ant201 midterm sources

1) Anthropology is often described as the most humanistic of the sciences and the most  scientific of the humanities. Given what we’ve covered so far in this class, assess that  statement. In your response, focus on the specific methods, theoretical concepts, and/or  approaches covered in lecture, readings and precepts.  

K. Nelson (Doing Fieldwork: Methods in Cultural Anthropology), Hyde et al. (The Future of Sex and Gender in Psychology: Five Challenges to the Gender Binary)

2) What is “culture”? In your response, be sure to mention some of the main elements  related to human culture (as seen in the readings and in class). Why is studying cultural  diversity important? 

Fuentes 2022 “Race, Monogamy, and Other lies they told you”, K. Nelson (Doing Fieldwork: Methods in Cultural Anthropology), Proctor Sapiens article

3) Imagine a friend majoring in economics, psychology, sociology, biology or some other major who wants to study an aspect of student life at Princeton, such as how students prepare for exams, go out on weekends, or decide what to major in. Discuss one of these aspects. How might your friend approach it, and how would an anthropologist approach it differently? Be specific: what would an anthropologist notice or assess that your friend’s approach might miss? Use this comparison to discuss what is distinctive about anthropology, and what we gain (or risk missing) by studying human life in an anthropological way. Ground your answer in at least two readings from the first half of the course and draw on lectures and precepts as needed. 

Howell in Encyclopedia of Anthropology on ethnography, Hyde et al. (The Future of Sex and Gender in Psychology: Five Challenges to the Gender Binary)

4) How do the spatial features (the structure) of our ANT 201 lecture hall this term shape  what happens in the room? What is meant by “structured structures pre-disposed to act  as structuring structures’? How does “classroom culture” affect how the classroom  structure is engaged? How, and why, do you know how to behave in lecture and  precept? In your answers draw on the concepts, processes, and theoretical framings of  culture from readings, lectures and precepts. 

Fuentes 2022 “Race, Monogamy, and Other lies they told you”, Proctor Sapiens article

5) What is sex? How do we assess it, describe it? Is there one essential way to be male or  female? Why does this matter when talking about bodies and lives? How is sex biology  biocultural?  

DuBois/Shattuck “Challenging the Binary”, Lacy/Ocobock ‘Dismantling the “Man the Hunter” Myth’

6) Clifford Geertz writes that the “[hu]man is an animal suspended in webs of  significance [they] [themselves] have spun.” What are these webs? Can we act on these  webs and change them? Why or why not?

Fuentes 2022 “Race, Monogamy, and Other lies they told you”., Chavez 2015 ‘Te fuiste a Dallas?

7) People often explain features of human life as “human nature” and the inevitable result of progress. Choose ONE of the following claims and assess it using what we have learned about human evolution and the human past: 

b) “Once humans discovered farming, there was no going back.” 

Graeber & Wengrow–Gardens of Adonis, Blinn’s ‘Inequality’

8) Please reflect on how you have come to understand “to human is a verb” over the first  half of the course. Support your discussion with specific concepts and examples from the  course so far. Please mention at least two readings of your choice. You may paraphrase  ideas from authors we have read (no need to quote them directly). Additionally, you are  welcome to mention concepts or examples from our lectures and precepts if helpful for  your analysis. 

As you engage with the course material, please structure your analysis through your own  interpretive lens: how do you understand this concept/example, what perspective does it  add, why is it important? 

Fuentes 2022, Fuentes’ 2018 JAR article “How Humans and Apes are Different, and Why That Matters”, Graeber/Wengrow

9) Consider the readings, lecture, and class discussions on power. In your own words, how would you conceptualize power from an Anthropological perspective? How can Anthropology and its different ways of creating knowledge complicate our understanding of power? In your answer, draw on our discussions regarding methods in Anthropology, as well as from readings that foreground ethnography. 

Blinn’s ‘Inequality’, K. Nelson

10) We have discussed the method of defamiliarization. In anthropology, we aim to make  the familiar strange and the strange familiar. This is how anthropologists pull out the  social relations within life. Think of a familiar object you have in your home that is  important to you. Describe it in a way that it might be strange to others, and highlights  social, cultural, or political dynamics in society. Draw on readings/lectures/precepts in  your discussion.

Proctor Sapiens article (cultural anthropology),  Fuentes 2022 “Race, Monogamy, and Other lies they told you”