Readings

[M] = Malinowski, Bronislaw. Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea. Waveland Press Inc., 1984. ISBN: 9780881330847.

[W] = Walley, Christine J. Exit Zero: Family and Class in Postindustrial Chicago. University of Chicago Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780226871806. 

SES # TOPICS READINGS

1

Introduction

No readings assigned.

Section 1: The Family

2

The Family (I)

[M] Chapter II: The Natives of the Trobriand Islands. [Preview with Google Books]

[M] Chapter III: The Essentials of the Kula. [Preview with Google Books]

3

The Family (II)

[M] Chapter II: The Natives of the Trobriand Islands. [Preview with Google Books]

[M] Chapter III: The Essentials of the Kula. [Preview with Google Books]

Recommended, not required:

Parsons, Talcott. “The Kinship System of the Contemporary United States.” American Anthropologist 45, no. 1 (1943): 22–38.

4

The Family (III)

Rakopoulos, Theodoros. “Antimafia Families: Cooperative Work and Flexible Kinship in Sicily.” Critique of Anthropology 37, no. 2 (2017): 115–31.

5

The Family (IV)

Fennell, Catherine. “The Family Toxic: Triaging Obligation in Post-Welfare Chicago.” South Atlantic Quarterly 115, no. 1 (2016): 9–32.

Zaloom, Caitlin. “Finance.” Fieldsights, Cultural Anthropology webpage, August 7, 2017.

6

The Family (V)

[W] Introduction. [Preview with Google Books]

[W] Chapter 1: A World of Iron and Steel: A Family Album. 

7

The Family (VI)

[W] Chapter 2: It All Came Tumbling Down: My Father and the Demise of Chicago's Steel Industry. 

[W] Chapter 3: Places Beyond. 

8

The Family (VII)

No readings assigned.

9

The Family (VIII)

[W] Chapter 4: The Ties That Bind.

[W] Conclusion: From the Grave to the Cradle.

10

The Family (IX)

No readings assigned.

Section 2: Things (Creation and Circulation)

11

Things (Creation and Circulation) (I)

Peebles, Gustav. “A Wicked Cheat: ATMs and the Neo-Feudal Economy.” Harper’s, June 2004.

Morris, Jeremy. “Moonlighting Strangers Met on the Way: The Nexus of Informality and Blue-Collar Sociality in Russia.” Chapter 3 in The Informal Post-Socialist Economy: Embedded Practices and Livelihoods. Edited by Jeremy Morris and Abel Polese. Routledge, 2016. ISBN: 9781138204041. [Preview with Google Books]

12

Things (Creation and Circulation) (II)

[M] Chapter 4: Canoes and Sailing. 

[M] Chapter 5: The Ceremonial Building of a Waga. 

[M] Chapter 6: Launching of a Canoe and Ceremonial Visiting—Tribal Economics in the Trobriands. 

13

Things (Creation and Circulation) (III)

Kumler, Aden. “Sacrament to Street Food: The Troubled History of the Waffle.” Cabinet: A Quarterly of Art and Culture 58: Theft (2015): 63–71.

One of these two—reading roles assigned in class:

 Le Goff, Jacques. “Between the Devil and Mammon: Usury and the Usurer,” “The Moneybag: Usury,” and “The Thief of Time.” Chapters 1–3 in Your Money or Your Life: Economy and Religion in the Middle Ages. Translated by Patricia Ranum. Zone Books, 1988. ISBN: 9780942299144. 

Thompson, E. P. “Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism.” Past & Present 38 (1967): 56–97.

14

Things (Creation and Circulation) (IV)

No readings assigned.

15

Things (Creation and Circulation) (V)

Evans-Pritchard, E. E. “Interest in Cattle.” Chapter 1 in The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People. Oxford University Press, 1969. ISBN: 9780195003222. 

Pedersen, Morten Axel, and Lars Højer. “Lost in Transition: Fuzzy Property and Leaky Selves in Ulaanbaatar.” Ethnos 73, no. 1 (2008): 73–96.

16

Things (Creation and Circulation) (VI)

No readings assigned.

Section 3: Persons, Agents, Selves, Possessions

17

Persons, Agents, Selves, Possessions (I)

Mauss, Marcel. “A Category of the Human Mind: The Notion of Person; The Notion of Self.” Chapter 1 in The Category of the Person: Anthropology, Philosophy, History. Edited by Michael Carrithers, Steven Collins, and Steven Lukes. Cambridge University Press, 1985. ISBN: 9780521277570. [Preview with Google Books]

Taylor, Charles. “The Person.” Chapter 12 in The Category of the Person: Anthropology, Philosophy, History. Edited by Michael Carrithers, Steven Collins, and Steven Lukes. Cambridge University Press, 1985. ISBN: 9780521277570. 

18

Persons, Agents, Selves, Possessions (II)

Ingold, Tim. “A Circumpolar Night’s Dream.” Chapter 6 in The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. Routledge, 2011. ISBN: 9780415617475. [Preview with Google Books]

Recommended, not required:

de la Cadena, Marisol. “Indigenous Cosmopolitics in the Andes: Conceptual Reflections beyond ‘Politics.’Cultural Anthropology 25, no. 2 (2010): 334–70.

19

Persons, Agents, Selves, Possessions (III)

Geertz, Clifford. “Centers, Kings, and Charisma: Reflections on the Symbolics of Power.” Chapter 6 in Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. 3rd ed. Basic Books, 1985. ISBN: 9780465041626. 

Lepselter, Susan. “From the Earth Native’s Point of View: The Earth, the Extraterrestrial, and the Natural Ground of Home.” Public Culture 9, no. 2 (1997): 197–208.

20

Persons, Agents, Selves, Possessions (IV)

Cherkaev, Xenia, and Elena Tipikina. “Interspecies Affection and Military Aims: Was There a Totalitarian Dog?Environmental Humanities 10, no. 1 (2018): 20–39.

Recommended, not required:

Tsing, Anna. “Unruly Edges: Mushrooms as Companion Species: For Donna Haraway.” Environmental Humanities 1, no. 1 (2012): 141–54.

21

Persons, Agents, Selves, Possessions (V)

No readings assigned.

Section 4: Ethnography, Ethnographers, and How to Study “Culture”

22

Ethnography, Ethnographers, and How to Study “Culture” (I)

Boas, Franz. “The Potlatch.” Chapter 4 in Kwakiutl Ethnography. Edited and abridged with an introduction by Helen Codere. University of Chicago Press, 1975. ISBN: 9780226062372. 

23

Ethnography, Ethnographers, and How to Study “Culture” (II)

Briggs, Charles, and Richard Bauman. “‘The Foundation of All Future Researches’: Franz Boas, George Hunt, Native American Texts, and the Construction of Modernity.” American Quarterly 51, no. 3 (1999): 479–528.

Recommended, not required:

Boas, Franz. “Shamanism: I Desired to Learn the Ways of the Shamans.” In The Religion of the Kwakiutl Indians: 2. Translations. Columbia University Press, 1930. Internet Archive.

24

Ethnography, Ethnographers, and How to Study “Culture” (III)

Boas, Franz. “On Alternating Sounds.” American Anthropologist 2, no. 1 (1889): 47–54.

Sapir, Edward. “The Psychological Reality of Phonemes.” In Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality. Edited by David G Mandelbaum. Forgotten Books, 2017. ISBN: 9781528253918. [Preview with Google Books]

Whorf, Benjamin Lee. “The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language.” ETC: A Review of General Semantics 1, no. 4 (1944): 197–215.

25

Ethnography, Ethnographers, and How to Study “Culture” (IV)

[M] Introduction. The Subject, Method and Scope of this Inquiry. [Preview with Google Books]

Borges, Jorge Luis. “The Ethnographer.” In Collected Fictions. Translated by Andrew Hurley. Penguin Books, 1999. ISBN: 9780140286809. 

Evans-Pritchard, E. E. “Introductory.” In The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People. Oxford University Press, 1969, pp. 5–15. ISBN: 9780195003222. 

26

Ethnography, Ethnographers, and How to Study “Culture” (V)

No readings assigned.