| Anthropology of the Future
(ANTH 5980-001) Department of Anthropology, University of Minnesota Fall 2005 David Valentine Class Location: Blegan 140 Class Times: Tu/Th 2:30-3:45pm Class Dates: 9/6/05-12/13/05 Office: 364 HHH Center Phone: 612.626.8692 Office Hours: Wednesday 2-4 Email: [email protected] Course Description: What is the future? Or, perhaps we should rather ask when is the future? The 21st century has been imagined in popular culture and academic discourses as a time of both dystopic and utopic futures. Many of the things that 20th century commentators have been concerned over or hoped for � cyborgs, radical gender/sexual difference, the spread of liberal democracies, radical individualism, technologically enhanced bodies, the formation of superstates like the EU, space travel, environment disasters � have come to pass. Yet at the same time, we live in a present that seems to be characterized by what we are told belongs to the past � religious fundamentalism, racism, massive world-wide poverty, sectarian wars, and the reassertion of "tradition." The Anthropology of the Future considers a range of futures, the ways that anthropologists and others have thought about the future, and the intellectual currents which have enabled us to think about futures in different ways. The basic contention of the course is that the very practice of imagining futures is a social practice with consequences for the present and future, and as such is a political act. Anthropology, with its roots in a socially-conscious anti-racism, directed at a better world, is a rich location from which to consider how Western intellectuals have thought about the future. While anthropological texts will be central, we will also look at popular media and texts from other disciplines, bringing an anthropological perspective to such diverse objects as cyborgs, fundamentalism, risk assessment, meteorology, Star Trek, and modernist architecture. Our concern is to look at how people have imagined the future, what those futures look like, and what the consequences of such imaginings are. Course Requirements Your grade will be assessed on the basis of the following projects: 1. Two class papers (5-6 page) 2. Final paper (8-10 pages) 3. Bi-weekly WebCT postings. 4. Class participation 5. One prediction There will be no in-class exams for this course Class work is due in class on the days noted in the syllabus below. I do not grant extensions other than for exceptional circumstances. If you believe you are embroiled in such a circumstance, I expect you to request an extension at least a day before the paper is due; DO NOT come to class without completed work unless I have granted you an extension. The teaching assistant and I are always willing to look at drafts of your work up until two days before the due date, which you may email us. We will not, however, accept emailed versions of your papers. Policy on Lateness and Attendance Please pay particular attention to the following: you are, naturally, expected to attend all classes. It is expected that if you have to miss a class for a valid reason (such as illness or family emergency), you will inform me prior to the class, or as soon thereafter as is possible. Since this is a seminar, your attendance and participation in class discussions is a central part of the course. I will take attendance in the first ten minutes of class. If you arrive late for class, you will not have the opportunity to sign the attendance sheet, and this will be noted as an absence. Please note the attendance policy: more than two unexcused absences will result in a reduced grade for this course. Plagiarism and Grading Plagiarism will not be tolerated, will result in a failing grade, and will be reported to the Student Conduct Committee. The university policy on plagiarism is available at: http://writing.umn.edu/tww/plagiarism/definitions_sara.htm The university grading policies can be found at: http://www1.umn.edu/usenate/policies/gradingpolicy.html Assigned Texts: Harvey, David 2000 Spaces of hope. Berkeley: University of California Press. Tuzin, Donald 1997 The Cassowary's revenge: the life and death of masculinity in a New Guinea Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Stewart, Kathleen 1996 A space on the side of the road: cultural poetics in an "other" America. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Ferguson, James 1999 Expectations of modernity: myths and meanings of urban life on the Zambian Copperbelt. Berkeley: University of California Press. Assigned books will be available at the reserve library. Additional course readings listed below will be available via e-reserve. Course Outline 1. Introduction to the course (9/6/05) 2. Futures: Past, Present, and Future III (9/8/05) Readings: Kidd, Benjamin 1895 Preface and introduction to Social Evolution. New York: MacMillan and Co. Marx, Karl and Frederic Engels The manifesto of the communist party Giddens, Anthony 1990 Introduction. In The consequences of modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Rosenberg, Daniel and Susan Harding 2005 Introduction: histories of the future. In Histories of the future. Daniel Rosenberg and Susan Harding (eds.) Pp. 3-18. 3. Futures: Past, Present, and Future II (9/13/05) **Global Futures Game Assignment** Readings: Moore, Henrietta L. 1990 'Visions of the good life': anthropology and the study of utopia. Cambridge Anthropology 14(3):13-33. Goodenough, Ward H. 1999 Communicating 10,000 years into the future. Human Organization 58(3):221-225. Tsing, Anna and Elizabeth Pollman 2005 Global futures: the game. In Histories of the future. Daniel Rosenberg and Susan Harding (eds.) Pp. 107-122. Part 2: Future (Im)Perfect... Urban Utopias and Dystopias 4. Before and After the World Trade Center (9/15/05) Readings: Peterson, Elmer Theodore 1946 Cities are abnormal. In Cities are abnormal, Elmer T. Peterson (ed.) pp. 3-26. Norman: University of Oklahoma press Sorkin, Michael 2002 The center cannot hold. In After the World Trade Center: rethinking New York City. Michael Sorkin and Sharon Zukin (eds). Pp. 197-207. New York : Routledge. 5. Spaces of Hope I (9/20/05) **Global Futures Game � Round 1** Readings: Harvey, David 2000 Spaces of hope. Berkeley: University of California Press. 6. Spaces of Hope II (9/22/05) Readings: Harvey, David 2000 Spaces of hope. Berkeley: University of California Press. 7. Spaces of Hope III (9/27/05) **Global Futures Game � Round 2** Readings: Harvey, David 2000 Spaces of hope. Berkeley: University of California Press. Part 3: Modernity and Primitivity 8. Anthropology and Colonialism (9/29/05) Readings: Hopgood, C. R. 1944 The future of Bantu languages in Northern Rhodesia. Journal of the Rhodes-Livingstone 2: 8-15. Asad, Talal 1973 Introduction. In Anthropology & the colonial encounter. Talal Asad (ed.) pp. 9-19. New York: Humanities Press. Harries, Patrick 1988 The roots of ethnicity: discourse and the politics of language construction in southern Africa. African Affairs 87,346:25-52. 9. Attack of the Mutant Modernists! I (10/4/05) **Global Futures Game � Round 3** Readings: Ferguson, James 1999 Expectations of modernity: myths and meanings of urban life on the Zambian Copperbelt. Berkeley: University of California Press. 10. Attack of the Mutant Modernists! II (10/6/05) Readings: Ferguson, James 1999 Expectations of modernity: myths and meanings of urban life on the Zambian Copperbelt. Berkeley: University of California Press. 11. Attack of the Mutant Modernists! III (10/11/05) **Global Futures Game � Round 4** Readings: Ferguson, James 1999 Expectations of modernity: myths and meanings of urban life on the Zambian Copperbelt. Berkeley: University of California Press. 12. The Cassowary's Revenge I (10/13/05) **Paper 1 Due in Class** Readings: Tuzin, Donald 1997 The Cassowary's revenge: the life and death of masculinity in a New Guinea Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 13. The Cassowary's Revenge II (10/18/05) **Global Futures Game � Discussion** Readings: Tuzin, Donald 1997 The Cassowary's revenge: the life and death of masculinity in a New Guinea Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 14. The Cassowary's Revenge III (10/20/05) Readings: Tuzin, Donald 1997 The Cassowary's revenge: the life and death of masculinity in a New Guinea Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Part 4: Ordering the Future 15. Ordering Disorder (10/25/05) Readings: Ritvo, Harriet 1997 The point of order. In The platypus and the mermaid and other figments of the classifying imagination. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Mitchell, Timothy 1991 An appearance of order. In Colonising Egypt. Second Edition. Pp. 63-94. Berkeley: University of California Press. 16. Divination and Psychic Dreams (10/27/05) Readings: Tedlock, Barbara 2001 Divination as a way of knowing: Embodiment, visualisation, narrative, and interpretation. Folklore 112(2):189-197. Newman, Deena J. 1999 The western psychic as diviner: experience & the politics of perception. Ethnos 64(1):82-106. Dombeck, Mary-Therese B. 1994 The Telling and Interpretation of Psychic Dreams: The Interpreted/Interrupting Self. Ethos 22(4):439-459. 17. Witchcraft and Risk Assessment (11/1/05) Readings: Evans-Pritchard, E.E. 1976[1937] Chapter II: the notion of witchcraft explains unfortunate events. In Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande. Abridged with an introduction by Eva Gilles. Oxford: Clarendon Press. �sa Boholm 2003 The cultural nature of risk: Can there be an anthropology of uncertainty? Ethnos 68(2):159- 18. Religious Futures I (11/3/05) Readings: Foster, Lawrence 1984 [1981] Introduction. In Religion and sexuality: the Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida Community. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Harding, Susan 1994 Imagining the Last Days: The Politics of Apocalyptic Language. In Accounting for Fundamentalisms. Martin E. Marty & R. Scott Appleby (eds.) pp. 57-78. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 19. Religious Futures II (11/8/05) Readings: Matter E.A. 2001 Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in the Late Twentieth Century: Apocalyptic, Representation, Politics. Religion 31(2):125-153. Jindra, Michael 1994 Star Trek Fandom as a Religious Phenomenon. Sociology of religion 55(1):27- Part 5: Space Futures, Body Futures 20. To the Stars (11/10/05) **Paper 2 Due in Class** Readings: Jones, Eric M. and Ben R. Finney 1985 Fastships and nomads: two roads to the stars. In Interstellar migration and the human experience. Ben R. Finney and Eric M. Jones (eds.) pp.88-103. Berkeley: University of California Press Lee, Richard B. 1985 Models of human colonization: !Kung San, Greeks, and Vikings. In Interstellar migration and the human experience. Ben R. Finney and Eric M. Jones (eds.) pp.180-194. Berkeley: University of California Press 21. NASA/Trek (11/15/05) Readings: Ott, B. L.; Aoki, E. 2001 Popular Imagination and Identity Politics: Reading the Future in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Western Journal of Communication 65(4):392-415 DiChristina, Mariette 2001 Space at warp speed: wormholes, negative energy, and Star Trek-like space drives are the stuff of real research at NASA. Popular Science 258(5):46-51. 22. Looking for Aliens (11/17/05) Readings: Shostak, S. 2002 SETI's prospects are bright. Mercury 31(5):24-29. Zuckerman, B. 2002 Why SETI will fail. Mercury 31(5):14-23. Tarter, Jill 2000 SETI and the Religions of Extraterrestrials. Free Inquiry 20(3):34-35. Tarter, Donald E 2000 Looking for God and space aliens. Free Inquiry (20)3:38-39. Grinspoon, David 2000 SETI and the Science Wars. Astronomy 28(5):52 - Kukla, A. 2001 SETI: On the prospects and pursuitworthiness of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 32(1):31-67. 23. Taken (11/22/05) Readings: Lepselter, Susan 2005 Why Rachel isn't buried at her grave: ghosts, UFOs, and a place in the West. In Histories of the future. Daniel Rosenberg and Susan Harding (eds.) Pp. 255-279. Bullard, Thomas E. 1989 UFO abduction reports: the supernatural kidnap narrative returns in technological guise. Journal of American Folklore 102(404):147-170. Thanksgiving Break: 11/24/05 24. Humans of the Future: Cyborgs (11/29/05) Readings: Haraway, Donna 1991 Cyborg manifesto. In Simians, cyborgs, and women: the reinvention of nature. New York: Routledge. N. Katherine Hayles 1996 The life cycle of cyborg: writing the posthuman. In The cyborg handbook. Gray, Chris Hables (ed.) pp. 321- New York: Routledge. Downey, Gary Lee et al 1995 Cyborg anthropology In The cyborg handbook. Gray, Chris Hables (ed.) pp. 321- . New York: Routledge. 25. Humans of the Future: Clones (12/1/05) Readings: Battaglia, Debbora 1995 Fear of selfing in the American cultural imaginary or "you are never alone with a clone." American Anthropologist. 97(4):672-678. Part 6: Left Behind 26. Left Behind I (12/6/05) **Prophecy Due in Class** Readings: Stewart, Kathleen 1996 A space on the side of the road: cultural poetics in an "other" America. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 27. Left Behind II (12/8/05) Readings: Stewart, Kathleen 1996 A space on the side of the road: cultural poetics in an "other" America. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 28. Course Review (12/13/05) **Final Paper Due in Class** |