Important Note   While the goals of this class are traditional, technology plays an important role in reaching our objectives. Our URL is http://blackboard.spc.edu. It is mandatory that you check this site every Sunday by five p.m. for important announcements including upcoming quizzes and assignments. There will be study guides, both in Word and PowerPoint, changes in readings and other adjustments in the course. Written assignments will be turned in through Blackboard’s Digital Drop-Box. We will have on-line debates using the Discussion Board and mandatory meetings in the Virtual Classroom.  Work due can be found under Assignments. Grades will be posted on Blackboard – you will only see your own. Finally use of your SPC email is mandatory

Why do the Eskimo have a blanket toss? Why can Tibetan women have two or three husbands? Why do

Famly at Tikal

travelers we call nomads see themselves as having two permanent homes? How to the Chinese save on diapers? Why do the !Kung refuse to give credit to their best hunters? Why will an Apache never say the wrong things on a first date? Why do the Yanomamo fight? Why don’t the Semai fight?  How has the internet changed life as we know it? Why don’t you turn off your cell phones during class?

 

Look around this classroom, the campus, your communities and the world. What do you see? How do you see? Why is your culture the way it is? Why are other cultures different? Where do your customs, language, beliefs, religion, hopes and even your thoughts come from? How are all these changing? And finally, how is any of this useful in the real world?

 

 

This course will provide an introductory overview to Anthropology from its formal origins in the 19^th century to its struggle for re-identification in the 21^st century. The primary objective for the semester is to use the tools of Anthropology to interpret other cultures in order to achieve a better understanding of our own worlds. We will use these tools to examine cultural pasts, presents and futures. It is the ultimate hope of the instructor that students will leave the course with more effective ways of understanding their multicultural worlds. Finally students will become aware of a multitude of job opportunities in the field.

 

 

The midterm (October 19) and final will cover class discussions, assignments and the readings. The former will be comprehensive to October 19 and the latter will cover the entire semester.

 

Each student will develop a traditional anthropological ethnography on a mutually agreed upon topic. This ethnography will consist of actual fieldwork observations. It will go through several stages. A potential subject must be identified by September 21. It must be refined by October 5. First field notes are due on October 26. Themes are due November 20 along with the second set of field notes and the final ethnography is due on December 7. The work turned in for each deadline will be evaluated separately, with these individual grades going into the final composite grade for this component. Each phase for your ethnography will be evaluated on how anthropologically you approach the subject as well as how well it is written.

 

There will be a minimum of six quizzes, to be announced on our Blackboard site the Sunday prior to the week they are given. The quizzes will be on the most recent material from the classroom, websites and texts. That should be it for quizzes unless it is determined that the work is not being done. Then more will be added and they will not be announced in advance. There will no unexcused absences from quizzes.

You will be assigned to present on several of the readings during the semester. These presentations will take place both during the class and in on-line discussion groups. They will require research beyond the announced readings. A format for these presentations will be found under course documents. You will also be asked to do mini-ethnographies.

 

As with the paper presentations, we will have live discussions on various anthropological topics. You will be graded on these in terms of the quality of your contributions.

 

Student Obligations 

 

Attendance: will be taken daily at the very beginning of each class. If you come in after attendance is taken you will be marked absent but, since you will be held responsible for that day’s material, it is strongly advised that you stay. As stated in the General Bulletin: “A student is permitted absences totaling two times the number of lecture meetings per week.” Thus for classes that meet two times a week, students are permitted no more than four absences. Students who exceed four absences, including times when they come in late, will have their final grades reduced for each additional absence, i.e., a B- will become a C+.

 

Late Written Assignments: will also have a grade deducted for each class that they are late -- a B- will become a C+.

 

Make-up Exams and Quizzes: are generally not permitted. In extraordinary cases, with appropriate documentation, a student may be permitted to make items up.

 

Plagiarism, Cheating and Computer Usage and Piracy: any student who violates college policies as defined The NET (see The Net http://www.spc.edu/PDFFiles/DeanOfStudents/NET.pdf) will automatically fail the class. The student’s name will immediately be given to the Office of the Academic Dean and this student can be dismissed from the College.

 

Standards for Classroom Behavior: the classroom is a place for mutual respect. While debate is welcome, it must be done in a respective manner. Other areas, as defined in THE NET, such the use of cell phones and beepers, as well as leaving the classroom once class has begun, without authorization are prohibited.

 

 

 

Applying Cultural Anthropology, 2007, Podolefsky and Brown, 7h^th Edition, McGraw Hill

 

The First Eagle, 1998, Tony Hillerman, New York: Harper Paperbacks

 

Assigned Articles and Web-site – some of the articles are distributed in your packet and others, along with the web-links, will be posted on our Blackboard site.