INTRODUCTION TO THE HUMANITIES
IHUM 42
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Faculty:
Ian Hodder, Ph.D., Professor of Cultural and Social Anthropology
Office: Building 110, Room 112-D; Phone: 723-1197; email: ihodder@leland
Office Hours: Wednesday 11:00-1:00 pm
Michael Shanks, Ph.D., Professor of Classics
Office: Building 60, Room 62-G; Phone: 725-8007; email: mshanks@leland
Office Hours: Tuesday 9:00-11:00 am
Teaching Fellows:
Kristy Bright, Ph.D., Course Coordinator, Fellow in the Humanities
Office: Building 110, Room 112-M; email: bright@leland
Office Hours: Tuesday and Thursday 5:00-6:00 pm, and by appointment
Mark Graham, Ph.D., Fellow in the Humanities
Office: Building 300, Room 213; phone: 723-5421; email: mwgraham@leland
Office Hours: Tuesday and Thursday 9:00-10:30 am, and by appointment
Cindy Nimchuk, Ph.D., Fellow in the Humanities
Office: Building 300, Room 213; phone: 723-5421; email: cnimchuk@leland
Office Hours: Tuesday 1:30-3:30 pm, and by appointment
Lectures: 11:00 am Tuesday and Thursday, Building 420, Room 041
Website: http://www.stanford.edu/class/ihum42
Please check this website regularly for updated postings and announcements.
Course Description
In this course we will be connecting stories of origins with issues of identity. Origins are privileged moments in the formation of personal and social identity. The answer to the question "Who are you?" often begins "I was born in …" or "We come from …". In the very attempt to identity oneself, exclusions as well as inclusions occur: who you say you are implies who you are not. Origins go with endings and imply ends: they often take the form of a story or narrative of where, when, how and why things have started, ended, or will end up. In this course, we will teach students to engage critically with origins and originary narratives through five works that suggest different stakes and different outcomes for the question, "Where did that come from?"
We are particularly interested in the connections between broad issues in the humanities (this question of origin and identity) and work in the social and human sciences. So this course is also about the intersections of evidence with political and philosophical dispositions, and the way they get expressed. Hence we have chosen to study works of popular science, history, philosophy, philosophical anthropology and a work of propaganda film.
Our goals in this course are methodological – to teach you to read closely and to analyze work from different fields and in disparate genres. We will also lead you to engage critically with questions of personal, social, and human identity. From this course you will learn that answers to questions dealing with origins are never stable and are usually contested. You will also have the opportunity to reflect on your own personal and cultural answers to questions of origin.
The unique emphasis on small-group discussion in this course will enable you to develop skills of speaking, listening, close reading of books and film, writing and revision. You are encouraged to develop your own opinions and arguments as you build intellectual community with your peers. It is our hope that the lectures and seminars in this course will provide a strong foundation for your academic work at Stanford as well as your intellectual growth in years to come.
Ian Hodder obtained his BA from London University and his Ph.D. from Cambridge University in England. After a brief period teaching in Leeds he returned to teach in Cambridge until 1999 when he moved to Stanford. He has written several books dealing with archaeological theory and with the prehistory of Europe. He currently digs in Turkey where issues of origins and identities are very closely tied together and highly contested. His main books are Reading the Past (1991) and The Archaeological Process (1999).
Michael Shanks likes to think that archaeology is much more than digging up mouldering bits of the past. So while he works on ancient cities in the Mediterranean, he has also published studies of beer can design, has just written a book called Theatre/Archaeology with a performance artist, and is currently working in digital media exploring images of landscape, with colleagues at the Stanford Humanities Center. Before coming to Stanford in 1999, Michael had been an archaeological fieldworker, taught Latin and Greek in high school, was chair of the archaeology program at the University of Wales, Lampeter, and worked in the universities of Gothenburg, Paris (Sorbonne), and Cambridge, where he received his BA in 1980 and his PhD in 1992.
Kristy Bright earned her Ph.D. in cultural anthropology in 1998 from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is working on a book The Traveling Tonic: Legacies of Islamic Medicine and Culture in India, and a paper called “The Doctor and the Citizen” for the volume Subject-Making in Muslim Communities. As a medical anthropologist, Kristy is interested in how rituals of health and the body are shaped by relations of power and identity (gender, race, nation). From analgesics and aphrodisiacs in modern India, to contagious diseases in Victorian England, Kristy is interested in stories (and origin stories) about “fit” and “diseased” bodies and how to take care of them. Where do our assumptions about the body come from? How is the body (with all its quirks and spasms) an object of such scrutiny…yet it continues to riddle our efforts to know or to say, ah yes, this is what it means to be human?
Mark Graham recently earned his Ph.D. in Ancient History at Michigan State University. Dabbling in Mediterranean archaeology, he has worked multiple summers at a Vandal /Byzantine site near Carthage. On the side, he fancies himself as something of an expert on late Roman decorative marble. His research focuses on late Roman provincial history, especially of the cultural and intellectual sort. His dissertation, World with Limits: News and Frontier Consciousness in the Late Roman Empire, analyzes how news from and about frontiers proliferated within the late Roman world. He has traveled extensively in North
There are five required texts (four books & one film). The books are available at the bookstore. Please make sure to purchase the correct edition, as listed below. The books and film are also on 2-hour reserve at Green Library Reserves and Green Video Library (for the film).
1. Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin. Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human. New York: Anchor Books, 1993. This book presents a popular look at palaeoanthropological perspectives– where did the human species come from and what (if anything) emerged as its defining characteristics?
2. Jared Diamond. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: Norton, 1999.
This book embarks on an ambitious tour through 13,000 years of world history—how does Diamond’s study of the origins of empires and crops dismantle the grounds for Eurocentric theories of history?
3. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, translated by Donald Cress. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1992 [1755]. An influential work of philosophical anthropology from eighteenth century ‘Enlightenment’ thought, counterposing natural and cultural origins of social inequality.
4. Leni Riefenstahl (Director). Triumph of the Will. 1935. One of the most controversial films ever made and a sophisticated work of propaganda—striking images of Riefenstahl’s ideas of German nationhood, depicting the 1934 Nazi party rallies in Nuremberg.
5. Michel Foucault. The History Of Sexuality, Volume I. New York, Vintage, 1990. A key text of poststructuralist theory that proposes that sexuality may not be as biological as many have thought.
Recommended reference for writing papers:
Trimble, John R. Writing with Style. Second edition. Prentice-Hall, 2000.
The texts will be dealt with sequentially in lectures and seminars – about two weeks, four lectures and four seminars per work. The lectures will deliver intellectual and historical contexts for each work, and focus upon what we see as key issues raised in studying them. While they will make frequent and close reference to the five works, we see the role of lectures as alerting you to significant and controversial themes, illustrating lines of reasoning which lead to and from the works, and provoking your interest. Though seminars will also follow each work sequentially, seminars will stand apart from the lectures and focus upon small-group discussion and activities designed to help you find your own way deep into these rich works.
1. One five-page paper (1500 words) due in seminars on October 23rd and 24th. The paper should be double-spaced, with proper notation, bibliography, title, and 12-point font.
2. One mid-term exam to be administered in seminars on November 8th and 9th.
3. One final project (2500 words) due on December 13th at 12:00 pm at your TF’s office.
4. Seminar participation, including active participation in seminar discussion, attendance in lectures and seminars, and seminar assignments.
The course grade will be evaluated as follows:
Paper one 25%
Mid-term exam 20%
Final project 30%
Participation 25%
Note Carefully: Attendance is mandatory for ALL lectures and seminars. Exams and papers cannot be “made up” under any circumstances. Only letter grades are given for this class. Late papers will not be accepted. No exceptions will be made. The honor code must be respected at all times. Any student caught violating the honor code will be suspended and/or expelled.
02 TTh 1:15-2:45 Building 240, Room 101, Bright
05 TTh 2:15-3:45 Building 200, Room 105, Graham
06 TTh 4:15-5:45 Building 200, Room 105, Graham
07 TTh 6:15-7:45 Building 250, Room 252A, Graham
08 WF 11:00-12:30 Building 200, Room 219, Nimchuk
09 WF 1:15-2:45 Building 250, Room 251K, Nimchuk
10 WF 3:15-4:45 Building 200, Room 107, Nimchuk
Note: Readings should be completed prior to the lecture for which they are assigned.
IH indicates lectures given by Professor Hodder and MS indicates lectures given by Professor Shanks.
1 Thursday 27 September
Introduction – origins (IH and MS)
2 Tuesday 2 October
Palaeoanthropology and the remains of human origins (MS)
Read: Leakey & Lewin, pp. xiii-134
3 Thursday 4 October
Culture and being human (IH)
Read: Leakey & Lewin, pp. 137-236
4 Tuesday 9 October
Human issues (MS)
Read: Leakey & Lewin, pp. 239-360
Read: Diamond, pp. 9-52; 85-92
Read: Diamond, pp. 93-113; 131-156; 176-191; 195-214
Read: Diamond, pp. 215-292
8 Tuesday 23 October
Guest Lecture: Mike Wilcox, Native American viewpoints
Read: Diamond, pp. 354-375; 405-425; Paper Due (in lecture)
Read Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality for lectures 9-12
9 Thursday 25 October
Rousseau and the 18th century enlightenment (MS)
Read: Rousseau, pp. v-44
10 Tuesday 30 October
The archaeology of inequality (IH)
Read: Rousseau, pp. 44-71
11 Thursday 1 November
Case study – Çatalhöyük (IH)
Note: There will be two screenings of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (1935). You are asked to view the film either on Sunday 11/4, 8:00-10:00 pm or Monday 11/5, 7:00-9:00 pm.
12 Tuesday 6 November
The historical background to Riefenstahl’s movie (MS)
13 Thursday 8 November
Myth and the aesthetics of politics: a reading of “Triumph of the Will” (MS)
In seminar: mid-term examination (Nov 9th for Dr. Nimchuk’s students)
Medium and message: the work of Leni Riefenstahl (IH)
15 Thursday 15 November
Cultural constructions of nationhood: the example of Nazi archaeology (IH)
Genealogies and the discourse of sex (MS)
Read: Foucault, pp. 53-131
18 Thursday 29 November
Biology and gender (IH)
Read: Foucault, pp. 135-159; Abstract of Final Project Due (in seminar)
19 Tuesday 4 December
True stories: personal anecdotes for and against Foucault’s thesis (IH & MS)