Hmmm

Here's what I SHOULD be doing:

Anthropology 415: Review Questions for Final Examination

1. What is the theory and method of symbolic anthropology, as practiced by Victor Turner and Clifford Geertz? How does symbolic anthropology differ from Levi-Strauss's structuralist approach?

2. Clifford Geertz has observed that the anthropological vocation is a literary one, and he proposes to interpret other societies' texts as if they were literary texts. How does he accomplish this in his analysis of the Balinese cockfight? Do you agree or disagree with the noion that anthropology is as much literary text as it is science? What criticisms do Vincent Crapanzano and/or Roy D'Andrade make of Geertz' approach?

3. What points do the feminist and postmordernist critiques of anthropology make against classic approaches to writing ethnographic analyses? In your view, have these critiques improved the practice of anthropology? What criticisms does Roy D'Andrade offer against what he calls 'moral models' in anthropology?

4. Why do Eleanor Leacock and Ann Stoller chose to study gender relations in light of history and the colonial encounter? How do these authors interpret the impact of culture contact and the impact of capitalism on local communities? Briefly compare their historical approach to studying human cultures with the approach taken either by the Boasian anthropologists, or the functionalists.

5. What is the 'indigenization of modernity," and how does Marshall Sahlins propose to study it?

6. Which theoretical approach or approaches do you find most interesting? In your view, what would the ideal anthropological study look like? What topics would the author cover, and what approach to theory and description would they take?

7. In your view, can the making of an ethnographic film be a theoretical practice? Why or why not? (mmm. visual anthro)

8. According to Levi-Strauss, what is the goal of a structural analysis? Illustrate your answer with details from one of the analyses we read of either kinship or Winnebago mythology. What similarities do you see between Levi-Strauss's structuralism and ethnoscience and/or cognitive anthropology?

Mmm. Good stuff. Beaucoup de philosophage!

Oesophage.

Hmm.