Anthropology 340 - Seminar: Topics in Anthropology: Ethnographic Writing

Topics course: Anthropological writing must convey the life-worlds of people and the textures of ethnographic encounters and fieldwork, and refine anthropological theories. How can writing do all of this at once? And as we craft a narrative, what do we leave out? Do we really describe ethnographic “reality” or do we create anthropological fictions? Why then do we look to ethnographic accounts to understand societies and cultures? Anthropological writing has dealt with these questions and more since its inception but most profoundly since the 1980s. In this class, we read pieces that reflect on and innovate with writing as anthropological praxis, and related issues of fact versus fiction, the politics of representation, narrative style, writing as a form of political action and the role of theory in the creation of knowledge.

Instructor Permission. Not open to first-years, sophomores