Fall (26 August - 5 December) 2025
Spring (14 January - 8 May) 2026

Textbook Information
 <http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth4653/sstext.html#title>

Week 1 Assignments
Read

• Introduction (Michael V. Angrosino)
• Ch. 1 Becoming a Participant Observer (Gerry Tierney)

 

 

With the Doing Cultural Anthropology assignment you do not need to actually do the projects, unless they are relevant to your research project. For chapters covering methods other than those you choose to use in your research project, you need to read the chapters and understand the materials well enough to be able to usefully utilizize the technique(s).

 Punxsutawney Phil predicted early spring in 2013

22 March 2013 BULLETIN:

Ohio prosecutors ‘indict’ Punxsutawney Phil over early spring forecast, seek death penalty!
"Poor Phil: Groundhog’s false spring prediction brings indictment in Ohio"
-- Associated Press, The Washington Post (22 March 2013)

nalty

 

 

 Wikipedia

On Groundhog Day 2013: Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow, early spring predicted

 Details: <http://abcnews.go.com/US/groundhog-day-2013-punxsutawney-phil-sees-shadow-predicts/story?id=18382344>

Phil's official forecast as predicted February 2^nd at sunrise at Gobbler's Knob

  Groundhog.org

 Past predictions

Punxsutawney Phil: The Groundhog Behind the Myth
-- Live Science (01 February 2010)

Groundhog Day -- Wikipedia

Main Characteristics of Anthropology
slides: (.pdf) (.pptx)
(Download PowerPoint Viewer Free) (Download Adobe .pdf Reader Free)
[see note on slide formats]

Week 2 Assignments
Read

• Ch. 2. Exploring Genealogy (Constance P. deRoche)
• Ch. 3. Conducting a Life History Interview (Michael V. Angrosino)

 

 

With the Doing Cultural Anthropology assignment you do not need to actually do the projects, unless they are relevant to your research project. For chapters covering methods other than those you choose to use in your research project, you need to read the chapters and understand the materials well enough to be able to usefully utilizize the technique(s).

Carefully look over the "Table of Contents" to Anthropology and Contemporary Human Problems, Sixth Edition

• Look carefully at the contents of Chapters 1-7, taking note of the problems/issues in which you are (or might be) particularly interested
  
  
• Start thinking about what anthropology "has to say" about the issues that you have selected
  
  
• Start talking with/texting others in class who might have similar interests
  
  
  • Panel Presentations are four persons per panel, with "audience" participation
    
    
• This week, or by the end of Week 3, Sign up for your Panel Presentation (in Block One of your Moodle folder . . .  note that the Ch. 1 Panel is Wednesday of Week 4)
  
  
• Sign up early for choice selections. If your first choice has already been taken, please select an alternate. (Four persons per Chapter)
  

• Ch. I: Week 4 Day 7 Wednesday, 13 February 2013
• Ch. 2: Week 6 Day 11 Wednesday, 27 February 2013
• Ch. 3: Week 8 Day 15 Wednesday, 13 March 2013
• Ch. 4: Week 9 Day 17 Wednesday, 27 March 2013
• Ch. 5: Week 10 Day 19 Wednesday, 3 April 2013
• Ch. 6: Week 11 Day 21 Wednesday, 11 April 2013
• Ch. 7: Week 12 Day 22 Monday, 15 April 2013
  

Introduction to Ethics Discussion(s)

Course Resource:
  Anthropological Ethics Course WebPage

Week 3 Assignments
Read

• Ch. 4. Analyzing Narrative Data (Nancy Redfern-Vance)
• Ch. 5. Reconstructing a Community through Archival Research (Cheryl Rodriguez and Yvette Baber)

• Ch. 1. Anthropological Perspectives on Contemporary Human Problems
  
  

 

Review: Units of Analysis
slides: (.pdf) (.pptx)
(Download PowerPoint Viewer Free) (Download Adobe .pdf Reader Free)
[see note on slide formats]

Week 4 Assignments
Read

• Ch. 6. Using a Museum as a Resource for Ethnographic Research (Serena Nanda)
• Ch. 7. Observing a Workplace (Kathryn Borman, Ellen Puccia, Amy Fox McNulty, and Bill Goddard)

 

 

With the Doing Cultural Anthropology assignment you do not need to actually do the projects, unless they are relevant to your research project. For chapters covering methods other than those you choose to use in your research project, you need to read the chapters and understand the materials well enough to be able to usefully utilizize the technique(s).

Optical Illusions and Reality

  Optical Illusions WebPage


Course Resource:

 Reality Course WebPage

 Culturally Constituted Behavioral Environments
(CCBE)
and
 Species Specific Behavioral Environments

  Altered States of Consciousness
(ASC)

Go to the "Magic Eye" page and look at the Image of the Week until you see the 3D image. Click on "Need Help Viewing 3D?" if necessary.

Magic Eye^©

Take the Selective Attention Tests in Preparation for participant observation research, and our discussion of research methods. (Be sure to take both tests.)

Read and follow the directions carefully.

Selective Attention Test
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo>

The Monkey Business Illusion
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY>

Selective Attention and Lifeguards

 Rashomon Effect 

• Rashomon Effect -- Wikipedia
  
  
  
• "Augmented Reality" -- Wikipedia

Week 5 Assignments
Read

• Ch. 8. Carrying Out a Structured Observation (Laurie J. Price)
• Ch. 9. Designing a Questionnaire for Cross-Cultural Research (Robert D. Baer and Susan C. Weller)

 

 

With the Doing Cultural Anthropology assignment you do not need to actually do the projects, unless they are relevant to your research project. For chapters covering methods other than those you choose to use in your research project, you need to read the chapters and understand the materials well enough to be able to usefully utilizize the technique(s).

 

• Ch. 2 Scale, Adaptation, and the Environmental Crisis

 

 

 

Week 6 Assignments
Read

• Ch. 10. Working with Numerical Data (Martha W. Rees)
• Ch. 11. Planning and Moderating Focus Group Research (Carol Bryant)

 

 

With the Doing Cultural Anthropology assignment you do not need to actually do the projects, unless they are relevant to your research project. For chapters covering methods other than those you choose to use in your research project, you need to read the chapters and understand the materials well enough to be able to usefully utilizize the technique(s).

Week 7 Assignments
Read

• Review

 

 

With the Doing Cultural Anthropology assignment you do not need to actually do the projects, unless they are relevant to your research project. For chapters covering methods other than those you choose to use in your research project, you need to read the chapters and understand the materials well enough to be able to usefully utilizize the technique(s).

After the Exam . . .

• Ch. 3. Natural Resources and the Culture of Consumption

 

 

• Week 8 Day 15 Panel Ch. 3 Group "Natural Resources and the Culture of Consumption" 
  
  
   

Week 8 Assignments
Read

• Ch. 12. Applying Visual Methods in Ethnographic Research (S. Elizabeth Bird)
• Ch. 13. Constructing a Virtual Ethnography (S. Elizabeth Bird and Jessica Barber)

 

 

With the Doing Cultural Anthropology assignment you do not need to actually do the projects, unless they are relevant to your research project. For chapters covering methods other than those you choose to use in your research project, you need to read the chapters and understand the materials well enough to be able to usefully utilizize the technique(s).

• Ch. 4. Malnutrition and the Evolution of Food Systems

 

 

Week 9 Assignments
Read

• Ch. 14. Developing a Electronic Ethnography (Alvin W. Wolfe and Guy Hagen)
• Ch. 15. Composing Autoethnographic Stories (Leigh Berger and Carolyn Ellis)

 

 

With the Doing Cultural Anthropology assignment you do not need to actually do the projects, unless they are relevant to your research project. For chapters covering methods other than those you choose to use in your research project, you need to read the chapters and understand the materials well enough to be able to usefully utilizize the technique(s).

• Ch. 5. Commercial Factory-Food Systems