Ten short reading response essays (one page max!) constitute 30% of your grade. This assignment requires you to summarize the main argument of one or more of the readings assigned for that module. Critical engagement of the texts’ arguments—by putting them into conversation with other assigned readings or by raising questions about how the argument’s logic does or does not work—are a welcome addition to the summary, but not a requirement. Response essays are due during the session that the readings are discussed.
Note: All examples appear courtesy of MIT students and are anonymous by request.
| SES # | TOPICS | READINGS | STUDENT EXAMPLES |
|---|---|---|---|
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Section I: Everyday politics |
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2–3 |
Module 1: Power in language |
Irvine, Judith T. “Strategies of Status Manipulation in the Wolof Greeting.” Chapter 8 in Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking. 2nd ed. Edited by Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer. Cambridge University Press, 1989. ISBN: 9780521379335. |
“Strategies of Status Manipulation in the Wolof Greeting” essay #1 (PDF) “Strategies of Status Manipulation in the Wolof Greeting” essay #2 (PDF) “Strategies of Status Manipulation in the Wolof Greeting” essay #3 (PDF) |
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4–5 |
Module 2: Language, authority, labor |
Malinowski, Bronislaw. “The Natives of the Trobriand Islands.” Chapter 2 in Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea. Waveland Press Inc., 1984. ISBN: 9780881330847. [Preview with Google Books] ———. “The Essentials of the Kula.” Chapter 3 in Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea. Waveland Press Inc., 1984. ISBN: 9780881330847. [Preview with Google Books] |
Argonauts of the Western Pacific essay #1 (PDF) |
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Section II: American democratic politics |
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6–7 |
Module 1: The practice of politics |
Bonilla, Yarimar, and Rosa Jonathan. “#Ferguson: Digital Protest, Hashtag Ethnography, and the Racial Politics of Social Media in the United States.” American Ethnologist 42, no. 1 (2015): 4–17. |
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8–9 |
Module 2: Political rhetorics |
Silverstein, Michael. “The ‘Message’ in the (Political) Battle.” Language & Communication 31, no. 3 (2011): 203–16. |
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Section III: Publics, counter-publics and states imagined |
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10–11 |
Module 1: Publics |
Wedeen, Lisa. “The Politics of Deliberation: Qāt Chews as Public Spheres in Yemen.” Public Culture 19, no. 1 (2007): 59–84. Boyer, Dominic, and Alexei Yurchak. “AMERICAN STIOB: Or, What Late-Socialist Aesthetics of Parody Reveal about Contemporary Political Culture in the West.” Cultural Anthropology 25, no. 2 (2010): 179–221. |
“The Politics of Deliberation: Qāt Chews as Public Spheres in Yemen” essay (PDF) |
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12–13 |
Module 2: Imagined states |
Geertz, Clifford. “Centers, Kings, and Charisma: Refections on the Symbolics of Power.” Chapter 6 in Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. 3rd ed. Basic Books, 1985. ISBN: 9780465041626. |
“Centers, Kings, and Charisma: Refections on the Symbolics of Power” essay (PDF) |
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14–15 |
Module 3: Ethnographies of states and publics imagined |
Gupta, Akhil. “Blurred Boundaries: The Discourse of Corruption, the Culture of Politics, and the Imagined State.” American Ethnologist 22, no. 2 (1995): 375–402. Lepselter, Susan. “From the Earth Native’s Point of View: The Earth, the Extraterrestrial and the Natural Ground of Home.” Public Culture 9, no. 2 (1997): 197–208. |
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Section IV: Non-government and the a-political |
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16–17 |
Module 1: Society against the state |
Clastres, Pierre. Society Against the State: Essays in Political Anthropology. Translated by Robert Hurley in association with Abe Stein. Zone Books, 1989. ISBN: 9780942299014. Moyn, Samuel. “Of Savagery And Civil Society: Pierre Clastres And The Transformation Of French Political Thought.” Modern Intellectual History 1, no. 1 (2004): 55–80. |
Society Against the State: Essays in Political Anthropology essay #1 (PDF) Society Against the State: Essays in Political Anthropology essay #2 (PDF) |
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18–20 |
Module 2: A-political governance |
Kockelman, Paul. “NGOs, Ecotourists, and Endangered Avifauna: Immaterial Labor, Incommensurate Values, and Intersubjective Intentions,” and “From Measurement to Meaning: Standardizing and Certifying Homes and Their Inhabitance.” Chapters 1 and 4 in The Chicken and the Quetzal: Incommensurate Ontologies and Portable Values in Guatemala’s Cloud Forest. Duke University Press Books, 2016. ISBN: 9780822360728. [Preview with Google Books] Stierl, Maurice. “A Fleet of Mediterranean Border Humanitarians.” Antipode 50, no. 3 (2018): 704–24. |
The Chicken and the Quetzal: Chapter 1 essay (PDF) |
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21–22 |
Module 3: A-political bureaucracy |
Berda,Yael. “Prologue.” and “Dangerous Populations.” In Living Emergency: Israel’s Permit Regime in the Occupied West Bank. Stanford University Press, 2017. ISBN: 9781503602823. [Preview with Google Books] Recommended: Berda,Yael. “Perpetual Emergency.” In Living Emergency: Israel’s Permit Regime in the Occupied West Bank. Stanford University Press, 2017. ISBN: 9781503602823. [Preview with Google Books] |
Living Emergency: Israel’s Permit Regime in the Occupied West Bank essay (PDF) |
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Section V: Governing political affect |
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23–26 |
Governing political affect |
Bramen, Carrie Tirado. “Niceness in a Neoliberal Age.” Public Culture 30, no. 2 (2018): 329–50. |
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