From Round to Square (and back)

For The Emperor's Teacher, scroll down (↓) to "Topics." It's the management book that will rock the world (and break the vase, as you will see). Click or paste the following link for a recent profile of the project: http://magazine.beloit.edu/?story_id=240813&issue_id=240610

A new post appears every day at 12:05* (CDT). There's more, though. Take a look at the right-hand side of the page for over four years of material (2,000 posts and growing) from Seinfeld and country music to every single day of the Chinese lunar calendar...translated. Look here ↓ and explore a little. It will take you all the way down the page...from round to square (and back again).
*Occasionally I will leave a long post up for thirty-six hours, and post a shorter entry at noon the next day.

Thursday, November 22, 2018

"Final Analysis" Assignment (Autumn 2018)

[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 Analysis" Assignment
Using Theory and Explaining Stuff

[b] Explaining RF
The Shorthand Version
1. Choose something that interests you.

2. Explain how it works (and the "world" around it).

3. Use theory. 

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

3,000 words (absolute minimum). Preferably 3,000-5,000 words with extensive details of how that "world" works (think of Loïc Wacquant's Body and Soul).

Due by 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 18, 2017.

Paper copy in my office (MI 206) unless otherwise arranged.

[c] Culture RF
Possible Format A—Appendix
1. Choose something that interests you, and that you think might make for an interesting analysis. Over the years, topics have included scuba training, EMT training, doughnut-making, coffee shop barista activities, the inner-workings of athletic teams, and so forth.

2. Explain "the world" around that topic in detail, using “thick description” techniques (reread Geertz's essay in Anthropology in Theory). Think especially of the analysis in Loïc Wacquant's Body and Soul.

3. Add a theoretical “appendix” discussing how the reader might deepen her understanding with theoretical perspectives. 

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

Possible Format B—Integration

1. Choose something that interests you (see "Format A" for examples).

2. Explain "the world" around that topic in detail, using “thick description” techniques and integrating theoretical perspectives as you proceed. 

3. Add a succinct conclusion that explicitly… 

4. …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?

You have examples of anthropologists "using theory" while "explaining stuff" in many of your books this term. Perhaps the most useful ones for this assignment will be Body and Soul and Howard Beckery's What About Mozart...? The key to this assignment is to use theory to explain how something works. Loïc Wacqant's Body and Soul does this extraordinarily well, and any dozen or so pages of that book can be taken as a model for what I want you to do in this assignment.

Summary 
1. Choose something that interests you.
2. Explain "the world" around that topic in detail.
3. Use “theory.” 
4. Explain why it—the explanation (the "ethnographic detail") 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.

DO NOT take this assignment lightly. 
It is, by far, the most important assignment of the entire term. 
A great job can save a big part of the term; a mediocre one can hurt more than you want (as I have been saying all term long).

Due in my office by 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 18, 2018
(the last "moment" of finals week).
[d] Pathways RF

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