Assignments (15)—Chinese Ethnography Review

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

A year ago on Round and Square (6 December 2012)—Quotidian Quizzes (d)

Two years ago on Round and Square (6 December 2011)—Kanji Mastery: Radical 116—Cave

[a] Charted Course RF

This is the last assignment for the Chinese History and Culture course. Students have written a wide variety of papers, and engaged the study of Chinese history and culture from several angles. Their task in this assignment is to think about the relationship between "ethnography" and Chinese society. They will review all of our ethnographic readings and write a review essay in the style of the New York Review of Books (which they have been reading all term).
 

Chinese History and Culture

HIST 210/ANTH 275

Review Essay—Ethnographies of China

The Basics 

Reflect upon the ethnographic works you have read in this class (Producing Guanxi, Chen Village, and In One's Own Shadow). 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.

[b] Prepared RF

Preparation  

Although this assignment is deliberately open-ended (allowing you to use any number of interpretive strategies), do not forget its role as the final assignment in the course. Your work should engage, on some level, the full range of our materials in the course (your class notes, reading notes, abstracts, and even quizzes will be useful as you proceed). If you take the assignment seriously, this will be a useful "culminating" experience in the study of China. In a nutshell, you should write a review essay engaging the relationship between ethnographic studies done by anthropologists and "modern China."

Review Essay  

You must 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 would you interpret ethnographic writing and modern Chinese themes through the "lens" of our study of Chinese history (and culture)?

[c] Reflection RF

Additional Notes 

This assignment asks you to engage your three ethnographies and to review 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. 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.

Reminders 

—This assignment is meant to “tie together” much of the work you have done this semester. Review your notes and quizzes (and the final exam)...and then write.

—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.

[d] Proceed RF

—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. 

—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 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 17.
(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] Span RF