase in text, put an in-text citation in parentheses (author’s last name, date, page number if a direct quote). It looks like this: (Straight 1997) or (Straight 1997: 37).

Bilinda Straight’s

Grading Key

All letter grades are converted into a quantitative grade (see key below). All quantitative semester grades are multiplied by the percentage of the spread they represent. Thus, if attendance is worth 20% of the grade, it would be calculated as follows: If you were absent 3 times out of 30 total class days, 3 out of 30 is 10 percent absence, or 90% presence. So you have a 90 on attendance, multiplied by 20% of the spread, gives you 18. All grades thus calculated are added together to equal the total percentage out of one hundred. Your semester grade is then calculated as per the key below.

Grade Scale for Final Grades

97-100 A+

94-96 A

87-93 BA

84-86 B

77-83 CB

74-76 C

67-73 DC

60-66 D

below 60 E

Course Outline

Things as Extension of Persons I

Week One, January 6^th

Introduction to Course, Review of Syllabus and Expectations, Film “Hearts and Hands”

Week Two, January 13^th

The Sari (Banerjee and Miller) Chapters 1 and 2

Annette Weiner “Reconfiguring Exchange Theory: The Maori Hau”

Marcel Mauss excerpt from The Gift [pp. 1-46]

FIRST READING RESPONSE DUE, TYPED (& DUE EVERY TUESDAY NOW)

The Unequal Lives of Persons and Things

Week Three, January 20^th

Waste and Want (Strasser) Chapters 1 and 2

The Sari Chapter 3

Week Four, January 27^th

Peter Stallybrass “Marx’s Coat”

Karl Marx: “On James Mill” and selections from Capital

Jack Amariglio and Antonio Callari, “Marxian Value Theory and the Subject”

Week Five, February 3^rd

Paul Gilroy “Driving While Black” (in Car Cultures)

Purchasing Power (Chin) Chapters 1, 2, and 3

Week Six, February 10^th

Purchasing Power Chapters 4, 6

The Sari, Chapter 5

Gertrude Stotz “The Colonizing Vehicle” (in Car Cultures)

PROSPECTUS DUE IN CLASS

The Lives and Deaths of Things/Things as Cultural Biography

Week Seven, February 17^th

Igor Kopytoff “The Social Life of Things”

Waste and Want Chapter 3

Jojada Verrips and Birgit Meyer “Kwaku’s Car” (in Car Cultures)

Week Eight, February 24^th

Waste and Want Chapter 4

Waste and Want Chapter 5

Sarah Hill article

Week Nine, March 9^th

Jon Holtzman “In a Cup of Tea”

Tom O’Dell “Raggare and the Panic of Mobility” (in Car Cultures)

Jane Parish “Black Market, Free Market”

Things as Extension of Persons II

Week Ten, March 16^th

The Sari Chapters 4 and 6

Bilinda Straight “From Samburu Heirloom to New Age Artifact”

Annelies Moors “Wearing Gold”

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE IN CLASS

Week Eleven, March 23^rd

Daniel Miller “Possessions”

Michael Nassaney article

Anat Hecht “Home Sweet Home”

Death (and Loss) and Things

Week Twelve, March 30^th

Diana Young “The Life and Death of Cars” (in Car Cultures)

The Sari Chapter 7

Janet Hoskins “The Betel Bag”

Ellen Schattschneider “Buy Me a Bride” (AE article)

Week Thirteen, April 6^th

Week Fourteen, April 13th

FINAL ESSAY DUE FINALS WEEK DURING OUR FINAL EXAM PERIOD (Tuesday, April 20^th, 6:15-9:15 pm)