Social and Cultural Theory—Ethnography Review Essay

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Assignments"

On this day in Round and Square History 
2 November 2013—China's Lunar Calendar: 2013 11-02
2 November 2012—Rural Religion in China (33)
2 November 2011—Seinfeld Ethnography: Jerry's Haircut

[a] Modeled RF

This is the last writing assignment (this year) in my social and cultural theory course. All term, students have been reading theoretical essays in various anthologies and working diligently to make them make sense. The whole purpose of the course is to learn to use theoretical insights in our own work, and that means that we must position the readings in their historical context, learn what has changed, what theoretical trails have run cold, and, sometimes, find the ones that we need to travel down...again. Toward that end, I assign two sets of ethnographies for students upon which students can test their growing skills. They may choose either Renato Rosaldo's Ilongot Headhunting and Michelle Rosaldo's Knowledge and Passion—both the product of extensive, partnered fieldwork in the Philippines. The other choice is Edward Schieffelin's The Sorrow of the Lonely and the Burning of the Dancers and Steven Feld's Sound and Sentiment—the products of another kind of teamwork among the Kaluli of New Guinea. The readings take two weeks, and they culminate in this assignment.
 

Social and Cultural Theory

Anthropology 206

“Penultimate” Assignment

Ethnography, Theory, and a Sense of Place 

[b] Dance-sound RF

The Basics 

Read your two ethnographies from weeks thirteen and fourteen on the syllabus. Write an essay of at least 3,000 words (about ten pages) commenting upon some of the many themes found in these ethnographies (noting the assignment title above) and showing their connections to the materials we have studied up to this point in the course.

Preparation  

Although this assignment is deliberately open-ended (allowing you to use any number of interpretive strategies), do not forget its role as the penultimate (next to last) assignment in our course. Your work should engage, on some level, the full range of our materials from the first twelve weeks of the course (your class notes, reading notes, abstracts, and even quizzes will be useful as you proceed). If you take the assignment seriously, it will give you a solid foundation—and significant momentum—for the last “month” of the course.

[c] Painted Totem RF

Review Essay  

A good way to approach the assignment is to write a “review essay.” This is precisely why I have assigned the New York Review of Books throughout the term. As you have surely noted by now, a good review essay has a two-pronged approach. It is, on the one hand, a “review” of the books (not unlike an “embedded book report” in a larger and much more sophisticated essay). Imagine that your ten-page essay, then, contains an “embedded set of reviews totaling about four pages—maybe five. In the “rest” of the essay you should show how the themes in the ethnographies can be seen in the wider perspective of social and cultural theory. In other words, how might the essays and lectures we have read in Anthropology and Theory and Social Theory connect to the specific issues in the ethnographies you have read?

Additional Notes 

This assignment asks you to engage your two ethnographies and to review all of the work you have done thus far in the course. It does not require you to do “research,” and substantial outside work will almost certainly be counter-productive. For example, spending two or three pages on the political history of the Philippines will be far less productive than spending those pages examining the arguments made by Renato and Michelle Rosaldo. Background information is occasionally useful (and you may have some from previous reading or coursework), but do not make the mistake of providing so much “background” that you don’t deal fully with the assignment itself. Plot out some of the themes and take notes to make sure you have dealt with the full range of possibilities in the materials. Your skills in spotting themes in the Moore and Moberg books will pay off a great deal in this assignment, as will the general contextual and theoretical knowledge you have gained in our discussion.

[d] Pairs RF

Reminders 

—This assignment is meant to “tie together” much of the work you have done this semester.  Just as you must do on weekly quizzes, be sure to use the full range of your “sources” in your interpretations—classroom analyses, Moore, and Moberg (for context). As you know, the theoretical essays in Moore and the arguments in Bourdieu’s book lie at the heart of the class, and I would like to see connections to them in your essays. 

—Don’t forget that I will be evaluating this assignment with the assumption that you are trying to explain these matters to “intelligent non-specialists.” That means that I do not want you to “skip” those portions that you know I know. I want you to explain them. I want you to be the expert who is explaining these matters to someone who does not know much about cultural anthropology, but is certainly able to follow a complex argument. Imagine, for example, that you are writing for your FYI professor…and I will be looking over her shoulder.

—Follow standard Chicago Manual of Style citation form, and use the style sheet as you proceed. 

            http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html

—There should be a short bibliography of sources (class books and any outside materials that you happen to have consulted) at the end of your document. 

—Be sure that you fill out a “paper checklist” and attach it to your essay.

—Good luck.  There is more than enough material to write any number of essays. Choose several good points, scenes, or themes. Then write one.

Due by 10:00 p.m. on Sunday, November 23. 
(Send to me as a .pdf file and an e-mail attachment)

Use the word count feature of your software and put the word total at the bottom of the essay, e.g. “3,262 words.”

[e] One RF

Assignments (11)—Ethnography and Theory

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Assignments"

A year ago on Round and Square (11 November 2012)–The Electoral College-g

Two years ago on Round and Square (10 November 2011)–Lectures (3b)—Scholarship

[a] Modeled RF

This is the next-to-last assignment in my social and cultural theory course. All term, students have been reading theoretical essays in various anthologies and working diligently to make them make sense. The whole purpose of the course is to learn to use theoretical insights in our own work, and that means that we must position the readings in their historical context, learn what has changed, what theoretical trails have run cold, and, sometimes, find the ones that we need to travel down...again. Toward that end, I assign two sets of ethnographies for students upon which students can test their growing skills. They may choose either Renato Rosaldo's Ilongot Headhunting and Michelle Rosaldo's Knowledge and Passion—both the product of extensive, partnered fieldwork in the Philippines. The other choice is Edward Schieffelin's The Sorrow of the Lonely and the Burning of the Dancers and Steven Feld's Sound and Sentiment—the products of another kind of teamwork among the Kaluli of New Guinea. The readings take two weeks, and they culminate in this assignment.
 

Social and Cultural Theory

Anthropology 206

“Penultimate” Assignment

Ethnography, Theory, and a Sense of Place 

[b] Dance-sound RF

The Basics 

Read your two ethnographies from weeks thirteen and fourteen on the syllabus. Write an essay of at least 3,000 words (about ten pages) commenting upon some of the many themes found in these ethnographies (noting the assignment title above) and showing their connections to the materials we have studied up to this point in the course.

Preparation  

Although this assignment is deliberately open-ended (allowing you to use any number of interpretive strategies), do not forget its role as the penultimate (next to last) assignment in our course. Your work should engage, on some level, the full range of our materials from the first twelve weeks of the course (your class notes, reading notes, abstracts, and even quizzes will be useful as you proceed). If you take the assignment seriously, it will give you a solid foundation—and significant momentum—for the last “month” of the course.

[c] Painted Totem RF

Review Essay  

A good way to approach the assignment is to write a “review essay.” This is precisely why I have assigned the New York Review of Books throughout the term. As you have surely noted by now, a good review essay has a two-pronged approach. It is, on the one hand, a “review” of the books (not unlike an “embedded book report” in a larger and much more sophisticated essay). Imagine that your ten-page essay, then, contains an “embedded set of reviews totaling about four pages—maybe five. In the “rest” of the essay you should show how the themes in the ethnographies can be seen in the wider perspective of social and cultural theory. In other words, how might the essays and lectures we have read in Anthropology and Theory and Social Theory connect to the specific issues in the ethnographies you have read?

Additional Notes 

This assignment asks you to engage your two ethnographies and to review all of the work you have done thus far in the course. It does not require you to do “research,” and substantial outside work will almost certainly be counter-productive. For example, spending two or three pages on the political history of the Philippines will be far less productive than spending those pages examining the arguments made by Renato and Michelle Rosaldo. Background information is occasionally useful (and you may have some from previous reading or coursework), but do not make the mistake of providing so much “background” that you don’t deal fully with the assignment itself. Plot out some of the themes and take notes to make sure you have dealt with the full range of possibilities in the materials. Your skills in spotting themes in the Moore and Moberg books will pay off a great deal in this assignment, as will the general contextual and theoretical knowledge you have gained in our discussion.

[d] Pairs RF

Reminders 

—This assignment is meant to “tie together” much of the work you have done this semester.  Just as you must do on weekly quizzes, be sure to use the full range of your “sources” in your interpretations—classroom analyses, Moore, and Moberg (for context). As you know, the theoretical essays in Moore and the arguments in Bourdieu’s book lie at the heart of the class, and I would like to see connections to them in your essays. 

—Don’t forget that I will be evaluating this assignment with the assumption that you are trying to explain these matters to “intelligent non-specialists.” That means that I do not want you to “skip” those portions that you know I know. I want you to explain them. I want you to be the expert who is explaining these matters to someone who does not know much about cultural anthropology, but is certainly able to follow a complex argument. Imagine, for example, that you are writing for your FYI professor…and I will be looking over her shoulder.

—Follow standard Chicago Manual of Style citation form, and use the style sheet as you proceed. 

            http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html

—There should be a short bibliography of sources (class books and any outside materials that you happen to have consulted) at the end of your document. 

—Be sure that you fill out a “paper checklist” and attach it to your essay.

—Good luck.  There is more than enough material to write any number of essays. Choose several good points, scenes, or themes. Then write one.

Due by 10:00 p.m. on Sunday, November 24. 
(Send to me as a .pdf file and an e-mail attachment)

Use the word count feature of your software and put the word total at the bottom of the essay, e.g. “3,262 words.”

[e] One RF

Seinfeld Ethnography (3)—Elaine Exclaims

Click here for an introduction to the Round and Square series Argonauts of the Seinfeldian Specific.
Click below for all "Seinfeld Ethnography" posts: 

George Eats Trash     No Soup for You     Elaine Exclaims    The Puffy Shirt    Poppie's Pizza     Mr. Bookman

Marine Biologist         The Doorman          Opposite George   Newman's Mail   The Bootleg         Marriage
Just Dessert               Sleep Desk             Late Coffee            High Stakes        Motor Oil              Downtown 
Code Cracking           Nonfat Yogurt          Bad Boy                 It's Not You         I Can't Be...          Exploding Wallet
Elaine Flies Coach    The Close Talker     The Alliance           Broccoli               Coated Culture    Dinner Party

Click here for the reference to the "Argonauts" title, below.

Argonauts of the Seinfeldian Specific

[a] Good times

How do we convey emotion? How do we convey emotion in print? How do we convey emotion in print when we are merely "passing along the information" between two people who have close ties? This is the "theoretical" question I wish to examine today in Seinfeld Ethnography. Part of the problem for all human beings (whether in literate cultures or not) is how to "convey emotion." Imagine, first, that you heard jubilant, happy news from a close friend (face-to-face, over a cup of latté). Pardon the cliché, but there was hugging, jumping, and tears of joy flowed hither and tither. Your limbic system (neural center for emotional response) was fully engaged, and you were one with the moment in shared happiness with your friend. Good times.

[b] Limbic latté

Imagine, now, that you (remember, you were a participant in the emotional event) want to tell another friend about not only the happy news (the information), but also wish to give her a sense of the sublime joy of that wonderful moment. Of course, you have to use words (after the lived experience, all we have is words, alas). You do your best to say how it felt. Think about that. No, really think about it. What's different? Well, to begin, you're saying...how you felt.  Moreover, you are "re-experiencing" it only in a mnemonic (memory) sense. You are also surely using a different set of brain functions than in the original moment (this could be "proven," if necessary). So, when we move from "living" something to "relating" it, things change. You already know this, of course, but how deeply do you think about its implications? Most of us don't, and that is why Seinfeld is such a brilliant show. It teases out those little "theoretically important" tidbits in life and brings them to the fore (without boring you with theoretical discussions, as I insist upon doing).

[c] Fridgenotes

Before we move on, though, add one more element. Imagine that you have experienced the wonderful moment with your friend and that you want to tell another friend about it (exactly as you imagined it in the last paragraph). There is just one change. The friend isn't there. She is at work, or in Denver, or traveling in Bolivia. She ain't around, as we say back home. Now try to convey the same information, the same joy, the same "moment"...but in writing. What do you do? How do you show how exciting the news and the time was? How do you write...how it felt?

[d] Exclamatory cupcake

Well, Elaine has a way of thinking about these matters. Her story is a little different from the one I have told, above, but it covers the same interpretive ground. Check it out, then we'll read some ethnography and theory. Argonauts of the Seinfeldian Specific is all about having just a little bit of fun, and then sucking the very life from that entertainment with loads of dry academic discourse. Like school!

For now, though, watch Seinfeld!!!!

Exclamation points (2)

Grammar and Style (an appetizer)

[e] Ex-claims

Several grammarians and research gurus have commented on the exclamation point in written discourse. Like Mr. Lippman (and Jake), they don't like them. Here is a very small sampling.

[After a long discussion of hyphens]. Now what about the exclamation mark? Seldom use it![1]

The exclamation point is like the horn on your car—use it only when you have to.[2]

Ethnography and Theory (the main course)

[f] Icon

A number of excellent anthropologists have discussed emotion...and writing (but less often the two together, which is fertile ground for some future work, young people). Let's take a look at a few examples from a fascinating period in anthropological history (the late 1960s and early-to-mid-1970s) when the topic of emotion was beginning to be engaged seriously by a number of thinkers. They are not meant to be representative, or speak directly to the Seinfeld episode. They are meant to make you think...about thinking and behavior. Michelle Rosaldo discusses the relationship between words and social practice; Paul Riesman explains the importance of greetings in among the Fulani people of West Africa; and Jack Goody examines the role of written communication in criticism. Elaine may have taken the notion of "criticism" to a new level in this episode.

Michelle Rosaldo, Knowledge and Passion

[g] Ilongot emotion

My starting point is a set of Ilongot terms for what Westerners conventionally cast as emotional states and inner feelings—in short, with words that Ilongots use in explaining human action and construing the experiences of "the self"...In my own work, I assume that we can learn about the meaning of Ilongot headhunting raids and rites by focusing not simply on the organization of such events themselves, but instead on the emotional language Ilongots use in explaining how and why such violent deeds engage their interest...Thus, rather than probe the possible uses of Ilongot terms for illuminating facts of individual psychology, I concentrate on the meaning such words acquire through their association with enduring patterns of social relationship and activity in Ilongot daily life.[3]

Paul Riesman, Freedom in Fulani Social Life

[h] Liberté

For the Jelgobe, society has no existence other than in relations between people, and these relations cease to exist if people stop communicating. Here is a fundamental difference between this society and our own. With us human relations may be of great importance in a person's life, but we are not normally aware of a direct link between the upkeep of these relations and the upkeep of society as a whole. From the individual's point of view, society as a whole seems to keep itself going on its own, and demands from him, not spontaneous contribution, but obedience to its rules and a percentage of his income. Among the Jelgobe, on the contrary, the concept of society as a whole does not exist; there is only the fact of being together. But, as we have seen, being together is not taken for granted. It is difficult...there is the friction, the irritation, the misunderstandings which one finds in every community; these are expressed by the phrase gondal hoyaa (life together is not easy), which I heard several times during our stay with the Jelgobe...The greeting symbolizes, then, the readiness on the part of each person to continue the work of actualizing this conception of the world.[4]

Jack Goody, The Domestication of the Savage Mind

[i] Etched minds

Culture, after all, is a series of communicative acts, and differences in the mode of communication are often as important as differences in the mode of production, for they involve developments in the storing, analysis, and creation of human knowledge, as well as the relationships between the individuals involved. The specific proposition is that writing, and more especially alphabetic literacy, made it possible to scrutinise discourse in a different kind of way by giving oral communication a semi-permanent form; this scrutiny favoured the increase in scope of critical activity, and hence of rationality, scepticism, and logic to resurrect memories of those questionable dichotomies...By making it possible to scan the communications of mankind over a much wider time span, literacy encouraged, at the very same time, criticism and commentary on the one hand and orthodoxy of the book on the other.[5]

***  ***

[j] "—graphy"

In many case it is "oral" and "literate" that need to be opposed rather than "traditional" and "modern...It is rather that the form in which the alternatives are presented makes one aware of the differences, forces one to consider contradiction, makes one conscious of the "rules" of argument, forces one to develop such "logic." And the form is determined by the literary or written mode. Why? Because when an utterance is put into writing it can be inspected in much greater detail, in its parts as well as in its whole, backwards as well as forwards, out of context as well as in its setting; in other words, it can be subjected to a quite different type of scrutiny and critique than is possible with purely verbal communication.[6]

[1] Jacques Barzun and Henry F. Graff, The Modern Researcher [Sixth Edition] (Belmont CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2004), 224.

[2]  Patricia T. O'Conner, Woe is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English (New York: Riverhead Books, 1996), 142.

[3] Michelle Rosaldo, Knowledge and Passion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 26-27. Italics mine.

[4] Paul Riesman, Freedom in Fulani Social Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 175. Italics mine.

[5] Jack Goody, The Domestication of the Savage Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 37. Italics mine.

[6] Goody, Domestication, 43-44. Italics mine.

 

NEXT

Wednesday, April 20th

The Puffy Shirt

Durkheim, Kroeber, Bourdieu...and shirts that make us look like pirates.