LIFE HISTORY RESEARCH IN ANTHROPOLOGY

Anthropology 693

Spring 2004 – Th 6-9pm

 

David Koester

Eielson 312c

 

 

Syllabus

 

WEEK 1 -January 15

            Introduction 

 

WEEK 2 -January 22  Guest Lecturer:  Bill Schneider – Introduction to life history based on oral history

 

WEEK 3 - January 29

Pruitt, Ida and Ning Lao T'ai-t'ai

            1945    A Daughter of Han:  The Autobiography of a Chinese Working Woman.  Stanford: Stanford University Press.

 

WEEK 4 - February 5

Dilthey, Wilhelm

            1976    Drafts for a critique of historical reason. In Selected Writings.  Rickman, H. P., ed. pp. 207-245.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dollard, John

            1935    Criteria for the Life History.  New Haven: Yale University Press.  pp.­1-36.

Niedermüller, Peter

            1988    From the Stories of Life to the Life History:  Historic Context, Social Processes and the Biographical Method.  In Life History as Cultural Construction/Performance.  Tamás Hofer and Peter Niedermüller, eds. Pp.­451-473.  Budapest: Ethnographic Institute, Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

 

WEEK 5 - February 12

Crapanzano, Vincent

1980    Tuhami.  Chicago:  University of Chicago Press.

 

WEEK 6 - February 19

Linderman, Frank B.

            1972    Pretty-Shield:  Medicine Woman of the Crows.  Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara

            1988    Authoring Lives.  In Life History as Cultural Construction/Performance.  Tamás Hofer and P. Niedermüller, eds. Pp.­133-178. 

 

WEEK 7 - February 26 

Research Ethics and the Human Subjects Research Review Process

Glazer, Myron

            1982    The Threat of the Stranger:  Vulnerability, Reciprocity, and Fieldwork. In The Ethics of Social Research:  Fieldwork, Regulation, and Publication. J. E. Sieber, ed. pp. 49-70. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Wax, Murray L.

            1982    Research Reciprocity Rather than Informed Consent in Fieldwork. In The Ethics of Social Research:  Fieldwork, Regulation, and Publication. J. E. Sieber, ed. pp. 33-48. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Appell, George N.

            1988    Ethical dilemmas in anthropological inquiry:  a case book. Waltham: Crossroads Press. (assigned selections)

Cassell, Joan

            1982    Harms, Benefits, Wrongs, and Rights in Fieldwork. In The Ethics of Social Research:  Fieldwork, Regulation, and Publication. J. E. Sieber, ed. pp. 7-31. New York: Springer-Verlag.

 

 

 

WEEK 8 -March 4

Soyinka, Wole

            1981    Aké, the Years of Childhood.  New York:  Vintage.

Fabre, Daniel

            1996    The Way of Birds:  Biographical Accounts of the Maturation Process. In Imagined Childhoods. pp. 91-118.

 

MID-TERM PROJECTS DUE:  MARCH 11

 

WEEK 9 -March 11

Lukashkina, Tatiana Petrovna

            Unpublished text in progress; posted on ERes.

 

 

WEEK 10 -March 25

Discussion of interviews and techniques for transcription.

Brown, Karen McCarthy

            1991    Mama Lola:  A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn.  Berkeley:  University of California Press

 

WEEK 11 - April 1

Cruikshank, Julie

                        1990    Life Lived Like a Story.  Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 

Luborsky, Mark R.

                        1987    Analysis of Multiple Life History Narratives.  Ethos 15(4):366-81.

 

WEEK 12 - April 8

Computer techniques for textual analysis, Lecture and Discussion.

 

WEEK 13 – April 15

 

WEEKS 13-14 - April 22-29

Student presentations and discussion of analyses.

 

 

REQUIREMENTS:  participation in class discussion, in-class presentation, mid-term, final paper

MID-TERM PROJECT (20% of grade):  Research project proposal for human subjects committee review

FINAL PAPERS (80% of grade):  life history transcription plus analysis

 

            Starting in approximately Week 7 you should begin work on collecting a life history.  Part of your assignment will be to read about the cultural, social, historical and political background of your subject.  Class meetings beginning Week 10 will involve discussion of interviewing, use of equipment, transcription procedures, and analysis.  Basic "macro" programming techniques for computer-based text analysis will be covered during weeks 11 and 12.  You will be expected to make a short presentation about the life history that you are collecting.