Topics in Cultural Anthropology 1

Reading list
(Discussion Questions are in separate files)

Week 2:
Mauss, Marcel (1935 (1973)) “Techniques of the Body”

Week 3:
Turner, Terence (1980) “The Social Skin”

Week 4:
Blacking, John (1977) “Towards an Anthropology of the Body”

Week 5:
Jackson, Michael (1983) “Knowledge of the Body”

Week 6:
Wetherell, Margaret (2008) Affect and Emotion: A New Social Science Understanding.
(Selected pages).

Week 7:
Summary and Essay Test (no reading)

Week 8: Body in the Mundane and Daily Affects

Stewart, Kathleen (2007) Ordinary Affects. (Selected pages)

Week 9: Bodily Ornamentation and Modifications

“Disputing the myth of the sexual dysfunction of circumcised women: Interview with
Fuambai S. Ahmadu” (2009) Anthropology Today Vol. 25, No. 6, pp. 14-17

Sulkin, Carlos (2009) “Anthropology, Liberalism and female genital cutting”

Anthropology Today Vol. 25, No. 6 pp. 17-19

Week 10: Body in Ritual and Liminality

Turner, Victor (1969) “Liminality and Communitas” pp. 358-374

Week 11: Body in Performance and Dance

Wieschiolek, Heike (2003) “’Ladies, Just Follow His Lead!’ Salsa, Gender, and Identity.
Sports, Dance, and Embodied Identities. Pp. 115- 138.

Week 12: Body in Possession and Trance

Jankowsky, Richard (2007) “Music, Spirit Possession and the In-between:
Ethnomusicological Inquiry and the Challenge of Trance.” Ethnomusicology Forum.
Bol. 16, No. 2, pp. 185-208
Week 13: Body in Illness and Medical Care
Kleinman, Arthur and Joan (2007) “Somatization: The Interconnections in Chinese
Society Among Culture, Depressive Experiences, and the Meanings of Pain.” Beyond
the Body Proper. Pp. 468- 474.

Week 14: Body in Recreation and Sex

Hartman, Beth (2013) “Playing the Fool? The Challenges of Conducting
Ethnographic Research on Stripping”
Kaufman, Michelle (2009) “’It’s just a fantasy for a couple of hours’ Ethnography of a
Nude Male Show Bar”
(Hand in Final Paper)