CA 610e

Seminar Schedule



9 /6: First Day
What is Ethnography?/You Know what the Internet Is (Don't you?;))

9 /8: Seminar #1
Winking Winks and Stroking Cocks: Interpretative Ethnography
Required Reading: Geertz, "Thick Description" (packet) and "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight" (packet)

9/13: Seminar #2
The Pragmatics of Human "Fieldworkers"
Required Reading: People Studying People

9 /15: Seminar #3
Seminar/discussion: The History of Ethnography I: The Boasian Model
Required Reading: Coming of Age in Samoa.

9/20: Seminar #4
Seminar/discussion: The Mead Controversy
Required Reading: Freeman, "Preface" (packet),and The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead.

9 /22: Seminar #5
Seminar/discussion: The History of Ethnography II: The Malinowskian Model
Required Reading: Malinowski, Diary in a Strict Sense, introductory materials, pages 1-29, and pages 254-298. (packet)

9/27: Seminar #6
Seminar/discussion: The Writing Culture Debate I
Required Reading: Clifford, "Introduction: Partial Truths," (packet); Marcus, "Contemporary Problems of Anthropology in the Modern World System," (packet); Rabinow, "Representations are Social Facts: Modernity and Post-Modernity in Anthropology," in Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (packet)

9 /29: Seminar #7
Seminar/discussion: The Fictional Turn (Drama and Vodou (Voodoo))
Required Reading: Mama Lola

10/4: Seminar #8
Seminar/discussion: The Writing Culture Debate II: Solutions?
Required Reading: Marcus, "Beyond Malinowski and After Writing Culture," (packet) "Ethnography in/of the World System," (packet)
and Green, "Disrupting the Field." (packet)

10/6: Seminar #9
Seminar/discussion: Fieldwork I: Methods
Required Reading: Jackson, Fieldwork "Part One," and "Part Two"

10/11: Seminar #10
Seminar/discussion: Fieldwork II: Methods + Real World Ethics
Required Reading: Jackson, Fieldwork "Part Three" and "Part Four"

10/13: Seminar #11
Seminar/discussion: Activity One
Required Reading: none

10 /18: Seminar #12
Seminar/discussion: The Internet I: History
Required Reading: Ceruzzi, “Inventing Personal Computing” (packet), Internet Society, “A Brief History of the Internet” (packet), Segal, “A Short History of Internet Protocols” (packet), Burners-Lee, “Information Management: A Proposal” (packet), and Castells, “Lessons from the History of the Internet” (packet) .

10/21: TBA

10/25: Seminar #13
Seminar/discussion: The Internet II: Community
Required Reading: Fernback, “There is a There There” (packet), Baym, “Interpreting Soap Operas and Creating Community” (packet), Rogers, Slack and Williams, “The Dialectics of Place and Space” (packet), Feenberg and Bakardjieva, “Virtual Community: No “Killer Implication.” (packet)

10/27: Seminar #14
Seminar/discussion: Turkle I
Required Reading: Turkle, Life on the Screen, "Part One," and "Part Two."

11/1: Seminar #15
Seminar/discussion: Turkle II
Required Reading: Turkle, Life on the Screen, "Part Three," and "Part Four."

11/3: Seminar #16
Seminar/discussion: Markham
Required Reading: Markham, Life Online

11 /8: Seminar #17
Seminar/discussion: Hine
Required Reading: Hine, Virtual Ethnography

11/10:: Seminar #18
Seminar/discussion: Life Offline
Required Reading: Miller & Slater, The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach excerpts (packet), and Bakardjieva and Smith, “The Internet in Everyday Life” (packet).

11 /15: Seminar #19
Seminar/discussion: Activity Two
Required Reading: none

11/17: TBA

11/22: TBA

Thanksgiving Recess
11/24 - 11/27

11/29: Seminar #20
Seminar/discussion: Final Examples
Required Reading: Fernback, “Legends on the net,” Lanayama, “Ethnographic Research on the Experience of Japanese Elderly People Online.”

12/1: Seminar #21
Seminar/discussion: Final Presentations I
Required Reading: none

12 /6: Seminar #22
Seminar/discussion: Final Presentations II
Reading: none

12/8: Seminar #23
Seminar/discussion: Final Presentations III
Required Reading: none

12/13: Seminar #24
Seminar/discussion: Final Presentations IV
Required Reading: none

Section IV: Last Day
12 /15: Seminar/discussion: Course Review, Discussion, and Evaluations.