INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Spring 2022
FINAL ASSIGNMENT
Due: May 10, 2022
In this course, we have looked at several overarching concepts that anthropologists have studied over the past century. For your final, I want you to imagine that we have an extra section of the syllabus for an additional concept or topic. You will choose the topic as well as the readings, and will write an essay examining that particular field. Your essay should cover seminal works and theories and summarize larger trends in the field. It should also justify why you have chosen your readings.
Your sub-syllabus should have between three and six sources (you should read more than that for your essay). All sources should be written by anthropologists (with limited exceptions, to be approved by me) and come from scholarly journals or academic books (you may include ONE non-scholarly op-ed or essay from the web). Your syllabus may cover topics that we have already discussed, but should be more specific and employ new readings. The accompanying essay should accomplish the following:
- Connect your topic and your readings tolarger concepts we have discussed this semester (culture, cultural relativism, hegemony, race, religion, colonialism, gender/sexuality, etc.).
- Make a case for ethnographic understanding of the topic in question.
- Justify why you have chosen your particular readings.
- Highlight the ways in which people’s lived experiences challenge dominant conceptions of that topic/issue.
You should come to class on 4/29 (our second-to-last day of class) equipped to speak briefly about what topic you have chosen and why, as well as what you have learned in the course of your reading.
Your accompanying essay should be 1500-2000 words, double spaced, with margins no larger than 1 inch all around. You must cite, especially when quoting (though please be sparing with quotes); feel free to use your preferred citation style (no footnotes). The paper is due before midnight on May 10 (submit on Blackboard). Feel free to email me with any questions.