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Culture and Society

ANTHRO 9 Lectures: Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:30-10:45 A.M. Room: Haines 39 (in basement-A level) Final Exam date: March 18 (Tuesday): 3-6P.M. Instructor Prof. Mariko Tamanoi Email: Office: Phone: Office hours: mtamanoi@anthro.ucla.edu Haines 325 310-206-8399 Tuesdays 11:30 A.M. 1:30 P.M.

FIRST and MOST IMPORTANT: READ THIS SYLLABUS CAREFULLY TO THE END! Section Leaders Bradley Cardozo: Camille Frazier: Emily Lucitt: Clayton, Robertson: bcardozo@ucla.edu c.frazier@ucla.edu elucitt@ucla.edu ctrobertson@ucla.edu

(Section leaders will hold office hours in Haines 360 unless otherwise noted.) Course Description What is culture? What difference does it make that humans live in societies? How are we to locate distinct cultures in the contemporary world where people and goods constantly (but not freely) move? How such cultures are daily being reproduced, commented upon and criticized, transformed, or newly produced? This course will introduce the field of socio-cultural anthropology through the exploration of some of its central topics, methods and theories. We refuse to see culture as a bounded thing in a particular place or as a fixed and timeless characteristic of a certain group of people. Instead, we focus on the politics of culture, in which culture is not only transmitted and reproduced but also challenged, evoked, and produced from both within and outside. Academic Honesty: Please consult UCLAs academic honesty codes and regulations at http://www.deanofstudents.ucla.edu/conduct.htm. Ask us if you have any doubt about the permissibility of your actions. Additionally, contact us as personal crises arise rather than allowing them to lead to academic dishonesty. We expect honest participation in this course, and we expect everyone to take responsibility for his or her actions.

2 Accommodation: If necessary, please contact the Office of Students with Disabilities (http://www.osd.ucla.edu) and Prof. Tamanoi to request a disabilityrelated accommodation. You must do so in the first two weeks of the quarter Required and Recommended Readings: Textbooks: There are no textbooks for this course. Journal Articles and Book Chapters: Weekly readings will be available on our class website prior to my lectures, except for the readings available as E-sources from the UCLA library. I put * marks on those E-sources on this syllabus. You are able to read (and print out) E-sources directly from the UCLA library through a computer on campus or at home with a UCLA library proxy. Books for Further Reading: Below are the two books that I recommend for you to read (as we will read only parts of both books in this class). I have placed these books on reserve at the Powell Library under Anthro-9, and ordered 10 copies of each book through ASUCLA Book Store. Kroeber, Theodora. 1961. Ishi in Two Worlds. Berkeley: University of California Press. AVAILABLE at Powell and ASUCLA (10 copies only) Tamanoi, Mariko Asano. 1998. Under the Shadow of Nationalism: Politics and Poetics of Rural Japanese Women. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. AVAILABLE at Powell and ASUCLA (10 copies only) Films: Due to the new copyright rules, I am not able to place DVD and Video on our class website. You must watch them in class on the set dates. After the classroom showing, I will place them on course reserve under Anthro-9 at the UCLA Media Library on the second floor of Powell Library. Course Requirements: Class attendance and participation in class discussion, informed by your close reading of the weekly readings, are always expected. Participation also includes your section attendance (more than one unexcused absence will lower your grade). In your section, you are expected to respond to your section leaders prompts, contribute to the discussion, and weekly discussion questions. Discussion questions will be submitted beginning week 2, according to your section leaders instructions (15% of your grade).

Two 5-6 page (typed, double spaced) papers (Assignment 1: 20%, Assignment 2: 20%): These papers will allow you to develop both your writing and research skills. The assignments are described in detail throughout this syllabus and in class. Your section leader will make it sure to discuss each assignment topic during one of his/her sessions. The final exam (45% of your grade) is on Tuesday March 18 (3PM-6PM). This exam, which covers the entire course materials, will be the combinations of multiplechoice type of questions and short answers. You can retake the final exam in the case of medical emergency ONLY, with your doctors note. In such a case, you will receive incomplete (I grade) until you are given another opportunity to take the exam in the spring quarter of 2014. Policy on re-grading: We accept your requests for re-grading only through writing: you must submit your graded papers or exams together with your written comments and questions on a separate sheet of paper, and you must do so during the specific time period we set. Important Notes: This course is not an Internet course: everything will happen in the classrooms of my lectures and of your section leaders sessions. It is your obligation to attend every class lecture and session discussion. We are not responsible for your missed class/session unless your absence is due to medical emergency. While I will use Power Point in my lecture, I will do so mainly to share headline topics and visual materials with you. I will NOT send the weekly Power Point slides to our class website. While this is my 3rd time in teaching Anthro-9, I do not repeat the same course: this course is new to me and I am not sure whether I am able to follow the time line I describe in this syllabus. Lecture/Discussion Schedule (tentative: Contents and orders of lecture topics may change throughout this quarter.) Topic 1: Introduction: When did anthropology (as a field of modern science) emerge and why did it emerge at that time? (Weeks 1, 2, 3) Read and watch: Wolf, Eric. 1982. Introduction to Europe and the People Without History, pp.3-23. Kroeber, Theodora. 1961. Short excerpts from Ishi in Two Worlds. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Film: Minik: The Last Eskimo Boy (60 minutes) (in-class showing) *United Nations: Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1947). Available at: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Documents/UDHR_Translations/eng.pdf *Statement on Human Rights in American Anthropologist (1947) 4:539-543. Topic 2: Ethnography, Cultural Relativism, and Universalism (Weeks 3, 4, 5) Read and Watch: [Ethnography] Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1984 (1922) Introduction to Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea, pp. 1-25. Prospects Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press. Tamanoi, Mariko Asano. 1998 Fieldwork and Komori in Under the Shadow of Nationalism: Politics and Poetics of Rural Japanese Women. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. [Cultural Relativism] Margaret Mead. 1928. Excerpts (Chs. 1, 10 and 13) from Growing Up in Samoa (including Forward by Franz Boas). Takie Sugiyama Lebra. 1994. Mother and Child in Japanese Socialization: A JapanUS Comparison. Cultural Relativism (several pages on this topic from the two leading anthropology textbooks). [Universalism] Film: Margaret Mead in Samoa (made by Derek Freeman) Derek Freeman. 1983. Excerpts (Preface and Chs. 17, 19 and 20) from Margaret Mead and Samoa. Writing Assignment 1 In class, we discussed and criticized the idea of cultural relativism. Still, cultural relativism provides an anthropologist a handy framework to explain and describe culture of the other to others. Keeping in mind the critique of cultural relativism we discussed, explain and describe YOUR culture to the reader. In the conclusion of your essay, tell the reader how you tried to overcome the problems of cultural relativism, whether you succeeded or not, and why. Topic 4: Culture is always dynamic: Kinship and Society (weeks 6, 7)

Read: Womack, Mari. 1998. Ch. 7: Sex, Marriage, and Family Relationships, in Being Human: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, pp.140-165. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Schneider, David (1968). Introduction, Relatives and The Family in American Kinship : A Cultural Account. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Befu, Harumi (1962). Corporate Emphasis and Patterns of Descent in the Japanese Family in R. J. Smith and R. K. Beardsley, eds. Japanese Culture, pp. 34-41. Rosaldo, Renato (1989). Putting Culture in Motion in Culture and Truth, pp.91108. *Taylor, Bridget. 2005. Whose baby is it? The impact of reproductive technologies on kinship. Human Fertility: Journal of the British Fertility Society (Cambridge, England) 8:3:189-195. Writing Assignment 2 This assignment requires you to use one of the most important methods of ethnography: to interview the other. Find your interviewee, a person of any age, gender, and cultural background. Note that this person constitutes EGO in the kinship chart. If you choose a classmate, you can also switch the positions of the interviewer and the interviewee. You can either record the interview or write notes during the interview. Based on the interview, write the ethnography of the EGOs kin relations, using a free essay style. While writing this essay, keep in mind the following comments and questions. - Any kinship system is open. - Any kinship system changes throughout EGOs lifetime. - Any kinship system is the representation of culture(s) that also change over time. - What kinds of kinship terminologies does EGO use to describe his or her kin group? - Does EGO struggle in translating his or her kinship terminologies to English? - How do EGOs kin and gender relations within his or her family change over time and why do they change? - Can you also describe EGOs idea of family or home? Is it compatible with yours? Topic 4: The Politics of Culture: Who invokes culture? Who has the power to do so? For what purpose does this person (or institution) do so? (Weeks 8 & 9) Read:

6 Dominguez, Virginia R. 1992. Invoking Culture: The Messy Side of Cultural Politics. South Atlantic Quarterly 91:1:19-42. Kathleen Hall. 1995. Theres a Time to Act English and a Time to Act Indian: The Politics of Identity among British-Sikh Teenagers, in Children and the Politics of Culture, edited by Sharon Stephens, pp. 243-264. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Said, Edward. 1979. Introduction in Orientalism, pp.1-28. Topic 5: Conclusion (week 10)