Fall Semester 1999
Dr. Alexander Moore
Professor and Chairman
Department of Anthropology
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0032
(213) 740-0519
Fax: (213) 747-8571
<almoore@mizar.usc.edu>
Office hours: T / TH 8:00-9:30 am
SOS 154
Graduate Assistants:
The TA office is in SOS room 165.
Michele Besaw <besaw@usc.edu>
Steven Schindler <schindl@scf.usc.edu>
Anita Slaminska <aslomins@usc.edu>
C. Todd White <ctw@scf.usc.edu>
Page Contents:
Course Overview / Requirements and Grading / Discussion Session / Required Readings / Course Calendar
see also Outline Excercise , Footnote / Citations Excercise, and Term Paper Requirements,
Study Guides for the First and Second Midterms and the Final Exam
Anthropology is the study of all human beings at all times and places. Human beings everywhere live in communities, basic units of cultural transmission and survival, which orchestrate human activities according to their own particular values. Anthropologist distinguish at least four levels of social and cultural complexity among human communities: the hunting and gathering band, the horticultural tribe, the agricultural traditional civilization, and modern metropolitan civilization. social and cultural complexity at each level expresses itself diversely along a number of human institutions, namely: community--the master system, family, ritual, economics and exchange, language and communication, politics, technology, justice, learning, and social organization.
While we are able to make generalizing typologies, that typology of any given, particular culture-and-community will not explain completely its uniqueness. At any given level different cultures will differ from each other. In this course we shall study the generalizations we can make about the hunting and gathering band (as well as the closely related primate troop), but then we shall explore the particulars of three intensive case studies, at the levels of the tribal, civilized peasant, and urban neighborhood and workplace. These cultures-and-communities are those of the Yanomamö tribes people of the South American tropical forest, the highland Maya peasants of Guatemala, and Japan of corporate managers---a contemporary urban culture which is thoroughly modern, and quite nonwestern. In each case we shall contrast the general and the particular, paying special attention to the particular cultural values of each case, while asking what are the universal features of human values. We shall also ask how the repertory of human institutions play themselves out in each case, and what is the relationship among them. Does any particular institution determine and shape the others, for example, economics? or ritual? or the family? and so on.
There are two mid-term exams, the first graded at 15%, and the second at 20%, of the total grade, and scheduled on Thursday, Sept. 30, and Tuesday, Nov. 2. The final examination, at 25% of the total grade, is scheduled on Thursday, Dec. 16, at 11:00 a.m. A term paper at 25% of the grade is due at 4 pm in SOS 154 on the last day of classes, Friday, Dec. 10. Two study skills exercises are to help prepare for the term paper: a bibliographic, citation, and footnoting exercise due in the discussion sections the week of Oct. 20; and an outlining exercise---in which you outline with considerable detail your proposed term paper topic---due in discussion sections the week of Nov. 15. Each exercise is graded at 5% of the total grade. Attendance and participation in the discussion section counts for 5% of your grade.
We shall issue guidelines for the skills exercises and for the term paper separately later in the course.
Summary:
1st midterm exam = 15%
2nd midterm exam = 20%
Two skills exercises = 5% each
Term paper = 25%
Final examination = 25%
Attendance & participation = 5%
Your grades in each test, exercise, and the term paper will be in numbers only. We will announce and post the mean score and standard distribution for each midterm. At the end of the course we will make a normal distribution curve of the cumulative point total, and then assign letter grades. Therefore your letter grade for the course may be slightly above or below the result you might have predicted from your midterm scores. Attendance and participation are important factors in considering borderline grades, as is improvement over the course.
We expect you to attend and participate in discussion sections; it will be very difficult to get an A in the class without having done so each week. TAs discuss the readings, review course material, hold exam reviews, and sometimes show relevant videos. They also read and grade your work.
Alexander Moore, Cultural Anthropology: the Field Study of Human Beings, 2nd ed., San Diego, Collegiate Press, 1998. Please note this book is the second edition. Do not purchase the first edition.
Peter Biella, Napoleon Chagnon, & Gary Seaman, Yanomamö Interactive: The Ax Fight (Windows/Macintosh CD-ROM & User's Guide), Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1997
(Note: if your personal computer does not support running this CD-ROM, use one of the Macintosh computers in the basement of Leavey Library.)
Alexander Moore, Life Cycles in Alotenango: the Diverse Careers of Certain Guatemalans. Ethnographic Press, 1999 (available for purchase at the Anthropology Department Office, SOS 154)
Tomoko Hamada, American Enterprise in Japan. SUNY Press, 1991
Please Note
If you have difficulty with this class, please see me or your teaching assistant during our posted office hours. There are other ways that you may receive help as well. The Academic Support and Disability Services Program offers free tutoring and learning skills instruction, and computer-assisted instruction, to USC students in many classes. The center is located in the Student Union Suite 301 and is open Monday through Friday. All tutoring is on a first come, first served basis. It is important to phone ahead for an appointment for learning skills at (213) 740-0776. In addition, the Writing Center in THH 321 offers undergraduates help in composition. Tutors are available for 30-minute appointments by calling (213) 740-3691. Also, your departmental adviser, or an adviser in the College Academic Services Office in CAS 100, is available if you would like to talk with someone in more general terms. Please remember that there are many people at USC who are available to help you.