Kant's Anthropology Letter Assignment (Spring 2024)

 

[a] Text and illustration RF

Kant's Anthropology

History 310, Anthropology 375

Spring 2024

Preliminary Writing Assignment

Kant's Anthropology...Explained to Others

By choosing the letter format for your preliminary writing assignment (Week 5), I am asking you to build upon the skills you have already developed this term in analyzing (and providing examples for) concepts relating to the social philosophy of the enlightenment era, especially from the multi-disciplinary perspectives that guide our course. While you have only just begun your work, I want you to write a letter to a real person (it will be sent, with the aid of the history department) about our discussions (and your reading) of the historical. anthropological, and philosophical works in the seminar so far. Write the letter, and you will have a leg up, so to speak, on your semester's work.

[b] Reaching, teaching RF

Teach it, really (think of the New York Review).

Letters from “the field” (or our modified “archive” of history, anthropology, and philosophy) are a good way to refine your own approach to historical and ethnographic rigor and imagination. The letter writing exercise is especially useful as a way to refine your thinking at the (relative) beginning of our course.

The nonfiction writer John McPhee explains to his Princeton students that a letter is often precisely the solution to challenges of interpretation or clarity—when in doubt, write to mother, he says. In this case, it is not a plea of “send money” that the letter contains, but rather a reworking, rethinking, and re-contextualization of your work. You need not limit yourself to kinfolk, but you need to think about who the recipient will be (ideally someone who will welcome a letter about a set of concepts revolving around historical and cultural translation).

You owe it to yourself to listen to this long interview with McPhee. Take the time to do so, and you will learn a great deal about writing from one of the masters of nonfiction prose. At the very least, though, listen to the first few minutes. It is the very purpose that lies behind this assignment.

John McPhee NPR (1978) 22:40
Click on the second blue circle on the right side of the page (it is worth it)

Now start writing. Toward that end, you should pay attention to the following issues.

1. The letter needs to be “long enough” to get you deeply into several issues regarding "enlightenment era anthropology," including particular approaches to the issues (discussed in class) and a few examples. There is no absolute upper limit, but I am going to make an absolute lower limit of 2,500 words (about eight pages). Realistically, your letter should probably be somewhere in the 3,000-3,500 word range (about ten-to-twelve pages). 2,500 words is the bear bare minimum, and will barely allow you to tap the themes we have already covered in this course. I

[c] I said, "start writing" RF

2. Just in case you think that writing 10-12 pages is a matter of spilling your random thoughts onto the page and turning it in, pay very close attention to my writing guide and our class discussions. I expect this to be a well-written essay in letter form (we'll discuss the genre in class). t should go without saying (but I'll say it anyway) that eight sloppy first-draft pages will maybe get you a mercy C grade. Follow the writing guide; write drafts. Then revise.

3. I am asking you to connect with a very specific reader, and to explain “Space and Place" in a level of detail that she (or he, or they) will find satisfying. You are the expert, and your “audience” is the person who will be reading your letter (think of my evaluative role as reading over a shoulder). I have found that this kind of assignment helps students to explain even abstruse and technical matters, because the personal relationship they already have with their readers demands an attention to patient explanation that is often lacking in more “academic” forms of writing, in which students often assume that a professor "already knows what they are writing about."

Your reader probably doesn't, and this letter really will be sent (arranged and paid for by the Beloit College history department).

Make it make sense.

4. You may approach your materials from any angle that you like, but you will need to “cover” at least the following items, no matter what order you choose.

          a. You must discuss what "Kant's Anthropology” means. In other words, you 

               will need to explain something about the era in which Kant (and others) 

               lived, and how they thought about social relations. Provide your reader 

               with at least a few ways of thinking about it.

          b. Give your reader a sense of what you have learned so far in your various books
              for this course. Use examples from your studies. Tell about Ernst Cassirer, Kant

              himself, and Roger Scruton, among others. Describe the bewildering range of 

              ways to look at issues of space and place.

          c. Give your reader a solid sense of what your final project will look like. Explain it
               in some detail for your reader (and mention some of the sources you might 

               use). Use some of the skills you developed from the readings thus far.

          d. You must have at least one illustration. Think about "the rhetorical role of 
               illustrations" in the New York Review of Books. Since there are no copyright
               issues (only your reader and I will be reading it) this illustration can come 
               from anywhere (online, your drawing, whatever you want).

          e. Your letter should have citations. If you cite something, make a footnote

               (or endnote) for it (Chicago-style, of course). You will actually send the letter 

                later in the term. At that point, you may remove the citations if you wish.

[d] Evocation RF

5. The best way to approach the writing process is in three parts (this is a friendly suggestion). First, create a structure (we'll discuss this in class), and jot down some notes for each of the “sections” of your letter. Second, using those notes as a guide, write a rough draft of the whole letter. Third, revise, polish, and refine. Follow my writing guide carefully, and don't assume that it's just too much work to write in the way that professionals do.

Voilà you will have something not unlike what Alexis de Tocqueville might have written about understanding a complex, foreign culture that baffled and enticed him 180 years ago. While your letter won’t be as long as Democracy in America, it is likely—if it is done well—to be much like Tocqueville’s rich and evocative letters back to his family about encountering people, texts, and institutions in a strange land called the United States. 

You get the idea. If you don't, ask me about it in class. I'll be happy to help.

***  ***

Letters are Due (as a hard copy outside my office door)

by 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, February 25.

Add the word count and your box number to all papers!

[e] And then you may rest RF