STS.360 | Spring 2003 | Graduate

Ethnography

Assignments

(May be modified by the number of students in the class.)

In each session there will be an article or chapter for discussion during the second half of the class.

For those students who are already in the fieldwork and writing stage

  1. Conduct a genealogy by session #1.
  2. Submit a paper/chapter draft by session #2. This will be returned with comments and a revision is due by the end of term.
  3. Present your work to the class in one session.
  4. Serve as discussion leader one (or more) session, putting reading in context.
  5. Read, and submit questions before class.

Other Students

  1. Conduct a genealogy by session #1.
  2. Read “Deep Play”, observe a situation, and submit a 5-7 page write up by session #2. This will be returned with comments and a revision is due by the end of term (7-15 pages).
  3. Discuss presenter in one session.
  4. Serve as discussion leader in one session, putting reading in context.
  5. Write up one of your discussions, 5-7 pages.

Warm-up Exercises (During Sessions #1 and #2)

  1. Do a genealogy

    • death/cause/age
    • education/occuptation(s)
    • place of birth/upbringing/current location
  2. Read Geert’z “Deep Play”- do a similar analysis of any of the following

    • a sports event;

    • a classroom;

    • a lab;

    • a political event (look at Geertz’s book Negara);

    • a conference

      consider: social structure (alliances, factions, interest groups), psychic overinvestments (obsessions, fantasies, desires, utopias/dystopias), passion (competitions, politesse, testing boundaries between animal passion and social masques), moral idioms (mythologies, cosmologies, symbolism)

  3. Read a recent science play, e.g. Roald Hoffmann and Carl Djerassi’s Oxygen, or David Auburn’s Proof — think about conflicts of points of view (not just assignments of credit).

  4. Read Dumit’s “A Pharmaceutical Grammar” and do a similar analysis of another body of scientific, technical, or medical advertising.

Course Info

As Taught In
Spring 2003
Level
Learning Resource Types
Written Assignments
Activity Assignments