CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
(ANTH 100)
DR. KENNETH BROOK
( brookk@mail.montclair.edu )

CONTENT AND SCOPE OF THE COURSE

Cultural anthropology examines the similarities and differences in a selected variety of cultures in order to better understand how human beings construct and conduct their existence. The description of the range of cultural systems, through space and time, permits the discovery of recurrent patterns of human behavior and the development of theoretical explanations for their occurrence. Also, the course will introduce students to the basic concepts of culture and the role and methods of cultural anthropologists. Topics covered include: kinship, economics, political organization, religion, culture contact and change, and applied anthropology. Readings, films and lectures provide illustrative examples from diverse societies: hunting and gathering, pastoral, horticultural, peasant, and urban. Since anthropologists desire that students "experience" different cultures, as far as is possible, several films are shown to facilitate a sense of participation. The utility of this course can be gauged not by what we learn about others, but what we learn about "humanness" in the process of looking at others. By examining others, we gain a vantage point from which to see ourselves more clearly.

REQUIRED BOOKS

Ember, M. and Ember, C. Cultural Anthropology. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1999.
Turnbull, Colin. The Forest People. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961.
Chagnon, N. The Yanomamo. New York: Harcourt, 1997.
Stack, Carol. All Our Kin. New York: Harper and Row, 1974.

REQUIREMENTS FOR THE COURSE

The requirements for the successful completion of this course are a midterm and final examination.

ASSIGNED READINGS

Readings will be assigned at the beginning of each class. It is strongly urged that readings be completed on time so as to increase your understanding of and participation in class discussions.

OFFICE HOURS

Please feel free to see me during my office hours which are Mondays 4-450 PM, Wednesdays 8-850 AM, and Thursdays 1-150 PM, or by appointment - Dickson Hall room 406.

SYLLABUS

I. Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

The anthropologists are restless.
Unknown Native

I have placed myself squarely on the side of mankind, and have not been ashamed to wish mankind well.
Robert Redfield

There is hope, I believe, in seeing the human adventure as a whole and in the shared trust that knowledge about mankind, sought in reverence for life, can bring life.
Margaret Mead

A. Subdivisions of Anthropology
B. The Relationship of Anthropology to the other Social and
Behavioral Sciences

II. The Anthropological Perspective

The study of the exotic by the eccentric.
Unknown Quipster

Anthropology is the most scientific discipline of the humanities, and the most humanist of the sciences.
Eric Wolf

In science as in sex, too much concentration on technique renders one impotent.
Peter Berger

A. The Concept of Holism
B. The Concept of Culture
C. The Concept of Cultural Relativity
D. Anthropological Research Methods

III. Human Evolution

We are no longer concerned with whether man evolved, because we know he did. We are still very much concerned with how he evolved, with what is most characteristically human about him and how those characteristics arose.
George Gaylord Simpson

Races do not exist, classifications of mankind do.
George A. Dorsey

A. Processes and Patterns of Evolution
B. The Living Primates
C. The Australopithecines
D. Homo erectus
E. Homo sapiens sapiens
F. Human Variation

IV. Language and Culture

If I do not know the meaning of the sound the speaker makes, his words will be gibberish to me, and mine to him.
Corinthians 14:11

A. Communication: Animal and Human
B. Descriptive Linguistics
C. Historical Linguistics
D. Language and Culture

V. Economic Systems

Nor are those cultures that one might consider higher in general evolutionary standing necessarily more perfectly adapted to their environments than lower. Many great civilizations have fallen in the last 2000 years, even in the midst of material plenty, while the Eskimos tenaciously maintained themselves in an incomparably more difficult habitat. The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.
Marshall Sahlins

For no man giveth, but with intention of Good to himselfe, because Gift is voluntary; and of all Voluntary Acts, the object is to every man his own Good.
Hobbes

A. What is economic?
B. Systems and Production
C. Organization of Work
D. Distribution of Goods and Services

VI. Sex and Marriage

We drink without being thirsty and make love at any time; that is all that distinguishes us from other animals.
Beaumarchais

A. Sexually Permissive Cultures
B. Sexually Restrictive Cultures
C. Marriage

1. Definition
2. Universality
3. Incest taboo
4. Modes of acquiring a spouse
5. Number of Spouses
6. Functions of Marriage

VII. Kin-based groups and Kinship Terminology System

A. Patterns of Marital Residence
B. Explanations for Variations
C. Principles and Structure of Descent Groups
D. Kinship Terminology Systems.

VIII. Non Kin-Based Groups

A. Non-Voluntary Associations

1. Age-sets
2. Unisex associations

B. Voluntary Associations

1. Ethnic Groups
2. Secret Societies
3. Military Associations

IX. Social Control and Political Organization

The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not governed which is perpetually to be conquered.
Edmund Burke

Man is by nature a political animal.
Aristotle

A. Definition of Authority and Power
B. Allocation of Authority and Power
C. Types of Authority
D. Mechanisms of Social Control
E. Theories for the origin of the State

X. Symbolic Expression

Man is the ape that wants to be god.
Walter Kaufman

A. Religion, Myth and Ritual
B. Religion, Magic and Sorcery
C. Origin Theories of Religion
D. Varieties of Religions
E. Religion and Curing
F. Religious Change

XI. Anthropology and Complex Societies

Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half naked sweating proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads, and Freight Handler to the Nation.
Sandburg, 1968

A. Peasant Societies
B. Urban Anthropology
C. Processes of Urbanization
D. Urbanism as a Way of Life
E. The City

XII. Culture Change and Anthropology

It is not important what social scientists say, as much as how one uses what they say.
Gerald Berreman

The best reason for exposing oneself to foreign ways is to generate a sense of vitality and awareness - and interest in life which can come only when one lives through the shock of contrast and difference.
Edward Hall

A. Mechanisms of Culture Change
B. Culture Change and the Modern World
C. Applications of Anthropology
D. Anthropology and the Future

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