Table of Contents
ANTH 2700: Key debates in anthropology
Semester 1, 2025
Anthropology is a wide open conversation in which many people of different voices and perspectives come together to put forward different answers to the field’s important questions. Unlike other social sciences, anthropology wants to learn from the bottom up. This means that anthropologists never assume there’s one right way to learn about human lives, and the field is constantly looking for ways to reinvent itself to incorporate new voices and perspectives. This class will explore how anthropologists challenge themselves to overcome their own biases and blind spots through the study of several different contemporary topics as cases.
Coordinator: Ryan Schram
![A photograph of an interior hallway framed by the side of an escalator on the left extending the next floor. The side of the escalator, the walls, ceiling, and floor, are covered with gleaming text-printed vinyl panels that fill the entire space and bearing words and phrases in bold, white block letters on alternating black and red backgrounds, creating an immersive experience in which one is assaulted by provocative questions, like “WHO IS SILENT?” (Kruger, Barbara. 2012. *Belief + Doubt [Photo by jpellgen (@1105_jp)]*. Chromogenic print, in artist’s frame. Hirshhorn Museum, Smithsonian Institute, District of Columbia. [https://www.flickr.com/photos/jpellgen/46955365515/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/jpellgen/46955365515/).)](/_media/kruger.jpg?w=600&tok=7197b9 "A photograph of an interior hallway framed by the side of an escalator on the left extending the next floor. The side of the escalator, the walls, ceiling, and floor, are covered with gleaming text-printed vinyl panels that fill the entire space and bearing words and phrases in bold, white block letters on alternating black and red backgrounds, creating an immersive experience in which one is assaulted by provocative questions, like “WHO IS SILENT?” (Kruger, Barbara. 2012. *Belief + Doubt [Photo by jpellgen (@1105_jp)]*. Chromogenic print, in artist’s frame. Hirshhorn Museum, Smithsonian Institute, District of Columbia. [https://www.flickr.com/photos/jpellgen/46955365515/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/jpellgen/46955365515/).)")
Weekly plan of lectures and topics
| Week & Date | Topic | Main reading | Other reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Two minds | ||
| 2 | Society as mind | Bashkow (2006) | Hanks (1996) |
| 3 | The myth of the “static, primitive isolate” and the need for historical ethnography | J. L. Comaroff and Comaroff (2009); Gilberthorpe (2007) | J. Comaroff and Comaroff (1989); J. L. Comaroff and Comaroff (1990); J. L. Comaroff (1987); Wolf (1984); Trouillot ([2003a] 2016); Trouillot ([2003b] 2016) |
| 4 | Imperialism as close encounter | Sahlins (1988) | Sahlins (1992); Sahlins (1996); Bashkow (2004); Englund and Leach (2000) |
| 5 | Doing being, embodying structure, and the practice of social norms | Prentice (2015) | Ortner (2006); Ortner (1984); Bourdieu (1990) |
| 6 | Social subjects beyond norm and action | Miller (2010) | Hendriks (2023); Shange (2019) |
| 7 | Anthropology, imperialism, and epistemic domination | Simpson (2014) | Shah (2007); Cohn (1987); Chatterjee (1998); Chatterjee (2011) |
| 8 | Knowing is governing | Gupta (2012a); Gupta (2012b) | Foucault (1991); Foucault (1982); Li (1999); Li (2007) |
| B | Mandatory school closure in honor of Judeo-Christian festivals | ||
| 9 | Making an ethical self | Mahmood (2001); Mahmood (2003) | Rudnyckyj (2011); Zigon (2013) |
| 10 | Nature as the recursion of culture | Lien and Law (2011) | Strathern (1996); Carsten (2014); Latour (2005); Latour (2004) |
| 11 | Seeing is doing, or how social forms know themselves | Street (2014); Reed (1999) | Rio (2005); Viveiros de Castro (1998); Viveiros de Castro (2004) |
| 12 | Objects that have agency | Schnitzler (2016b) | Schnitzler (2016a) |
| 13 | No universals, no particulars: Anthropology after humanism | ||
| 14 | Reading week | ||
| 15 | Final exams period |
References
Bashkow, Ira. 2004. “A Neo-Boasian Conception of Cultural Boundaries.” American Anthropologist 106 (3): 443–58. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.2004.106.3.443.
———. 2006. “The Lightness of Whitemen.” In The Meaning of Whitemen: Race and Modernity in the Orokaiva Cultural World, 64–94+12pp (photographs). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1990. “Structures, Habitus, Practices.” In The Logic of Practice, 52–65. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
Carsten, Janet. 2014. “An Interview with Marilyn Strathern: Kinship and Career.” Theory, Culture & Society 31 (2-3): 263–81. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276413510052.
Chatterjee, Partha. 1998. “Community in the East.” Economic and Political Weekly 33 (6): 277–82. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4406377.
———. 2011. “Lineages of Political Society.” In Lineages of Political Society: Studies in Postcolonial Democracy, 1–26. New York: Columbia University Press.
Cohn, Bernard S. 1987. “The census, social structure, and objectification in South Asia.” In An anthropologist among the historians and other essays, 224–54. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Comaroff, Jean, and John L. Comaroff. 1989. “The Colonization of Consciousness in South Africa.” Economy and Society 18 (3): 267–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085148900000013.
Comaroff, John L. 1987. “Of Totemism and Ethnicity: Consciousness, Practice and the Signs of Inequality.” Ethnos 52 (3-4): 301–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/00141844.1987.9981348.
Comaroff, John L., and Jean Comaroff. 1990. “Goodly Beasts, Beastly Goods: Cattle and Commodities in a South African Context.” American Ethnologist 17 (2): 195–216. https://www.jstor.org/stable/645076.
———. 2009. “A Tale of Two Ethnicities.” In Ethnicity, Inc., 86–116. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Englund, Harri, and James Leach. 2000. “Ethnography and the Meta‐Narratives of Modernity.” Current Anthropology 41 (2): 225–48. https://doi.org/10.1086/ca.2000.41.issue-2.
Foucault, Michel. 1982. “The Subject and Power.” Critical Inquiry 8 (4): 777–95. https://doi.org/10.1086/448181.
———. 1991. “Governmentality.” In The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, edited by Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller, 87–104. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Gilberthorpe, Emma. 2007. “Fasu Solidarity: A Case Study of Kin Networks, Land Tenure, and Oil Extraction in Kutubu, Papua New Guinea.” American Anthropologist 109 (1): 101–12. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.2007.109.1.101.
Gupta, Akhil. 2012a. “Introduction: Poverty as biopolitics.” In Red Tape: Bureaucracy, Structural Violence, and Poverty in India. A John Hope Franklin Center book. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822394709.
———. 2012b. “The state and the politics of poverty.” In Red Tape: Bureaucracy, Structural Violence, and Poverty in India, by Akhil Gupta. A John Hope Franklin Center book. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822394709.
Hanks, William F. 1996. “The Language of Saussure.” In Language and Communicative Practices, 21–38. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. https://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cdocument%7C1677290?account_id=14757&usage_group_id=95408.
Hendriks, Thomas. 2023. “On the Surprising Queerness of Norms: Anthropology with Canguilhem, Foucault, and Butler.” Anthropological Theory 23 (3): 235–54. https://doi.org/10.1177/14634996221117755.
Latour, Bruno. 2004. “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam?: From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern.” Critical Inquiry 30 (Winter): 225–48.
———. 2005. “On the Difficulty of Being an ANT: An Interlude in the Form of a Dialog.” In Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory, 141–56. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Li, Tania Murray. 1999. “Compromising Power: Development, Culture, and Rule in Indonesia.” Cultural Anthropology 14 (3): 295–322. https://www.jstor.org/stable/656653.
———. 2007. “Governmentality.” Anthropologica 49 (2): 275–81. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25605363.
Lien, Marianne Elisabeth, and John Law. 2011. “‘Emergent Aliens’: On Salmon, Nature, and Their Enactment.” Ethnos 76 (1): 65–87. https://doi.org/10.1080/00141844.2010.549946.
Mahmood, Saba. 2001. “Rehearsed Spontaneity and the Conventionality of Ritual: Disciplines of Şalat.” American Ethnologist 28 (4): 827–53. https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.2001.28.4.827.
———. 2003. “Ethical Formation and Politics of Individual Autonomy in Contemporary Egypt.” Social Research: An International Quarterly 70 (3): 837–66. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/558592.
Miller, Daniel. 2010. “Anthropology in Blue Jeans.” American Ethnologist 37 (3): 415–28. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1425.2010.01263.x.
Ortner, Sherry B. 1984. “Theory in Anthropology Since the Sixties.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 26 (1): 126–66. http://www.jstor.org/stable/178524.
———. 2006. “Power and Projects: Reflections on Agency.” In Anthropology and Social Theory: Culture, Power, and the Acting Subject. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822388456.
Prentice, Rebecca. 2015. “‘Keeping Up with Style’: The Struggle for Skill.” In Thiefing a Chance, 111–42. Factory Work, Illicit Labor, and Neoliberal Subjectivities in Trinidad. Boulder: University Press of Colorado. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt155jp7p.10.
Reed, Adam. 1999. “Anticipating Individuals: Modes of Vision and Their Social Consequence in a Papua New Guinean Prison.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 5 (1): 43–56. https://doi.org/10.2307/2660962.
Rio, Knut M. 2005. “Discussions Around a Sand-Drawing: Creations of Agency and Society in Melanesia.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 11 (3): 401–23. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9655.2005.00243.x.
Rudnyckyj, Daromir. 2011. “Circulating Tears and Managing Hearts: Governing Through Affect in an Indonesian Steel Factory.” Anthropological Theory 11 (1): 63–87. https://doi.org/10.1177/1463499610395444.
Sahlins, Marshall. 1988. “Cosmologies of Capitalism: The Trans-Pacific Sector of ‘The World System’.” Proceeedings of the British Academy 74: 1–51. https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/74p001.pdf.
———. 1992. “The Economics of Develop-Man in the Pacific.” Res 21: 13–25.
———. 1996. “The Sadness of Sweetness: The Native Anthropology of Western Cosmology.” Current Anthropology 37 (3): 395–428. https://doi.org/10.1086/204503.
Schnitzler, Antina von. 2016a. “Measuring Life: Living Prepaid and the Politics of Numbers After Apartheid.” In Democracy’s Infrastructure: Techno-Politics and Protest After Apartheid, 132–67. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400882991-006.
———. 2016b. “The Making of a Techno-Political Device.” In Democracy’s Infrastructure: Techno-Politics and Protest After Apartheid, 105–31. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400882991-005.
Shah, Alpa. 2007. “The Dark Side of Indigeneity?: Indigenous People, Rights and Development in India.” History Compass 5 (6): 1806–32. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2007.00471.x.
Shange, Savannah. 2019. “Black Girl Ordinary: Flesh, Carcerality, and the Refusal of Ethnography.” Transforming Anthropology 27 (1): 3–21. https://doi.org/10.1111/traa.12143.
Simpson, Audra. 2014. “Constructing Kahnawà:ke as an ‘Out-of-the-Way’ Place: Ely S. Parker, Lewis Henry Morgan, and the Writing of the Iroquois Confederacy.” In Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822376781.
Strathern, Marilyn. 1996. “Cutting the Network.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 2 (3): 517–35. https://doi.org/10.2307/3034901.
Street, Alice. 2014. “The Waiting Place.” In Biomedicine in an Unstable Place: Infrastructure and Personhood in a Papua New Guinean Hospital. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/269/chapter/111426/The-Waiting-Place.
Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. (2003a) 2016. “Adieu, Culture: A New Duty Arises.” In Global Transformations: Anthropology and the Modern World, 97–116. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-137-04144-9.
———. (2003b) 2016. “Anthropology and the Savage Slot: The Poetics and Politics of Otherness.” In Global Transformations: Anthropology and the Modern World, 7–28. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-137-04144-9.
Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo. 1998. “Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4 (3): 469–88. https://doi.org/10.2307/3034157.
———. 2004. “Exchanging Perspectives: The Transformation of Objects into Subjects in Amerindian Ontologies.” Common Knowledge 10 (3): 463–84. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-10-3-463.
Wolf, Eric R. 1984. “Culture: Panacea or Problem?” American Antiquity 49 (2): 393–400. http://www.jstor.org/stable/280026.
Zigon, Jarrett. 2013. “Human Rights as Moral Progress?: A Critique.” Cultural Anthropology 28 (4): 716–36. https://doi.org/10.1111/cuan.12034.
ANTH 2700: Key debates in anthropology—A guide to the unit
Lecture outlines and guides: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, B, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.
Assignments: Weekly writing assignments, What I learned about the future of anthropology: An interactive presentation, Second essay: Who represents the future of anthropology and why?, Possible sources for the second essay, First essay: Improving AI reference material, Concept quiz.