Texts and Other Class Material

More information on textbooks in general can be found at <http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/tr/trtextbooks.html#title>.

And thousands of books are available free online, full text versions, <http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/reference/books.html#title>,
and might occasionally be useful in one or more of your other courses. One of those—a classic on the Aran Islands of Ireland [Inis Beag as the pseudonym above] on a featured site in this class,

The Aran Islands by John M. Synge
<http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth3635/cetexts.html#AranIslands>.

Have a look.

Exams will be open-book essays constructed from a list of study questions that you help create, so it would be a good idea for you to have your own copy of each text you plan to use in the, and it is a good idea that you take your reading notes right in your copy of the text itself.

One thing that you should keep in mind when approaching these readings, which I will "talk" more about as the class progresses, is that as mentioned above the exams are open-book. And for that you should normally just need to read the books carefully and be able to discuss them intelligently. That is, you should read these as if you had picked it/them up at an airport on the way to Dornoch, Scotland, or at neighborhood bookshop because you were interested in the subject and wanted to know more about it, like literally millions of people are doing in everyday life.

PLEASE NOTE: Some students are used to principally memorizing facts in classes. This class is not one where that is the focus.It is about investigating new topics, reading, listening, synthesizing ideas, thinking, exploring, and becoming familiar enough with the various subjects, peoples and places to carry on an intelligent conversation in modern-day society.

TAPS, Canada’s leading Beer Magazine—in fact it’s THE BEER MAGAZINE—features this item from this class in its current editorial (Winter 2011-2012, p. 2), so at least one major Editor in Chief thinks it’s worth noting and imitating.

Towards the second half of the semester, once you have mastered the basic information relating to the People and Cultures of Europe, we will look (generally comparatively, cf., Main Characteristics of Anthropology) at a series of video materials from around the world. We will actually start that the second day of class, but we’ll focus on visual case study video more towards the second half of the semester.

One of the four main characteristics of American Anthropology is fieldwork, "a primary research technique, involving “participant observation," which usually means living among the people one is interested in learning from and about. It would be wonderful if for anthropology classes we could just rent a bus or charter a plane and fly off for a year or more to learn first-hand from the people themselves. Money, time, and practicality prohibit that, so the next best things—when it comes to studying anthropology—is going to places and viewing subjects by video, and we will do a lot of that this semester. More information on Visual Anthropology is available on-line at <http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth1604/visual_anthropology.html#title>.

With all of these materials you will be expected to share your ideas and comments with others in the Class Forum and wikis. I'm looking forward to that.

You will find that there is "an awful lot" of materials on-line—maybe even too many!

But don't worry. You will find the required materials center stage in your folder. Most of the rest of the materials are optional, but you may find that material useful in working on your class project.

Where to start?

Probably the best place is by having a quick look at the "First Day Handout" on-line at <http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth3635/cehandout_first-day.html>.

Then have a look at your Gradebook folder, which gives a nice listing of the actual requirements and due dates for the course. (You'll find the link for that in the upper-left-hand corner of the top of Block 1.) [When it becomes available; see below.]

Then have a look at the "Course Overview" in Block 1 (the top of page one) of your folder <https://moodle.umn.edu/>.

A word of caution. recommends that you use the Firefox browser (available free at <http://firefox.com>). The Windows Internet Explorer (IE) occasionally will not display items on your screen. These items will simply not be there on IE when they are fine on Moodle or even on Chrome. Microsoft Word should likewise not be used to cut and paste things to Moodle; bad things can happen to your file if you do—randomly. Almost every time you are asked to enter text in Moodle, you will see the message, “Please do not copy/paste text directly from Microsoft Word. See explanation here <http://www1.umn.edu/moodle/issues.html#10>.” Please pay attention to that request.

If you are new to the world of "technology" in general or in particular, don't worry too much about that. Things may not "work" for you at first, but hang in there and we'll help you along. (And they will work better in Firefox and if you do not cut and paste from your Word documents.)

So once again, welcome to Anth 3635 Peoples and Cultures of Europe. This will be a great course, and a great experience. You will see. . . .

I hope you had a great Boxing Day yesterday. Have a great New Year’s Evening and New Year’s Day and a great New Year. And have a good Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as well.

In Vienna and Budapest and throughout much of Europe people will be eating lintels on New Year’s Day. Eating lintels helps you have a great new year. I’ve tried them in both places, and it seems the Hungarian lentils work just slightly better than elsewhere. Just this morning a Hungarian professor friend passed on some important information about New Year’s Day lentils: “Gabriella says that the heart (seeds) are important for the coming fortune. . . .” So on New Year’s Day, eat plenty of lentils and pay special attention to the hearts. . . .

I’ll be Hogmanay-ing in Dornoch, Scotland, with friends over New Years, and will be stopping off in Ireland and England to visit other friends on the way home, so we’ll be out of touch with web-based communications for much of the next two weeks. We’ll be back in Duluth on the 13th of January, with the latest news from parts of Europe. If you have any questions between now and the 17^th do not hesitate to e-mail troufs@d.umn.edu, and I’ll respond when possible.

My office hours and contact information (and other regular schedule information) can be found at
<http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth1602/pcoffice.html#title>.

Remember: Laptops are welcome in the classroom.

*Finally, as suggested at the very beginning, the site will be on-line as soon as the technicians in Minneapolis can work out some of the bugs that arrived with two earlier versions during the conversion to 2.0. In the meantime, have a look at the materials on the public version of the calendar at <http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth3635/cecal-s2012.html#title>. And stay tuned for the turn-on. . . .

See you on the 17^th.

Best Wishes,

Tim Roufs
Duluth, MN
26 December 2011

Parman text: Europe in the Anthropological Imagination.

Cutting Costs for College Textbooks

general textbook information

Europe in the Anthropological Imagination, is currently available online from about $73.40 new / $7.80 used (+ p/h, at amazon.com & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25).
(27 December 2011)

Chegg [rental]

(09 January 2011)

Parman, Susan.
Europe in the Anthropological Imagination.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998.
(ISBN: 0133374602)

"This is a provocative, reflective book about how American anthropologists study Europe. But, since anthropology has traditionally been defined as a field that studies the non-western, exotic Other, an anthropological study of Europe would appear to be a misnomer. In a larger sense, then, it offers insights into the manner in which ideas emerge and evolve within a discipline. The book is composed of fourteen essays by twelve anthropologists who address how, when, where, and why they first began to study Europe and the implications of those studies for the development of anthropology in general."

Review

Costa, Kelli Ann. "From Center to Margins: An Intellectual History of the Anthropology of Europe." Review of Susan Parman, ed. Europe in the Anthropological Imagination. Exploring Cultures. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1998. Humanities and Social Sciences Online (H-NET) H-SAE Society for the Anthropology of Europe <http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=18384921682875>. 25 October 2005.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction: Europe in the Anthropological Imagination

Ch. 1 Strangers in a Crowded Field: American Anthropology in France

Ch. 2 Europe through the Back Door: Doing Anthropology in Greece

Ch. 3 Bringing the "Other" to the "Self": Kypseli—The Place and the Film

Ch. 4 Europe on Film

Ch. 5 Representing Italy

Ch. 6 Returning with the Emigrants: A Journey in Portuguese Ethnography

Ch. 7 Restless Continent: Migration and the Configuration of Europe

Ch. 8 Themes in the Anthropology of Ireland

Ch. 9 A Forty-Year Retrospective of the Anthropology of Former Yugoslavia

Ch. 10 Utter Otherness: Western Anthropology and East European Political Economy

Ch. 11 An Anthropology of the European Union, from Above and Below

Ch. 12 The Place of Europe in George P. Murdock's Anthropological Theory

Ch. 13 The Meaning of "Europe" in the American Anthropologist (Part I)

Bibliography

Index

H-SAE REVIEW: Costa on Parman, ed., Europe in the Anthropological Imagination

Ernestine Friedl. Vasilika: A Village in Modern Greece.

available on-line from $1.48 (+ p/h, at amazon.com).
(27 December 2011)

Chegg [rental]

(09 January 2011)

Friedl, Ernestine.
Vasilika: A Village in Modern Greece.
Belmont, CA: Thompson Wadsworth, 2002*
(ISBN: 0030115450)
(Thomson-Wadsworth Case Studies in Anthropology ISBN: 0534971652)

*[As the purpose of this text is for you to have a look at one of the genuine "Master Texts" in the Anthropology of Europe--a classic--earlier editions of this text are also suitable for class.]

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements

Introduction

Ch. 1 The Village: As a Setting

The Area Surrounding Vasilika

Inside Vasilika

Movement in and through the Village

Ch. 2 The Family: Economic Activities

Major Crops

Miscellaneous Crops

Livestock

Variations in Wealth

Specialization of Labor

Ch. 3 The Family: Consumption Habits

Inside Vasilika's Homes

Cleanliness and Order

Clothing

Urbanity vs. Convenience

Ch. 4 The Family: Dowry and Inheritance; Formal Structure

Inheritance by Sons

Dowering the Daughter

Negotiations, Courtship, and Marriage

Disposition of Dower Property

Division of the Patrimony

Consequences of Dowry System

Attitudes Toward the Dowry System

Family and Kin Structure

Ch. 5 Human Relations

Attitudes Toward Man and Nature

Adult-Child Relationships

Conversation and Argument

Transmission of Value

Noncompetitive Social Groupings

Ch. 6 The Village: As a Community

The Village Government

The Village School

The Village Church

Religious Feast Days

The Villagers as Greeks

Glossary

References Cited

Recommended Reading

Review:

Fred Gearing. American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 65, No. 5, Selected Papers in Method and Technique (Oct., 1963), pp. 1170-1172. (available on JSTORE)

Mark Kurlansky. Cod: A biography of the Fish That Changed the World.

available online from about $10.20 new / $3.35 used
(+ p/h, at amazon.com & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25).
(27 December 2011)

Chegg [rental]

(09 January 2011)

Kurlansky, Mark.
Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World.
NY: Penguin Books, 1998.
(ISBN : 0140275010)

"You probably enjoy eating codfish, but reading about them? Mark Kurlansky has written a fabulous book--well worth your time--about a fish that probably has mattered more in human history than any other. The cod helped inspire the discovery and exploration of North America. It had a profound impact upon the economic development of New England and eastern Canada from the earliest times. Today, however, overfishing is a constant threat. Kurlansky sprinkles his well-written and occasionally humorous history with interesting asides on the possible origin of the word codpiece and dozens of fish recipes. Sometimes a book on an offbeat or neglected subject really makes the grade. This is one of them."

From Library Journal

"In this engaging history of a '1000-year fishing spree,' Kurlansky . . . traces the relationship of cod fishery to such historical eras and events as medieval Christianity and Christian observances; international conflicts between England and Germany over Icelandic cod; slavery, the molasses trade, and the dismantling of the British Empire; and, the evolution of a sophisticated fishing industry in New England. Kurlansky relates this information in an entertaining style while providing accurate scientific information. The story does not have a happy ending, however. The cod fishery is in trouble, deep trouble, as the Atlantic fish has been fished almost to extinction. Quoting a scientist from the Woods Hole Biological Laboratory, Massachusetts, Kurlansky notes that to forecast the recovery of the cod population is to gamble: 'There is only one known calculation: 'When you get to zero, it will produce zero.'"

Cod received the James Beard Award for Excellence in Food Writing and was a New York Public Library Best Book of 1997.

Prologue: Sentry on the Headlands (So Close to Ireland)

PART ONE: A FISH TALE

Ch. 1   "The Race to Codlandia"
Ch. 2   "With Mouth wide Open"
Ch. 3   "The Cod Rush"
Ch. 4   "1620: The Rock and the Cod"
Ch. 5   "Certain Inalienable Rights"
Ch. 6 "A Cod War Heard 'Round the World"

PART TWO: LIMITS

Ch. 7   "A Few New ideas Versus Nine Million Eggs"
Ch. 8   "The Last Two Ideas"
Ch. 9   "Iceland Discovers the Finite Universe"
Ch. 10 "Three Wars to Close the Open Sea"

PART THREE: THE LAST HUNTERS

Ch. 11 "Requiem for the Grand Banks"
Ch. 12 "The Dangerous Waters of Nature's Resilience"
Ch. 13 "Bracing for the Spanish Armada"
Ch. 14 "Bracing for the Canadian Armada"

A COOK'S TALE: SIX CENTURIES OF COD RECIPES

Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index

to top of page / A-Z index

Front Cover of Nan: The Life of an Irish Traveling Woman, Revised Edition.

available online from about $20.76 new / $4.23 used
(+ p/h, at amazon.com & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25).
(27 December 2011)

Chegg [rental]

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Gmelch, Sharon
Nan: The Life of an Irish Travelling Woman, Revised Edition.
Long Grove: IL: Waveland Press, 1991.
(ISBN: 0881336025)

From Publishers Weekly

"Ireland's tinkers or 'Travellers,' pariahs in their own land, are a sociological anomaly, fast disappearing in contemporary Ireland. In 1971 Gmelch, a New York professor of anthropology, took up residence in Holylands, an official campsite set up outside Dublin by the government to keep tinkers off the roads. She moved there to become better acquainted with Nan, a Traveller born in 1919 in a tent in the Irish midlands. Nan's oral history, her self-described 'awful mixup of a life,'' takes us into the Travellers' periods of pleasant, patched-together domesticity that are inevitably shattered by violence and marital crises, usually precipitated by drink. Nan's marriages, her 18 children, the shocking physical abuse perpetrated by one husband, did not break her, and even allowed her a little happiness. Nan's story provides a unique perspective on 20th century Irish history." PW. (May 27)

From Library Journal

"Nan Donohoe's life story is told, most ly in her own words, as representative of the native Irish gypsies known as travellers, or tinkers. It is a story of the will to survive despite poverty, disease, illiteracy, abuse, and well-intentioned but ineffective bureaucratic interfer ence. For generations these itinerants peddled wares and services to the rural populace. After World War II, with mass produced goods and machinery readily available to farmers, their means of livelihood vanished and they began to camp nearer urban centers, causing great social problems. They are now mostly in government camps and receiving welfare because assimilation into the mainstream appears impossi ble. Similarities with the migrant farm worker in the United States abound. For specialist and lay reader alike." -- Sondra Brunhumer, Western Michigan Univ. Libs., Kalamazoo

	*FOREWORD*
	*PREFACE / PREFACE 1991*

I	Nan
II	The Sweep's Daughter
III	The Kitchen Maid
IV	The Unwilling Wife
V	Travelling in the North
VI	Never the Same After
VII	Galway
VIII	Dublin
IX	Birmingham
X	Holylands
XI	The Old One

	EPILOGUE
	NOTES
	FURTHER READING
	PHOTOGRAPHS

John Messenger. Innis Beag: Isle of Ireland.

(availble online only)

available online from about $55.00 new / $0.94 used
(+ p/h, at amazon.com & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25).
(27 December 2011)

Chegg [rental]

(09 January 2011)

Messenger, John C.
Inis Beag: Isle of Ireland.
Long Grove: IL: Waveland Press, 1983.
(ISBN: 0881330515)

"Inis Beag is a fictitious name for one of the many inhabited, rocky, barren islands of the Irish Gaeltacht. Messenger's descriptive analysis of this closed community includes the subsistence, material culture, social organization/control, and religion/values dimensions, as well as a strong focus on folklore, Christian reinterpretations of pagan elements, music, song, and dance. A very human picture emerges of these islanders, folk people in almost every respect."

Table of Contents

Foreword
Introduction

1. The Island and Its Past
2. The Land and the Sea
3. The Village and the Family
4. The Supernatural and the Esthetic
5. The Future of the Island

References
Recommened Reading

short biography of John Millington Synge -- Wikipedia

Also highly recommended,
with full-text on-line
at no cost:

The Aran Islands

highly recommended
a classic from one-hundred years ago
(full-text available free on-line)

John Millington Synge
The Aran Islands
John W. Luce and Company, 1907
(full-text on-line)

"Nothing much happens on the Aran Islands--at least, not much went on there in the late 19th century, when John Synge sailed out to these mist-shrouded, salt-sprayed, and wave-battered chunks of rocks south of Ireland. Therein lies the charm of the setting and of this lovely book, which captures the saltiness of both the marine air and the time-lost characters, who deeply believe in the magical "wee people." In cottages where nets and fishing tackle hang from beams, the women (who always wear red dresses and petticoats, as do some of the boys) sit at their spinning wheels or sew cow-skin sandals, while the fishermen spin yarns about fairies, sunken vessels, and bags of gold gained from adulterous wives. The big happening of the year is when roofs are rethatched--an event that blossoms into a festival with twisted rope stretching from kitchen table through lane to nearby field. Synge seems an ambassador from a different world: addressed as "noble person," he brings tokens of modernity--be they clocks or simple magic tricks that beguile the locals. First published in 1907, this re-released travelogue gives a poignant peek into another time and begs a visit to the Aran Islands to see how, or if, they have changed." -- Melissa Rossi

The above text refers to the paperback edition.

Table of Contents

Title Page
Introduction
Author's Foreword

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV

Elizabeth L. Krause. A Crisis of Births: Population Politics and Family-Making in Italy.

available online from about $49.95 new / $9.00 used
Price Book Trade-In $7.02
(+ p/h, at amazon.com & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25).
(27 December 2011)

Chegg [rental]

(09 January 2011)

Krause Elizabeth L.
A Crisis of Births: Population Politics and Family-Making in Italy.
Belmont, CA: Thompson Wadsworth, 2005.
(ISBN: 0534636934)

"This book tells the story of one society's remarkable experience when Italians in the late 1990s attained the lowest birthrate per women of any nation in the world. This case study draws on two years of ethnographic fieldwork over a five year period, to examine the conflicts as well as the possibility that this trend in family-making has created for an otherwise family-centered culture. Krause's innovative project seeks to understand a pressing contemporary issue, and the 'story' she tells takes readers behind the scenes of demographic numbers to reveal what aggregate statistics cannot--a cultural 'politics of population' in which Italians struggle over the meanings of family and children in contemporary society. The reader will gain an in-depth understanding of why Italy's birthrate has fallen so low and what this means for Italians as individuals and Italy as a society and how reproduction has become politicized. The author finds answers in intensely personal dialogues with ordinary people ranging from sweater-makers to counts, and aging bachelors to doting mothers. Their life experiences reveal how a silent revolution against patriarchy reshapes social and sexual morality to create new imperatives for family making. The author hopes to prompt different and critical thinking about populations and the cultural struggles related to the politics of everyday life in modern society."

Table of Contents

Preface

1. Population Politics, Population Struggles
2. Family Tree, Revolutionary Roots
3. Field Work, Sweater Work
4. Displaying Class, Consuming Distinction
5. Labors of Love, Love's Labors Lost
6. Gendered Myths, Gender Strife
7. Demographic Alarms, Racial Reverberations
8. Conclusion: Globalizing Policy, Policing Populations

Epilogue
Bibliography
Index

Features

In the context of a nationally declining birthrate, this book focuses on the value Italians place on family and children and addresses both the reasons for the decline and the impact it has had on individuals and the society.

By examining comparative and global perspectives on the cultural politics of population, Krause encourages the reader to think critically and differently about demographics, cultural struggles, and the politics related to everyday life in modern society.

Grounded in kinship, family, and sexuality, this case study promises to spark interest and debate, as it challenges ethnocentric assumptions about the nature of family and politics in Italy and other European nations.

Intimate, life history narratives and dialogues support the main themes of each chapter, making the book both intellectually and emotionally appealing to readers.

Krause challenges the "scientific discourse" of demography by offering cultural interpretations and analysis to achieve deeper understandings of family and sexuality in society.