Instructor Description Course Materials Evaluation Guidelines Goals Schedule

ANTH 369D  VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY Spring 2008 TR 1600-1750 HSS 107

DESCRIPTION

We begin with the earliest uses of moving images to capture and re-present human behavior for research, teaching and entertainment. As we survey the evolution of visual anthropology we observe the influences of technology, social and political movements, aesthetic styles, and anthropological debates on the work of ethnographers and filmmakers. Various styles of cinematic expression and changing relationships amongst ethnographer, filmmaker, subject, and audience are addressed. By acquiring a vocabulary and set of concepts for talking and writing about what we see on film, by watching intently and sharing what we see, and by sampling broadly across cultures and topics of human experience, we come to see human life in a new way.

We will use WOU Online to access readings for this course. I encourage you to print out the articles and chapters, mark them up as you read and bring them to class on the day assigned to use during discussion. You will also bring and turn in a synopsis as described below under Evaluation.

This is a seminar course built upon collaborative analysis of assigned readings and discussion of films that we have watched together.  Preparation, attendance, and participation are required. Viewing a film is a communal experience that requires rapt attention and willing surrender of the senses and emotions to the filmmaker's goals. Viewing an ethnographic film requires conscious exercise of cultural relativity and active analysis of the intellectual experience, as well. We will work together on developing these skills. By joining this class we each agree to promote this experience for others by 1) sharing our ideas and reactions and 2) refraining from any distracting activities, including: arriving late, leaving early, eating, shuffling papers, checking phone messages, etc. We will take a short lunch break; bring your lunch.

1. Preparation requires reading the assigned articles and chapters before class, and submitting, at the beginning of class a brief synopsis for each. [1% each]

2. Participation involves engaged watching and responsive discussion of the films screened in class.

3. Take-home essay exams. I will link exam questions and instructions to this website. There are three in-term essays and a final. In-term essays will incorporate readings, lecture, discussion and screenings for each unit of the course. The final will be an in-class essay written after a final screening.

• Arrive in class on time and plan to stay for the entire period. Please save personal questions for after class or office hours. Devote yourself entirely to this class during class; do not engage in other projects, whether work or pleasure.
• You are responsible for a grade if your name remains on the Registrar's role past the last drop date, at the end of week 6.  The "Incomplete" grade is reserved for the rare case in which the student was making satisfactory progress when documented circumstances beyond the student's control caused a significant but discrete portion of the course to remain unfinished at the end of dead week.
• Cell phones must be turned off at the beginning of class and remain off during class.
• I place a high value on academic honesty and expect my students to do the same.  Please ensure you understand the definition of academic dishonesty in the Code of Student Responsibility.  I refer apparent cases of academic dishonesty to the Coordinator of Campus Judicial Affairs for ajudication.  If you have any questions or concerns about how you have quoted, paraphrased or cited sources, seek my assistance before you submit your work.
  
• Please make wise use of email.  Use the subject line to identify the course and yourself:  "ANTH 369 Last Name".  Do not send written assignments by email; submit them in hard copy.  Avoid sending email messages (to anyone) when angry or upset. 
• Requests for special accomodations are best made in person during office hours.
  

Participation in this course will strengthen your skills as a viewer of film and as a reader, researcher, writer, speaker, and listener. We will pay particular attention to:

• The relationship between vision and language.
• The role of film in the study of human cultures.
• The interplay of ethnographic and cinematic approaches to understanding and representing human behavior.
• The ethical issues raised by the capture of human behavior on film and its exhibition.
• The influence of visual anthropology on the development of theory in anthropology.

SCHEDULE SPRING 2008

HOME