Final Take-Home Exam for Anthropology Course

For this assignment, you will have three options to guide what you will write about: 1. Return to Deloria & Kanaaneh 2. Magical Thinking 3. Language & Its Uses Option 1: Return to Deloria & Kanaaneh You can go back to your first assignment, where you wrote about either Deloria’s book Speaking of Indians or Kanaaneh’s book Birthing the Nation. Go back over the first assignment instructions to remind yourself what you had to do. Now, for this final take-home exam, you can use your first assignment as a basis. Instead of the ethnographic description you took from the author, however, you will write about two ethnographic examples from your own experience. These examples can be from your own family or from a friend, or they can come from something you read about or viewed in some published form (like a film, or podcast, or news article, etc). You want to find ethnographic examples that you can connect to the major themes you wrote about for the book you chose. However, you should feel free finding examples that also contrast to the author’s general approach in her book. Make sure that your examples have enough detail that you can get into them with sufficient length. So here again are the questions to help guide the examples you use: How do the ethnographic examples you found connect with the author’s discussion and the major themes of her book? If the author had included your examples, why would they have been good examples to discuss, even if they gave a contrasting case? How would your discussion of these examples help the author explain something about 2 the themes that interest her? Make sure you choose examples that enables you to answer these questions. Then, for your writing assignment, you can construct approximately five to eight paragraphs that cover in order: ? the general topic of the author’s book (for example, who is she writing about, which practices are the focus of her discussion, or what are the general themes she is discussing); o here you can re-write the paragraphs that you already wrote for your first assignment (take anything that is relevant, but DO NOT simply copy the whole assignment) o this is a chance to improve what you did on your first assignment, given the feedback you got from the TA ? a description of your first example, written in an ethnographic way ? a description of your second example, written in an ethnographic way ? finally, connect both examples to the general topic of the book, keeping in mind how you wrote the first paragraph. Also, keep in mind the questions above. You do not need to answer all the questions comprehensively—the questions are here to guide your thinking and writing. While writing, you can draw on any of the concepts that we have discussed in lecture to help you. Option 2: Magical Thinking This option is like Assignment 2, but using the articles for the week on magical thinking (Lecture 8). You will find two related ethnographic examples, one from one of the articles (Gmelch, Gusterson or Ashforth) and a related one from your experience. First, find an example of an ethnographic description in the Gmelch, Gusterson, or Ashforth which relates to your own experiences, or that of someone you know. It is a good idea to keep in mind our discussions from Lecture 8 in mind. The example from the Lecture 8 readings can be of a practice that happens a lot, or a specific episode/event that exemplifies the practice. Like in the first two assignments, here are some questions to help guide your choice of an example from the Lecture 8 readings: How does the ethnographic example you found connect with the author’s discussion of the lives of the people described? Why do you think the author included that particular example to discuss? How does the author’s discussion of the example help her explain something about the people she is depicting? Make sure you choose an example that enables you to answer these kinds of questions. Then, for your writing assignment, you can construct approximately five to eight paragraphs that cover in order: 3 ? the general topic of the Lecture 8 readings, and not just the one you took as your example (for example, who are the authors writing about, which practices are the focus of their discussion, or what are the general themes they are discussing); ? a description in your own words of the example you chose from the Lecture 8 readings (keep direct quotes to a minimum, if you use them at all); ? a description of the related example from your own experience o the example can also come from something you read about or viewed in some published form (like a film, or podcast, or news article, etc). ? finally, connect both examples (the one you chose from the Lecture 8 readings and your own) to the general topic of the book, thinking about the questions above. You do not need to answer all the questions comprehensively—the questions are here to guide your thinking and writing. While writing, you can draw on any of the concepts that we have discussed in lecture to help you. Option 3: Language and Its Uses This option is like Option 2, but using the readings from Lectures 10 & 11 (LippiGreen and Heath). You will find two related ethnographic examples, one from one of the readings and a related one from your experience. First, find an example of an ethnographic description in the Lippi-Green or Heath which relates to your own experiences, or that of someone you know. It is a good idea to keep in mind our discussions from Lectures 10 & 11 in mind. The example from the Lecture 10 & 11 readings can be of a practice that happens a lot, or a specific episode/event that exemplifies the practice. PLEASE NOTE: THE EXAMPLE FROM LIPPI-GREEN or HEATH SHOULD BE FROM THE CHAPTERS ASSIGNED, NOT OTHERS FROM THEIR BOOKS. Like in the first two assignments, here are some questions to help guide your choice of an example from the Lecture 10 & 11 readings: How does the ethnographic example you found connect with the author’s discussion of the lives of the people described? Why do you think the author included that particular example to discuss? How does the author’s discussion of the example help her explain something about the people she is depicting? Make sure you choose an example that enables you to answer these kinds of questions.