Week One
Tuesday, August 31: Introduction – Why the Politics and Poetics of Qualitative Methods Matter
pdf of presentation
Readings due: none

Thursday, September 2: Proto-Anthropologists and their Methods
mp3 of discussion
Readings due:
Mary Kingsley. 1993 [1896]. Travels in West Africa. New York: Macmillian.
James Frazer. 1995 [1922]. The Golden Bough. New York: Touchstone.

Friday, September 3: Writing assignment due at 5pm by email


Week Two
Tuesday, September 7: Participant Observation
mp3 of discussion
Readings due:
Bronislaw Malinowski. 1984 [1922]. Argonauts of the Western Pacific. New York: Waveland Press. Pages: 1-25, and 81-104.

Thursday, September 9: The Comparative Project
Readings due:
Margaret Mead. 2001 [1928]. Coming of Age in Samoa. New York: Harper Modern Classics. Pages: 1-28, 61-76, and 135-160.

Friday, September 10: Writing assignment due at 5pm by email




Week Three
Tuesday, September 14: Entry into the Field
Readings due:
Clifford Geertz. 1973. "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight." The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. Pages: 412-453.
Lila Abu Lughod. 1986. “Guest and Daughter” in her Veiled Sentiments: Honor and poetry in a Bedouin society. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pages: 1-38.

Thursday, September 16: Reflections on the Classic Tropes
Readings due:
Paul Rabinow. 1977. Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pages: 1-7 and 31-100.

Friday, September 17: Writing assignment due at 5pm by email





Week Four
Tuesday, September 21: What Happens in Fieldwork
Readings due:
Renato Rosaldo. 1989. Culture & Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis. Boston: Beacon Press. Pages: 1-67.

Thursday, September 23: What an Anthropologist Does
James Clifford. 1986. “Partial Truths.” In James Clifford and George Marcus, eds. Writing Culture: The poetics and politics of ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pages: 1-26.
James Clifford. 1990. “Notes on (Field)notes.” In Roger Sanjek, ed. Fieldnotes: The Makings of anthropology. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Pages: 47-70.

Friday, September 24: Writing assignment due at 5pm by email





Week Five
Tuesday, September 28: Fieldwork about Emotions
Readings due:
Linda-Anne Rebhun. 1999. The Heart is Unknown Country: Love in the Changing Economy of Northeast Brazil. Stanford: Stanford UP. Pages: 1-16 and 36-86.

Thursday, September 30: Seeing
Readings due:
Bonnie Adrian. 2003. Framing the Bride: Globalizing beauty and romance in Taiwan’s bridal industry. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pages: 1-75.

Friday, October 1: First short paper due at 5pm by email



Week Six
Tuesday, October 5: Framings
Readings due:
Bonnie Adrian. 2003. Framing the Bride: Globalizing beauty and romance in Taiwan’s bridal industry. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pages: 76-179.

Thursday, October 7: Posing
Readings due:
Bonnie Adrian. 2003. Framing the Bride: Globalizing beauty and romance in Taiwan’s bridal industry. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pages: 180-246.

Friday, October 8: Writing assignment due at 5pm by email




Week Seven
Tuesday, October 12 – Fall Break
No class meeting

Thursday, October 14: Fieldwork about Illegal Things
Readings due:
Daniel Jordan Smith. 2008. A Culture of Corruption: Everyday deception and popular discontent in Nigeria. Princeton: Princeton UP. Pages: 1-111.

Friday, October 15: Writing assignment due at 5pm by email





Week Eight
Tuesday, October 19: Fieldwork about Ephemeral Things
* Special guest – Dr. Daniel Jordan Smith from Brown University *
Readings due:
Daniel Jordan Smith. 2008. A Culture of Corruption: Everyday deception and popular discontent in Nigeria. Princeton: Princeton UP. Pages: 112-220.

Thursday, October 21: Reflections on Corruption
* No new readings due *

Friday, October 22: Writing assignment due at 5pm by email




Week Nine
Tuesday, October 26: Online Lives Offline
* Special guest – Dr. Jelena Karanovic from New York University *
Readings due:
Jelena Karanovic. Contentious Europeanization: The paradox of becoming European through anti-patent activism. Ethnos.

Thursday, October 28: Online Lives
Readings due:
Tom Boellstorf. 2008. Coming of Age in Second Life: An anthropologist explores the virtually human. Princeton: Princeton UP. Pages: 3-31, 60-86.



Friday, October 29: Writing assignment due at 5pm by email



Week Ten
Tuesday, November 2: Conceptualizing Ephemerality
Readings due:
Karen Ho. 2009. Liquidated: An ethnography of Wall Street. Duke UP: 1-121.
** Class ends at 3:20 so we can go to hear Dr. Ho speak at Lehigh **

Thursday, November 4: Fantasy Lives
Readings due:
Reading TBA

Friday, November 5: Writing assignment due at 5pm by email




Week Eleven
Tuesday, November 9: Personal Experience and Methodology
Rayna Rapp. 2000. Testing Women, Testing the Fetus: The social impact of amniocentesis in America. New York: Routledge. Pages: 1-102.

Thursday, November 11: Science and Technology Studies
Rayna Rapp. 2000. Testing Women, Testing the Fetus: The social impact of amniocentesis in America. New York: Routledge. Pages: 103-192.

Friday, November 12: Second short paper due at 5pm by email




Week Twelve
Tuesday, November 16: Results
Rayna Rapp. 2000. Testing Women, Testing the Fetus: The social impact of amniocentesis in America. New York: Routledge. Pages: 193-320.

Thursday, November 18 – No class meeting

Friday, November 19: Writing assignment due at 5pm by email



Week Thirteen
Tuesday, November 23: Researching Stigma
Readings due:
Humphreys, Laud. 1975 [1970]. Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places. New York: Aldine De Gruyter. Pages: 1-44.

Thursday, November 25 – Thanksgiving break
No class meeting




Week Fourteen
Tuesday, November 30: Structures
Philippe Bourgois. 2002. In Search of Respect: Selling crack in El Barrio. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pages: 1-113.


Thursday, December 2: Public Masculinities
Readings due:
Philippe Bourgois. 2002. In Search of Respect: Selling crack in El Barrio. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pages: 114-212.

Friday, December 3: Writing assignment due at 5pm by email



Week Fifteen
Tuesday, December 7: Impacted Lives
Readings due:
Philippe Bourgois. 2002. In Search of Respect: Selling crack in El Barrio. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pages: 213-351.

Thursday, December 9: Reflections and Future Questions
No readings due

Friday, December 10: Writing assignment due at 5pm by email


Final Paper is due by email at 5pm on Monday, December 20.