Intro Cultural Ethnographies?

[Bruce Mannheim]

I recently taught a first-year undergraduate seminar on "Native Andeans
today" and used three ethnographic monographs as the (entire) reading for
the class, each distributed over three weeks:

Allen, Catherine (2002) The hold life has.  Coca and cultural identity in an
Andean community, Washington: Smithsonian University Press.
Leinaweaver, Jessaca B. (2008) The circulation of children: Kinship,
adoption, and morality in Andean Peru, 
Van Vleet, Krista (2008) Performing kinship: Narrative, gender, and the
intimacies of power in the Andes,  Austin: University of Texas Press. 
My goal was to have three books that would build on each other (so that some
of the cultural detail would bounce from one to the other even though all
three approached their subject matters differently, and all three were
writing about different-and differently situated-?communities".  The three
books were accessible to the students, but seriously anthropological-that
is, they developed their analyses against the background of anthropological
ideas, so the students could see why they were doing (and saying) certain
things, not simply what they were saying. The problem I ran into (and one
I'll be better prepared for in the future) is that some (?)/many (?) of the
students were reading their first sustained non-fiction work.  (They've all
read novels and they've all read textbooks, which break the world into
bite-sized chunks.)  So your students might need to be prepared for the
reading they do before they actually delve into the first book.

By the way, I'm  learning from the variety of responses that I need to catch
up on my reading, too.
Best,
Bruce
 

-- 
Bruce Mannheim
Professor of Anthropology 
University of Michigan 
1085 S. University 
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1107

+1.734.763-4259 
+51.84.974.392.796

Chuchiku -- A2



-----Original Message-----
From: Linguistic Anthropology Discussion Group
[mailto:LINGANTH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Maggie Ronkin
Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 8:15 PM
To: LINGANTH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: [LINGANTH] Intro Cultural Ethnographies?

Hi,
I am a huge fan of a book for our times: Joyce Flueckiger's In Amma's
Healing Room: Gender and Vernacular Islam in South India. Below I pasted in
a sample of opinion and Amazon's product description.
Best wishes,Maggie Ronkin

==========

"Only rarely are books powerful enough to capture the imaginations and
emotions of our students: this is one such book." -- Susan Snow Wadley,
Syracuse University
"In Amma's Healing Room is a terrific book. Well structured and well
written, it will be a great addition to courses on religious ethnography,
popular and contemporary Islam, South Asian religions, ritual studies, and
gender studies." -- the Journal of Religion, 88.2"[I]t is extremely
salubrious to see the ways Islam works in the lives of ordinary people who
are not politicized in their religious lives.... No other book on South Asia
has material like this." -- Ann Grodzins Gold
In Amma's Healing Room is a compelling study of the life and thought of a
female Muslim spiritual healer in Hyderabad, South India. Joyce Burkhalter
Flueckiger describes Amma's practice as a form of vernacular Islam arising
in a particular locality, one in which the boundaries between Islam,
Hinduism, and Christianity are fluid. In the "healing room," Amma meets a
diverse clientele that includes men and women, Muslim, Hindu, and Christian,
of varied social backgrounds, who bring a wide range of physical, social,
and psychological afflictions. Flueckiger collaborated closely with Amma and
relates to her at different moments as daughter, disciple, and researcher.
The result is a work of insight and compassion that challenges widely held
views of religion and gender in India and reveals the creativity of a
tradition often portrayed by Muslims and non-Muslims alike as singular and
monolithic.

> Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2011 12:43:55 -0700
> From: leila.monaghan at GMAIL.COM
> Subject: Intro Cultural Ethnographies?
> To: LINGANTH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
> 
> Hi, I am thinking of changing over my intro to cultural anthropology to an
> ethnography based course.  Do people have suggestions for modern or
classic
> ethnographies that would be suitable for a large course open to all majors
> that will include freshman?
> 
> all best,
> 
> Leila
> 
> -- 
> Leila Monaghan, PhD
> Department of Anthropology
> University of Wyoming
> Laramie, Wyoming