Readings | Documenting Culture | Anthropology

Required Texts

Barnouw, Eric. Documentary: A History of the Non-fiction Film. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780195078985.

Fatimah Tobing Rony. The Third Eye: Race, Cinema and Ethnographic Spectacle. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780822318408.

Ginsburg, Faye, Abu-Lughod, Lila and Brian Larkin eds. Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780520232310.

Grimshaw, Anna. The Ethnographer’s Eye: Ways of Seeing in Modern Anthropology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780521773102.

Recommended Text (books out of print)

MacDougall, David. Transcultural Cinema. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780691012346.

Readings by Class Session

Many of the film screenings listed below are linked to more information provided by the Internet Movie Database.

Readings.
SES #	TOPICS	READINGS
1	Introduction	Required Readings Barnouw. Chapter 1. "Seeing Anthropology." Chapter 1 in Rony. "Introduction." In Grimshaw. Screenings Lumiere Shorts. 1895. Bontoc Eulogy. Directed by Marlon Fuentes. 56 min. New York: Cinema Guild, 1995. Recommended Viewing Fusco, Coco, and Guillermo Gomez-Pena. Couple in a Cage.
2	Early Cinema	Required Readings Barnouw. Chapter 2. Selections from Kino-Eye.The writings of Dziga Vertov. Edited by Annette Michaelson. 1985, University of Cal Press. pp. 5-21. ISBN: 9780520056305. Vaughan, Dai. "The Man with the Movie Camera." In The Documentary Tradition. Edited by Lewis Jacobs. New York: W. W. Norton, 1979. ISBN: 9780393950427. Grimshaw. Chapter 3. "Taxidermy and Romantic Ethnography: Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North." Chapter 4 in Rony. Briggs, Jean. "Family Life: Expressions of Closeness." Chapter 2 in Never in Anger: Portrait of an Eskimo Family, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780674608283. Look over press kit from 1920s marketing of "Nanook and the North." Studies in Visual Communication. Vol. 6, no. 2, 2-4: 61-76. (Special issue on Flaherty). Screenings Nanook of the North. Directed by Robert Flaherty. 69 min. 1922. Selections from The Man with a Movie Camera. Directed by Dziga Vertov. 1928. Recommended Readings Vertov, Dziga. Introduction to Kino-Eye. Nelmes, Jill, ed. "The Soviet Montage Cinema of the 1920s." Chapter 13 in An Introduction to Film Studies, London and New York: Routledge, 1999. ISBN: 9780415173100. Recommended Viewing Nanook Revisited. 60 min. 1990.
3	Ethnographic Film as Science and Beyond	Required Readings Grimshaw. Chapters 5 and 7. Jacknis, Ira, and Margaret Mead, and Gregory Bateson. "Bali: Their Use of Photography and Film." In Cultural Anthropology. pp. 160-177. Mead, Margaret. "Visual Anthropology in a Discipline of Words." In Principles of Visual Anthropology. Edited by Paul Hockings, Mouton de Gruyter, 1995. ISBN: 9783110142280. MacDougall, David. "Beyond Observational Cinema." In Hockings. Connolly, Bob, and Robin Anderson. Selections from First Contact. New York, NY: Viking, 1987. pp. 1-18, and 235-305. ISBN: 9780670801671. Lutkehaus, Nancy. "Interview with Filmmaker Bob Connolly." Visual Anthropology Review 10, no.2 (1994): 771-75. Screenings Selections from Trance and Dance in Bali. Directed by Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. 20 mins. 1951. MacDougall, David, and Judith MacDougall. Under the Men's Tree. 15 min. 1974. Connolly, Bob, and Robin Anderson. Joe Leahy's Neighbors. 90 min. 1988. Recommended Readings MacDougall, David. "Visual Anthropology and Ways of Knowing." In Transcultural Cinema. Recommended Viewing Connolly, Bob, and Robin Anderson. First Contact. 54 min. 1982. Connolly, Bob, and Robin Anderson. Black Harvest. 90 mins. 1992.
4	Cinema Verite and Cine-fiction: The Films of Jean Rouch	Required Readings Grimshaw. Chapter 6. Stoller, Paul. Selections from The Cinematic Griot. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992. pp. 1-47, and 131-144. ISBN: 9780226775463. Taylor, Lucien. "A Conversation with Jean Rouch." Visual Anthropology Review. Vol. 7, no.1 (Spring 1991): 92-102. Rouch, Jean. "The Camera and the Man." In Hockings. ———. "Our Totemic Ancestors and Crazed Masters." In Hockings. Uadike, Frank. "Africa and the Cinema." Excerpts from chapter 1 in Black African Cinema. Nwachukwu Frank Ukadike. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994. pp. 48-58. ISBN: 9780520077485. Screenings Rouch, Jean. Jaguar. 93 min. 1971. Recommended Readings Adams, John. "Jean Rouch Talks about his films to John Marshall and John Adams." American Anthropologist. Vol. 80, no. 4 (Dec. 1978).
5	Cine-fiction and Cinema Verite: The Films of Jean Rouch (cont.)	Required Readings S. Feld, et al. Studies Visual Communication. A special issue on "Chronicle of a Summer." Vol. 11, no. 1, (Winter 1985): 4-35. Feld, Steve. "Themes in the Cinema of Jean Rouch." In Visual Anthropology. Vol. 2. pp. 223-247. Viera, John David. "Images as Property." In Image Ethics. Screenings Rouch, Jean, and Edgar Morin. Chronicle of a Summer. 90 min. Corinth Films, 1961. Recommended Viewing Godard, Jean-Luc. Breathless. Truffaut, Francois. The Four Hundred Blows.
6	Direct Cinema in the US: Observing at Home	Required Readings Barnouw. Chapter 5, pp. 231-262. Winston, Brian. "The Documentary Film as Scientific Inscription." In Theorizing Documentary. Edited by Michael Renov. New York, NY: Routledge, 1993. pp. 37-57. ISBN: 9780415903820. Atkins, Tomas. "Frederick Wiseman's America." In The Documentary Tradition. Edited by Lewis Jacobs. New York, NY: W. W. Norton, 1979. pp. 536-550. ISBN: 9780393950427. Wiseman, Frederick. "High School." In The New Documentary in Action. Edited by Alan Rosenthal. Berkeley,CA: University of California Press, 1971. pp. 66-75. ISBN: 9780520018884. Drew, Robert. "An Independent with the Networks." In New Challenges for Documentary. Edited by Alan Rosenthal. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. pp. 389-401. ISBN: 9780520057241. Leacock, Richard. "For an Uncontrolled Cinema." Film Culture. No. 22/23: 23-25. Anderson, Carolyn, and Thomas Benson. "Direct Cinema and the Myth of Informed Consent: The Case of Titicut Follies." In Image Ethics. pp. 58-90. Screenings Primary. Directed by Richard Leacock, D. A. Pennebaker, Terence McCartney-Filgate, and Albert Maysles. 54 min. 1960. High School. Directed by Frederick Wiseman. 75 mins. Zipporah Films, 1968. Recommended Viewing Don't Look Back. Directed by D. A. Pennbacker. 95 mins. Kino Films, 1966.
7	Communities and Conflict: Debating Nuclear Technologies Guest Lecturer: Filmmaker Chris Boebel	Required Readings Stranahan, Susan. "Nuclear Development." Chapter 6 in Susquehanna: River of Dreams. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. ISBN: 9780801851476. Krikson, Kai. "Three Mile Island: A New Species of Trouble." In A New Species of Trouble, New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co., 1994. ISBN: 9780393035940. Gusterson, Hugh. "Bodies and Machines." Chapter 5 in Nuclear Rites. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780520213739. Screenings Containment: Life After Three Mile Island. Directed by Chris Boebel and Nick Poppy. 60 min. 2004.
8	Gender and Sexuality	Required Readings Hooks, Bell. "Review of Paris is Burning in Reel to Real." In Race, Sex and Class at the Movies. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997. ISBN: 9780415918237. Friedlander, Eva. "Review of India Cabaret." Society for Visual Anthropology Newsletter (Fall 1988). Valentine, David, and Riki Ann Wichins. "One Percent on the Burn Chart: Gender Genitals and Hermaphrodites with Attitude." Social Text. Vol. 15, no. 3/4 (1997): 215-222. Appadurai, Arjun, and Carol Breckenridge. "Marriage, Migration and Money: Mira Nair's Cinema of Displacement." In Visual Anthropology. Vol. 4, 1991. pp. 95-102. Larkin, Brian. "Indian Films and Nigerian Lovers: Media and the Creation of Parallel Modernities." Africa. Vol. 67, no. 3 (1997). Nanda, Serena. Selections from "Neither Man Nor Woman." In The Hijras of India. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 1998. ISBN: 9780534509033. Screenings India Cabaret. Directed by Mira Nair. 57 mins. 1985. Paris is Burning. Directed by Jennie Livingston. 78 mins. 1990. Recommended Readings Morris, Ros. "All Made Up: Performance Theory and the New Anthropology of Sex and Gender." Annual Review of Anthropology (1995): 567-445.
9	Observing the 'Exotic' in the U.S.	Screenings Fast, Cheap and Out of Control. Directed by Errol Morris. Recommended Viewing The Thin Blue Line. Directed by Errol Morris. 115 mins. 1987.
10	The Personal and the Political: A Case of Environmental Activism	Required Readings "Advocate," and "Guerilla." Chapters 3 and 5 in Barnouw. Fabian, Johannes, and Tshibumba Matulu. Selections from Remembering the Present. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996 (Interview with painter and paintings of Lumumba). ISBN: 9780520203761. Citron, Michelle. "Fleeing from Documentary: Autobiographical Film/Video and 'Ethics of Responsibility'." In Feminism and Documentary. Edited by Diane Waldman, and Janet Walker. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780816630073. Katz, John, and Judith Katz. "Ethics and the Perception of Ethics in Autobiographical Film." In Image Ethics. Edited by Larry Gross, John Katz, and Jay Ruby. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780816638253. Screenings Blue Vinyl. Directed by Judith Helfand, and Daniel Gold. 96 min. 2003. Recommended Readings Peck, Raoul. Lumumba: Death of a Prophet. 69 min. 1992. A Healthy Baby Girl. Directed by Judith Helfand. 57 min. 2002.
11	Finding a Future for Culture on Film/Video: Feature Films, Documentaries, and "the Social Practice of Media"	Required Readings Ginsburg, Faye. "Introduction." In Media Worlds. Ginsburg, Faye. "Screen Memories: Resignifying the Traditional in Indigenous Media." In Media Worlds. Huhndorf, Shari. "Atanarjuat, The Fast Runner: Culture, History and Politics in Inuit Media." American Anthropologist. Vol. 105, no. 4 (2003): 822-826. Screenings Selections from Nanook Revisited. Starting Fire with Gunpowder. Inuit Broadcasting Corporation. Selections from Antanajuaruat ("The Fast Runner"). Recommended Readings MacDougall, David. "Transcultural Cinema." Chapter 13 in Transcultural Cinema. Fischer, Michael M. J. "Film as Ethnography and Cultural Critique in the Late Twentieth Century." in Diane Carson and Lester Friedman, ed. Shared Differences: Multicultural Media and Practical Pedagogy. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1995. ISBN: 9780252064500. Web site for Igloolik Isuma Productions.