Anthropology Department
Brandeis University
Spring 2016
Draft only; changes pending
ANTHROPOLOGY 139b
Language, Ethnicity, and Nationalism
Janet McIntosh
Class:Monday and Wednesday, 2:00-3:20
Instructor:Janet McIntosh, Brown 207
Contact info: Office: 781-736-2215
Email:
Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday 12:30-1:30, or by appointment
TA: Jara Connell ()
Jara’s office hours: ___, or by appointment
Course Description:
In the United States we often assume that communities are monolingual—that language differences divide people from one another, while a common language unites them. Yet much of the world is multilingual. What do language differences mean for their speakers’ social identities and relationships? In this course we will consider the relationships between communication and community—including categories such as “ethnic group,” “tribe,” “race,” and “nation.” We will explore what kinds of social groupings those terms might label, and how they might (or might not) connect with languages and with communication networks. We will consider topics such as language use in small-scale societies, the roles of language in nationalistic movements, the European colonial expansion and its influence on indigenous populations and languages, the politics of language standardization, and some functions of multilingualism and code-switching. Regions we will explore include Amazonia, (Colonial) Indonesia, Western Europe, Quebec, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the United States; students will also have a chance to pursue and present research in the area of their choosing. While this upper level class has no prerequisites, please be advised that much of the reading is fairly dense, and you may find some of it rough going unless you are already interested and invested in this subject matter. It requires concentration but will sharpen your analytic abilities as a social scientist.
Course Requirements:
1)Class attendance and participation. Participation in this class will require dedication, since I’ll count on you not only to keep abreast of the readings but also to engage with them deeply, striving to comprehend and question them.
2)2 short response papers
3)6-8 page midterm essay
4)7-10 page final essay that will also be presented (in condensed form) to the class. (Graduate students will either write a 12-15 page final essay along with the midterm essay, OR they will forego the midterm and write a 20-25 page final essay. In the latter case, the final essay will count as 55% of the grade.) Dates TBA.
Grading:
1)Attendance and Participation: 25%
2)2 short response papers: 20% (10% each)
3)Midterm Essay: 25%
4)Final Paper and presentation: 30%
Policy on Attendance:
Attendance is mandatory and will be factored into your grade (see above). Each student is permitted oneexcused absence. Absences beyond this can hurt your grade, but you can mitigate this by submitting a 2-3 page response paper that indicates you have done the readings for that day, and engaged with their implications and their links to other course material. Such make-up exercises are due to the professor within 10 days of the missed class. (To request an excused absence, please email the TA, Jara Connell.)
Required readings:
All readings will be available on LATTE. (You’re welcome to purchase the Hoffman book—see end of syllabus. The excerpts will be available on Latte, but used copies can also be purchased on Amazon for as little as $4 including shipping.)
SCHEDULE OF READINGS
Introduction
Wednesday January 13th
Introduction to Class Materials.
What counts as a language? Contemporary linguistic models of language universals, language differences. What is “ideology”?
Monday January 18th
Defining “ethnicity,” “tribe,” “race”: Some conceptual problems. And: Do languages cut the social world at its joints?
Southall, Aidan W. 1997. “The Illusion of Tribe” excerpted in Perspectives on Africa: A Reader in Culture, History, and Representation. Ed. Roy Richard Grinker and Christopher Steiner. Oxford: Blackwell. Pp. 38-51.
Marks, Jonathan. 1994. “Black, White, Other: Racial Constructs are Cultural Constructs Masquerading as Biology.” Natural History 103(12): 32-35.
Barth, Frederick. 1969. “Introduction” to his Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. Boston: Little Brown. Pp. 9-38.
Wednesday January 20th
Monday January 25th
Language, ethnicity, and identity in one small-scale society
Jackson, J. 1974. “Language identity of the Colombian Vaupes Indians,” in R. Bauman and J. Shertzer, Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Jackson, J. 1995. “Culture, Genuine and Spurious: The Politics of Indianness in the Vaupes, Colombia,” in American Ethnologist, Volume 22, Issue 1, 3-27. ANTHROSOURCE.
WednesdayJanuary 27th
What’s a nation?
Renan, E. 1990. “What is a nation?” in H. Bhabha, ed., Nation and Narration. New York: Routledge.
Anderson, B. excerpt from his Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. New York: Verso.
Monday February 1st
Nation-Making: Race, ethnicity, “tradition,” and anxiety
Linnekin, Jocelyn S. 1983. “Defining Tradition: Variations on the Hawaiian Identity,”
American Ethnologist, Vol. 10, No. 2. (May, 1983), pp. 241-252.
Excerpt: Gilroy, Paul. 1991[1987]. Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack. University of Chicago Press.
SUPPLEMENTARY: Stoler, Ann. 2002. “Sexual Affronts and Racial Frontiers: Cultural Competence and Dangers of Métissage,” in her Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Wednesday February 3rd
**First response paper due
The commodification of ethnicity and ethno-nationalism.
Comaroff, John L. and Jean. 2009. “Prologue” and “Three or Four Things about Ethno-Futures,” in Ethnicity, Inc. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pp. 1-21.
Bruner, Edward M. 2001. “The Maasai and the Lion King: Authenticity, Nationalism, and Globalization in African Tourism.” American Ethnologist Vol. 28, No. 4, pp. 881-908.
Monday February 8th
Ethnicity, race, and the commodification of ethnicity and ethno-nationalism: Show and tell
Wednesday February 10th
Nationalist language ideologies
Handler, Richard. 1988. “Quebecois Nationalist Ideology” and “A Normal Society: Majority Language, Minority Cultures,” in Nationalism and the Politics of Culture in Quebec. University of Wisconsin Press.
Monday February 15th
Language essentialisms
Blommaert, J. and J. Vershueren. 1998. “The Role of Language in European Nationalist Ideologies,” in B. Schieffelin et al., Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory. New York: Oxford University Press.
McIntosh, Janet. 2005. “Language Essentialisms and Social Hierarchies among Giriama and Swahili,” Journal of Pragmatics. 1919-1944.
WednesdayFebruary 17th
The politics of language standardization and language purification
Pinker, Steven. 1994. “The Language Mavens” in his The Language Instinct. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc.
Halpern, Mark. 2001. “The End of Linguistics: Taking the Language Back from Nature—and Linguists.” The American Scholar. Vol. 70(1): 13-26.
Excerpt from Rickford, John Russell and Russell John Rickford. 2000. Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English.Wiley.
(SUPPLEMENTARY) Rajagopalan, K. 2002. “National Languages as Flags of Allegiance, or the Linguistics that Failed Us: A Close Look at Emergent Linguistic Chauvanism in Brazil” Journal of Language and Politics. Volume 1, Number 1.
BREAK: Feb 15th-19th
Monday February 22nd
Language, ethnicity, race in the USA
Excerpts from Mendoza-Denton, Norma. 2008. Home Girls: Language and Cultural Practice among Latina Youth Gangs. Wiley-Blackwell.
Wednesday February 24th
**Midterm essays due
Language, ethnicity, race in the USA
VIDEO: “English Only in America” OR “American Tongues”
Monday February 29th
Language boundaries and linguistic pluralism
Gal, S. and J Irvine. 2000. “Language Ideology and Linguistic Differentiation,” in P. Kroskrity, ed. Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities. SAR Press.
Wednesday March 2nd
Colonial expansion and language policy
Spencer, J. 1971. “Colonial Language Policies and their Legacies,” In: Thomas A. Sebeok (ed.), Current Trends in Linguistics, Vol. VII: Linguistics in Sub-Saharan Africa, The Hague, Netherlands, Mouton.
McIntosh, Janet. 2015. “Linguistic Atonement: Penitence and Personhood in White Kenyan Language Ideologies.” Anthropological Quarterly 87(4): 1165-1200.
Monday March 7th
Multilingualism, code-switching, register-shifting I
Carol Myers Scotton. 1988. “Code Switching as Indexical of Social Negotiations” in Monica Heller ed. Codeswitching: Anthropological and Sociolinguistic Perspectives. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
McIntosh, Janet. 2010. “Mobile Phones and Mipoho’s Prophecy: The Powers and Dangers of Flying Language,” in American Ethnologist
Wednesday March 9th
**Second response paper due
Multilingualism, code-switching, register-shifting II
Kroskrity, Paul. 1993. Excerpt from “Introduction,” and “An Evolving Ethnicity among the Arizona Tewa: Toward a Repertoire of Identity,” in his Language, History, and Identity: Ethnolinguistic Studies of the Arizona Tewa. University of Arizona Press. Pp. 6-13 and pp. 177-212.
Basso, Keith. 1979. “Cibecue and Whitemen” and “Joking Imitations of Anglo-Americans: Interpretive Functions,” in his Portraits of “the Whiteman”: Linguistic Play and Cultural Symbols among the Western Apache. Cambridge University Press.
Monday March 14th
Guest appearances from “Music Unites Us” visitors
Nationalism and Korean music
NOTE: CLASS WILL BE HELD IN SLOSBERG RECITAL HALL
Wednesday March 16th
Urban hybrids and national identities
Newell, Sasha. 2009. “Enregistering Modernity, Bluffing Criminality: How Nouchi Speech Reinvented (and Fractured) the Nation” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 19(2): 157-184.
Student presentations in class:
Monday March 21st
Wednesday March 23rd
Monday March 28th—NO CLASS
Wednesday March 30th
Monday April 4th
Wednesday April 6th
Monday April 11th
Wednesday April 13th
Monday April 18th
Wednesday April 20th
(No classes April 22nd-29th)
Monday March 2nd
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