Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Winter 2016
Instructor: Dr. Sarah Chase
(860) 928-5454 (H)
(860) 933-7999 (C)
This course will introduce you to the discipline of anthropology in general and
cultural anthropology in particular. Anthropology is the study of human diversity
through time and space. Cultural anthropology is the study of human society and
culture and describes, analyzes, interprets and explains social and cultural
similarities and differences. The main focus of this course will be how culture,
food and communication vary cross-culturally.
This class is modeled after a college course using college texts and associated
testing materials. Challenge yourselves to rise and meet these standards. This is a
great opportunity to gain insight into what you will be facing next year in a safe
environment where I will guide and aid you to achieve this high level of work. In
this class we will focus a great deal on active reading and how to do well on essay
tests in the social sciences in college.
Along with the texts, we will view numerous films, and you will plan, prepare,
execute, write-up, and present a mini-ethnography of your own choosing.
Readings:
Body Ritual Among the Nacirema by Horace Miner
Perfectly Prep by Sarah A. Chase
Coyotes by Ted Conover
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Eating Christmas in the Kalahari by Richard Lee
Shakespeare in the Bush by Laura Bohannan
Workaday World Crack Economy by Philippe Bourgois
Lessons from the Field by George Gmelch
Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh
Applying Anthropology by Podolefsky, Brown and Lacy
Multimedia
Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes NPR broadcast
The Anthropology of Cell Phones TED Talk
Jimmy Nelson: Gorgeous portraits of the world's vanishing people TED Talk
Corporate Anthropology: Dissecting Consumer Appetites NPR broadcast
Movies:
Daughter from Danang
God Grew Tired of Us
Born into Brothels
LESSON 7
Goal: Understand how to conduct ethnographic research, how to analyze the
data, how to write an ethnography and then present it to an audience.
Mini-ethnography