GROUP PRESENTATIONS ANNOUNCED

GROUP PRESENTATIONS
Each assigned group will have 15-20 minutes to give an oral presentation on the assigned chapter for that week. Pick a theme from the chapter and share it with the class in an interesting way. Do not bore us with a mere powerpoint presentation but you can use it if it enhances your presentation. Be creative. Use your own participant-observations in your own communities and cultures. Create a slideshow from pics you took on the subject. Conduct short interviews and present your findings. Create a game of what we learned. Use YouTube to highlight a part of the chapter like the video on the potlatching did. Then start an interesting conversation from it (why was the potlatch banned and what does it say about how culture works?). Or use artifacts, things we actually use in everyday culture (marriage certificates) to allow the class to explore what marriage means.

1. Prepare an interesting presentation on some aspect of the assigned chapter. Include research and collect a bibliography of sources demonstating your research in the matter. 3-5 sources online other than Wikipedia are fine. Also use the bibligraphy in the assigned readings for that week as a reference. Include your bibliography in your blog post.
   
2. Practice your presentation and do not go over the 15 min limit (K.I.S.S.)
   
3. Plan at least one question to lead our group discussion. (i.e., If you had to change your race in the U.S., which would you choose and why? If you could apply generalized reciprocity to an industrial context, which would it be and why?)
   
4. Create a group post before your presentation to get us started. Post it 1-2 days before class meets. Can include any videos or other online materials you intend to use unless you surprise us.
5. Consult the group presentation rubric to see how you'll be informally evaluated. You must participate in a group presentation to pass the class.
   

This group presentation rubric will be used to informally evaluate your presentations and give you feedback

The Group Presentation Rubric is publicly viewable at: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhnm7kdd_19f24254hj

SOCIAL COLLABORATION 101
Now you can speak, chat and create with your ANT1001 group, and your group only through Blackboard, as you plan your group presentations.

Click on Groups and you'll see your group only come up on Blackboard. If you are not in a group yet, wait til Thu.

ANT1001 2:130pm (TV24A section-Learning Community)

THURSDAY OCTOBER 23 Sean's Group - Family, Kinship and Marriage
Sean / Yaroslav /

THURSDAY OCTOBER 30 Caroline's Group - Gender
Bilal / Melissa / Dereck / Kashif

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 6 Victor's Group - Religion
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 20 Dan's Group - Ethnicity and Race

ANT1001 4:10pm (XZ24C section)

TUESDAY OCTOBER 7 Group 3 - Political Systems
Rickey / Hyunwook / Ken / Xiang / Terentiy

THURSDAY OCTOBER 23 Group 1 - Family, Kinship and Marriage
Kayla / Gabrijela / Ira / Craig /Maimouna

THURSDAY OCTOBER 30 Group 4 - Gender
Nicaury / Edwin / Enki / Lorraine /Angel / Gabrielle

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 6 Group 2 - Religion
Ivana / Tanzina /Jaiying / Eun Ji / Phylicia /Eugene

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 20 Group 5 - Ethnicity and Race
Nuzzy / Eileen / Ellie /Erica or Jou-man /Sze Yeung / Claumery

Eugene and Gabrielle need to be incorporated into a group. Preferably not Group 6. They have 6 people already.

A TED WISH: Photographic Dreams Coming True on Oct 3

The TED Prize is designed to leverage the TED community’s exceptional array of talent and resources. It is awarded annually to three exceptional individuals who each receive $100,000 and, much more important, the granting of “One Wish to Change the World.” After several months of preparation, they unveil their wish at an award ceremony held during the TED Conference. These wishes have led to collaborative initiatives with far-reaching impact.

This event will take place Oct 3rd (TBA) at 1) Jazz at Lincoln Center at Columbus Circle and 2) The Reuters Screen in Times Square. Click the link below for more info and watch the TED talk with incredible photos of war, survival and courage.

September 23, 2008 On October 3, the story breaks -- be a part of it! James Nachtwey's TED Prize wish: "Help me use the power of photography to break a story that the world needs to know about." The story breaks on October 3, when Nachtwey's powerful photographs of a growing world crisis will be published in Time magazine and shown on giant LED screens on all 7 continents -- from Times Square in New York to the British and Argentine bases on Antarctica. Visit James Nachtwey's TED Prize page to find out where to watch near you, and learn how you can help spread the word before and after October 3. You can also watch James Nachtwey make his TED Prize wish. See all the TED Prize wishes.

http://www.tedprize.org/nachtwey/

Ch. 5 MAKING A LIVING: A Brief History of the Ban on the Potlatch

POTLATCH Pt. 1 1:27"
INFO FROM YOUTUBE: This video shows scenes of Kwakiutl potlatch.One of the first acts in the first 72 hours of the Bush Administration was to strip the Duwamish Tribe of Federal Recognition.It was from them that I learned about potlatch.Without them the City of Seattle would not exist;
On 13 September 2007, the UN passed its Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

While the term "indigenous" is not defined, its 46 articles affirm the right to self-determination including the pursuits of economic, social and cultural development (Article 3). Other rights include: * Maintaining distinct political, legal, economic, social and cultural institutions while participating in those of the state (Article 5), * Not being forcibly assimilated (Article 8, * Revitalizing and developing their language and educate in their language (Articles 13-14), * Redress for past injustices (Article 28), * Access across international borders (Article 36), and * Financial and technical assistance from the state to achieve these rights (Article 39)

With Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States voting against, and 11 countries abstaining, the Declaration passed with 144 countries in favor. Licence: CreativeCommons NonCommercial

Potlatch Pt. 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpXNS-ZnKoQ (2:38")

Ch.5 MAKING A LIVING: Adaptive Strategies, Permaculture & Economic Racism

This chapter Making A Living may seem boring if you don't get the context. How humans evolved in their food production is the basis of our economic strategies and systems. Human societies, how they are organized, and what they need and work towards, they are defined by how they create and maintain their food production, generally speaking. Jason GOdesky writes that

A given a society’s mode of subsistence, accurate predictions could often be made about their level of political complexity, their kinship patterns, their population size and density, their modes of warfare, and even their religious beliefs.

This blog by Jason Godesky explains why this chapter on Making a Living is so vital and relevant to the study of anthropology. Take a moment to read the first seven paragraphs through the following sentence:

"Cohen’s typology may be slightly ethnocentrically flawed. in breaking out more types within our own adaptive strategy, the traditional typology tends to give pride of place to our own culture that may not be entirely deserved".

SOME VIDEOS TO FURTHER THIS CHAPTER
I found a few videos that brought new strategies, i.e., permaculture, and a new insight into how anthropology students might find Cohen's strategies useful and how other aspects of the chapter namely various forms of distribution and exchange, including the market principle, redistribution, and generalized, balanced, and negative reciprocity, can be applied to contexts right in NYC.

VIDEO #1: Permaculture 101
Permaculture expert Penny Livingston-Stark shows how natural systems can teach us better design practices. Learning to work with the earth not only creates a healthier environment, it also nourishes the people who live in it.




VIDEO #2: Joel Salatin - Virginia 1:37"
Joel Salatin writes in his website that he is "in the redemption business: healing the land, healing the food, healing the economy, and healing the culture." And if you visited his farm, you'd know he means it & lives it!
He produces beef, chicken, eggs, turkey, rabbits, and forestry product. Yet, Joel calls himself a grass-farmer, for it is the grass that transform the sun into energy that his animals can then feed on. By closely observing nature, Joel created a rotational grazing system that not only allows the land to heal but also allows the animals to behave the way the were meant to -- as in expressing their "chicken-ness" or "pig-ness", as Joel would say. www.polyfacefarms.com



VIDEO #3: Witness - Forty Acres and a Dream - Part 1 10:36"
Oddly this video was produced for AlJazeeraEnglishTV rather than regular broadcast TV or cable.Photographer John Ficara captures the plight of black farmers in the United States. THe title refers to Forty Acres and a Mule - a term for compensation that was promised to be awarded to freed African American slaves after the Civil War— 40 acres (16 ha) of land to farm, and a mule with which to drag a plow so the land could be cultivated. This was their entrance into the industrial economy from which they were once the tools and machinery of the production as chattel slaves.

Chris Abani: Telling Stories of our Shared Humanity

Chris Abani tells stories of people: People standing up to soldiers. People being compassionate. People being human and reclaiming their humanity. It's "ubuntu," he says: the only way for me to be human is for you to reflect my humanity back at me.

http://www.ted.com/chris_abani

ARE YOU ELIGIBLE? Make sure you register and make sure you vote Tue Nov 4th

At the following link you can register to vote in any state in the U.S.
http://www.rockthevote.org/

There is little time left to register. Please do that now!!!

Language Exercise from Kottak Website

NOTE: Post a comment once a week to one of any of the posts made since the previous Friday by Prof. Gaunt. Be sure to "surf" through any links. Strongly suggest composing your response in MS Word, then cut and paste as a comment. Avoid grammar and spelling mistakes; use spell and grammar check. Also rewrite your post at least once and don't forget to read other comments first so you are not saying the same thing 30 times.

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU KNOW ABOUT LANGUAGES?

1. Currently, which five languages are the most commonly used in the world?
2. What percentage of the world's languages are spoken by 10,000 or fewer people?
3. How does the FAQ distinguish between a language and a dialect?
4. What five characteristics does Terralingua use to define what groups constitute a minority? How is this definition different from or similar to your own understanding of what a minority group is?
5. Why do you think it is important to maintain linguistic diversity around the world? Knowing what you do about the link between language, culture, knowledge, and identity, how much information will be lost as more languages go extinct?

Read the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for answers from Teralingua http://www.terralingua.org/basics/FAQ.html. It is an international, nonprofit organization concerned about the future of the world's biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity.

POST A COMMENT: What did you learn from this information and status of the world on languages?

Kottak Ch. 4: Language and Communication

NOTE: Post a comment once a week to one of any of the posts made since the previous Friday by Prof. Gaunt. Be sure to "surf" through any links. Strongly suggest composing your response in MS Word, then cut and paste as a comment. Avoid grammar and spelling mistakes; use spell and grammar check. Also rewrite your post at least once and don't forget to read other comments first so you all are not saying the same thing 30 times. Differentiate your thoughts or concur with someone early (i.e., @Paul: I agree with your thinking here and...).

Chapter 4 introduces the study of language, communication and linguistics.
Revised, Originally posted 2/24/08 2:40pm
It discusses the basic categories and definitions used to study language, and the many ways in which linguistic, cultural, and social variables are interrelated. It also presents how language uses reflect differences among groups. Language is amazing and it can be used to debilitate and malign. Yes, socio-linguistics, as it could be called, can be both adaptive and maladaptive.

You will love checking out the enculturation process of a 1 year old in the following video who has learned a significant sign language vocabulary:



Since BEV or Black English Vernacular is a topic in the chapter, here's segment from "Why Ebonics is No Joke," which aired on ABC Radio National's Lingua Franca October 17, 1998:

The Economist picked it up and printed a brief story headed 'The Ebonics Virus', a tasteless reference to the then recent outbreak of the horrible Ebola fever in Zaire. The subliminal link there is clear enough: nasty things out of Africa!...

I don't know how you measure poverty in a language. But on the bit about grammatical mistakes... There is a difference between making grammatical blunders in Standard English and speaking correctly in a different variety of the language, one that has a slightly different grammar. And that's the case here. African-American Vernacular English has a regular, systematic grammar of its own.

People who don't know [Black English vernacular] talk about how the word 'be' is used in the wrong places. They think black Americans say, 'He be laughin'.' When they should say 'He is laughing', and that's treated as one of the many amusing pieces of evidence that they don't speak English correctly. It's not true. The African-American Vernacular English usage they're referring to is in fact a device for expressing what's called 'habitual aspect'. 'He be laughin' is grammatical in African-American Vernacular English but it doesn't mean 'He is laughing', it means 'He habitually laughs.' If you want to say 'He is laughing' right now, in this language, you say 'He laughin'.'

In the 4:10 section we also analyzed the uses of language in the video The Leech and the Earthworm about how an indigeneous people tell a story about colonialization and exploitation by the white man. Check it out! You'll notice the use of storytelling, visual, oral, musical and other kinds of language in this TITLE sequence from the documentary.

You might also get something from this splicing of routines by comedians Richard Pryor and George Carlin. You may have to Google each to get a better grasp of their style of comedy. Carlin does "black" comedy--meaning it's intellectual as well as vernacularly (is that a word) straight and to the point. This clip supports the argument that signs, like the word "nigger", are inherently devoid of any natural meaning.

Results of Chap 3 Quiz on Culture

Here are the averages for Chapter 3 before grading the extra credit short essay

ANT1001 - 2:30 Section (20 students)
Class Average = 73%
Highest grade = 100pts
Lowest grade = 50pts

ANT1001 - 4:10 Section (38 students)
Class Average = 78%
Highest grade = 100pts
Lowest grade = 50pts

Oddly both sections got the best responses on Questions # 3, 11, and 21. Hmm? What do you think that means about what you learned as a group? How you learn as a group? What cultural factors contributed to this simultaneity of response?

3.Which of the following statements about culture is not true?

	All human groups have culture
	Culture is the major reason for human adaptability
→	Human groups differ in their capacities for culture
	The capacity for culture is shared by all humans
	Cultural learning is uniquely elaborated among humans

11.Which of the following is a cultural generality?

	Life in groups
	The use of fire
	Incest taboo
	Use of symbols
→	Nuclear family

21. By definition, a symbol has an intrinsic and natural link to the thing it signifies.

	True
→	False

Ch. 3: The Culture of Double-Standards: Comedy Reveals Discourses

Each week I will create a post to forward our discussions and the readings by Friday. This post is a bit of overview and mashup of Chapter 3 - Culture. Check for a new post by no later than Friday by 5pm for the coming week. Spend about an hour with the post. Check out the related links and explore beyond the surface of the post. Do you own searches if you like and add new links to your comments.

HOMEWORK FOR THU 9/11: Study of Humankind

In Chapters 1 and 2 of the Kottak we began to distinguish what is anthropology. The word is from the Greek anthropos ("human") and logia ("study") — the study of humankind.

[We watched this video WHAT WE ARE in class on 9-9-08 about who we are as humans.]

Nothing human is alien to anthropological study -- even elections. Though anthropology is easy to define, it is difficult to describe. Its subject matter is both exotic (e.g., star lore of the Australian aborigines) and commonplace (anatomy of the foot). And its focus is both sweeping (the evolution of language) and microscopic (the use-wear of obsidian tools). Anthropologists may study ancient Mayan hieroglyphics, the music of African Pygmies, and the corporate culture of a U.S. oil industry.

But always, the common goal links these vastly different projects: to advance knowledge of who we are, how we came to be that way — and where we may go in the future.

I am a human, and nothing human can be of indifference to me.
--Terence, The Self-Torturer

Someone passed me this video from Jon Stewart's The Daily Show exposing the gender double-standards during the Republican National Convention. It is decidedly democratic in perspective. While it will offend some, it is a great "text" in the discourse of exposing opponents. Why do we have this phenomenon of exposing double-standards? Why do we need it? What role does it play in the long run for groups?

A double-standard is a form of a discourse -- an institutionalized way of thinking, a social boundary defining what can be said about a specific topic, "the limits of acceptable speech" (Butler) like a possible truth--and double-standards are not limited to elections in the US.





POST A COMMENT: Might double-standards be a cultural universal? Or is it a generality or particular to US elections? What do you think and why? [LIMIT 250 word count!]

Curiosity. In a sense, we all "do" anthropology because it is rooted in a universal human trait: curiosity. We are curious about ourselves and about other people, the living as well as the dead, here and around the globe. We ask anthropological questions:

• Do all societies have customs of exposing double-standards in elections or competitions?
• As a species, are human beings innately suspicious or desiring change?
• When did people first begin lying or being political?

Such questions are part of a folk anthropology practiced in school yards, office buildings, neighborhood cafes and comedy shows. But if we are all amateur anthropologists, what do the professionals ("ethnographers") study?

POST A COMMENT: How does the science of anthropology differ from ordinary opinion sharing and "common sense?" What methods distinguish this difference? Give an example from Chapters 1-3 of the Kottak , the essay "Eating Christmas in Kalahari," or of your own. [LIMIT 250 word count!]

Read at least 5 comments every week. Reply once a week. Use the suggested post ideas or post your own questions. A 2-3 lined post is sufficient but it must be more than "I like this post."

Learning About Tag Clouds (Assignment #2 for Sep 4)

WEB 2.0 IN ACTION:
LEARNING ABOUT TAGS and TAG CLOUD WIDGETS

Compose a short commentary and post in on our group blog about tags and the widget called a TAG CLOUD.

Go to http://anthropology1001.blogspot.com/

Visit and review 6 tags from our group blog’s TAG CLOUD.

1. SKIM THE ENTIRE LIST OF THE TAG CLOUD. Explain how you think it is organized. Share how many total items are in the cloud at the time you viewed it.
2. Choose and read 3 of the most popular posts in the Tag Cloud (how do you know it's the most popular--can you figure it out intuitively?)
3. Then choose and read 3 additional posts of your choice from the TAG CLOUD. That's 6 posts to choose and read total.
4. What makes Tag Clouds work for the user, for the creator? Is there a difference? What expectations does it meet for the user, for the creator, if different?
5. Write up a response that is no more than 250 – 400 words. Type up a draft in MS Word. Use WORD COUNT to meet word limit (Highlight the entire text, select WORD COUNT under TOOLS menu). Then cut-n-paste your 250 – 400 word post into a comment on the group blog. The title of the post will be LEARNING ABOUT TAG CLOUDS This is perfect practice for writing succinctly and clearly. You may have to contract or re-word your ideas.