ANTH 4220 Visual Anthropology Fall 2012

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1 ANTH 4220 Visual Anthropology Fall 2012 Lecture: Wednesday 4:30 PM 6:15 PM, NAH 114 Tutorial: Thursday 1:30 PM 2:15 PM, NAH 11, and a second tutorial TBA Teacher: Teresa Kuan, NAH 325, tkuan@cuhk.edu.hk, Office Hours: Fridays 2:30-4:30 PM, and by appointment Tutor: Wang Qianni This course explores the history of the moving image in anthropological inquiry. We will trace the various ways in which film and video makers have endeavored to explore and represent the human experience, how film was used to salvage culture and collect evidence, and how filmmakers have experimented with voice, style, form, genre, process, et cetera in response to debates over issues of representation. The study of visual anthropology is essentially an exploration into the nature of reality and the problem of perspective. Is it possible to create objective documents of culture? Who gets to speak for whom? What kind of story does a particular film tell? What is being obscured? And finally, what can visual representation accomplish that textual representation cannot? Can anthropological investigation in the visual mode render seemingly unintelligible worlds intelligible? Required Texts All readings will be posted on Blackboard. Evaluation Grade Item Percentage Due Date Response Papers (7x, 1-2 pages) 35% (5% each) Fridays, by 5:00 p.m. Take-home Midterm Exam 15% October 29, by 5:00 p.m. Independent Project (2 options) 15% December 5 in class Take-home Final Exam 20% December 12, by 5:00 p.m. Participation 15% -- Guidelines for how to write response papers and for the independent project are provided on a separate handout. All assignments (response papers, take-home exams, and the written portion of the independent project) must be submitted to VeriGuide. Assignments without a signed declaration from VeriGuide will not be graded. Please visit: Week 1 (September 12): Introduction National Geographic: Taboo, Rites of Passage ** 1

2 Sweetgrass (Barbash and Taylor, 2009, 101 mins) clips Week 2 (September 19): Why all the fascination? Lutz and Collins, The Readers Imagined Geographic: An Evolutionary Tale (Optional) MacCannell, Cannibal Tours Cannibal Tours (Dennis O Rourke, 1987, 70 mins) Week 3 (September 26): Why all the fascination? (continued) Walsh, From Nü Guo to Nü er Guo: Negotiating Desire in the Land of the Mosuo Global Villages: The Globalization of Ethnic Display (Tamar Gordon, 2005, 59 mins) Week 4 (October 3): The Origin of Ethnographic Film Rony, Taxidermy and Romantic Ethnography: Robert Flaherty s Nanook of the North Ruby, The Aggie Must Come First: Robert Flaherty s Place in Ethnographic Film History Nanook of the North (Robert Flaherty, 1922, 75 mins.) Nanook Revisited (1990, 60 mins.) clips Week 5 (October 10): What is an ethnographic film? Heider, Introduction to Ethnographic Film Ruby, Introduction to Picturing Culture skip the sections on history and on infrastructure (skip pp. 6b-26m) The Hunters (John Marshall, 1958, 72 mins.) The Fast Runner (Zacharias Kunuk, 2002, 172 mins) clips Week 6 (October 17): Ethnographic Film as Science? Mead, Visual Anthropology in a Discipline of Words Ferguson, The Problem of Western Goods Microcultural Incidents in Ten Zoos (Birdwhistell and Van Vlack, 1959, 34 mins.) The Ax Fight (Tim Asch, 1975, 30 mins.) 2

3 Week 7 (October 24): Ethnographic Film as Art? Weinberger, The Camera People Ruby, Robert Gardner and Anthropological Cinema Dead Birds (Robert Gardner, 1964, 83 mins.) - clips Forest of Bliss (Robert Gardner, 1985, 91 mins.) Midterm Exam: October 29 (Monday) Questions will be posted Thursday morning October 25, by 10:00 a.m. Take-home exam is due to the department office on October 29, by 5:00 p.m. Week 8 (October 31): Ethnographic Film as Biography? MacDougall, Transcultural Cinema skip the last section (skip pp ) Tomaselli, Myths, Racism, and Opportunism: Film and TV Representations of the San N!ai, The Story of a!kung Woman (John Marshall, 1980, 58 mins.) The Gods Must be Crazy (Jamie Uys, 1980, 109 mins) clips Week 9 (November 7): Ethnographic versus Experimental Filmmaking Wu Wenguang, DV: Individual Filmmaking Barbash and Taylor, From Fieldwork to Filming read the sections on Rapport, Ethics, and Methodology Disorder / 现实是过去的未来 (Huang Weikai, 2009, 58 mins) Week 10 (November 14): The Anthropological Cinema of David and Judith MacDougall MacDougall, Unprivileged Camera Style A Wife Among Wives (David and Judith MacDougall, 1981, 72 mins.) Week 11 (November 21): Cinema and Trance/Cine-Trance Deren, Author s Preface and Introductory Note to Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti Russell, Ecstatic Ethnography: Filming Possession Rituals 3

4 Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti (Maya Deren, 1985, 52 mins.) Les Maîtres fous (Jean Rouch, 1954, 35 mins.) Week 12 (November 28): The Anthropological Cinema of Jean Rouch MacDougall, Beyond Observational Cinema Stoller, Migrations to New Worlds (Optional) Grimshaw, The anthropological cinema of Jean Rouch Chronique d un été (Jean Rouch, 1961, 85 mins) clips Jaguar (Jean Rouch, 1967, 93 mins.) Week 13 (December 5): Class Presentations Class presentations of independent projects Written portion of independent project due in class Final Exam: December 12 (Wednesday) Questions will be posted Friday evening December 7 by 11:59 p.m. Take-home exam is due to the department office on December 12, by 5:00 p.m. Participation POLICIES Student participation is critical to the success of each class. Please come to class prepared to discuss the reading assignment, listen to your classmates thoughtfully, and ask questions. You certainly don't have to speak up during every class period, but you will be evaluated on the general pattern of your class involvement over the course of the semester. Keep in mind that there is no such thing as a stupid question or comment. As long as it is respectful to others, your question or comment will likely help to stimulate conversation. Late Submissions Late response papers will suffer a full grade deduction e.g. an A- will become a B-. Late submissions will not be accepted past Monday 5:00 p.m. Late take-home exams will not be accepted more than 48 hours past the original due date, and will suffer a full grade deduction for every day late. 4

5 Academic Honesty The Chinese University of Hong Kong places very high importance on academic honesty, and adopts a policy of zero tolerance on cheating in examinations and plagiarism. Any such offence will lead to disciplinary action including possibly termination of studies at the University. Students should know how to properly use source material and how to avoid plagiarism. Students should read the detailed guidelines and examples for the acknowledgement of sources in the University s website at Students are required to submit all papers through VeriGuide, which is also explained at the above website. 5

ANTHROPOLOGY 483: SENSORY ETHNOGRAPHY Fall 2010 Friday 9:30-12:30

1 ANTHROPOLOGY 483: SENSORY ETHNOGRAPHY Fall 2010 Friday 9:30-12:30 If it were possible to say it with words, the films would be useless. Artavazd Ashoti Peleshyan Professor Lisa Stevenson Office Hours: