Anthropology 295.01
"Special Topic: Transnationalism and Public Culture."
Prof. K. Gibel Azoulay office tel. 4321
Mon/Wed 8-9:50 Fine Arts 242
Office Hours: Mon 10:30-2:30 and by appointment
Course Description:
This course will examine critical issues in contemporary transnational
studies including the concepts of diaspora, boundaries and the cultivation
of imagined communities. We will explore the various ways in which anthropologists
define, analyze and use the concepts globalization,
migration, transnationalism and diaspora.
On the one hand, the transnational is new site of cultural production - an
ethnographic space in which new identities and power structures are emerging -
and , on the other, recognition and acknowledgement of this phenomenon has
produced new representations and new insights. Therefore, we will give close
scrutiny to the questions which guide the theoretical orientation and research
foci of the texts we read. We will also consider the adequacy of these theories
for analyzing cultural production in an era characterized by convergences and
divergences of the local and the global.
Finally, we will consider the challenge of doing ethnography and writing about
the transnational when ethnography
demands working in multiple sites, exploring new methods and developing novel
modes of textual representation.
The following are a series of questions to consider as a point of
departure to the semester -- these questions will undoubtedly be reformulated
and new ones will be added.
! How have the audio/visual signs and markers of globalization,
migration, and transnationalism become embedded and contextualized in your
daily lives and practices?
! What happens to the notion of the unified subject/body when it is
exposed to the vagaries of migration/technology/cyberspace?
! How do differences in such factors as nation of birth, citizenship,
race/ethnicity, age, gender, class, and occupation shape one’s experiences of
globalization, migration, and transnationalism?
! What are the benefits and deficits of
globalization/transnationalism?
! How do public arenas and cultural productions integrate global and
local phenomena? How autonomous is the local
sphere?
! How do the metaphors of family/home/roots
and borders/boundaries/routes
influence and shape the research and ethnographies of globalization, migration,
and transnationalism?
! What strategies do anthropologists adopt in order to conduct
fieldwork in a world where national and geographical boundaries are
increasingly blurred? How has the field
of anthropology itself changed due to these phenomena? How has the entry of
“multiply-positioned” scholars impacted on the field of anthropology?
! What issues are raised in critiques of globalization and transnationalism?
Course requirements:
1. Attendance is mandatory. There is an
automatic credit for attendance.
Class will begin at 8:00 on days when a film is shown in class !! Set
your alarms and be on time. All other meetings will begin at 8:15.
2. Reading Journal (30%). Every student
must keep a reading journal. The dated entries represent a conversation with
the text, the author and class discussions. The journals are to be typed and an
entry should be made at least once a week. Entries will include comments on the
main points of each reading or film. As the semester progresses, your
comments should make linkages between previous readings and when appropriate,
you should include references to earlier entries.
-- JOURNAL
ENTRIES ARE TO BE DATED AND PAGINATED CONSECUTIVELY. Journal entries are
due in my office each Friday no later than 4:30pm. Your ideas will not
be graded as correct or incorrect -- rather this is an opportunity to bracket
"opinions" and explore new "ideas." I will be evaluating
the cumulative quality of the content
of your entries.
-- There is only one automatic extension for
journals: Saturday 11am to be turned in at 1405 Broad Street. -- There are no
other extensions!!
Active Participation in Class Discussions (20%):
3. Class discussion
represents an exchange of ideas -- it is a conversation among peers. In
addition to individual responsibility for class discussions, a pair of students
will be assigned to address questions raised in the morning’s readings and to
comment on them. These two students will also be responsible for leading class
discussion.
Shared perspectives as
well as differences of opinion further our own understanding of a topic.
Critical thinking and an engaging exchange of ideas depends on listening
carefully to another person's perspective and responding respectfully. Our
discussions will be guided by the material, therefore you must come to class
with careful notes on the readings, including passages that you are interested
in highlighting. Where there are differences of perspective, the focus of discussion
should specifically clarify how the interpretations which lead to different
perspectives and evaluate how these may be valued as more or less persuasive?
Personal experience is important, but you may draw on it as an additional
resource for evidence from the texts we will be reading. But keep in mind that
your arguments need to be situated within the context of the readings.
Independent research
projects (25%):
4. You will carry out
a research project on a set of themes from the readings. Oral presentations
should be 15-20 minutes and an outline of the issues/questions you want the
class to address should be handed out at the beginning of your presentation:
1) Select something which has an audio/visual component that relates to
globalization, migration, transnationalism, and anthropology. Examples: TV or
radio commercial, magazine or newspaper advertisement, song, music video,
movie, photograph.
2) Bring your item to class in a form so that everybody can see/hear it
at the same time. For instance, a
feature film: if you plan on discussing a video, we will arrange a meeting the
evening before class. Or record a commercial or film clip on VHS; Or record a
song or radio clip and arrange for a cassette/CD player to play it; Or make
copies of magazine/newspaper ads or photographs for all class members. If you
decide on an internet site, please let me know in advance so I can arrange a
meeting place.
3) Your oral presentation will be an analysis of the item you selected
based on themes from the readings and class discussion.
Evaluation Paper (25%)
5. A 5-6 (maximum 8
pages) paper summarizing what you have learned throughout the semester and its
relevance in your own life experiences and body of knowledge. This is not a
soul-searching exercise – rather it is a reflection on insights gained from the
material of the semester in order to (re)view the information and analyses
which you have encountered in this course. and evaluate their significance to
the lived experiences which shape your understanding of globalization and transnationalism.
Your evaluation paper and
journal entries are due on Tuesday May
13, 2003 by 4pm -- without exception. Do NOT reprint your journal
essays. SUBMIT ALL THE MATERIAL INSIDE
A STAMPED, SELF-ADDRESSED ENVELOPE!
Week1 Identifying concepts and approaches
Mon 20 Jan
Introduction and
Course Overview
Internationale
Wed 22 Jan
Inda & Rosaldo –
(1) Hannertz
Lewellen Preface - 27.
The Global Assembly
Week 2
Mon 27 Jan
Inda & Rosaldo-
(2) Appadurai; (3) Gupta & Ferguson
Wed 29 Jan
Lewellen pp.29-60
Week 3
Mon 3 Feb
[to be copied]
Frederick Cooper. “What is the Concept of Globalization good for? An African
historian’s perspective.” African Affairs
100, 399 (2001), pp. 189-213.
Inda and Rosaldo: (6)
Ferguson
Wed 5 Feb
Lewellen pp. 61-120
Friday 7 Feb 4:15 - Documentary: Powaqqats: Life in Transformation (100
min)
Week 4 Peoples and Forms in Circulation
Mon 10 Feb
(Project Muse) R.
Darrell Meadows. “Engineering Exile: Social Network and the French Atlantic
Community, 1789-1809." French Historical Studies 23,1 pp. 67-102.
Wed 12 Feb
Lewellen pp. 121-184
The
Language You Cry in (53 Min)
Week 5
Mon 17 Feb
No class meeting
Wed 18 Feb
(Project Muse)
Michelle A. Stephens. Black Transnationalism and the Politics of National
Identity: West Indian Intellectuals in Harlem in the Age of War and Revolution.
American Quarterly 50,3 (1998) pp.
592-608.
Week 6
Mon 24 Feb
[to be copied] Liisa
H. Malkki. “Refugees and Exile: From “Refugee Studies” to the National Order of
Things.” Annual Review of Anthropology 24 (1995) pp. 495-523
(Project Muse) Andreas
Huyssen. “Present Pasts: Media, Politics, Amnesia.” Public Culture 12,1 (2000), 21-38.
Documentary: America and the Holocaust
Wed 26
(JSTOR) Ahiwa Ong.
“Cultural Citizenship as Subject-Making: Immigrants Negotiate Racial and
Cultural Boundaries in the United States.” Current
Anthropology 37, 5 (Dec 1996), 737-762. [includes replies to Ong]
Documentary: Arab Detroit
Fri 28 Feb 4:15 Pieces d’Identities (93 min)
Week 7 Mobile Subjects,
Images and Commodities
Mon 3 March
(Project Muse) Thomas
A. Tweed “Our Lady of Guadeloupe Vists the Confederate Memorial.” Southern Cultures 8, 2 (2002), 72-93.
[copies to be made]
Neil Savishinsky. “Rastafari in the Promised Land: The Spread of a Jamaican
Socioreligious Movement Among the Youth of West Africa.” African Studies Review 37, 3 (Dec 1994), 19-50.
Tues 4 March 6:30 Film: L’Haine
Wed 5 March
Inda and Rosaldo (7)
Rousse, (8) Ong (9) Gross et al.
Week 8
Mon 10 March
Inda and Rosaldo (10)
Friedman (11) Meyer (12) Scheper-Hughes
Documentary Cannibal Tours (77 min)
Wed 12 March
(Project Muse)
Stephanie Marlin-Curiel. “Rave New World: Trance-Mission, Trance-Nationalism,
and Trance-scendence in the ‘New South Africa’.” TDR: The Drama Review 45,3 (2001) pp. 149-168.
(JSTOR) Timothy
Brennan. “World Music Does Not Exist.” Discourse
23, 1 (Winter 2001), 44-62.
Spring
Break
Week 9
Mon 31 March
Documentary The Spectre of Hope
Wed 2 April
Inda and Rosaldo (14)
Mei-huh Yang; (15) Larkin
Week 10
Mon 7 April
Inda and Rosaldo (16)
Adams; (17) Donham (18) Abu-Lughod
Wed 9 April
Lewellen Part III
(187-240)
Week 11
Mon 14 April
[to be copied] George
E. Marcus Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited
Ethnography. Annual Rev. Anthropology
24 (1995) pp. 95-117.
Wed 16 April
No Class
Fri 11 April 4:15 Sammy and Rosie Get Laid
Week 12
Mon 21 April
Discussion of film,
Inda and Rosaldo (Conclusion) Tsing
Wed 23 April NO CLASS MEETING: work on projects
Week 13 Independent Projects
Applying
Theories of Globalization
Mon 28 April
Presentations
Wed 30 April
Presentations
Week 14
Mon 5 May
Presentations
Wed 7 May
Presentations