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Category Archives: Introduction to Anthropology

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“Keep Your Anthropologist Hat On and Don’t Be a Weirdo”: Comments from my Intro to Anthropology Finals

December 19, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

Since doing field exercises was an important part of this semester’s newly redone Introduction to Anthropology class, on the final I decided to ask a short essay question about fieldwork. The question asked students to comment on the experience of doing the class field exercises, the contradictions of participant-observation and the challenges of the fieldworker-as-data-collector. I had some trepidation asking complex questions of fieldwork to a class of mostly first-years. After a semester of weekly assignments, however, I assumed they […]

Categories: Anthropology, Introduction to Anthropology • Tags: anthropologist, Anthropology, Anthropology class, context, essay question, field assignment, fieldwork, final exam, participant-observation, sociocultural anthropology, student comments, teaching, undergraduate teaching

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Anthropology is Easy and Other Undergraduate Myths

December 15, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

I’ve just spent a good portion of today grading the final ethnography reports for the semester. It has been quite an experience. Instead of feeling tired and worn out, I have found grading them interesting, insightful and—dare I say it—refreshing. I have actually been enjoying my end of the semester grading. Sometime in the next week I’ll get around to writing more about this semester’s new Introduction to Anthropology class. For now, however, I just had to share a comment made […]

Categories: Assignments, Introduction to Anthropology • Tags: "easy class", first year students, freshmen, undergraduate teaching

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Master “The Double Tap” for Success on Assignments

December 14, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

“In those moments when you’re not sure the undead are really dead dead, don’t get all stingy with your bullets. I mean, one more clean shot to the head and this lady could have avoided becoming a human happy meal. Woulda. Coulda. Shoulda.”—Zombieland (2009) It always seems to be at the end of the semester when a good portion of students finally get around to visiting me during office hours, asking about their scores and inquiring about tactics to be […]

Categories: Assignments, Higher Education, How To, Introduction to Anthropology • Tags: "double tap", assignments, final exam, midterm exam, success, test taking, Zombieland

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The “Culture Wear” Assignment

November 23, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

This semester I have been teaching Introduction to Anthropology using an entirely different approach from previous years—one that puts the curiosity, focus, and experience of learning through “fieldwork” at the center. Rather than introducing the discipline through foundational terms, concepts and histories delivered through the common methods of reading, lecture, discussion and testing—my new class is built around a core of observation, note taking, interviewing and “writing-up” assignments that expect students to come to class every week having collected their own […]

Categories: Anthropology, Assignments, Introduction to Anthropology, Teaching • Tags: alienation, clothing, fashion, field assignment, production

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Eating Uncrustables®, Eating Dog

November 4, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

A basic methodological assumption of anthropology is cultural relativism—that people in specific cultures have reasons for what they do that are contextually meaningful and that understanding of the things they do should be examined in context. Understanding aspects of what people do and explaining them cross-culturally—say in an undergraduate classroom, for example—is therefore an act of translation. Teaching anthropology can be tricky because it is easy for “far out” behaviors, from the perspective of students in the classroom, to simply be left […]

Categories: Anthropology, Food, Introduction to Anthropology, Teaching • Tags: Anthropology class, cultural relativism, eating dog, food culture, Sidney Mintz, translation, uncrustables®

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Faux Vintage Photos and Profound Academic Labor

September 24, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

Weekly field assignments are making for a very interesting and useful pedagogical experiment in this Fall’s Introduction to Anthropology class. Reviewing and scoring the field journals each Tuesday, however, makes for some intense grading. At least taking a fake Daguerreotype photo of the pile of black Moleskine notebooks, and posting it on Facebook makes it feel like the work of grading is more profound than it might otherwise be.   UPDATE: Last night I finished evaluating the last of the journals, […]

Categories: Introduction to Anthropology, Photography, Representation, Social Class • Tags: assignments, faux vinage, school

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