Course Convenor; Dr. Peter Parkes, Eliot Extension L38, e-mail; pscp@ukc.ac.uk, tel.; extn. 7256
Other Teachers; Glenn Bowman, Eliot Extension L16, e-mail; glb@ukc.ac.uk, tel.; extn. 3180
Stephen Lyon CSAC Research Room, Eliot Extension L24A, e-mail: sml2@ukc.ac.uk
Lectures; Keynes Large Seminar Room 4, Fridays 3.00-4.00
pm
Seminars; Keynes Large Seminar Room 4, Fridays 4.00-5.00 pm
Location of Electronic Editing/Multimedia; Eliot Extension L49 (Computing)
Location of Darkroom Facilities; Rutherford CIS 2
Numbers registered for Course: 20
Assessment: Students are assessed by coursework (an essay of up to 2,000 words)
due in Michaelmas, by a project diary (comprising reading, fieldwork and conceptual
planning of their visual projects) due in Lent, by a two-hour (2 question) examination,
and by a visual project with supporting dissertation. Essays and coursework carry
20% of the total mark, the examination 40%, and the visual project 40%.
Essay Requirements: The essays should be of 1500 words each and not more than
2,000 words. Essay questions and seminar topics are listed before readings each week.
Essay Deadlines: Essays must be handed in to the Departmental Office, L46
Eliot Extension and a receipt obtained as follows:
Essay 1: Friday 6 December 2001, 12.00 noon
Project Diary: Friday 22 March 2002, 12.00 noon
Note: If any essay is late it will not be marked unless medical or other evidence
is provided.
Visual Project: Students may make either a 10 minute video film, a multimedia
project, or present a photographic essay. Due to constraints on equipment and editing
facilities, video projects should be jointly undertaken by teams of 3 students. Photographic
projects are normally carried out individually. Each student must additionally provide
a supporting 2,500 word dissertation to accompany the project, relating this to conceptual
issues treated in the course.
Video Timetable: Video shooting must be completed by Friday 15 February 2002.
Video editing must be completed by Friday 29 March. The accompanying dissertation
must be handed in to L46 Eliot Extension by Friday 26 April. It is essential that
students follow the timetable agreed upon for shooting and editing their film. Video
cameras should be booked out from the Anthropology Department Office (L47) in the
first half of the Lent Term (with an expected three days shooting per team). A Practical
Video Timetable with a short bibliography will be circulated separately
Photographic Timetable: Students intent on printing their own photographs
(darkroom training is part of the photographic work) must be finished with all darkroom
work by the 29th of March. Those wishing to take part will mount an exhibition of
their photographs in the Rutherford Panopticon beginning in the first week of Trinity
Term.
Project Time Allocation: Students should note that the visual project, together
with its supporting dissertation, has a weighting of 40% of the overall assessment
of the course. It should therefore not be allowed to consume your overall study time
beyond the equivalent of a single unit of a course. You are allowed three days for
shooting (with loaned equipment) and three days for editing your film. But you will
need to set aside additional days for research and planning in the Michaelmas term,
and you must also expect to spend several days viewing, logging and transcribing
your material before you can begin editing. Photographic students will be less constrained
by equipment, but must be sure to have completed all work on the photographs to be
used in their projects by the close of term. They too must plan research, preparation,
shooting, developing and printing carefully; rushed work will lose points.
Students should be aware that they will be introduced to basic techniques of video
production and editing. The small practical component of the course cannot attempt
to provide qualified instruction in professional video-making or cinematic technique;
and we are narrowly constrained by the limited equipment and technical support available.
The visual project is rather intended to give practical experience of general techniques
of visual communication that should critically inform your understanding of more
theoretical topics dealt with in the course. Our objective is to learn about issues
of visual representation in anthropology rather than to become proficient film-makers!
Ethnographic Film Screenings: Ethnographic Films are shown on Mondays,
6.00-8.00 pm in Keynes New Lecture Theatre.
Video Film Library: See suggested video viewings for weekly seminars from
the Anthropology Department Video Collection. Note that students of this course are
encouraged to book out videos for viewing in the DICE Lecture Room of the Department.
ERA Interactive Multimedia Projects: http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk./ERA/pub_cat.html,
http://sapir.ukc.ac.uk/
Course Aims and Objectives:
Student Response to the Module in 2000-2001:
Students found this course stimulating and engaging; but some felt that they
were expected to cover too wide a range of topics in the Michaelmas Term. While taking
this on board, I should emphasize that the course is intended to provide a
general introductory survey to both visual ethnography and the anthropology
of media: allowing students to choose particular topics for more detailed reading
in their single essay (and in preparation for the 2-question exam): you are
not expected to cover all topics intensively, but should at least read
the double-asterisked items (usually short articles) for seminar participation. Instruction
for the practical projects in Lent was also widely appreciated, and this year we
intend to provide further written outline support for both video editing and darkroom
work. Revision classes on theoretical issues of visual anthropology may also be scheduled
into the Lent programme.
Basic Texts and Overviews (*Asterisked titles recommended for purchase):
*Barbash, I & L. Taylor Cross-Cultural Filmmaking: a handbook for making
documentary and ethnographic films. University of California Press 1998
Banks, M. & H Morphy (eds) Rethinking Visual Anthropology, Yale UP 1997
Brittain, David (ed.). Creative Camera: 30 Years of Writing. Manchester U
Press1999
Chaplin, E. Sociology and Visual Representation, London: Routledge 1994
*Collier, John & Malcolm Collier. Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research
Method. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 1986
Crawford, P and JK Simonsen (eds.) Ethnographic Film Aesthetics and Narrative
Traditions: proceedings from NAFA 2. Intervention Press 1992
*Crawford, P & D Turton (eds) Film as Ethnography, Manchester UP, 1992
Devereaux, L & R Hillman (eds) Fields of Vision: essays in film studies, visual
anthropology, and photography Berkeley: U California Press, 1995
Evans, Jessica & Stuart Hall (eds). Visual Culture: the Reader. (Open
University). London: Sage, 1999
Grimshaw, A The Ethnographerís Eye: Ways of Seeing in Modern Anthropology,
Cambridge UP 2001
Heider, K Ethnographic Film University of Texas P, 1976
Hockings, P (ed) Principles of Visual Anthropology , Mouton 1975 (2nd ed.
1995)
*Loizos, P Innovation in Ethnographic Film, Manchester UP 1993
MacDougall, D 'Ethnographic film: failure and promise' Annual Review of Anthropology
7 1978: 405-25 (SLC: W4871)
*MacDougall, D Transcultural Cinema. Princeton University Press 1998 - collected
essays of one of the most influential contemporary anthropological film-makers
Mirzoeff, Nicholas (ed.)The Visual Culture Reader. London: Routledge 1998
Nichols, B Representing Realtity: issues and concepts in documentary, Indian
UP, 1991 - esp. Chs 2 & 7
Rollwagen, J (ed) Anthropological Film-making, Harwood Press, 1988
Rollwagen, J (ed) Anthropological Film and Video in the 1990s. Brockport,
NY: The Institute, Inc, 1993
Spitulnik, D 'Anthropology and Mass Media' Annual Review of Anthropology 22
1993: 293-315
*Taylor, L Visualizing Theory: selected essays from Visual Anthropology Review
1990-94. Routledge 1994.
Journals: Visual Anthropology 1988- (London: Harwood) Per HK 1.V5
Visual Anthropology Review 1998- (for earlier articles, see many collected
in Taylor 1994, above).
COURSE OUTLINE
Abbreviations: ** Required reading for seminar discussion, * Recommended
reading
SLC: Short Loan Collection, Templeman Library; AO: Anthropology Dept. Collection
N.B. The reading list is extensive, so that students may easily chase up references
in the lectures and have a broad choice of material for preparing essays. Otherwise,
weekly reading should minimally focus on the double asterisked essay or chapter and
preferably one or more of the single asterisked items.
Week 1 (28 September): Introduction to Visual Anthropology: Course overview.
The scope and potential of visual anthropology.
Questions: What is visual anthropology (and what should it be)?
In what sense can one speak of a common 'language' of film? 'Anthropology addresses
the parts of culture the camera cannot reach' Discuss. In what respects are we living
in an era of 'post-literacy'? To what extent is film or photography a culturally
'transparent' medium of representation?
See: R. Flaherty's Nanook of the North (Anthropology Video Library: No. 40)
Visual Anthropology - Pros and Cons
Banks, M. & H. Morphy (eds) Rethinking Visual Anthropology, Yale
UP 1997 Introduction, pp. 1-35
*Ginsburg, F 'Culture/Media: a (mild) polemic' Anthropology Today 10, 2 1994:
5-15
Ginsburg, F ëInstitutionalizing the unruly: charting a future for visual anthropologyí.
Ethnos 63, 2: 173-201
MacDougall, D 'The Visual in Anthropology' in M. Banks & H. Morphy (eds) Rethinking
Visual Anthropology, Yale UP 1997: 276-95
**Mead, M 'Visual anthropology in a discipline of words' In P Hockings (ed) Principles
of visual anthropology, Mouton, 1975: 3-12 - the manifesto for visual anth!
Morphy, H. 'The interpretation of ritual: reflections from film on anthropological
practice' Man (NS) 29, 1: 117-46 ñ a rare consideration of the research value
of film
*Spitulnik, D 'Anthropology and Mass Media' Annual Review of Anthropology
22 1993: 293-315 (SLC) - overview of media ethnography
Weinberger, E 'The Camera People' in L Taylor Visualizing Theory: selected essays
from Visual Anthropology Review 1990-94. Routledge 1994: 3-26
Week 2 (5 October): Seeing Texts, Reading Images: Seeing and Showing. Conventions
of signification. Textual critiques and their visual counterparts. Issues of interpreting
images. The role of the image in anthropological presentation.
Questions: How might ethnographic film redress 'crises of representation'
in written ethnography? What properly distinguishes ethnographic photography from
that of highbrow travelogue? ëA picture demands a thousand wordsí Discuss. In what
respects are images ëtrans-culturalí and what challenges does this pose for conventional
anthropological knowledge (see MacDougall 1998)?
See: (in Templeman Library) John Berger's Ways of Seeing.
Image and Text
Foucault, M. 'The order of discourse' In M. Shapiro (ed.) Language and
Politics. New York U. Press, 1984, pp. 108-38.
**Hastrup, K 'Anthropological visions: some notes on visual and textual authority'
In P Crawford & D Turton (eds) Film as Ethnography, Manchester UP, 1992,
pp 8-25 - visual sceptic contra Mead (1975)
Hochberg, J. 'The representation of things and people' in E. Gombrich, J. Hochberg
& M. Black Art, Perception and Reality. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U. Press,
1972, pp. 47-94.
*MacDougall, D ëTranscultural Cinemaí in his Transcultural Cinema. Princeton
University Press 1998, pp. 245-78
*Mead, M 'Visual anthropology in a discipline of words' In P Hockings (ed) Principles
of visual anthropology, Mouton, 1975: 3-12
Mitchell, W.J.T. 'What is an image?' In Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology.
London: U. of Chicago Press, 1986, pp. 7-46.
Saussure, F. de. Course in General Linguistics. transl. Roy Harris. London:
Duckworth, pp. 65-78 and 110-125.
*Wade, P. (ed.) 'In anthropology, the image can never have the last say: Bill Watson
& Michael Carrithers vs. Pavel Büchler & Jakob Hogel.' GDAT Debate No.
9. 1997
Wright, T 'Photography: theories of realism and convention' In Edwardes, E (ed) Anthropology
and Photography: 1860-1920, Yale UP, 1992, pp 18-31
Wright, T ëThe photographic imageí in his The Photography Handbook, Routledge
1999, pp.
Week 3 (12 October): Documentary & Ethnographic Film: Documentary film
genres - neo-realist cinema ñ a brief history of ethnographic and anthropological
films
Questions: What makes a film ëethnographicí? Assess the thematic affinities
of anthropology and observational cinema. Contrast with examples the representational
possibilities and constraints of at least two distinct genres of ethnographic film.
Critically assess Nichols's judgement of ethnographic film as 'pornographic'?
See in Anthropology Video Libray: The Kalasha: rites of spring (Sheppard &
Parkes). No. 44 - classic Dissapearing World.
Grimshaw, A The Ethnographerís Eye: Ways of Seeing in Modern Anthropology,
Cambridge UP 2001: chs. 3-5
Documentary
*Barnouw, E Documentary: a history of the non-fiction film, Oxford
UP, 1983 - pp. 31-71 on Flaherty and Vertov
Barsam, R Non-Fiction Film: a critical history, New York: Dutton 1973
de Heusch, L 'The cinema and social science: a survey of ethnographic and sociological
films' Visual Anthropology 1 1988: 99-156
Macdonald, K & M Cousins Imagining Reality: the Faber Book of Docunentary
, London: Faber & Faber, 1996 - see esp. excerpts by Flaherty (pp. 36-42), Vertov
(pp. 50-55), Grierson et al. (pp. 93-125), and Rouch (pp. 264-70)
Nichols, B 'Documentary modes of representation' Ch 2 of Representing Realtity:
issues and concepts in documentary, Indian UP, 1991: 32-75
*Rabinger, M Directing the Documentary Focal Press - Ch 2 'A Brief and Functional
History of the Documentary', pp. 12-32, 1992
Rotha, P Robert J. Flaherty: a biography ed. Jay Ruby, Philadelphia, Univ.
of Pennsylvania P., 1983
Silverstone, R Framing Science: the making of a BBC documentary, London: BFI,
1985
Tomas, D 'Manufacturing Vision: Kino-Eye, The Man with a Movie Camera, and the Perceptual
reconstruction of Social Identity' In Taylor, L Visualizing Theory: selected essays
from Visual Anthropology Review 1990-94. Routledge 1994: 271-86 ñ on Vertov
*Winston, B Claiming the real: the documentary film revisited London: BFI,
1995 - esp. chs. 29-31 on ethnographic film
Young, C 'Observational Cinema' in P Hockings (ed) Principles of Visual Anthropology,
Mouton, 1975, pp 65-79
Ethnographic Film
*Banks, M 'Which Films are the Ethnographic Films' In Crawford, P & D
Turton (eds) Film as Ethnography, Manchester UP, 1992: 116-29
de Brigard, E 'The history of ethnographic film' In P Hockings (ed) Principles
of Visual Anthropology, Mouton, 1975, pp 13-44
*Ginsburg, F 'Television and the mediation of culture: issues in British ethnographic
film' Visual Anthropology Review 8, 1 1992: 97-125 (AO) - Disappearing World
anthropologists (Weiner, Turner, Woodhead, Singer & Seidenberg) spill the beans!
Harvey, P 'Ethnographic films and the politics of difference' Visual Anthropology
Review 9, 1 1993: 164-75 (SLC)
*Heider, K Ethnographic Film University of Texas P, 1976
*Henley 'British Ethnographic Film' Anthropology Today, 1,1 1985: 5-17
Ruby, J Cinema of John Marshall, Harwood Academic, 1992 - San 'Bushman'
Krebs, S 'The film elicitation technique' In P Hockings (ed) Principles of Visual
Anthropology, Mouton, 1975, pp 283-301
*Loizos, P Innovation in Ethnographic Film: from innocence to self-consciousness
1955-85, Manchester UP, 1993 ñ highly recommended introduction
**MacDougall, D 'Ethnographic film: failure and promise' Annual Review of Anthropology
7 1978: 405-25 (SLC: W4871)
*Michaels, E 'How to look at us looking at the Yanamamo looking at us' In J Ruby
A Crack in the mirror: reflexive perspectives in anthropology, U Pennsylvania
P, 1982
*Nichols, B et al 'Pornography, ethnography and the discourses of power' Ch 7 of
Representing Realtity, Indian UP, 1991, pp 201-28
Rollwagen, J Anthropological Filmmaking, London: Harwood Academic, 1988 -
esp Chs by Collier, Faris and Rollwagen
*Ruby, J 'Speaking for, speaking about, speaking with, or speaking alongside: an
anthropological and documentary dilemma' Visual Anthropology Review 7, 2 1991:
50-67 (SLC)
*Weinberger, E 'The Camera People' in L Taylor Visualizing Theory: selected essays
from Visual Anthropology Review 1990-94. Routledge 1994: 3-26
Week 4 (19 October) : Visual Anthropology & Photography: Parallel histories
of photography and anthropology. Colonial photography. Social documentation &
scientific photography. Photo-elicitation in research; the photographic essay.
NB. Students should peruse a number of examples of ethnographic photography -
both contemporary and historical as well as popular (newspapers, National Geographic)
and academic - and bring examples to the seminar to spark discussion.
Questions: In what respects has photography been neglected by social science,
and why? Assess the uses of photography in ethnographic research. In what sense may
photography be regarded as an inevitable instrument of social domination?
See: Berger, J & M Mohr Another Way of Telling, Harmondsworth: Penguin
1982
Anthropology and Photography: an imbricated history
** Elizabeth Edwards 1992: Introduction, in: Elizabeth Edwards (ed.): Anthropology
and Photography 1860 - 1920, New Haven and London, pp. 3-17
Elizabeth Edwards 2001 Raw Histories: photogaraphs, anthropology and museums.
Oxford: Berg
* Paul Hockings 1992: The Yellow Bough. River´s use of Photography in `The
Todas´, in: Elizabeth Edwards (ed.): Anthropology and Photography 1860 -
1920, New Haven and London, pp. 179-86
* Pinney, C 'The parallel histories of anthropology and photography' In Edwardes,
E (ed) Anthropology and Photography1860-1920, Yale UP, 1992
Photographic Theory
Barthes, R 'The photographic message' and 'The rhetoric of image' in Image-Music-Text,
London: Fontana, 1977
Barthes, R Camera Lucida, London: Cape, 1980
Bourdieu, P Photography: a middle-brow art, Stanford UP, 1990
Burgin, V (ed) Thinking photography, London: Macmillan, 1982
*Edwards, E 'Beyond the Boundary: a consideration of the expressive in photography
and anthropology' in M Banks & H Morphy (eds) Rethinking Visual Anthropology,
Yale UP 1997: 53-80
Grunberg, P The Crisis of the Real: writings on photography, London, 1989
*Pinney, C 'The lexical spaces of eye-spy' In P Crawford & D Turton (eds) Film
as Ethnography, Manchester UP, 1992, pp 26-49
Sekula, A 'On the invention of photographic meaning' In V Burgin (ed) Thinking
photography, London: Macmillan, 1982, pp 84-109
Sontag, S On Photography, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978
Tagg, J The Burden of Representation, London: Macmillan, 1988
*Wright, T 'Photography: theories of realism and convention' In Edwardes, E (ed)
Anthropology and Photography: 1860-1920, Yale UP, 1992, pp 18-31
Documentary & Analytical Photography
Bateson, G & M Mead Balinese Character: a photographic analysis,
NY Academy of Sciences, 1942 - [cf. also I Jacknis 'Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson
in Bali: their use of photography and film' Cultural Anthropology 3, 2: 160-77;
G Jensen & LK Suryani The Balinese People: a reinvestigation of character,
OUP 1992]
Chiozzi, P 'Photography and anthropological research: three case studies' In R Boonzajer
Flaes (ed) Eyes accross the Water: the Amsterdam conference on visual anthropology
& sociology, Het Spinhuis, 1989
**Collier, J 'Photography & visual anthropology' In P Hockings (ed) Principles
of Visual Anthropology, Mouton, 1975
*Collier, J & M Visual Anthropology: photography as a research method,
U New Mexico P, 1986
**Edwards, E (ed) Anthropology and Photography: 1860-1920, Yale UP,
1992 - esp Introduction
Gold, S 'Ethnic boundaries and ethnic entrepreneurship: a photo-elicitation study'
Visual Sociology 6, 2 1991: 9-22 (SLC)
Grady, J 'The visual essay and sociology' Visual Sociology 6, 2 1991: 23-38
(SLC)
*Harper, D 'The visual ethnographic narrative' Visual Anthropology 1 1987:
1-20
Malmsheimer, Lonna M. 1987: Photographic Analysis as Ethnohistory: Interpretative
Strategies, in: Visual Anthropology, vol. 1, pp. 21-36
Pinney, C 'The parallel histories of anthropology and photography' In Edwardes, E
(ed) Anthropology and Photography: 1860-1920, Yale UP, 1992
Jonathan C. Scherer 1992: The Photographic Document: Photographs as Primary Data
in Anthropological Enquiry, in: Elizabeth Edwards (ed.): Anthropology and Photography
1860 - 1920, New Haven and London, pp. 32-41
Norman, W 'Photography as a research tool' Visual Anthropology 4, 2 1991:
193-216
Suchar, C 'The sociological imagination and documentary still photography' In R Boonzajer
Flaes (ed) Eyes accross the Water: the Amsterdam conference on visual anthropology
& sociology, Het Spinhuis, 1989
Photographic Cultures [see D & J MacDougall's 'Photowallahs'
in Video Library]
Geffroy, Y 'Family photographs: a visual heritage' Visual Anthropology
3, 4 1990: 367-410
MacDougall, D 'Photo hierarchicus: signs and mirrors in Indian photography, Visual
Anthropology 5, 1992
*Pinney, C 'Montage, doubling and the mouth of god' In P Crawford & J Simonsen
(eds) Aesthetics and Narrative Traditions, Intervention Press, 1992
*Pinney, C Camera Indica: the social life of Indian Photographs London: Reaktion
Books 1997
Week 5 (26 October): Anthropological Film II: from observational to participatory
genres (PP) Jean Rouch and the MacDougalls - Recent developments in ethnographic
film.
Questions. Assess the influence and development of Jean Rouch's notion of
'participatory cinema'. In what respects does the film-making of the MacDougalls
both develop and challenge classic ëobservationalí styles of documentary cinema?
General
Grimshaw, A The Ethnographerís Eye: Ways of Seeing in Modern Anthropology,
Cambridge UP 2001
Loizos, P Innovation in Ethnographic Film, Manchester UP 1993 ñ chs, 6 &
8
Loizos, P ëFirst exits from observational realism: narrative experiments in recent
ethnographic filmí in Banks, M. & H. Morphy (eds) Rethinking Visual Anthropology,
Yale UP 1997, pp. 81-104
Jean Rouch
See in Templeman Library: Rouch, J Chronicle of a summer [Chronique
d'un été] a film by Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin video cassette, 87 mins.,
VHS b&w Argos Films/British Film Institute, 1961 [SLC: VO956, VO1141]
*Clifford, J The Predicament of Culture, 1988 - Chs 3-4
Eaton, M (ed) Anthropology / Reality / Cinema: the films of Jean Rouch London:
BFI, 1979
Grimshaw, A ëThe Anthropological Cinema of Jean Rouchí in her The Ethnographerís
Eye, CUP, 2001, pp. 90-120.
Loizos, P 'Challenging Documentation-Realism' Ch 3 of Innovation in Ethnographic
Film: from innocence to self-consciousness 1955-85, Manchester UP, 1993:
45-66
*Rouch, J 'The camera and man' In P Hockings (ed) Principles of visual anthropology,
Mouton, 1975: 83-102
Rouch, J L'autre et le sacré : surréalisme, cinéma, ethnologie
textes recueillis par C.W. Thompson. Paris: L'Harmattan 1995
*Stoller, P The Cinematic Griot: the ethnography of Jean Rouch, Chicago UP
1992
Visual Anthropology 1989 vol. 2, no. 3 ñ special issue on Jean Rouch
David & Judith MacDougall
See in Anthropology Video Library: films of D & J MacDougall (Nos. 41-43).
Grimshaw, A ëThe Anthropological Cinema of David and Judith MacDougall, in her The
Ethnographerís Eye, CUP, 2001, pp. 121-48
*Grimshaw, A & N Papastergiadis (eds) Conversations with Film-Makers: David
MacDougall. Prickly Pear Press (AO)
*MacDougall, D 'Beyond observational cinema' In P Hockings (ed) Principles of
Visual Anthropology, Mouton, 1975, pp 109-24
MacDougall, D 1982 'Unprivileged Camera Style' RAIN 50
MacDougall, D 'Whose Story is It?' In Taylor, L Visualizing Theory: selected essays
from Visual Anthropology Review 1990-94. Routledge 1994: 27-36; also in
Crawford, P and JK Simonsen (eds.) Ethnographic Film Aesthetics and Narrative
Traditions: proceedings from NAFA 2. Intervention Press 1992
MacDougall, D 1998 Transcultural Cinema. Princeton University Press - collected
essays
Week 6 (2 November): Indigenous and Minority Media: Participatory film. The
Navajo Eyes Project. Australian Aboriginal broadcasting. The Kayapo debate &
video nativism. Minority broadcasting.
Questions: Discuss 'indigenous responses' to ethnographic film and video.
Assess the implications of minority politics for indigenous film-making.
**Ginsburg, F 'Culture/Media: a (mild) polemic' Anthropology Today 10 1994:
5-15
Riggins, S (ed) Ethnic Minority Media: an international perspective, London:
Sage 1992
*Spitulnik, D 'Anthropology and Mass Media' Annual Review of Anthropology
22 1993 - 'Emergence of Indigenous Media' pp 303-306 (SLC)
Worth, S & J Adair Through Navajo Eyes: an exploration in film communication
and anthropology, Indian UP, 1972
Aboriginal Broadcasting
Batty, P 'Singing the electric: aboriginal television in Australia' In T
Dowmunt (ed) Channels of Resistance: global television and local empowerment,
London: BFI, 1993: 106-25
*Ginsburg, F 'Indigenous media: Faustian contract or global village' Cultural
Anthropology 6, 1 1991: 92-112 (SLC)
Meadows, M 'Broadcasting in Aboriginal Australia: one mob, one voice, one land' In
S Riggins (ed) Ethnic Minority Media, London: Sage 1992: 82-101
**Michaels, E 'Aboriginal content - who's got it, who needs it?' Visual Anthropology
4, 3-4 1991: 277-300 (SLC)
KayapoVideo
Turner, T. Representing, resisting, rethinking: historical transformations
of Kayapo culture. In G. Stocking (ed.) Colonial Situations, University of
Wisconsin Press, 1991
Faris, J 'Anthropological transparency: film, representation and politics' In P Crawford
& D Turton (eds) Film as Ethnography, Manchester UP, 1992, pp 171-82
**Turner, T 'Defiant images: the Kayapo appropriation of video' Anthropology Today
8, 6 1992: 5-16 (SLC)
Faris, J 'A response to Terence Turner' Anthropology Today 9, 1 1993: 12-13
European Minority Media
Dovey, J 'Old dogs and new tricks: access television in the UK' In T Dowmunt (ed)
Channels of Resistance: global television and local empowerment, London: BFI,
1993: 163-75
Howell, W 'Minority-language broadcasting and the continuation of Celtic culture
in Wales and Ireland' In S Riggins (ed) Ethnic Minority Media, London: Sage
1992: 217-42
Sturmer, C 'MTV's Europe: an imaginary continent? In T Dowmunt (ed) Channels of
Resistance: global television and local empowerment, London: BFI, 1993: 50-66
Week 7 (9 November): Anthropology, Multimedia and the Internet (Steven Lyon)
Questions: Consider with examples the implications of multimedia documentation
for secondary analysis of primary ethnographic material. What is required of an anthropology
of electronic culture?
Hypermedia
See: a) Biella, Chagnon & Seaman's Yanomamo Interactive the ax fight
(Harcourt Brace: Multimedia Series, CD-ROM copies in L46), b) Brenda Farnell's Waiuta
Project (installed on computers in L49). You are encouraged to diagram their
interlinkages.
See Anthropological Multimedia: http://www.rsl.ox.ac.uk/isca/marcus.banks.02.html
*Banks, M 'Interactive Multimedia and anthropology: a sceptical view' Internet: http://www.rsl.ox.ac.uk/isca/marcus.banks.01.html
1994
*Biella, P 'Codifications of ethnography: linear and nonlinear' Internet: http://www.usc.edu/dept/elab/welcome/codifications.html
1994
Biella, P 'Beyond ethnographic film: hypermedia and scholarship' & 'The design
of ethnographic hypermedia' . In J. R.Rollwagen (ed) Anthropological Film and
Video in the 1990s. Brockport, NY: The Institute, Inc.
Biella, P 'Interactive media in Anthropology: Seed and Earth, Promise of Rain' American
Anthropologist 1996: 595-616
Farnell, B. & J.Huntley 'Ethnography goes interactive'Anthropology Today
11,5: 7-10
Gershuny, J. 'Postscript: revolutionary technologies and technological revolutions'
in R. Silverstone & E. Hirsch Consuming Technologies: media and information
in domestic spaces, London: Routledge 1992
Howard, A 'Hypermedia and the future of ethnography' Cultural Anthropology
3 1988: 304-15
Macfarlane, A 'The Cambridge experimental videodisc project' Anthropology Today
6, 1 1990: 9-12
Macfarlane, A 'The potential of videodisc in visual anthropology: some examples'
In P Crawford & D Turton (eds) Film as Ethnography, Manchester UP, 1992,
pp 312-16
Seaman, G & H Williams 'Hypermedia in ethnography' In P Crawford & D Turton
(eds) Film as Ethnography, Manchester UP, 1992, pp 300-311
Thorn, R 'Interactive multimedia: yet another revolution for anthropology' Anthropology
in Action 1, 2 1994: 20-22
Internet Culture
Jones, SG (ed.) Virtual Culture: identity and communication in cybersociety.
London: Sage 1997
Landow, G Hypertext / Hypertext 2.0 Johns Hopkins Univ. Press 1992/97
Rheingold, H The Virtual Community: homesteading on the electronic frontier,
Reading: Adison-Wesley 1993
Turckle, S. Life on the Screen: identity in the age of the internet. London:
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996.
Week 8 (16 November): Visual Anthropology and the Anthropology of Art
Questions: What contribution can anthropology make to the study of art - particularly
of art in modern non-traditional societies? Provide an anthropological analysis of
the modern westís fascination with art. Discuss arguments for the universal or culturally
particular bases of aesthetics.
Bourdieu, Pierre, Alain Darbel & Dominique (with) Schnapper. 1991 (1969). The
love of art: European art museums and their public. (trans.) Beattie, Caroline
and Merriman, Nick. Cambridge: Polity Press.
* Clifford, James. 1988. The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth Century Ethnography,
Literature and Art. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
**Coote, J & A Shelton Anthropology, Art and Aesthetics, Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1992 ñ Introduction
* Coote, Jeremy. 1992. "'Marvels of everyday vision': the anthropology of aesthetics
and the cattle-keeping Nilotes" In Anthropology, art and aesthetics.
(eds) Jeremy Coote & Anthony Shelton. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 245-73.
** Gell, Alfred. 1992. "The Technology of Enchantment and the Enchantment of
Technology". In Anthropology, Art and Aesthetics (Oxford Studies in the
Anthropology of Cultural Forms). (eds) Jeremy Coote & Anthony Shelton. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, pp. 40-63.
Gell, A. 1998 Art and Agency: an anthropological theory. Oxford: Clarendon
Press.
Layton, Robert. 1991. The Anthropology of Art. Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press.
*MacClancy, J (ed) Anthropology, Art and Contest in his Contesting Art: Art, Politics
and Identity in the Modern World Oxford: Berg 1997, pp. 1-26 (AO)
Morphy, Howard. Ancestral connections: art and an Aboriginal system of knowledge.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991
Morphy, H 'The Anthropology of Art' in T Ingold (ed) Companion Encyclopaedia of
Anthropology, Humanity, Culture and Social Life , London: Routledge, pp. 648-85
Thomas, N 'Collecting and nationality in the anthropology of art' in M Banks &
H Morphy (eds) Rethinking Visual Anthropology, Yale UP 1997: 256-75
Week 9 (23 November): National, Regional and 'Third World' Cinemas: Hollywood
& national film industries - nationalism & politics of culture - Latin American
cinema novo & media vangardism - Middle Eastern & Indian cinema
Questions: Assess the role of cinema in the formation of nationalism in any
one region. 'Viewers of popular cinema are active participants in the construction
of a spectacular image that both represents them and allows them to escape who they
are' (S. Dickey). Discuss.
Anderson, B Imagined Communities: reflections on the origins and spread of nationalism,
London: Verso, 1983
**Armes, R Third World Film-Making and the West, U California P, 1987 - useful
overview & summaries of national cinemas
Diawara, M 'Popular culture and oral traditions in African film' Film Quarterly
41 1988: 6-14
Powdermaker, H Hollywood, the Dream Factory, Boston: Littlebrown, 1950
Sen, K 'An Indonesian film called Primitif' Anthropology Today, 10, 4 1994:
20-23
*Weakland, J 'Feature films as cultural documents' In P Hockings (ed) Principles
of visual anthropology, Mouton, 1975, pp 231-51
Latin America
*King, J Magical Reels: a history of cinema in Latin America, London:
Verso, 1990 - Ch 3 on F Solanos & O Getino (Argentina), Ch 5 on Glauba Rocha
(Brazil)
Pines, J & P Willemen (eds) Questions of Third Cinema, London: BFI, 1989
Rocha, G 'History of Cinema Novo' Framework 11-12 1980: 8-10, 18-27 (SLC)
South Asia
Chakravarty, S. National Identitiy in Indian Popular Cinema 1947-87
Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993
Fischer, M 'Toward a third world politics: seeing through fiction and film in the
Iranian cultural area' Knowledge & Society 5 1984: 171-241
*Dickey, S Cinema and the Urban Poor in South India, Cambridge UP, 1993
Gupta, das Chidananda The Painted Face: studies in Indiaís popular cinema.
Delhi: Roli Books
Hartman, P et al The Mass media and village life: an Indian study, London:
Sage, 1989
Pandian, MSS The Image Trap: MG Ramachandran in Film and Politics. New Delhi:
Sage
*Thomas, R 'Indian cinema: pleasure and popularity' Screen 26, 3-4 1985: 116-32
(SLC)
Week 10 (30 November): Television Culture: soaps & serials (PP): Ethnography
of television - soaps and narrative seduction - folktale and social romance - Dallas
cross-culturally - TV Globo - popular serials & mass instruction (Egypt, India
& China) - Indian tele-epics
Questions: How has the comparative ethnography of TV culture contributed to
our understanding of changing patterns of family interaction? What can anthropologists
learn from popular television drama?
TV Ethnography
Gillespie, M Television, Ethnicity and Cultural Change, Routledge
1995
**Kottak, C Prime Time Society: anthropological analysis of television and culture,
1990 - Brazilian TV
Lull, J World Families Watch Television, London: Sage, 1988 - esp Chs 5 &
6 on urban & rural India (Yadara-Redi, Behl)
*Lull, J Inside Family Viewing: ethnographic research on television's audiences,
London: Routledge, 1990 - esp Ch 1 (overview) & Ch 6 on China's 'New Star'
Lull, J China Turned On: television reform and resistance, London: Routledge,
1991
Morley, D Television Audiences and Cultural Studies, London: Routledge, 1992
Silverstone, R 'Television, myth and culture' In Media, Myths and Narratives:
TV and the Press, London: Sage 1988
*Silverstone, R & E Hirsch Consuming Technologies: media and information in
domestic spaces. London: Routledge 1992
Soaps
Abu-Lughod, L 'Finding a place for Islam: Egyptian television serials and
the national interest' Public Culture 5, 3 1993: 493-513
*Abu-Lughod, L 'The objects of soap opera: Egyptian soap opera and the cultural politics
of modernity' In D Miller (ed) Worlds Apart: modernity through the prisms of the
local 1995: 190-210
*Ang, I 'Dallas and the ideology of mass culture' In S DuringThe Cultural Studies
Reader, London: Routledge, 1993, pp 403-20 (from Ch 3 of Watching Dallas)
Ang, I Watching Dallas: soap opera and the melodramatic imagination, NY: Methuen
1985
Ambrust, W. Mass Culture and Modernism in Egypt. Cambridge University
Press, 1996, Ch. 7.
Das, V 'Soap opera and tele-documentary: culture and the domestic sphere in contemporary
India' In D Miller (ed) Worlds Apart: modernity through the prisms of the local
1995
**Kottak, C Ch 4 on 'Telenovellas' In Prime Time Society: anthropological analysis
of television and culture, 1990
Mader, R 'Globo village: television in Brazil' In T Dowmunt (ed) Channels of Resistance:
global television and local empowerment, London: BFI, 1993: 67-89
*Miller, D 'The Young and the Restless in Trinidad: a case of the local and the global
in mass consumption' In R Silverstone & E Hirsch (eds) Consuming Technologies:
media and information in domestic spaces. London: Routledge 1992: 163-82.
Week 11 (7 December): Visual Technology, Postmodernity and Identity: Postmodernity.
Cultural studies. Regional & global perspectives
Questions: Is anthropological postmodernism an adequate response to the 'condition
of postmodernity'? Consider how post-modernity can be distinguished from modernity?
In what ways have changes in the technology of image production and the attitudes
of image consumption undermined the authority of the image in discoures such as anthropology?
Appadurai, A 'Global ethnoscapes: notes for a transnational anthropology' In R Fox
(ed) Recapturing Anthropology, Santa Fe: SAR Press, 1991, pp 191-210
Baudrillard, J Selected Writings, Cambridge: Polity, ed M Poster, 1988 - Chs
7 & 9
Baudrillard, J 'The order of simulacra' In Symbolic Exchange and Death. London:
Sage, pp. 50-86.
Fischer, M & M Abedi Debating Muslims: cultural dialogues in postmodernity
and tradition, U Wisconsin P, 1990 - Ch 7, pp 383-442, on Satanic Verses
Friedman, J 'Beyond otherness: the spectacularization of anthropology' Telos
71 1986: 161-70
Friedman, J 'Narcissism, roots and postmodernity: the constitution of selfhood in
the global crisis. In S. Lash & J. Friedman (ed.) Modernity and Identity.
Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 331-366.
Habermas, J 'Modernity: an incomplete project' In H Foster The Anti-aesthetic:
essays on postmodern culture, Washington, 1983
Hannerz, U 'Notes on the global ecumene' Public Culture 1, 2 1989: 66-75
*Harvey, D The Condition of Postmodernity, Oxford: Blackwell, 1989
Jameson, F 'Postmodernism or the cultural logic of late capitalism' In Postmodernism:
or, the cultural logic of late capitalism, London: Verso, 1991, pp 1-54; also
in New Left Review 146 1984: 53-92
Lyotard, J-F The Postmodern condition: a report on knowledge, Manchester UP,
1984
Marcus, G (ed) Rereading Cultural Anthropology, Duke UP, 1992 - symptomatic
articles by S Tyler, M Taussig, G Marcus
Miller, D Worlds Apart: modernity through the prism of the local. Routledge
1995 - Introduction & Ch 7 by K Ekholm-Friedman & J Friedman
*Turckle, S. 'Aspects of the self' and 'Identity crisis' from Life on the Screen:
identity in the age of the internet. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996,
pp. 177-209, 255-269.
Week 12 (December 14) Practical Class ñ Planning and research for visual projects.
Discussion of Outline Scripts for Video Projects
Additional Reading
Introducing Film Theory
Andrew, D The Major Film Theories, Oxford UP, 1976 - Bazin, Metz et
al.
*Andrew, D Concepts of Film Theory , Oxford UP, 1984 - a serious introduction
to film theory, with an extensive bibliography for further reading on pp. 212-29;
see esp Chs 2-4 on perception, representation and signification
Berger, J Ways of Seeing, BBC / Penguin, 1977 - DIY ideology-analysis of the
image
Bordwell, D 'Film Studies and Grand Theory' In D. Bordwell & N. Carroll Post-Theory:
Reconstructing Film Studies , Wisconsin UP 1996: 1-36 - cognitivist revisions
Cook, P (ed) The Cinema Book , BFI 1985 - some useful encyclopaedic cribs,
esp. pp 222-42 on major theories
Mulvey, L 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' Screen 16, 3 1975: 6-18;
see also herVisual and Other Pleasures, Indian UP, 1989 - feminist visual
semiotics
*Nichols, B Movies and Methods, 2 volumes. 1976 & 1985 - many key articles
on film theory
**Turner, G Film as Social Practice, London: Routledge, 1988 - easily readable
introduction to film theory & analysis, with well applied examples on popular
cinema
Weakland, J 'Feature films as cultural documents' In P Hockings (ed) Principles
of Visual Anthropology, Mouton, 1975, pp 231-51
Semiotic and Structuralist approaches
Barthes, R 'Myth Today' In Mythologies , London: Cape 1972, repr.
in S Sontag (ed) Barthes: selected writings, Fontana 1982, pp. 93-149 - semiotics
of popular ideology - cf. also his Image-Music-Text, Fontana 1977.
Eco, U The Role of the Reader: explorations in the semiotics of texts, London:
Hutchinson, 1981 - esp. 'Introduction', pp 3-43.
Hall, S 'Encoding and Decoding in Television Discourse' (CCCS Paper 7) In During,
S The Cultural Studies Reader, London: Routledge, 1993, pp. 90-103.
Merquior, J From Prague to Paris: a critique of structuralist and post-structuralist
thought , London: Verso, 1986 - vigorous apostacy; chs 1-2 & 5 esp recommended
Sturrock, J (ed) Structuralism and since: from Lévi-Strauss to Derrida,
Oxford UP, 1979 - useful sketches on Barthes (J Sturrock), Foucault (H White), Derrida
(J Culler)
Popularization, exoticism, surrealism, ethnic chic
*Clifford, J 'On ethnographic surrealism' Comparative Studies in Society
and History 23, 4 1981: 539-64; also repr. as Ch 4 of hisThe Predicament of
Culture, 1988. See also Martin Jay 'The Disenchantment of the Eye: Surrealism
and the Crisis of Ocularcentrism' in Taylor, L Visualizing Theory: selected essays
from Visual Anthropology Review 1990-94. Routledge 1994: 173-201; J MacClancy
'Brief encounter: the meeting, in Mass Observation, of British surrealism and popular
anthropology' JRAI 1,3: 495-512
*Lutz, C & J Collins Reading National Geographic, U Chicago P, 1993. See
also their 'The Photograph as an Intersection of Gazes' In Taylor, L Visualizing
Theory: selected essays from Visual Anthropology Review 1990-94. Routledge
1994, pp. 363-84
MacClancy, J Popularizing Anthropology Routledge 1996 - Introduction &
Chs by Joy Hendry, Wendy James, Alan Campbell
Rony, Fatimah T The Third Eye: race, cinema, and ethnographic spectacle Durham,
NC, London, Duke University Press 1996
Museums, Exhibitions & Heritage
See: Powell-Cotton Museum Interactive CD-ROM, Pitt Rivers Museum Project
<http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk./IM/>
Hewison, R The Heritage Industry, London, 1987
*Karp, I & S Lavine (eds) Exhibiting Cultures: the poetics and politics of
Museum Display, Smithsonian Inst P, 1990 - esp. Parts 1 & 5
Merriman, N 'Heritage from the other side of the glass case' Anthropology Today
5, 2 1989: 14-15
Stocking, G (ed) Objects and Others, University of Wisconsin Press, 1985
Mass Culture
*Adorno, T 'The schema of mass culture' and 'Culture industry reconsidered'
In The Culture Industry, ed J Bernstein, London: Routledge, 1991, pp 53-92
- see also introduction by J Bernstein
**Benjamin, W 'The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction' In Illuminations,
New York: Schocken, 1969, pp. 211-35 - course leitmotif
Bennet, T 'Theories of the media, theories of society' In M Gurevitch et al Culture,
Society and the Media, London: Routledge, 1982, pp 30-55
During, S The Cultural Studies Reader, London: Routledge, 1993 - CCS potpourri
*Eco, U 'Apocalyptic and integrated intellectuals: mass communications and theories
of mass culture' In Apocalypse postponed, London: BFI, 1994, pp 17-35.
Friedman, J (ed) Consumption and Identity London: Harwood Academic 1994
Hall, S 'The rediscovery of 'ideology': return of the oppressed in media studies'
In M Gurevitch et al Culture, Society and the Media, London: Routledge, 1982,
pp 56-89
Herman, E & N Chomsky Manufacturing Consent: political economy of the mass
media, Pantheon, 1988
Hebdige, D Hiding in the Light, London: Routledge, 1988
*Huyssen, A After the Great Divide: modernism, mass culture, postmodernism,
Bloomington: Indian UP, 1986 - esp Chs 1 & 3
*Lave, J et al 'Coming of age in Birmingham' Annual Review of Anthropology
21 1992: 257-82 - useful survey of Birmingham Cultural Studies
Mattelart, A Carnival of Images, London, 1992
*Miller, D Material Culture and Mass Consumption, Oxford: Blackwells, 1987
*Rosaldo, R 'Whose Cultural Studies?' American Anthroplogist 96 1994: 524-29
**Turner, T 'Anthropology and multiculturalism: what is anthropology that multiculturalism
should be mindful of it?' Cultural Anthropology 8, 4 1993: 411-29
Turner, G British Cultural Studies. Routledge 1992
*Williams, R 'Culture', 'Hegemony', 'Masses' in Keywords: a vocabulary of culture
and society, London: Fontana, 1983