How Culture Works
Introduces diverse meanings and uses of the concept of culture with historical and contemporary examples from scholarship and popular media around the globe. Includes first-hand observations, synthesized histories and ethnographies, quantitative representations, and visual and fictionalized accounts of human experiences. Students conduct empirical research on cultural differences through the systematic observation of human interaction, employ methods of interpretative analysis, and practice convincing others of the accuracy of their findings.
Fall 2019
This course introduces diverse meanings and uses of the concept of culture with historical and contemporary examples from scholarship and popular media around the globe. It includes first-hand observations, synthesized histories and ethnographies, quantitative representations, and visual and fictionalized accounts of human experiences. Students conduct empirical research on cultural differences through the systematic observation of human interaction, employ methods of interpretative analysis, and practice convincing others of the accuracy of their findings.
Readings
- [W] = Walley, Christine J. Exit Zero: Family and Class in Postindustrial Chicago . University of Chicago Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780226871806.
- SES #: 1 · TOPICS: Introduction · READINGS: No readings assigned.
- Recommended, not required:
- [W] Chapter 1: A World of Iron and Steel: A Family Album.
- [W] Chapter 2: It All Came Tumbling Down: My Father and the Demise of Chicago’s Steel Industry.
- [W] Chapter 3: Places Beyond.
- SES #: 8 · TOPICS: The Family (VII) · READINGS: No readings assigned.
- [W] Chapter 4: The Ties That Bind.
- SES #: 10 · TOPICS: The Family (IX) · READINGS: No readings assigned.
- [M] Chapter 4: Canoes and Sailing.
- [M] Chapter 5: The Ceremonial Building of a Waga.
- [M] Chapter 6: Launching of a Canoe and Ceremonial Visiting—Tribal Economics in the Trobriands.
- One of these two—reading roles assigned in class:
- Le Goff, Jacques. “Between the Devil and Mammon: Usury and the Usurer,” “The Moneybag: Usury,” and “The Thief of Time.” Chapters 1–3 in Your Money or Your Life: Economy and Religion in the Middle Ages . Translated by Patricia Ranum. Zone Books, 1988. ISBN: 9780942299144.
- SES #: 14 · TOPICS: Things (Creation and Circulation) (IV) · READINGS: No readings assigned.
- Evans-Pritchard, E. E. “Interest in Cattle.” Chapter 1 in The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People . Oxford University Press, 1969. ISBN: 9780195003222.
- SES #: 16 · TOPICS: Things (Creation and Circulation) (VI) · READINGS: No readings assigned.
- Taylor, Charles. “The Person.” Chapter 12 in The Category of the Person: Anthropology, Philosophy, History . Edited by Michael Carrithers, Steven Collins, and Steven Lukes. Cambridge University Press, 1985. ISBN: 9780521277570.
- Geertz, Clifford. “Centers, Kings, and Charisma: Reflections on the Symbolics of Power.” Chapter 6 in Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology . 3rd ed. Basic Books, 1985. ISBN: 9780465041626.
- SES #: 21 · TOPICS: Persons, Agents, Selves, Possessions (V) · READINGS: No readings assigned.
- SES #: 22 · TOPICS: Ethnography, Ethnographers, and How to Study “Culture” (I) · READINGS: Boas, Franz. “The Potlatch.” Chapter 4 in Kwakiutl Ethnography . Edited and abridged with an introduction by Helen Codere. University of Chicago Press, 1975. ISBN: 9780226062372.
- Borges, Jorge Luis. “The Ethnographer.” In Collected Fictions . Translated by Andrew Hurley. Penguin Books, 1999. ISBN: 9780140286809.
- Evans-Pritchard, E. E. “Introductory.” In The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People . Oxford University Press, 1969, pp. 5–15. ISBN: 9780195003222.
- SES #: 26 · TOPICS: Ethnography, Ethnographers, and How to Study “Culture” (V) · READINGS: No readings assigned.
Prerequisites & course information
Prereq: None U (Fall) 3-0-9 units. HASS-S
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
- MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Fall 2019
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- MIT OCW calendar ↗
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.