This unit uses ilearn and ilecture

Week 1: Mar 7

Lecture:  Introduction (course overview): How is ‘culture’ related to the symbolic, to myths and to dreams? Why are some cultures said to have history and others only myths and what is the social and political significance of such dichotomies? Where do myths come from? These are some of the things we will begin to think about this week. Don’t miss this important first lecture.

No tutorial this week but you should read the course outline thoroughly, familiarise yourself with the course assignments and make a start on the readings for next week. If you have any questions please bring them to next week’s tutorial.

Week 2: Mar 14  

Lecture:  The symbolic society

The concepts ‘culture’ and ‘society’ have shaped the way human groups are thought about, analysed, and classified. Historically they defined two different approaches to anthropology. This week we focus on the influence of the French sociologist Emile Durkheim’s theories of society which greatly influenced British social anthropology. We begin our exploration of the symbolic with a consideration of his work on religion and society

Required Tutorial Readings

Wagner, R. 1981 The assumption of culture  (Ch1) In The Invention of Culture. pp1-16. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

Durkheim, E. 1979 The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. In  W. A. Lessa and Evon Z. Vogt (eds), Reader in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological approach. 4^th Ed. pp. 27-35. NY: Harper & Row Publishers.

Further reading;

Charlesworth, M.  1997  The Invention of Australian Aboriginal Religion (Ch 2). In Religious Inventions,  pp51-79. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Morris, B.  1987  Anthropological Studies of Religion, pp111-131. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Week 3: Mar 21

Lecture:  From social structure to ritual process

The most fundamental of social categories according to Durkheim were the ‘sacred’ and the ‘profane’. We will consider the usefulness of the distinction as we move into the area of ritual. Victor Turner’s important writing on ritual and symbol which will be the focus in Week 4 was influenced by Durkheim but it was also shaped by other intellectual trends, most particularly by Arnold Van Gennep’s Rites of Passage.

Film  Flowers for Guadalupe

Required Tutorial Readings

Goody, J. 2010  Religion and Ritual from Tylor to Parsons: the definitional problem.  In Myth, Ritual and the Oral, Ch 1, pp13-40, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wolf, E. 1979  The Virgin of Guadalupe: A Mexican National Symbol. In W. A. Lessa and Evon Z. Vogt (eds), Reader in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological approach. 4^th Ed. pp. 112-115, NY: Harper & Row, Publishers.

Further reading;

Wolf, E.  2007 [1964] Santa Claus: Notes on a Collective Representation. In R. A. Manners (ed), Process and Pattern in Culture, pp 147-155, New Brunswick and London: Aldine Transaction.

Belk, Russell W. 2000  Materialism and the Modern U.S. Christmas, Advertising and Society Review, Vol 1(1) online version 5/01/2011.

Morinis, A. (ed) 1992 Introduction; The Territory of the Anthropology of Pilgrimage, pp 1-28, Sacred Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage, Connecticut and London: Greenwood Pres

Turner, V. and E. Turner 1978 Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. (especially Ch 2)

Hermkens, A. and W. Jansen and C. Notremans (eds)  2009 Moved by Mary: The Power of Pilgrimage in the Modern World, England and USA: Ashgate.

Geertz, Clifford 1993 [1973] (Ch 5) Ethos, World View, and the Analysis of Sacred Symbols, pp126-14, In The Interpretation of Cultures, London: Fontana Press.

The Australian Journal of Anthropology, [Special Issueon the Cronulla Riots] Volume 18, Issue 3, December 2007.

Hamilton, J. A. and Hawley, J. M.  2000 Sacred Dress, Public Worlds: Amish and Mormon experience and Commitment (Ch 3). In L. B. Arthur (ed.) Religion, Dress and the Body. pp. 31-51. Oxford and New York: Berg.

Week 4: Mar 28

Lecture:  Symbolic anthropology and the making of male and female

In this lecture we will revisit Wolf’s analysis of the Virgin of Guadalupe and consider it in terms of Turner’s theory of the ‘multivocality of symbols’. We will also look at pilgrimage as a ‘liminal’ experience.

 Anthropology’s developing interest in the symbolic revealed that much of the symbolism used in ritual was related to matters of gender. As a category of analysis ‘gender’ had previously received little attention. Studies of kinship and marriage which were important to social organisation failed to see the important differences between men’s experience and women’s experience or, more usually, took men to represent the whole of society.

Film Guardians of the Flutes

Required Tutorial Readings

Turner, V.  1970  ‘Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in rites de Passage’ (Ch IV) pp. 93-111. The Forest of Symbols. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

Lutkehaus, N. C. 1995  Gender Metaphors: Female Rituals as Cultural Models in Manam (Ch8). In N. C. Lutkehaus and P. B. Roscoe (eds.), Gender Rituals: Female Initiation in Melanesia. pp183-204. New York and London: Routledge.

Further reading;

Kimbali, S.T. 1969  Introduction. In Arnold Van Gennep, The Rites of Passage. pp. v-xix. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Turner, V. 1969 The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.

Herdt, G. 1987 The Sambia: Ritual and Gender in New Guinea, USA: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Lutkehaus, N. C. 1995  Feminist Anthropology and Female Initiation in Melanesia (Ch1). In  N. C. Lutkehaus and P. B. Roscoe (eds.), Gender Rituals: Female Initiation in Melanesia. pp3-29. New York and London: Routledge.

Week 5: Apr 4

Lecture:  The Myth of Lévi-Strauss

In the next section of the course we begin to consider ‘human thought’ as it relates to culture.

The structuralist approach to anthropology introduced by Claude Lévi-Strauss links culture to the underlying structures of the mind. Drawing on linguistic analysis as well as the trends in symbolic anthropology and continental philosophy, Lévi-Strauss presents a theory which privileges the rational over the affective or emotional and the universal over the particular.

Film: The Kiwai Dugong Hunters of Daru

Required Tutorial Reading

Lévi-Strauss, Claude 1972  The Science of the Concrete (Ch1). In The Savage Mind, pp. 1-33. London: Weidenfield and Nicolson.

Further reading;

Hénaff,  M.  1998  The Analysis of Myths (Ch7). In Claude Lévi-Strauss and the Making of Structural Anthropology. pp159-189. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Forge, A. 1980 Tooth and Fang in Bali. Canberra Anthropology, Vol 3(1): 1-17.

Lévi-Strauss, C. 1973 Towards the Intellect  (Ch 4). In Totemism, pp 143-164.

Great Britain: Penguin Books

Geertz, C.  1993  The Cerebral Savage: On the work of Claude Levi-Strauss (Ch 13) In The Interpretation of Cultures. pp. 345-359. London: Fontana Press. (In reader for week 6

Malinowski, B. 1954 [1926] Myth in Primitive Psychology. In Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays. pp.138-148. New York: Doubleday.

NB Your first assignment is due at 5pm Thursday Apr10th

Week 6: Apr 11

Clifford Geertz and the Interpretation of Culture

Geertz is credited with bringing together the American cultural tradition and British social anthropology. His ‘interpretive’ theory redefined the culture concept and introduced hermeneutics to ethnographic description, placing him at odds with Lévi-Strauss.

Required Tutorial Readings

Geertz, C.  1993  The Cerebral Savage: On the work of Claude Levi-Strauss (Ch 13) In The Interpretation of Cultures. pp. 345-359. London: Fontana Press.

Geertz, C. 1993 [1973] “From the Native’s Point of View”: On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding (Ch 3). In Local Knowledge, pp. 55-70. London: Fontana Press.

Further reading;

Geertz, C. 1988  Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author, California: Stanford University Press.

Clifford, J.  1986  Introduction: Partial Truths. In J. Clifford and G. E. Marcus (eds), Writing Culture. pp1-26. California: University of California Press

Behar, R. 1995  Introduction: Out of Exile. In R. Behar and D.A. Gordon (eds), Women Writing Culture. pp. xiv [illustration]; 1-29. California: University of California Press

****   12^th -27^th  April Recess, no lectures or tutorials  ****

Week 7: May 2

Lecture:  Freud: myths, dreams and creativity

Freud, like Lévi-Strauss (and Lévy-Bruhl who we will meet later) was, in his own way, proposing intellectual solutions for understanding questions of culture. Whether we agree with them or not Freud’s psychoanalytic theories have become so embedded in Western thought that they are part of the Western world view. This lecture will introduce the rudiments of Freud’s ideas with a view to subjecting them to cross-cultural critique. We will focus on the relationship between myths and dreams.

Some guiding questions; What role do symbols play in Freudian analysis?  How do they relate to culture?

How are the dreams of the Mekeo described by Stephen different to those described by Freud?

What connections can we make between dreams and myths?

Required Tutorial Readings

Lord, J.  2004  Mythic Giacometti, pp 3-9. New York: Farrar Strauss Giroux.

Stephen, Michele 1982  ‘Dreaming is Another Power!’: The Social Significance of Dreams among the Mekeo of Papua New Guinea, Oceania, Vol. 53(2): 106-122.

NB:  Have a look at Freud’s work on dreams

Further reading;

Freud, Sigmund 1997  The Interpretation of Dreams. Great Britain: Wordsworth Editions Ltd. (or similar edition)

Glaskin, K. 2005 Innovation and Ancestral Revelation: The Case of Dreams, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 11(2):297-314.

Shepard, G. H. Jr. 2002 Three Days for Weeping: Dreams, Emotions, and Death in the Peruvian Amazon, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Vol 16(2): 200-229. (in reader for Week 11)

Kirk, G. S. 1974  Myths as Products of the Psyche (Ch4), In The Nature of Greek Myths. pp. 69-91. London: Penguin Books

Dundes, A. 1979 [1962]  Earth-Diver: Creation of the Mythopoeic Male. In W. A. Lessa and Evon Z. Vogt (eds), Reader in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological approach. 4^th Ed. pp. 174-185. NY: Harper & Row, Publishers.

Roheim, Geza  1992 Fire in the Dragon and Other Psychoanalytic Essays on Folklore. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. [particularly chapter 4]

Descola, P. 1989 ‘Head-Shrinkers Versus Shrinks: Jivaroan Dream Analysis’, Man, Vol 4(3) pp.439-450.

Week 8: May 9

Intellect or affect?  The phenomenological critique

we now shift from an emphasis on the mind and the intellect to the body and the emotions. To do this we must back track a little to an anthropology which preceded Lévi-Strauss.  The distinction between ‘primitive’ thought and rational thought which dominated the French tradition in early anthropology is well-illustrated in the work of Lucien Lévy-Bruhl and his subsequent influence on Maurice Leenhardt (who was also influenced by existential phenomenology). It is important to acquaint yourself with their key ideas before we move on to consider the role of the emotions in ‘mythic consciousness’, and to explore existentialism and phenomenology as it is used in contemporary anthropology.

Required  Readings

Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1981 Lévy-Bruhl (1857-1939) (Ch 2). In A. Singer (ed.) A History of Anthropological Thought, pp119-131, London and Boston: Faber and

Faber.

Clifford, J.  1992 Structures of the Person (Ch XI). In Person and Myth: Maurice Leenhardt in the Melanesian World. pp. 172-188. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Further reading;

Leenhardt, M. 1979  The Living and the Dead (Ch 3). In Do Kamo: Person and Myth in the Melanesian World. pp24-42. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. (In reader for Week 10)

Tambiah, S.J.  1990  Multiple orderings of reality: the debate initiated by Lévy-Bruhl (Ch 5). In Magic, Science, Religion, and the Scope of Rationality, pp. 84-90; 93-95. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Week 9: May 16

Lecture: The Phenomenological perspective:  Body, person and myth

Cartesian dualism (derived from the philosophy of Rene Descartes in the early part of the 17^th century) proposed that our mind and our body were distinct phenomena. This view has continued to dominate Western thinking. Anthropological evidence suggests that this is not the case for all cultures. This week’s readings consider some cross-cultural perspectives on the mind/body relationship, and introduce phenomenology to critique the anthropological approaches of an earlier time.

Required Tutorial Readings

Jackson, M. 1983  Knowledge of the Body. Man, New Series, Vol. 18(2):327-345.

Strathern, A. 1993 Organs and Emotions: The question of metaphor. Canberra Anthropology, 16(2): 1-16.

Further reading;

Smith, A. D. 2007 The flesh of perception: Merleau-Ponty and Husserl,(Ch 1). In T. Baldwin (ed) Reading Merleau-Ponty, pp.1-22. London and New York: Routledge.

Telban, B. 1998  Body, Being and Identity in Ambonwari, Papua New Guinea. In V. Keck (ed.) Common Worlds and Single Lives: Constituting Knowledge in Pacific Societies, pp. 55-70. Oxford and New York: Berg.

Week 10: RESEARCH WEEK May 23  (major essay due 5pm today)

There are no lectures or tutorials this week!

Lecture:  Emotion, existentialism, and myth

This week we look more closely at the relationship between myth and emotion. The lecture introduces the fundamentals of phenomenological anthropology and the influence of existential philosophy. We focus on Jean-Paul Sartre’s essay on emotional consciousness and consider how this might be applied to the analysis of myth.

Required Tutorial Readings

Van Heekeren, D.  2004 ‘Don’t Tell the Crocodile’: An Existentialist View of Melanesian Myth. Critique of Anthropology, Vol 24(4): 430-454.

Leenhardt, M. 1979  The Living and the Dead (Ch 3). In Do Kamo: Person and Myth in the Melanesian World, pp24-42. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

Further reading;

As for Week 8 and

Sartre, J. 1979  A Sketch of a Phenomenological Theory (Ch 3). In Essays in Existentialism, W. Baskin (ed.), pp 223-251, New Jersey: The Citadel Press.

Rosaldo, R. 1993 Introduction: Grief and a Headhunter’s Rage, pp 1-21, in Culture and Truth: The remaking of Social Analysis, London: Routledge.

Dreyfus, H. 1987 Dialogue 12: Husserl, Heidegger and Modern Existentialism, In B. Magee (ed), pp252-277 The Great Philosophers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Macquarrie, J.  1972  Existentialism: An Introduction, guide and assessment, New York: Penguin Books.

Guignon, C.  1993  The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (esp. Introduction)

Week 11: May 30

Lecture:  Grief, healing and music

In recent decades ethnomusicology and anthropology have intersected in important ways. Historically anthropologists had given very little attention to the musical dimension of the rituals and other areas of social life they described. In this lecture we explore some of the ways in which music, emotion and healing are intimately connected. We consider how ontology and/or consciousness can be transformed through musical experience.

Film: Turnhim het

Required Tutorial Readings

Shepard, G. H. Jr. 2002 Three Days for Weeping: Dreams, Emotions, and Death in the Peruvian Amazon, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Vol 16(2): 200-229.

Friedson, S. M.  1996  The Musical Construction of clinical Reality (Ch 4). In Dancing Prophets: Musical Experience in Tumbuka Healing. pp 100-127. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

Further reading;

Van Heekeren, D. 2011 Singing it ‘local’: the appropriation of Christianity in the Vula’a villages of Papua New Guinea, The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, Vol February.

Kempf, W. 2003  “Songs Cannot Die”: Ritual composing and the politics of emplacement among the Banabans resettled on Rabi Island in Fiji. Journal of Pacific Studies, Vol. 112(1): 33-64.

Feld, S.  1990 The Boy Who Became a Muni Bird (Ch1). In Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics, and Song in Kaluli Expression. pp. 20-43. USA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Telban, B. 2008 The Poetics of the Crocodile: Changing Cultural Perspectives in Ambonwari, Oceania, 78: 217-235.

Week 12: June 6

Lecture:  The mythic landscape: Being-in-place

This week we focus on place as a site of mythic experience and of identity; the relationship of person to place, and the conjunction of person, place and event.

Required Tutorial Readings

Kirsch, S.  2004  Changing views of place and time along the Ok Tedi (Ch 9). In A. Rumsey and J. Weiner (eds.) Mining and Indigenous Lifeworlds in Australia and Papua New Guinea, pp. 182-207. Wantage: Sean Kingston Publishing.

Morphy, H. 1995  Landscape and the Reproduction of the Past (Ch. 8) In E. Hirsch and M. O’Hanlon (eds.), The Anthropology of Landscape: Perspectives on Place and Space, pp.184-209. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Further reading;

Ingold, T. 2006  Rethinking the Animate, Re-Animating Thought, Ethnos Vol 71(1):9-20.

Feld, S. and Basso, K. (eds.) 1996 Senses of Place. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press. (especially the intro by Casey, E. S.  ‘How to get from Space to Place in a Fairly Short Stretch of Time:Phenomenological Prolegomena’,  pp13-53.)

Hirsch, E. 2006  Landscape, Myth and Time, Journal of Material Culture, Vol. 11 1/2:151-165

Strehlow,  T.G.H. 1978 Central Australian Religion. pp. 14-26. Bedford Park: AASR

Peterson, N.  1972  Totemism Yesterday. Man. (N.S.) 7: 12-25.

Week 13: June 13 (take-home exam distributed in tutorial, due Jun 18 no extensions)

Lecture:  ‘Myth’ or ‘history’? The problem of truth

In this lecture we consider the myth/history dichotomy in light of the issue of ‘truth’. Some important questions are raised; can myths be true and if so are they the same as history?  What is the real difference between myth and history, and what does this mean for those in transition from oral history to written history?

Required Tutorial Readings

Gewertz, D. And F. Errington  1991 The Written Word (Ch 5). In Twisted histories, altered contexts: Representing the Chambri in a world system. pp. 147-168. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lévi-Strauss, C. 1995  When Myth Becomes History (Ch 4). In Myth and Meaning. Pp. 34-43, Foreword, Wendy Doniger pp.vii-xv, New York: Shoken Books.

Further reading;

Kolig, Erich 2000 Social causality, human agency and mythology: Some thoughts on history—consciousness and mythical sense among Australian Aborigines. Anthropological Forum, Vol 10(1): 9-22.

Worsley, P.  1955  Totemism in a Changing Society, American Anthropologist. 57: 851-61.

Van Heekeren, D. 2007 The Essence of Vula’a Historical Consciousness, History and Anthropology. Vol. 18(4): 405-426.