The Anthropology of Stuff
ANTH 128B
The Anthropology of Stuff
Last Updated: 9/19/2017
Brown Social Science Center316
Fall 2017Tuesday and Thursday3:30-4:50
Dr. Derek Sheridan
Office: Brown Social Science Center 207
Office Hours: Monday 1:00-3:00 (Sign Up)
781-736-2234
Course Description and Objectives:
Our world is connected by objects and these objects make up our lifeworlds. The things we make, give to others, sell, buy, wear, consume, and discard constitute our relationships with those close to us, and those with whom we never meet. This course will introduce you to the material anthropology of globalization, exploring what objects can tell us about culture, society, and experience; particularly in relation to circulation/exchange, commodification, and consumption.Drawing on both classic anthropological texts and recent ethnographies, we will talk about gifts, commodities, counterfeits, food, and copyrights. You will learn how people make objects, how objects make people, and how the circulation of objects has connected people at multiple scales both historically and in the present. We will consider the relationship between these features of objects and global and local power dynamics and inequalities. What are the ethical and political implications of the commodities we exchange with each other? You will also have the opportunity to learn some ethnographic methods to talk about the meaning of objects in the world around you and others.
Learning Goals:
-Understanding how material objects constitute personhood, relationships, and identities.
-Understanding social and cultural theories regarding the distinctions between gifts and commodities.
-Understanding the meaning and experience of commodities and consumption in non-Western contexts, particularly in the “global South.”
-Thinking critically about the relationship between ethics, politics, and consumption practices.
-Developing critical familiaritywith interviewing and ethnographic methods, and applying them.
-Developing personal interests about “stuff” into thought-out and manageable research proposals and projects.
There are no prerequisites.
Course requirements:
In addition to regular attendance and active participation, students will be expected to complete
the following requirements:
Reading and Discussion
You are expected to read the assigned readings and be ready to discuss them in class. To facilitate discussion, I ask everyone to post a short response to the reading on the LATTE website discussion board by 10PM the night before class. These responses should pose questions which directly engage the major arguments and/or examples provided by the author(s). They may address something you find particularly interesting, surprising, confusing, or frustrating about the reading. In each case, be sure to elaborate your points with reference to the text. The goal of the exercise is to help us pose good discussion questions, and this means that even if your response is more of a comment than a question, you should think about the question your comment poses for discussion. The responses should be no more than a paragraph, but they should also be more than a few sentences.
In addition, please highlight quotes and passages from the reading which you find interesting and/or confusing. I may ask you to share them during discussion.
Field Journal
Ethnographic research involves extended, in-depth, participant-observation; living and working in the sites and with the people whom one “studies.” Anthropologists capture the minutia and nuances of these experiences primarily through the regular writing of fieldnotes, and it is from these fieldnotes that anthropologists construct their arguments and claims. In keeping with that tradition, you will be asked to keep an ethnographic field journal for the course. Throughout the semester,I will assign short reflective and/or research assignments. You will be asked to write up your findings in the journal and bring them to class because this data will be used to inform our class discussions. The journals themselves must be turned into me for my review and gradingeach Tuesday. I will hand them back on Thursday for weekend use. You are strongly encouraged to purchase a physical notebook (easier to take notes). For each assignment, I will specify the suggested range for length.
Short Midterm Essay
A short midterm essay (4-5 pages) will be assigned during Week 5. You will be asked to choose from a list of prompts and turn in the essay via LATTE by 5PM on Friday, October 13. The essay is intended to evaluate your understanding of the some of the key concepts covered during the first several weeks.
Reflections
Class discussions are as much sites of knowledge production as the texts we read. As we end each week, you may have lingering questions or concerns about the reading or about the discussion, and/or you may have observations and insights. I therefore invite you to e-mail me after our end of week discussions. You are not required to do so, but I will take it into consideration at the end of the semester when calculating your participation grade.
Final Paper and Presentation
You will be expected to complete a final paper (10-15 pages) about stuff; specifically, about a particular object, or particular category of object, of interest to you, from an anthropological perspective. You might take inspiration from anything ranging from Daniel Miller’s studies of the relationships between people and things, to Sidney Mintz’s global history of circulating commodities, to an object of interest you happen to encounter. You might base your paper on original ethnographic research, or on secondary research through resources found in the library or online. In either case, the paper should cover “stuff” that was not already discussed in the class readings. The research questions will be up to yourself, but should be developed in consultation with me over the course of the class.
By Monday,October15th,please talk to me over office hours.
By Thursday,October 26th, please submit to me (through e-mail) a short paragraph summarizing your intended paper plans.
On November 30th, December 5th and December 7th, you will be asked to prepare a short (10 min) presentation on your paper topic. Consider these presentations to be informal opportunities to share your interests with fellow students.
The Final Paper will be due Friday, December 15th by 5 PM through the LATTE website.
Grading:
Participation: 20% (10% (22 Discussion Questions meeting requirements), 10% (Attendance (5%) and Active Participation (5%))
Field Journal: 30% (8 Entries meeting requirements turned in twice)
Short Midterm Essay: 20%
Final Paper: 30%
I will excuse one absence or missed discussion question if you provide me notification in advance. Missed deadlines for longer written assignments may be made-up for ¾ credit if turned in later.
Four-Credit Course (with three hours of class time per week)
Success in this four- credit course is based on the expectation that students will spend a minimum of 9 hours of study time per week in preparation for class.
Academic Integrity
You are expected to be honest in all of your academic work. Please consult Brandeis University Rights and Responsibilities for all policies and procedures related to academic integrity. Students may be required to submit work to TurnItIn.com software to verify originality. Allegations of alleged academic dishonesty will be forwarded to the Director of Academic Integrity. Sanctions for academic dishonesty can include failing grades and/or suspension from the university. Keep in mind that in the research and writing process, you might unintentionally commit plagiarism if you paraphrase an author extensively without citation. Citation and research assistance can be found at LTS - Library guides.
Writing Skills
This is a reading and writing intensive course which I hope will be both challenging and awarding. Brandeis has multiple services available to help you succeed. I strongly encourage you to take advantage of the Writing Center and/or English Language Programs as needed.
Students with extra challenges
If you are a student with a documented disability at Brandeis University and if you wish to request a reasonable accommodation for this class, please see me immediately. Keep in mind that reasonable accommodations are not provided retroactively.
“Lids Down”
This course makes rich use of various kinds of media for learning, but in class the policy is “lids down” and devices stowed so we can create a better learning environment. Please plan on taking notes by hand and bringing hard copy of your material. If there’s something you think we should all see in class, email it to me, or better yet, upload it to LATTE. We often think we are skilled multitaskers, not distracting to others, and learn better when we type, but research now points to the precise opposite of such assumptions, and to decreased learning outcomes. If we will undertake a class assignment where devices will be useful, I’ll inform you ahead of time.
Readings:
Course readings include books, journal articles, and occasionally websites/videos. Most materials will be available for reading and/or download on the LATTE website. The following books may be purchased from the Brandeis Bookstore. There will also be a copy on reserve for three hours at a time at the Brandeis Library. Some of these books are also available as E-Books on the Brandeis Library website. As a “Lids Down” course, keep in mind the advantages and disadvantages of hard copies/print-outs versus online reading. At minimum, bring a good set of printed notes with quotes/page references.
Daniel Miller (2010). Stuff. Cambridge: Polity Press. [Bookstore/Reserve Available]
Marcel Mauss (1925). The Gift. London: WB Norton. [Bookstore/Reserve Available (Different Edition)]
Sidney Mintz (1985). Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York: Viking. [Bookstore/Reserve Available]
Jessica Lin (2011). Fake Stuff: China and the Rise of Counterfeit Goods. New York: Routledge. [Bookstore/Reserve Available]
Course Outline
Be aware that the information on this syllabus is liable to change over the course of the class. Major changes will be announced, but if there is any confusion, please check LATTE for the most recent edition.
The indicated readings should be completed by the time of the class.
Thursday, August 31: Introduction
Field Journal Assignment 1 [Due Tuesday, September 5th]
Imagine a box about the size of your bed. Fill it up with everything that is important to you (Ex. The things that you would be buried with). On a separate paper, describe why you have chosen these objects.
Week One: How Stuff Makes People
Tuesday, September 5
-Daniel Miller. 2010.Stuff (Prologue, Ch. 1, Ch. 2 (Pg.42-54))
Thursday, September 7
-Daniel Miller. 2010. Stuff (Ch. 2 (Pg 54-78), Ch. 3 (Pg 91-99))
-Grant McCracken. 1988. “Diderot Effect” (Pg. 120-132)
Field Journal Assignment 2[Due Tuesday, September 12th]
Make an inventory of your possessions in your room, how you obtained them (purchase, gift, etc.), and who gave/sold/lost them to you. If gifts, who gave them to you and for what occasion were they given, and if bought yourself, who did you buy it from, and where did you get the money?
Week Two: Give Stuff Away, Take Stuff, Give Stuff Back
Tuesday, September 12
-Marcel Mauss. 1925.The Gift. (Introductory Essay by Jane Guyer is optional. Priority is to read Mauss's original text. You may skip chapter 3 if you want. Do read the Conclusion.)
-Andrew Walsh. 2009. “The Grift” (Pg. 59-75)(OPTIONAL)
Thursday, September 14
-Lisette Josephides. 1985. The Production of Inequality (Pg. 1-11 (OPTIONAL), Pg. 203-215)
-Marilyn Strathern. 1988. The Gender of the Gift (Pg 3-21, Pg. 133-167)
-Nancy Scheper-Hughes.2007. “The Tyranny of the Gift: Sacrificial Violence in Living Donor Transplants” (Pg. 507-511)
Field Journal Assignment 3[Due Tuesday, September 19th]
Choose an object you have, or an object in your family, that you would not sell. Talk about where it came from, what you know about it, what you do with it, and why you would not sell it.
Week Three:Don’t Give Stuff Away
Tuesday, September 19 [Keep Field Journals]
-Annette B. Weiner. 1992.Inalienable Possessions (Ch. 1, Ch. 2 (Pg. 23-65))
-David Graeber. 2001.Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value (Pg. 33-46)
Thursday, September 21: NO CLASS
Week Four: Night of the Living Stuff
Tuesday, September 26
-Karl Marx. 1867. Capital. “Commodities.”
-[Optional] The Guardian. “The Shirt on Your Back” (
Thursday, September 28
-Michael Taussig. 1980. The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America. (Preface, Ch. 1, Ch. 2, Ch. 7)
-[Optional] Sasha Newell. 2014. “The Matter of the Unfetish: Hoarding and the Spirit of Possessions”
-[Optional] Nancy Scheper-Hughes. 2001. “Commodity Fetishism in Organs Trafficking” (Pg. 31-59)
Field Journal Assignment 4 [Due Tuesday, October 3]
Identify a consumer item commonly found on campus or within the surrounding community. Clothing and electronics are obvious choices, but we will collaborate beforehand to avoid too much duplication in choices. You will find five different people who possess this item and conduct an informal open-ended interview with them about that object. We will discuss questions beforehand in class, but one question we will certainly ask is what our interlocutors know about how their commodities are produced (where they come from, who makes them, and how they are made). After the interviews, check their answers against what you can find online.
Week Five: The Lives of Stuff
Tuesday, October 3 (Short Midterm Essay Prompts will be Announced)
-Paul Bohannan. 1955. “Principals of Exchange and Investment among the Tiv”
-Igor Kopytoff. 1986. “The Cultural Biography of Things”The Social Life of Things (Pg. 64-91)
-Arjun Appadurai. 1986. “Commodities and the Politics of Value”The Social Life of Things (Pg. 3-58)
Thursday, October 5: NO CLASS
Week Six: Distinguishing Stuff
Tuesday, October 10
-Pierre Bourdieu. 1979. Distinction. (Introduction, Ch. 1, Pg. 169-175, Pg. 372-384)
WEDNESDAY, October 11
-LeoraAuslander. 2002. “Jewish Taste? Jews and the Aesthetics of Everyday Life in Paris and Berlin, 1920-1942”Histories of Leisure (Pg 1-28)
-Stephen Silliman. 2001. “Agency, Practical Politics and The Archaeology Of Culture Contact”
-Fath Davis Ruffins. 2010. “Do Objects have Ethnicities?: Race and Material Culture.”
-Charles Briggs. 1986. Learning How to Ask. Chapter 3.
SHORT MIDTERM ESSAY DUE FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13 BY 5PM
And don’t forget…
Field Journal Assignment 5[Due Tuesday, October 17th]
Building on Assignment 4, you will conduct follow-up and/or additional interviews with three people concerning their tastes and preferences within a category of objects of your choosing. Keeping in mind the importance of distinctions between objects, you want to understand how the people you interview articulate their choices and habits vis-à-vis the social universe of alternatives. For this assignment, one or two of the people you interview may be a student, but the other one or two should be someone off campus.
Week Seven: Talking about Stuff
Tuesday, October 17
-Richard J. Parmentier. 1997. “Semiotic Approaches to Meaning in Material Culture”
-FerhanTunagur. “Car Talk Among Car Enthusiasts”
-Paul Manning. 2008. “Barista Rants about Stupid Customers”
Thursday, October 19
-Kunbing Xiao. 2016. “The Taste of Tea: Material, Embodied Knowledge and Environmental History in Northern Fujian, China”
-Diane Hafner. 2013. “Objects, Agency and Context: Australian Aboriginal Expressions of Connection in Relation to Museum Artefacts”
-Emerson, Fretz and Shaw. 2011. “Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes.”
Field Journal Assignment 6 [Due Tuesday, October 24]
This weekend’s assignment is to conduct several hours of participant-observation in a site where people interact with material things. Given that there are few spaces where this does not occur, you have wide latitude on where you may do research. Obvious sites would be places where people evaluate and purchase commodities (i.e. shopping) such as shopping malls, stores, and other kinds of markets, but you might also consider such spaces as artist studios, museums, repair shops, auctions, farmer markets, places where people dispose of trash, engineer space ships etc. Write down everything you can. We will discuss distinctions between public and private space in class, and the issue of informed consent.
Week Eight: The Stuff of Empire
Tuesday, October 24
-Sidney Mintz. 1986.Sweetness and Power (Introduction, Ch. 1, Ch. 2)
Thursday, October 26 [Due: Abstract for Final Paper]
-Sidney Mintz. 1986.Sweetness and Power (Ch. 3, Ch. 4, Ch. 5)
-Kara Walker. 2014. “A Subtlety” (OPTIONAL)
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Field Journal Assignment 7 (Due Tuesday, October 31)
Return to last week’s site to continue your participant-observation. What questions were raised by your first week out, and how are you able to pursue them further today? What do you notice this time which you did not notice before?
Week Nine: Fake Stuff
Tuesday, October 31
-Jessica Lin. 2011. Fake Stuff
-Amy Hanser and Jalin Camille Li. 2015. “Opting Out? Gated Consumption, Infant Formula, and China’s Affluent Urban Consumers”
Thursday, November 2
-Gordan Mathews. 2011. “Goods” Ghetto at the Center of the World
-Nina Sylvanus. 2007. “The Fabric ofAfricanicity”
-Nina Sylvanus. 2010. “Fakes: Crisis in Conceptions of Value in Neoliberal Togo”
-Robert Blunt. 2004. “Satan is an Imitator”
Field Journal Assignment 8 [Due Tuesday, November 7]
Is it ethical to purchase/sell counterfeit goods, or download pirated materials? Does it depend on the circumstance? Using this week’s readings as a guide, find three people to interview and ask them their perspectives.
Week Ten: Consumption, Agency, and Belonging-the View from the “South”
Tuesday, November 7[Final Collection of Field Journals]
-Jeremy Prestholdt. 2008. Domesticating the World (Ch. 3 Pg. 59-87, Ch. 6 Pg. 147-170)
-Sasha Newell. 2012.The Modernity Bluff (Introduction Pg. 1-32)
-Karen TranbergHansen. 1999. “Second Hand Clothing Encounters in Zambia: Global Discourses, Western Commodities, and Local Histories”
Thursday, November 9
-William Mazzarella. 2003.“Citizens Have Sex, Consumers Make Love” Shoveling Smoke.
-William Mazzarella. 2003. “Very Bombay: Contending with the Global in an Indian Advertising Agency”
Week Eleven and Twelve: Ethical Objects and the Anthropocene
Tuesday, November 14
-Mantz, Jeffrey. 2008. “Improvisational Economies: Coltan Production in the Eastern Congo.” Social