China's Lunar Calendar 2015 11-26

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Calendars and Almanacs"  

⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦ From right to left: ⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦
12/2.......................................................................................................11/24

This is one in a never-ending series—following the movements of the calendar—in Round and Square perpetuity. It is today's date in the Chinese lunar calendar, along with basic translation and minimal interpretation. Unless you have been studying lunar calendars (and Chinese culture) for many years, you will likely find yourself asking "what does that mean?" I would caution that "it" doesn't "mean" any one thing. There are clusters of meaning, and they require patience, reflection, careful reading, and, well, a little bit of ethnographic fieldwork. The best place to start is the introduction to "Calendars and Almanacs" on this blog. I teach a semester-long course on this topic and, trust me, it takes a little bit of time to get used to the lunar calendar. Some of the material is readily accessible; some of it is impenetrable, even after many years.

As time goes on, I will link all of the sections to lengthy background essays. This will take a while. In the meantime, take a look, read the introduction, and think about all of the questions that emerge from even a quick look at the calendar.

Section One

Solar Calendar Date
廿
六

四期星

Eleventh Month, Twenty-Sixth Day

Astral Period Four
Thursday, November 26

———————————————— 

Section Two
Beneficent Stars 

(top to bottom, right to left)

六歲
合支

Generational Branch
Six Linkages

—————————————————

Section Three
Auspicious Hours
(top to bottom, right to left) 
申辰子
吉凶凶
酉己丑
吉凶凶

戌午寅
吉吉中

亥未卯
吉中中

23:00-01:00 Inauspicious
01:00-03:00 Inauspicious
03:00-05:00 In-Between
05:00-07:00 In-Between

07:00-09:00 Inauspicious
9:00-11:00 Inauspicious
11:00-13:00 Auspicious
13:00-15:00 In-Between

15:00-17:00 Auspicious
17:00-19:00 Auspicious
19:00-21:00 Auspicious
21:00-23:00 Auspicious

The hours above are for Hong Kong. It is up to you if you want to recalibrate or to assume that the cyclicality of the calendar "covers" the rest of the world. This is a greater interpretive challenge than you might think.
                             —————————————————

Section Four 
Activities to Avoid  
(top-to-bottom; right to left) 

忌
作修
灶廚
Kitchen Repairs
Stove Work

—————————————————

Section Five 
Cosmological Information 

十

五
丙
午
水
角
危
Fifteenth Day Day (Tenth Lunar Month)

Cyclical day: bingwei (43/60)

Phase (element): Water

Constellation: Horn (1/28)

"Day Personality" Cycle: Danger (8/12)

—————————————————  

Section Six
Appropriate Activities
and Miscellaneous Information
(top-to-bottom; right to left)

下
兀
————
宜
動祭
土祀
裁掃
衣舍
伐修
木造
復
喪
五四
虛廢

————
Lower Amputee

Appropriate Activities
Venerating Ancestors
Sweeping Rooms
Repairing and Constructing
Moving Soil
Cutting-out Clothing
Felling Timber 

Repeat Mourning
(the fifty-fourth of seventy-two five-day solar micro-periods on the agricultural calendar)

Baleful Astral Influences

Four Abandonments
Five Vacancies

Section Seven
Inauspicious Stars

丫

Bifurcation
————

Section Eight

Miscellaneous

廚

碓 灶

Kitchen
Pestle, Stove

Social and Cultural Theory—Final Theoretical Essay 2015

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

On this date on Round and Square's History 

22 November 2014—China's Lunar Calendar 2014 11-22

22 November 2013—China's Lunar Calendar 2013 11-22

22 November 2012—Displays of Authenticity: Thanksgiving

22 November 2011—Fieldnotes From History: Opinion

[a] Society RF

This is the last assignment for the Social and Cultural Theory course. Students have written a wide variety of papers, and engaged the study of social and cultural theory from several angles. Their task in this assignment is to explain something in detail...and to use "theory."

Social and Cultural Theory 

Anthropology 206

Final Paper 

Using Theory and Explaining Stuff

[b] Explaining RF

The Shorthand Version

1. Explain something. 

2. Use theory. 

3. Show how it helps to understand the subject more deeply.

3,000 words (minimum).

Due by 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Paper copy in my office (MI 111) unless otherwise arranged.

[c] Culture RF

Possible Format A—Appendix

1. Explain something in detail, using “thick description” techniques (reread Geertz).

2. Add a theoretical “appendix” discussing how the reader might deepen her understanding. 

3. Show how it helps to understand the subject more deeply.

Possible Format B—Integration

1. Explain something in detail, using “thick description” techniques and integrating theoretical perspectives as you proceed. 

2. Add a succinct conclusion that explicitly… 

3. …shows how your theoretical perspective helps to understand the subject more deeply.

Possible Format C—New Vistas

1. Masterfully blend all elements together in a striking narrative form (previously unimagined) that will be anthologized in theory readers and read by students like you for generations. What if you knew you were writing a classic?

Summary 

1. Explain something in detail. 

2. Use “theory.” 

3. Explain why it—the explanation and the theory—matters.

Sorry—it’s really that straightforward.

We’ll discuss strategies in class, but this is a serious assignment, and is meant to make you reflect upon your approach to social and cultural theory. It only seems “glib” and lighthearted. I could write ten pages of detail for the assignment, but this is really all you need...without clutter.

Due in my office by 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 15, 2015 

(the last "moment" of finals week).

[d] Pathways RF

Social and Cultural Theory—Ethnography Review Essay 2015

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

On this day in Round and Square History 
2 November 2014—China's Lunar Calendar: 2014 11-12
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 twelve and thirteen 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 A History of Anthropology 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 (or Edward Scheiffelin and Steven Feld). 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, Bourdieu, and Eriksen 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 books 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 22 in my office (hard copy)—MI 111

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

China's Lunar Calendar 2015 11-03

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Calendars and Almanacs"  

⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦ From right to left: ⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦
11/3.......................................................................................................10/26

This is one in a never-ending series—following the movements of the calendar—in Round and Square perpetuity. It is today's date in the Chinese lunar calendar, along with basic translation and minimal interpretation. Unless you have been studying lunar calendars (and Chinese culture) for many years, you will likely find yourself asking "what does that mean?" I would caution that "it" doesn't "mean" any one thing. There are clusters of meaning, and they require patience, reflection, careful reading, and, well, a little bit of ethnographic fieldwork. The best place to start is the introduction to "Calendars and Almanacs" on this blog. I teach a semester-long course on this topic and, trust me, it takes a little bit of time to get used to the lunar calendar. Some of the material is readily accessible; some of it is impenetrable, even after many years.

As time goes on, I will link all of the sections to lengthy background essays. This will take a while. In the meantime, take a look, read the introduction, and think about all of the questions that emerge from even a quick look at the calendar.

Section One

Solar Calendar Date
三
日

二期星

Eleventh Month, Third Day

Astral Period Two
Tuesday, November 3

———————————————— 

Section Two
Beneficent Stars 

(top to bottom, right to left)

天十
恩靈

Ten Spirits
Heavenly Kindness

—————————————————

Section Three
Auspicious Hours
(top to bottom, right to left) 
申辰子
中凶吉
酉己丑
中吉凶

戌午寅
吉吉吉

亥未卯
中凶吉

23:00-01:00 Auspicious
01:00-03:00 Inauspicious
03:00-05:00 Auspicious
05:00-07:00 Auspicious

07:00-09:00 Inauspicious
9:00-11:00 Auspicious
11:00-13:00 Auspicious
13:00-15:00 Inauspicious

15:00-17:00 In-Between
17:00-19:00 In-Between
19:00-21:00 Auspicious
21:00-23:00 In-Between

The hours above are for Hong Kong. It is up to you if you want to recalibrate or to assume that the cyclicality of the calendar "covers" the rest of the world. This is a greater interpretive challenge than you might think.
                             —————————————————

Section Four 
Activities to Avoid  
(top-to-bottom; right to left) 

忌
開詞
倉訟
Lawsuits and Litigation
Opening Granaries

—————————————————

Section Five 
Cosmological Information 

廿

二
癸
未
木
尾
收
Twenty-Second Day Day (Ninth Lunar Month)

Cyclical day: guiwei (20/60)

Phase (element): Wood

Constellation: Tail (6/28)

"Day Personality" Cycle: Receive (10/12)

—————————————————  

Section Six
Appropriate Activities
and Miscellaneous Information
(top-to-bottom; right to left)

宜
捕
捉
田
獵
結
網
俯咸蟲蟄
月五
刑虛

————
Appropriate Activities
Seizing and Capturing
Field Venery
Binding Nets

Insects Tuck Themselves Away
(the fifty-fourth of seventy-two five-day solar micro-periods on the agricultural calendar)

Baleful Astral Influences

Five Vacancies
Lunar Punishment

Section Seven
Inauspicious Stars

人 州

Person, Landmass
————

Section Eight

Miscellaneous

房

廁 牀

Edifice
Toilet, Bed