ANT 102H5
Summer 2007
INTRODUCTION
to SOCIOCULTURAL & LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY
Web Site with link
to online version of this
syllabus: http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/~w3hmlmil
Course
CCNet page:
http://ccnet.utoronto.ca/20075/ant102h5f/
Lecture:
Tuesday & Thursday, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm,
Room 134 North Building
Tutorials:
Thursday 1-3 or 3-5, Room
3131 South Building
Instructor: Dr. Heather M.-L. Miller
Anthropology,
University of
Toronto at Mississauga
Email: hmiller 'at' utm.utoronto.ca Office: Room 208 North Building Phone:
905-828-3741
Office
Hours: Tuesday & Thursday 2:30-3:30
Teaching
Assistant: Natasha Andersen
Email:
natandersen@yahoo.com
Office:
Office Hours: By appointment
Course
Description
In
this course we survey how people around the world
interact, think, and communicate.
These questions are addressed by two subfields of anthropology. Sociocultural anthropology is the comparative
study of human behaviour. It
focuses on culture, or socially learned information that shapes thought
and
action, and on the ways people organize themselves in social groups. Linguistic anthropology is the comparative
study of language in various social and cultural contexts.
As we
will be covering a great deal of information, students must attend all
lectures
and tutorials, and complete all of the readings. Lectures,
films, tutorials and readings will provide
overlapping material, but students are responsible for all material
covered in
any of these formats.
Required
Course Materials
(Available
at
UTM Bookstore)
(1)
Lenkeit, Roberta Edwards
2007.
Introducing Cultural Anthropology.
3rd Edition. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
ISBN: 0-07-310773-5,
paperback.
(2) Danesi, Marcel
2004. A basic course in
anthropological
linguistics. Toronto: Canadian
Scholars Press.
ISBN: 9781417596812, paperback.
Also available as an e-book from U
of T library.
Expectations,
Policies, and Common Courtesy
Attendance: Students are
expected to attend all classes, including lectures and tutorials.
Punctuality: You are expected
to arrive and be settled in your seat by the beginning of class or
tutorial and
to remain until the end of class.
Unless you become ill, do not begin packing up books or stand to
leave
before the end of class or tutorial, because this is distracting to all. If you know you cannot stay for the
entire period, please sit near the door and leave very quietly.
Courtesy
in Class: Every
student is expected to pay close attention in the lecture or
film. Refrain from talking during
lectures and films, except to ask or respond to a question from the
instructor. Even quiet talking is
distracting and disrespectful for your fellow students and your
instructor.
Turn off pagers and mobile phones.
In tutorials, your undivided attention and courtesy is also
expected;
however, this is your opportunity to discuss what you are learning in
class
with your TA and one another. You
are encouraged to thoughtfully ask and answer questions, but please, no
confidential, whispered conversations.
Anything you say should be directed to the class as a whole.
Email
Communication: Emailing with your
professor or TA is a form of professional communication.
Please write courteously and clearly;
do not use text-messaging abbreviations or slang. Please
clearly indicate your questions or concerns. Be
sure to provide a summary of the
email topic in the Subject line (do not just write 'Hi' or leave the
Subject
blank, or your email may be rejected as junk mail by the UTM server). You should ALWAYS use your UTM email
address if at all possible - the UTM server regularly rejects hotmail
accounts
as potential spam.
Evaluation
& Requirements
The
marked work for this course will consist of: tutorial participation
including
short labs (12.5%), a mid-term test (25%), a final examination (35%),
and an
essay or short paper reviewing an ethnography chosen by the student
(2.5% +
25%). The total marked work will
be worth 400 points, or 100%.
TUTORIAL
PARTICIPATION
Tutorial
participation is worth 50 points or 12.5%
of the course grade.
(1)
Attendance & Questions/Comments:
* To foster preparation for
active discussion, your teaching assistant will expect you to bring two
neatly
handwritten questions or comments to each tutorial, one on the
lecture and
one on the readings.
* Each student should write
his/her own questions independently - copying each other constitutes
the
academic offense of unauthorized aid or plagiarism.
* When studying your readings
and your lecture notes, prepare questions about any particular items
that
seemed especially puzzling to you, and raise these questions in
tutorial.
Items can be anything: a statement, the location, a name, the
situation, a
conflict, an irony, etc. "How" or "Why"
questions are especially useful, because they encourage more thought
and discussion.
In tutorials, your task is not merely to ask questions of the teaching
assistant, but also to respond to questions raised by others in your
class in a
thoughtful way.
* Your two questions will be
handed in for attendance records.
The TA will not answer them in writing; to find the answer, you
need to
ask them in class. To receive a good grade for participation in
tutorials
you must not only come to virtually all classes, but also regularly
contribute
to discussions by raising questions and comments orally and respond to
points
brought up by others in class.
(2) Labs:
* Several tutorials will
include lab exercises, some of which will require you to hand in a form
at the
end of the lab. These exercises
(both written and active components) will be used in the overall
assessment of
your tutorial participation.
* Make-up labs will ONLY be
offered for properly documented absences (doctor's notes and
equivalent -
see below under 'Missed exams').
There will only be ONE designated make-up lab, to be held on a
day and
time towards the end of the semester, as determined by the instructor.
MID-TERM
and FINAL EXAMINATIONS
The mid-term
will be worth 100 points or 25% and the final will be worth 140 points
or 35%,
for a total of 240 points or 60% of the course grade.
Both the
mid-term and final exams will consist of multiple-choice and
short-answer
questions on ALL materials presented in the class and discussed in
tutorial
(readings, lectures, AND films).
The final
exam will be cumulative, although material presented after the
mid-term
will be more heavily covered.
***MISSED
EXAMS***
Avoid
missing an exam - the procedure for taking a make-up exam is
strictly regulated by the university, and these policies will be
followed in
all cases. Please notify the
instructor by email or phone as soon as possible if you miss an exam.
* For
the Mid-term Exam, see the section 'Term Tests' under 'General
Regulations'
in the UTM Calendar for 2006-2007.
A
valid
doctor's excuse or similar university-approved excuse will be required
to take
the make-up for the mid-term. ONE
makeup will be given for the mid-term, the week after the regular exam.
All makeup exams will be short answer and essay
format only, not multiple choice.
* For
the Final Exam, see the section 'Examinations' under 'General
Regulations'
in the UTM Calendar for 2006-2007.
You will have to submit a petition to Registrarial Services,
among other
requirements, and re-take the exam during the Deferred Examinations
Period
(possibly Feb. 2008
during Reading Week, or as otherwise scheduled by the university). All makeup exams will be short
answer and essay format only, not multiple choice.
The
two assignments related to your essay will be worth a total of 27.5%
(110
points).
All
assignments are due at the beginning of class on the dates
specified in
the class schedule (below).
The
essay will be composed of two stages of marked work:
(1) library
searching and submission of 5 titles of appropriate ethnographies -
2.5% (10
points)
Submit five titles
of ethnographies you would like to read for
your essay, in order of your choice, IN THE SPECIFIED American
Anthropologist FORMAT. This stage is worth
only 2.5% (10
points), but if it is not submitted, students may not progress to the
next
stage. If the titles submitted are
not in the specified format, that used by the journal American
Anthropologist, no
credit will be given. Each student
must do a different ethnography; in case of duplicate requests, a coin
will be
tossed to determine who gets their first choice, etc.
You may submit titles early, in which case I will indicate
to the class that the title is taken.
(2) a
final essay, well researched and well written, on the ethnography
approved -
25% (100 points)
See the separate,
detailed instructions on how to write this
essay; if your essay is not in the format specified, no credit may be
given. Also review Appendix A of
your textbook by Lenkeit on how to read an ethnography
****More
information on the assignments is available on the Essay
Instructions handout.****
Regulations
for Essay Assignments
(1)
Late assignments will lose 20 points per calendar day late, including
weekends. 10 points will be
deducted for
assignments turned in after the first hour of class on the date due, even if the
assignment is turned
in on the due date. It is your
responsibility
to turn in late assignments to the instructor in her office, at her
convenience. For example, turning
in the final essay one day late will result in a loss of 20 points. If the final essay is 5 days late, the
loss would be 100 points, the total value of the assignment.
(2)
When you hand in your essay assignments, you must sign the submission
form.
This form will be available on
the due date during class, or by special arrangement in advance
with the
instructor. DO NOT submit your assignment to the secretary nor to
anyone else
in the Department of Anthropology. DO NOT slide your assignment under
the
instructor's office door. The
assignment has not been officially submitted until you sign the
submission
form. You are also advised to make a copy of your assignments
before
submitting them.
(3) You
may work with
other students
in preparing for assignments, but what you submit must be your own
work. You are encouraged to discuss questions
together, or share
source materials, or recommend readings and web sites.
However, as everyone in the class will
have a different book for their essay, your essays should be quite
different.
(4) Academic
Honesty: Please be especially
careful to avoid
plagiarism, which is a serious academic offence. Carefully
read the section under 'Citations' in
the Essay Instructions. Be sure
to cite ideas as well as direct quotations, even if these ideas are
paraphrased. All quotes should be
either in quotation marks or indented if longer than two sentences.
Essays
in which plagiarism is detected will be severely penalized. For more details, see the section 'Academic
Honesty' under 'General Regulations', and the section 'Discipline
Codes: The Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters' under 'Codes and
Policies' in the UTM Calendar for 2006-2007. It
is your responsibility to be familiar
with this code, and adhere to it.
Be sure to read the link to the information on plagiarism on the
web
site, http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/plagsep.html
.
Class
Schedule
|
Week
|
Date
|
Topic
|
Reading |
|
1 |
T May 15 |
Introduction to Lectures & Essay Anthropology & Subfields; Definitions Film - Ishi: The Last Yahi (56 min) |
|
|
|
Th May 17 |
Discovering Culture Fieldwork in Anthropology |
[L xxviii-xxxiii, 1-71] 'To the Student'; Chapter 1:
Anthropology; Chapter 2: Culture; Chapter 3: Fieldwork |
|
|
Tutorial Th May 17 |
Introduction to Tutorials & Assignments Discuss Lectures, Film, and Readings - Library Orientation by Pam King - Lab: Identifying Academic Resources |
[L A1-A5] Appendix A: Reading Ethnographies |
|
2 |
T May 22 |
Language: Methods of Study, General Approaches; Language
Acquisition Film - Huchoosedah: Traditions of the Heart (57 min) |
[L 72-91] Chapter 4: Language [D 1-21] Preface; Chapter 1: Linguistic Method |
|
|
Th May 24 |
Ethnography Title Due at start of class Language Origins & Change Film - Nova: In Search of the First Language (60 min) |
[D 21-38 ] Chapter 2: Origins and Evolution |
|
|
Tutorial Th May 24 |
Discuss Essay Assignment Discuss Lectures, Film, and Readings - Academic Skills Orientation |
Review: [L A1-A5] Appendix A: Reading Ethnographies |
|
3 |
T May 20 |
Language Description |
[D 39-80] Chapter 3: Sounds; Chapter 4: Words; Chapter 5:
Sentences |
|
|
Th May 31 |
Language and Meaning Language and Social Behaviour |
[D 81-127] Chapter 6: Meaning; Chapter 7: Discourse and
Variation; Chapter 8: Language and Reality |
|
|
Tutorial Th May 31 |
Return Ethnography titles (approval) Discuss Lectures, Film, and Readings - Lab: Selected Questions from Danesi Questions about Midterm |
[D 128-153] Activities; Glossary |
|
4 |
T June 5 |
Midterm Test |
Review All Readings and Class Notes to Date |
|
|
Th June 7 |
Human Ecology Economic Anthropology (introduction) Film - The Netsilik Eskimo: Fight for Life (51 min) |
[L 92-139] Chapters 5 & 6: Subsistence Strategies and
Resource Allocation |
|
|
Tutorial Th June 7 |
Film - Asante
Market Women (52 min) Discuss Lecture, Films, and Readings - compare Netsilik
& Asante cultures to your own |
|
|
5 |
T June 12 |
Economic Anthropology (continued) Marriage, Family, and Household Film - Modern Brides: Arranged Marriages
in South India (30 min) |
[L 140-166] Chapter 7: Marriage, Family & Residence |
|
|
Th June 14 |
Essay Assignment due at start of class Kinship and Descent Systems Gender and Sexuality |
[L 168-213] Chapter 8: Kinship and Descent; Chapter 9:
Gender and Sexuality |
|
|
Tutorial Th June 14 |
Return Midterm Test Discuss Lectures, Films, and Readings - Lab: Kinship Exercise (bring
Lenkeit) |
Review Chapter 8: Kinship & Descent |
|
6 |
T June 19 |
Political Organization & Social Control Film - Ongka's
Big Moka (52min) Anthropology of Religion |
[L 214-265] Chapter 10: Political
Order; Chapter 11: Belief Systems |
|
|
Th June 21 |
Film - The Asmat of New Guinea (30 min)
(Religion & Cultural Change) Human Creativity and Expressions Cultural Change and the Future Applying Anthropology |
[L 266-333] Chapter 12: Expressions: Is this Art?;
Chapter 13: Cultural Change; Chapter 14: Applying Anthropology |
|
|
Tuturial Th June 21 |
Discuss Lectures, Film, and Readings Questions about Final Exam If time: Film - The Navigators (58 min) |
|
|
Exam |
TBA |
FINAL EXAM (week of
June 25-30) |
Review All Readings and Class Notes |