Topics in Anthropology (490-0-27)

Topic

Ethnographic Writing

Instructors

Adia Benton
847/491-2852
1812 Hinman #101

Meeting Info

ANTHRO Sem Rm 104 - 1810 Hinmn: Tues 2:00PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

This graduate seminar is an intensive writing workshop, focusing on ethnography as a particular genre of scholarly writing that weaves together the theoretical and experiential, description and abstraction. We will read and discuss examples of ethnographic writing as a way of prompting and facilitating our own writing practice; perform in-class writing exercises to develop evocative descriptions, meaningful analyses, and deep engagement with our data and the scholarly literature; and workshop short excerpts in ‘table readings' of works-in-progress. The course is for graduate students who have collected substantial ethnographic data (e.g. field notes, archives/primary sources, interviews/oral histories) and plan to write those data up in the form of book chapter, journal article, dissertation, or other longform medium (this includes second-year papers).

Registration Requirements

Graduate students only. Junior and Senior Anthropology majors with instructor permission.

Teaching Method

Workshop

Evaluation Method

Weekly writing exercises, participation and engagement in critically reading others' work (peer review).

Class Materials (Required)

Any required reading will be made available on Canvas.

Class Materials (Suggested)

I will provide a list of recommended texts during the course.

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: Reserved for Graduate Students.