PUEBLO BONITO Chaco Canyon, New Mexico
070: 410: Explanation in Anthropology Robin Fox
Fall Term. Monday 2 & 3. BIO 302. Stop point 20 (or with permission.) No pre-requisites
This is a preliminary introduction to the idea of the course.
I inherited the title and course description, but it is close enough to what I want to do.
We shall look at how anthropologists go about “explaining” things across the four fields of the discipline. Sometimes the explanation is universal, sometimes very local. To use examples from my own work, “Why do we have incest taboos?” is very different from, “Why do twenty-percent of husbands and wives on Tory Island not live together?” But they are both “why?” questions and seek causal answers, albeit of a very different kind. Sometimes “how?” or “what?” questions have to be answered before the “why?” questions can be posed. “How do we perceive time?” comes before “Why do we perceive time the way we do?” “What kinds of social groups do monkeys live in?” has to precede “Why do monkeys live in different kinds of social groups?” A lot of anthropology is conducted at the “how?” and “what?” stage, which is very necessary, but not as much fun as the “why?” questions.
I have usually avoided teaching my own stuff in courses, but it has been put to me that this is to rob the students of more than fifty years experience in all four fields of anthropology, so I am relaxing that rule and we shall pick topics from areas of my research and use them as the ground reading on which to base explorations into related work by many others. The following are suggested topics: all “why?” questions that can lead us into the heart of many anthropological (and therefore human) puzzles.
Why do we have incest taboos? Why do we have food taboos?
Why are there races? Why do we have sexes? Why do we dream?
Why are some societies polygamous and some monogamous?
Why are there witches? Why do we need myths? Why do bureaucracies fail?
Why is a deal a deal? Why are there fathers? Why is nepotism ineradicable?
Why did the Romans call their maternal nephews “grandson”?
Why do some societies have no words for relatives-in-law?
Why did God forbid the Israelites to boil an animal in its mother’s milk?
Why did the brain evolve so quickly? Why do women have orgasms?
Why do we fall in love? Why is the maternal uncle a privileged relative?
Why do guys like to hang out together? Why is blood thicker than water?
Why do religions fragment into sects? Why are we fascinated by violence?
Why are there wars? Why do we need human rights? Why are there nations?
Why do Tory Island husbands not live with their wives?
Why are there so many languages? Why do complex societies rise, and then fall?
Why do we avoid the long view of time? Why do we prefer intuition to logic?
There are many more possibilities, but we shall choose from these. Some of the reading is from recently published articles and so is on disc and can be easily distributed. Earlier things are in my books, for example:
Kinship and Marriage, Encounter with Anthropology, The Red Lamp of Incest, The Challenge of Anthropology, Reproduction and Succession, The Tory Islanders, Conjectures and Confrontations, The Search for Society.
I have some remaindered copies of the last one, which I shall give out. If I decide you must buy any of the others (probably just Challenge) any royalties will be returned to the department. I will try to find a way to put some of this stuff on the web for you, but I’m new to this.
Just as examples of possible topics:
On the rise and fall of complex societies, we shall read my chapter “The Origins of Social Complexity” in Challenge of Anthropology, which discusses this topic using the examples of the Calusa of SW Florida and the Anasazi of Chaco Canyon NM. We shall watch (some of) a film on “The Mysteries of Chaco Canyon” and discuss theories of its rise and fall, such as the chapter in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, by Jared Diamond. The Calusa based a complex civilization on fishing, and were thought to be the only example of a complex society based on fish as opposed to settled agriculture. We shall look at them (VCR) and at an example from Peru (perhaps watching some of “The Real Temple of Doom” DVD) that seems to show a similar pattern (reading parts of Michael Mooney’s The Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization.) We shall ask what these examples tell us about why complex societies arose, flourished and inevitably fell.
On the female orgasm, we shall read my chapter “The Female Orgasm: Adaptation or Accident” in Challenge, which argues that it is indeed an accident and serves no reproductive function. We shall watch a film (if I can find it) on the behavior of sperm during orgasm, and look at explanations by those like Desmond Morris, Melvin Konner and Randy Thornhill, who argue that it is functional and hence adaptive. We shall set this in a discussion of the evolution of mating strategies, and perhaps take a final vote on the issue.
A detailed syllabus with the weekly reading and ancillary readings will be given out in the first class. (If it is done in good time I’ll post it.) Each week we shall all read the basic essay, and some of us will also read related work by other anthropologists. There will be presentations and vigorous discussion. Points will be scored for challenging the instructor’s position. Occasionally there will be visual aids (as in the above example.) I don’t know yet what form of exam will be used. Depends on the class. Some combination of take home exam and short term paper perhaps.