The class is designed as a guided seminar to discuss classics in anthropology as they can be brought to bear to major professional or political concerns of the student. Taking for example the social and cultural responses to the entry to the COVID-19 virus in human life, what would an anthrological expert asked to help shape this response take into account?
I would say that the readings are the most important aspects of the class. This is followed by what you will be writing about the readings, followed by whatever lecturing I will be doing, followed by class discussion and, perhaps most significant, any discussion you may have among each other outside of class and not under my control.
Note that you are only required the read the assigned pages (not the entire text) for the session. Less is more. (Doctoral students should plan to read the rest at some point in their career, before their exams)
All students are expected to have done the required readings.
To help structure the discussion students registered in the class will be divided into two groups ("A" and "B").
On alternate weeks, from week 2 to week 11, all students in one group are required to write a short paper (about 1250 words) on the main assigned reading. One of the student in the group will be asked to read this paper at the beginning of the session. The students in this group will be expected to teach important point to the students in the other group.
On alternate weeks, from week 2 to week 11, all students in the other group will post 3 to 5 questions raised by any aspect of the required readings. These should be posted on Canvas (under "Discussions"), no later than 1 pm on the day of the class (and no earlier than Sunday 9 am on the week of the class).
All students will also have to write another short paper (6 to 10 pages) on the following theme "Given my general interests, what makes sense among what we have read, how might it help me, and why?" This paper is due on , the last day of class.
All papers must be printed out in hard copy and turned over at the end of class.
In summary
Each student will thus be writing five short papers directly based on the readings for the week. These papers are due on the day of the discussion, starting on:
- for students in Group A: and ending on
- for students in Group B: and ending on
As you prepare the papers, you should consider the following:
- you are "teaching" the reading to the students in the other groups who probably have not read the book. What must they know about it, the author, the contexts of the work, etc., that may explain why ...
- you found most useful/offensive/in need of further development.
As a rule of thumb I would say that the first goal should occupy about 2/3 of the paper; the latter 1/3. Of course, there is an art to how you balance and deal with both goals. One can be linear (say as one might be in a PowerPoint presentation), or one can be more literary.
Note that you cannot possibly do everything in a short paper. I hope that, in the conversation following the reading, those who are not reading the paper but wrote one will add perspectives not included there.
The final letter grade for Masters students will take into account first and mostly, the grades of each paper, second the set of questions submitted, and, third, some consideration for class participation. The doctoral students are graded only at the end of the full two-semester required sequence.
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