Session 1: Overview of Class
Session 2: The Problem of “Human Nature” (Plus Introductions)
Session 3: Highlands Trilogy, Part 1
Screening: First Contact. Directed by Robin Anderson and Bob Connolly. Color, 58 min. 1982.
Session 4: Cross-cultural Contact
Commentary paper due
Session 5: Highlands Trilogy, Part 2
Screening: Joe Leahy’s Neighbours. Directed by Robin Anderson and Bob Connolly. Color, 90 min. 1989.
Session 6: Human Origins and Social Evolution
Commentary paper due
Session 7: Ethnographic Methods and Participant Observation
Commentary paper due
Session 8: Highlands Trilogy, Part 3
Screening: Black Harvest. Directed by Robin Anderson and Bob Connolly. Color, 90 min. 1992.
Session 9: Politics and Ritual
Commentary paper due
Session 10: Feels Good Man
Screening: Feels Good Man. Directed by Arthur Jones. Color, 92 min. 2020.
Session 11: Ritual and Expressive Culture
Commentary paper due
Session 12: Presentations (1)
Session 13: Presentations (2)
Research paper 1 due: Ritual Ethnography (4 pages)
Session 14: Can Rituals Be Designed?
Session 15: Ritual Workshop I: The “Ritual Design Toolkit”
Commentary paper due
Session 16: Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology Field Trip
Session 17: Representing and Displaying Culture
Commentary paper due
Session 18: Bored in Heaven
Screening: Bored in Heaven. Directed by Kenneth Dean and Cora Dean. Color, 80 min. 2011.
Session 19: Ritual Workshop II
Commentary paper due
Session 20: Guest: James Shen, Principal, People’s Architecture Office
Session 21: City as Theater
Commentary paper due
Session 22: Nomadland
Screening: Nomadland. Directed by Chloé Zhao. Color, 107 min. 2020.
Session 23: Uncertainty, Precarity, Futurity
Commentary paper due
Session 24: Ritual Workshop III: Final Plans and Prototypes
Session 25: Ritual Performance
Session 26: Ritual Workshop IV: Ritual Performance
Ritual portfolio due (4 pages)
