Assignments
Daily Reading Questions and Seminar Participation
A serious reading of the required material for each class session is critical to the structure of this seminar-style course. As you read the material, you will post a question or series of questions that will guide your synthesis of the author’s central point to each reading. Good questions guide the reader towards key insights into what the author is trying to accomplish. It is important that your questions reflect the overall scope of arguments, as well as key supporting points of debate that help you better understand the co-constitution of mind and culture in human experience. You will post at least one question for each chapter or article that is required reading for each session. These must be posted the night before the class session for which the reading is due. These questions will be used to facilitate seminar discussions and critiques. Credit will only be given where you also punctually attend the seminar session to discuss your questions and potential answers to your questions.
Composite Book Review
You will write a composite book review—in the genre of a critical academic review—weaving together insights from at least two of the required books for the course. The review should not cover the entire scope of the arguments in both books. Rather, choose a common strain of argument that cuts across both books, and focus your review on this issue. Compare and contrast distinct perspectives on the issue that is covered by both authors, and relate the issue back to broader disciplinary perspectives and critiques in psychological anthropology. Reviews should be approximately 2,000 words and follow all submission instructions.
Group Project
Students in this seminar will collectively undertake an empirical project that seeks to understand the co-constitution of mind and culture in a particular domain of human experience. All participants will help shape the study, including the literature on which it will be based, and the particular types of ethnographic data to be collected, as well as the sites where these data will be collected. Each student will individually produce (1) a literature review of at least 10 sources relevant to the Group Project topic (specific instructions will be given in class), (2) field notes based on participant observation towards the group project, and (3) a summary analysis of the students’ individual insights into the phenomenon. In the latter part of the course, all students will work together to (4) bring these insights together and compose a collective group paper about the key findings and overall theoretical implications of the ethnographic data that has been collectively gathered and analyzed. All students are expected to contribute and productively divide the labor of the project, and each student should demonstrate leadership in developing one dimension of the final paper. Self-assessments and peer-assessments will be reported on this collaborative project. Details: 1) Literature review: -Find 10-20 academic sources on a concentrated topic -Provide a complete Chicago (author-date) citation for each (see https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-2.html) -Provide annotations/notes on each source, indicating what points each source adds to your overall literature review -At the end of the anotated literature list, write 500-1000 words summarizing what you learned about the topic from reviewing this body of literature. 2) Field Notes: -Write 4,000-5,000 words (or more if you like!) specifically about your participant observation, including both raw description and analysis of the moments that unfold before you. -Include these details in a header for each fieldnote: a) name of person writing the fieldnotes, b) date of observations, c) location / setting, and d) keywords using hashtags (e.g., #effervecence #gender, etc.). -Turn these fieldnotes into the class Box folder for fieldnotes, combine them into a single PDF, but preced each fieldnote with a pagebreak and a header including the above information. -Name the file in this way: "LastName_FirstName_Fieldnotes.PDF" 3) Analysis: -You will be given access to all field notes, interviews, and other data submitted by the group, and you will individually undertake an analysis of some element of the data and write at least 1,000 words summarizing your analysis, including making explicit connections between data and your theoretical conclusions. This should include a close analysis of different elements of the data collected, and coding and annotating the data to make connections that help you see patterns in the data. -Submit the document with your analysis, AS WELL AS a MaxQDA project file that shows your coding and notes that you used to produce your analysis. -Name the files in this way: “Lastname_Firstname_Analysis.PDF” for your analysis summary and “LAstname_Firstname_Analysis.mx24” for the MaxQDA project file. 4) Final Paper: -Working with your group, you will compose a final paper based on your collective analysis and interpretation of the data collected over the course of this group project. One of the members of the group will email the final paper, by the deadline, to the instructor, while CC-ing all of the members of the group. The cover page for the paper should include 1) a title, 2) a word count for the paper, and 3) the names of the group members who contributed to the paper. -Each member of the group will submit a brief personal report that includes 1) their name at the top of the document, 2) the following title: “Group Project Personal Report”, 3) a brief summary of their individual contributions to the group project, 4) a brief comment about the contributions of other members of the group (at your discretion), and 5) a one-paragraph summary of your key takeaways (what you learned or found most interesting) about the group project exercise. This Group Project Personal Report should be submitted to Learning Suite.
