Wednesday's Anthro Courses

[the-ascended.livejournal.com]

LAST CALL FOR ADDING OR DROPPING INTRO TO ANTHROPOLOGY AND EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY (anyone who wishes to add or drop after this point must have a signed permission slip from the principal)

I would also like to announce that egyptianlove is your new TA. (OOC: Please join the assistant community if you haven't already). Your duties will mainly include looking over and grading homework and teaching when I'm away at conferences.

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Intro to Anthropology:

I have not received homework from:


futurebucs_star
jackie_sparrow
positive_angel
priestly_purple
prue_h
sharon_valerii
studentwillow
suzotchka


If you miss homework two more times, you will receive detention.

[OOC: I think one (or possibly more) might have put their homework in their journals? Please try to comment on the homework thread as it makes it easier to keep track of so I can assign detentions :P]

For those of you who haven't done the homework, you will be working on it in class. Everyone else may pair off into groups and read about societies. *hands out worksheets* Then answer these questions. You will share them with everyone else at the end of the class.

Homework: Create your own society based on what you read. Next class your societies will be sending diplomats to interact with other societies.

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Egyptian Archaeology:

I have not received homework from:


adolescent_alan
alchemic_bean
joolushko_tunai
kawalsky
missromana
valentine_tart
youngest_sister
yuuko_sama


Note: half-eaten lollipops do NOT count as homework. I don't care if you happen to be siblings with Death

Two more times of no homework and you get detention.

Anyway, now we will be studying the site of Giza. the site where the Stargate was found. *turns down the lights and starts teaching*

Homework: Please continue the reading, you will have a quiz on Giza next class.

Comments

Re: Homework

[suzotchka.livejournal.com]

*meekly hands in a neatly-written page* Sorry it's late, Professor.

While both enthnocentrism and cultural relativism are intimately involved in the so-called purity of anthropology, they are diametrically opposed. Ehnocentrism refers to the attitude, usually of socio-cultural anthropologists, that their own culture (usually a developed Western culture, such as that of America or England, of even of a certain segment of society within these cultures) is superior to that which they are studying. A popular example used to illustrate ehthnocentrism in action is comparing middle-class America to the bushmen of the Kalahari - the popular protagonists of 'The Gods Must Be Crazy!'. A researcher from middle-class America may originally look down on the bushmen, because they live a nomadic lifestyle, own few possessions - and those are shared amongst the group - and wear next to nothing, to begin with. However, if said researcher from middle-class America were to be placed in the same arid environment and survive, they would necessarliy adapt. Animal husbandy or agriculture would be impossible; a nomaid lifestyle would therefore make sense. And because of constantly being on the move, possessions would gradually be dropped, as would clothing as it became more and more sensible to begin to wear next to nothing in the arid Kalahari environment. This example leads directly to cultural relativism. Cultural relativism is the view that all cultures must be viewed from its own point of view, not an external and "superior" judge, which is what anthropologists can become. However, cultural relativism includes that caveat that not all aspects of a culture - sacrifice of a sentient being, or female genital mutilation - are valid when viewed from the perspective of basic human or alien rights, and it should not be expected of the ethnographer to adhere to or shrug off these practices.

*hurries back to her desk to begin working on the societies assignment