| The Anthropology of the Future Sarah Lawrence College (ANTH-4056-R) Spring 2004 Instructor: David Valentine Class location: Sheffield 01 Office: Sheffield 05 Class dates: M/W, 3:35pm-5:00pm, 1/22/04-5/12/04 Phone: 914.395.2363 email: [email protected] Course Description: What is the future? Or, perhaps we should rather ask when is the future? The twenty first century has been imagined throughout the twentieth century in popular culture and in academic discourses as the time of both dystopic and utopic futures, of both possibility and apocalypse. Now we are here, and the question remains: when is the future? Many of the things that twentieth century commentators have been concerned over or hoped for� artificial life, radical gender and sexual difference, the spread of liberal democracies, radical individualism, technological incursions into the body, the formation of superstates in the form of the European Union, space travel, environment disasters � have come to pass. Some of them -- socialism in Eastern Europe and Asia, holocausts, the "satanic mills" of Europe and America's industrial revolutions -- have come and gone, or have been transformed. 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 and separatist wars, and the reassertion of "tradition." The anthropology of the future is a course that deals with a range of different futures (both past and present), 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. 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 we will be spending much time considering anthropological texts, we will also be focusing on popular media and texts generated in other disciplines, bringing an anthropological perspective to bear on such diverse objects as cyborgs, the World Trade Center, fundamentalism, Star Trek, primate studies, prosthetic limbs, democracy, the colonization of Egypt, abortion, urbanization in Samoa, the World Wide Web, and torture. Our concern is to look at both how people have imagined the future, what those futures look like, and how we are still imagining futures. Course Requirements: Three 5-6 page papers are due in class on dates to be determined. Note that conference papers are due on May 7. 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. I am always willing to look at drafts of your work up until two days before the due date, which you may email me. I will not, however, accept emailed versions of your papers. Conferences I am very serious about conference work, and assume that you will be too. I expect that you will complete the tasks we have agreed on for your conference work prior to your conference. Please: always bring hard copy of your bibliographies or other assignments to your conferences. Policy on Lateness and Attendance Please pay particular attention to the following: you are, naturally, expected to attend all classes and conferences associated with this class. 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 reduced credit for this course. Assigned Texts: The following books are required for the course and are available at the university bookstore. Foucault, Michel 1990 [1980] The history of sexuality. Volume 1: an introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage. Penley, Constance 1997 Nasa/Trek: Popular Science and Sex in America. Verso Books Stewart, Kathleen 1996 A space on the side of the road: cultural poetics in an "other" America. Princeton: Princeton University Press. In addition, assigned books and course readings are available in the reserve library, or as a packet from me. Course Outline Part I: Cyborgs, Robots, Replicants, Golums, Clones, Xenotransplantation 1. Cyborgs and Golums (1/21/04) Readings: Piercy, Marge 1991 He, she, and it. New York: Fawcett Crest. 2. Cyborg Manifesto (1/26/04) Readings: Haraway, Donna 1991 Cyborg manifesto. In Simians, cyborgs, and women: the reinvention of nature. New York: Routledge. 3. Cyborg and Posthumans (1/28/04) Film: Blade Runner Readings: 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. Battaglia, Debbora 2001 Multiplicities: An Anthropologist's Thoughts on Replicants and Clones in Popular Film. Critical Inquiry 27(3):493-514. 4. Cyborgs and Replicants in Popular Culture (2/2/04) Readings: Discussion of Blade Runner and Allison/Battaglia readings 5 Clones and the Self (2/4/04) Readings: Edwards, Jeanette 1999 Why Dolly matters: kinship, culture and cloning. Ethnos 64(3):301-324. 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. NYT article on the Raelians 6. Cyborg Parts (2/9/04) Readings: Papagaroufali, Eleni 1996 Xenotransplantation and transgenesis: im-moral stories about human-animal relations in the West. In Nature and society: anthropological perspectives. Philippe Descola and G�sli P�lsson (eds.) Pp. 240-255. New York: Routledge. Sharp, Leslie 2001 Commodified kin: death, mourning, and competing claims on the bodies of organ donors in the United States. American Anthropologist 103(1):112-133. Part II: Histories and Futures of Sexuality 7. The History of Sexuality I (2/11/04) Readings: Foucault, Michel 1990 [1980] The history of sexuality. Volume 1: an introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage. 8. The History of Sexuality II (2/16/04) Readings: Foucault, Michel 1990 [1980] The history of sexuality. Volume 1: an introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage. 9. The History of Sexuality III (2/18/04) Readings: Foucault, Michel 1990 [1980] The history of sexuality. Volume 1: an introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage. 10. The History of Sexuality IV (2/23/04) Readings: Halperin, David 1993 Is there a history of sexuality? In The lesbian and gay studies reader. Henry Abelove et al (eds). Pp. 416-431. New York: Routledge. Terry, Jennifer 1995 Anxious slippages between "us" and "them": a brief history of the scientific search for homosexual bodies. in Deviant bodies: critical perspectives on difference in science and popular culture. Jennifer Terry and Jacqueline Urla (eds). Pp. 129-169. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Part III: Space Futures 11. Space Futures I (2/25/04) Readings: Penley, Constance 1997 Nasa/Trek: Popular Science and Sex in America. Verso Books. 12. Space Futures II (3/1/04) Readings: Penley, Constance 1997 Nasa/Trek: Popular Science and Sex in America. Verso Books. 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. 13. Space Futures III (3/3/04) Readings: Film: Trekkies 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 Hurd, Denise Alessandria 1997 The Monster Inside: 19th Century Racial Constructs in the 24th Century Mythos of Star Trek. Journal of popular culture. 31(1):23-35. 14. Space Futures IV (3/8/04) Readings: Lepselter, Susan 1997 From the Earth Native's Point of View: The Earth, the Extraterrestrial, and the Natural Ground of Home. Public culture (9)2:197- Bullard, Thomas E. 1989 UFO abduction reports: the supernatural kidnap narrative returns in technological guise. Journal of American Folklore 102(404):147-170. 15. Space Futures V (3/10/04) 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. Spring Break (3/13/04 - 3/28/04) Part IV: Religious Futures 16. Reading Utopia (3/29/04) Readings: Moore, Henrietta L. 1990 'Visions of the good life': anthropology and the study of utopia. Cambridge Anthropology 14(3):13-33. Wright, Norman Pelham 1952 Utopia in Paraguay. Six hundred "Brothers known as the Hutterites", from many nations and with diverse backgrounds, throw in their lot together in a communal experiment. Am�ricas. 4(3):9-[12], 31. 17. Religion in Space (3/31/04) Readings: Whitehead, Harriet 1974 Reasonable fantastic: some perspectives on Scientology, science fiction, and Occultism. In Religious movements in contemporary America. Irving I. Zaretsky and Mark P. Leone Mark P. (eds). p. 547-587. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Jindra, Michael 1994 Star Trek Fandom as a Religious Phenomenon. Sociology of religion 55(1):27- 18. Transformative Utopias (4/5/04) Readings: Robbins, Joel 2001 Secrecy and the sense of an ending: narrative, time, and everyday millenarianism in Papua New Guinea and in Christian fundamentalism. Comparative Studies in Society and History 43(3):535-551. Foster, Lawrence 1984 [1981] Introduction. In Religion and sexuality: the Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida Community. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 19. Fundamentalism and the Future (4/7/04) Readings: 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. Fitzgerald, Frances 1985 [New Yorker Article] Matter E.A. 2001 Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in the Late Twentieth Century: Apocalyptic, Representation, Politics. Religion 31(2):125-153. Part V: Predictions, Dreams, Risk, and Divination 20. Witchcraft, Magic, and Divination (4/12/04) 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. Beidelman, Thomas O. 1963 Kaguru omens: an East African people's concepts of the unusual, unnatural and supernormal. Anthropological Quarterly 36(2):43-59. 21. Risk and Uncertainty (4/14/04) Readings: �sa Boholm 2003 The cultural nature of risk: Can there be an anthropology of uncertainty? Ethnos 68(2):159- Tedlock, Barbara 2001 Divination as a way of knowing: Embodiment, visualisation, narrative, and interpretation. Folklore 112(2):189-197. 22. Psychics and Dreams (4/19/04) Readings: 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. 23. Meteorology (4/21/04) Readings: Roncoli, Carla and Keith Ingram 2002 Reading the Rains: Local Knowledge and Rainfall Forecasting in Burkina Faso. Society and Natural Resources, 15(5):409-427. Huber, Toni and Poul Pedersen 1997 Meteorological Knowledge and Environmental Ideas in Traditional and Modern Societies: The Case of Tibet. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 3(3):577-597. Part VI: Left Behind 24. Left Behind I (4/26/04) Readings: Stewart, Kathleen 1996 A space on the side of the road: cultural poetics in an "other" America. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 25. Left Behind II (4/28/04) Readings: Stewart, Kathleen 1996 A space on the side of the road: cultural poetics in an "other" America. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 26. Left Behind III (5/3/04) 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 IV (5/5/04) Readings: Stewart, Kathleen 1996 A space on the side of the road: cultural poetics in an "other" America. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 28. Conference Reports (5/10/04) 29. Course Review (5/12/04) |