Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
Fall 2007
REVIEW OF CURRENT SCHOLARSHIP:
CRITIQUE OF AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ARTICLE
The Assignment:
Your assignment is to write a critical review of an anthropological article. Your critique must be more than just a book report. Evaluate the work in terms of its contribution to Cultural Anthropology in the context of the course. How well does the author bring theory, method, and data to bear on a particular problem? Comparing the argument to course readings and discussions is crucial for success.
The essay should be 4-7 double‑spaced, typed pages and to be completed by the below deadline. The paper must employ relevant course materials for comparisons and contrasts (and cite those readings). Your critique should include the following sections within a well‑crafted essay, with elegant prose:
1. Provide a brief summary of the article's objectives, content and organization. Layout the author's thesis and the evidence employed to promote that thesis. Avoid lengthy quotations and avoid repeating the author's argument or the abstract.
2. Of the course readings, which are most similar to the approach taken in the article? Explain.
3. Evaluate the content and organization of the article. What is the case study? How was information gained (i.e., the techniques used) and organized?
4. Evaluate the significance of the argument in a broader framework of other articles in the journal as well as against your sense of cultural anthropology from this point of the course. Remember that a critical review is not criticism: do not state what was missing; examine what is given in the article and evaluate its significance. Try to develop a balanced perspective in your review by identifying both the strengths and weaknesses of the work.
5. What is your overall assessment of the quality and value of the research and its significance? Please address that question in the context of this course.
Other issues you may want to address include:
· Why was this work written?
· How does the argument articulate with big questions in cultural anthropology?
· Is there any significance for contemporary social concerns?
· The "so what" issue: what is the significance of learning about this issue in this way?
You will find the assignment to be most beneficial to you if you: (1) choose an article on a topic that interests you, (2) consult with me as you read the article or once you have completed it, and (3) review the course goals and the overview from Kottak as you write up your analysis.
Choice of article is due on November 5th. Please hand in a copy of the article's abstract (a photocopy or type the abstract). If there’s a problem with the choice, I will email you requesting another article be chosen. The paper is due on Thursday, November 15th, at the start of class. Late papers are not acceptable.
The purpose of this assignment is to:
(1) encourage you to critically examine how an anthropologist brings theory, method, and data together to explore a specific problem in cultural anthropology,
(2) examine an aspect of cultural anthropology that interests you in greater depth than an introductory course allows, and
(3) explore the library’s collection of journals to gain a measure of the current issues being examined in cultural anthropology.
Why read journals?
The production of an anthropologist’s scholarship and research appears in monographs, books focused on the data, method, and theory for a case study. Books, like the four ethnographies read in this course, are the product of years of study, fieldwork, writing, and publishing. Usually, anthropologists start by presenting their formulations at conferences and then in journals and edited volumes before they appear as books. Journals are important steps in the process because peer-reviewed journals assess clarity, data, and persuasiveness of the argument. Some journals are quite stringently reviewed, requiring the author to follow a specific set of concerns in terms of accuracy, transparency, and significance. The ideas in most articles have been presented at conferences in order to receive feedback before submission for scholarly review, thus journal articles usually reflect the professional standards of the moment.
Which journal to choose?
Below is a listing of journals but looking through the stacks at the Cook Library should be your first step, one that you should do as soon as you receive this assignment. Using on-line searches negates the purpose of this assignment. Seeing the context of an article, scanning tables of content, flipping through issues and volumes, and considering the range of journals is an important goal of this assignment. The cultural anthropology journals are clustered at GN on the first floor of the Cook Library. Choose a journal that captures your interests. Then choose one specific article for the assignment.
Which article to choose?
You can choose any article from the recent issues of the below journals. You should choose an article published within the last two years, but older articles are acceptable. You should choose a topic include the course (in terms of the people or places -- such as Micronesia, the San, the Kurds, and Native Americans -- or themes -- such as kinship, gender, globalization, diversity). Like the previous assignment in this course, the assignment is straightforward but you can use this exercise as an opportunity to delve deeply into a concern.
American Anthropologist GN 1 A5
American Ethnologist GN 1 A53
Anthropological quarterly GN 1 P7
City and Society HT 101 C544
Cultural Anthropology GN 301 C85
Current Anthropology GN 1 C8
Ethnology GN 1 E86
Human Organization GN 1 H83
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland GN 1 J6
Man GN 1 M25
Transforming Anthropology GN1 T67
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute GN 1 M25
Journal of Anthropological Research GN 1 S64
Visual Anthropology Review GN 347.S85
More journals are available at the USF Tampa library and others are on-line; see me for approval of an article from one of those journals.