download: /files/2734006/Syllabus_2025.doc

Course Description

The aim of this course is to provide an introduction to the field of Social and Cultural Anthropology and anthropological themes, such as kinship, marriage, and social identity (constituted by gender, race & age), further complemented by ideas related to politics, economics and religion. The course will expose the students to the lives of different people around the world and to some of the ways anthropologists have come to understand them.

In particular, we will examine key terms, concepts and approaches used in anthropological writings and theorizing and we will focus on their application in various ethnographies. Students are expected to think analytically and compare evidence across cultures, including our own. The primary challenge is to develop a capacity for stepping out of our own cultural mindset.

Student Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, students will gain understanding that categories of difference (such as cleanliness, dirt, kinship, gender, age, race, etc.) are often not biologically given but culturally and socially constructed and gain a sense of the various ways in which these categories differ in the world.

Students will further develop a basic understanding of the various ways in which anthropologists have understood culture, have theorized about it and of the multiple methods employed by them while conducting research.

Likewise, students will develop an appreciation for cultural diversity and move beyond ethnocentric understanding of the world. In addition, the students will be able to demonstrate the ability to critically read, analyze, critique and comment upon academic anthropology journal articles.

Reading Material

There are two kinds of readings in this course – selected chapters from two anthropology textbooks and various anthropological articles. All reading is available on the web course-site where the students can easily access it. However, one textbook is available in printed copy and can be borrowed from AAU library: Kottak, Conrad P.: Anthropology: The Exploration of Human Diversity. 8^th ed. McGraw Hill. 2000. As there are two textbooks by the same author, if you borrow the textbook from the library, please make sure that you read it for appropriate weeks as specified in the course schedule below (it is marked as printed copy).

The textbook reading is used to provide a theoretical basis for each lecture, whereas the articles represent so to speak ‘an application of theory in praxis’ and are mostly ethnographies related to the explored concept.

Considering the general programs of students’ studies (i.e. Politics and Society; or Humanities, Society and Culture), particular attention has been paid to ethnographies of Europe and/or complex societies. Their full listing is provided in Section 5 under Course Schedule.

Teaching methodology

The course consists of lectures and discussions. While there will be a substantial portion of lecturing, we will focus on discussing readings and try to make them relevant to the theoretical topic lectured.

This way, the reading constitutes an integral part of the course, and students should be aware that they are required to do the assigned readings for each week because it is active participation in discussion of the articles which forms essential part of the grade, NOT attendance of the course.

If students do not do the required reading, it will become homework or there will be quizzes in classes without prior notice.

Course Schedule

Please note that the course schedule is subject to change, particularly if there is switch to online/hybrid teaching!

Course Requirements and Assessment (with estimated workloads)

Grading in this class is based upon collection of points (percentage) by students. There are three compulsory assignments and four optional. Detailed description of all assignments can be found in section 7 below.

Compulsory requirements:

• class participation (worth 20% of the final grade). It is based not on attendance but on submission of answers and/or on participation during class discussions. That means that each class you earn 0 - 2 points based on your participation during the class, (max 20 points);
• mid-term exam (worth 40% of the final grade) held on March 18, 2025;
• final exam (worth 40% of the final grade) held on May 13, 2025.

Optional assignment that can be used to ‘improve’ the grade:

• a kinship chart project – (worth 10% of the final grade), due April 1;
• a research project (worth 15% of the final grade), due in class on April 22, and presented on the same day, April 22, after the class;
• two critical review essays on the assigned anthropological reading (each worth 5% of the final grade, max. 2 essays).

Course Requirements and Assessment (with estimated workloads)

*1 = Critical Thinking; 2 = Effective Communication; 3 = Effective and Responsible Action

Detailed description of the required and optional assignments

CLASS PARTICIPATION

During each class, students are required to be prepared to answer questions pertaining to reading scheduled to be lectured/discussed in that class and/or be actively engaged in the lecture. The questions are posted on the course web-site together with reading material.

Class participation can be fulfilled in two ways, either students are active during the class discussion – actively answering questions pertaining to the assigned reading or they can submit them in writing on NEO. Online students must submit the questions in writing on NEO. 

Please beware that the submitted answers to the questions must be individual work! Otherwise, such work will be considered as plagiarism (and treated as such) for all parties involved!

If reading of the assigned articles for each week will not be performed satisfactorily by majority of students, either it will become mandatory homework and students will have to hand in the answers to the questions before each class or the instructor will assign a quiz without a prior notice.

Possible quick assessment quizzes will be worth from 5 points to -5 points of the grade.

In each class, students can earn max. 2 points, and the maximum possible points earned in this assignment is 20 points, while there are 12 lectures where class participation is graded. 

MID-TERM/FINAL EXAMS

The mid-term exam will be held in class on March 18, 2025 and the final exam will be held in class on May 13, 2025. Mid-term exam will cover material from the first six lectures, while the final exam will comprise of material from the last six lectures.

Each exam will consist of two parts. First part will contain questions requiring short answers, e.g. What is the psychic unity of man? Second part will be composed of questions such as “What is the main argument of ......... article?” – requiring a bit longer answers.

The exams are fairly long, and they really cover most of the material and reading discussed in class so students are advised to keep up with the reading and ask questions during the lectures if they don’t understand anything. The PowerPoint slides are not available on-line.

Each exam is worth 40% (points) of the final grade.

Assessment breakdown

OPTIONAL KINSHIP CHART PROJECT

Interview members (at least two people) of your family (or family of your friends) and draw a kinship chart tracing family members that your interviewees can remember. Try to put together as complete chart as possible. Include at least three generations in total, and at least 30 people including ‘ego.’ Moreover, include people that are considered part of the family, although they might not be related biologically.

The chart must follow the conventions used by anthropologists and must include an explanation of each symbol. The conventions will be covered during lectures and can be also found in Kottak 2000:347.

A required part of the project is to compile a description about all people who appear on the chart. This description must be typed, on a separate sheet of paper, specifying each person by her/his relationship to ego using the conventional shorthand letters (F, M, S, D, B, Z, H, W, C).

The project is due in class on April 1, 2025 and is worth extra 10% of the final grade.

Assessment breakdown

OPTIONAL CRITICAL ESSAY ASSIGNMENT

Throughout the second half of the semester the student can hand in maximum two critical essays on specified anthropological articles (below). Each critical essay should be 3-5 pages long, typed, double-spaced and submitted to NEO before the reading is discussed in class (i.e. students need to send their essays before the class during which the article is anticipated to be discussed.) The essay should contain

• brief review of the article content (i.e. what the article is about),
• discussion of the main argument (i.e. what the author is trying to say),
• discussion of its relationship to other reading and/or relationship to the world around us (i.e. how the article fits within the framework of our class).

The aim of the essay is to critically reflect on the reading, and thus although the essay should include review of the content, this should be done in main points, and thus briefly because the main point of the critical essay is to discuss the author’s principal argument and critically reflect on it!

Articles that can be subject of students’ critical essays are following:

Week 8:            Löfgren, Orvar: The Time Keepers. In Culture Builders. Rutgers University Press. 1987:13-41.

Week 11:          Bourgois, Phillippe: Understanding Inner-City Poverty: Resistance and Self-Destruction under U.S. Apartheid. In Exotic No More: Anthropology on the Front Lines. Jeremy MacClancy ed. The University of Chicago Press. 2002:15-32. (this is the optional reading this week)

Week 12:          Bax, Mart: The Madonna of Medjugorje: Religious Rivalry and the Formation of a Devotional Movement in Yugoslavia. In Anthropological Quaterly 63(2):63-75.

Week 13:         Trevor-Roper, Hugh: The Invention of Tradition: The Highland Tradition of Scotland. In The Invention of Tradition. E. Hobsbawm & T. Ranger ed. Cambridge University Press, 1983:15-41.

and/or

Holy, Ladislav: Excerpt from Introduction (Czechs and Slovaks, Czech National Identity), and National Traditions and the Imagining of the Nation. In The Little Czech and the Great Czech Nation. Cambridge University Press. 1996:5-11, 114-137.

Week 14:         Levine, Andrew: Human Rights and Freedom. In The Philosophy of Human Rights, International Perspectives. Alan S. Rosenbaum ed. Greenwood Press. 1980:137-149.

Each critical review essay is worth extra 5% of the final grade.

Assessment breakdown

OPTIONAL PROJECT ASSIGNMENT

Students can also design a research project either on the proposed topics (below) or on any another topic. It is mandatory to discuss this optional assignment with me prior its commencement!!

The project is due in a typed form in class on April 22, 2025 and must be presented after the class on April 22, 2025. Students also need to hand in all material used during the project, i.e. the article, the questionnaires, etc.

Students are advised to find an anthropological/sociological article of their interest (either on internet or in scholarly journals) and design a research project that builds on the article (e.g. replicating research described in the article, etc.). The project should be based on (participant) observation, and on interviews and it needs to contain some theory (preferably found in the article, i.e. the projects should combine field-research with library research.) Each student needs to have at least 30 research participants if conducting a research survey, and 10 if conducting participant observation.

• Conduct a research on marriage. Are exogamy and endogamy related to socioeconomic status? What is the perceived role of a husband and a wife? Who makes decisions in the family? How are finances handled? Are different perceptions linked with socioeconomic status?
• Conduct a research in the state home for retirees and Sue Ryder home for retirees. How does care for the elderly affect their lives? How do visits from relatives affect lives of the elderly?
• Conduct a research on gender stratification. What is the perception of sexual harassment (i.e. what constitutes sexual harassment)? How is this related to socioeconomic status, age and gender? What is a role of a Czech man and a Czech woman? What is unacceptable/acceptable behavior for both sexes?
• Conduct a research on pet-keeping. Find out from two local municipalities (one in the centre and one in the outskirts) how many dogs are registered in the particular district (and how many do the officials feel are unregistered). Do people clean after their dogs? What is dirty and what is acceptable? What are pets allowed to do in the house?
• Conduct a research on gift-giving. To whom people give gifts? When do they stop giving gifts? How much should one spend on a gift? Again, how is that related to age, gender and socioeconomic status?
• Conduct a research on “cizinecka policie” and the process of obtaining a visa, work permit, and/or residence permit. How are foreigners treated by clerks at “cizinecka policie”? Is there a difference of treatment based on nationality? How do people try to cope with the harassment at cizinecka policie? Draw a map of the place – is there a connection between the structure of the place and the treatment?

The research project is worth extra 15% (points) of the final grade.

Assessment breakdown

General Requirements and School Policies

General requirements

All coursework is governed by AAU’s academic rules. Students are expected to be familiar with the academic rules in the Academic Codex and Student Handbook and to maintain the highest standards of honesty and academic integrity in their work. Please see the AAU intranet for a summary of key policies regarding coursework.

Course specific requirements

♦   This course requires extensive reading and discussion in class.

♦   Attendance, i.e., presence in class in real-time, at AAU courses is default mandatory; however, it is not graded as such. Participation is crucial!

♦   The use of AI-generated writing is prohibited. Students whose submissions show AI assistance may be required to produce drafts of their texts and/or to reproduce the text orally or in hand-written form. Plagiarism is strictly forbidden and will result in failing the entire course, i.e. in “F” grade!!! Plagiarism can apply to all works of authorship – verbal, audiovisual, visual, computer programs, etc. An aggravating circumstance in plagiarism is an act intended to make the plagiarism more difficult to detect. Such conduct includes, for example, the additional modification of individual words or phrases, the creation of typos, etc.

Grading Scale

* Decimals should be rounded to the nearest whole number.

Prepared by: Markéta Šebelová

Date: January 30, 2025

Approved by:

Date: