The Logic of Inquiry in Anthropology (Ling) (401-4-1)
Instructors
Shalini Shankar
847/467-1638
1810 Hinman Ave., Room #212, EV Campus
I am a professor of Anthropology and Asian American Studies and have been teaching at NU since 2007. I focus on race, ethnicity, language, youth, media, advertising, and consumption in Asian diasporas.
Meeting Info
2001 Sheridan Anthro Lab 1410: Tues 5:00PM - 7:50PM
Overview of class
This graduate seminar introduces the central theoretical and methodological issues involved in the field of linguistic anthropology. It will focus on ethnographically informed understandings of language as discourse in context, as normative conceptual structure, and as mediator in culturally informed communication. It will approach meaning as emergent within intersubjective exchange in-and-by which interlocutors negotiate and thereby inscribe social action. Thematically, we will consider cultural/semiotic processes implicated in race, gender, statehood, coloniality, and aspects of poststructuralism as material and discursive phenomena.
Registration Requirements
Open to first and second year anthropology graduate students only.
Learning Objectives
The objectives of the course are to understand: the implications of language use for the construction of institutions; the role of language and semiosis in (re)producing sociocultural power and sociohistorical processes; the communicative role of grammars, phonemics, and vocabularies as cultural constructs, including those we employ in our own methods of analysis as scholars. Students will be introduced to methodologies of the ethnography of communication, narrative, conversational analysis, and transcription.
Class Materials (Required)
Going Tactile: Life at the Limits of Language (Oxford Studies in the Anthropology of Language) by Terra Edwards (Author) Publisher : Oxford University Press Publication date : July 1, 2024 ISBN-10 : 019777802X ISBN-13 : 978-0197778029 Signs of Difference: Language and Ideology in Social Life by Susan Gal (Author), Judith T. Irvine (Author) Publisher : Cambridge University Press Publication date : August 8, 2019 ISBN-10 : 1108741290 ISBN-13 : 978-1108741293 Kill Talk: Language and Military Necropolitics Author: Janet McIntosh Publisher : Oxford University Press Publication date : May 14, 2025 ISBN-10 : 0197808026 ISBN-13 : 978-0197808023
Class Notes
Required books will be on library reserve and subject to borrowing guidelines. All other readings will be available for free download through the library or Canvas.
Enrollment Requirements
Enrollment Requirements: REASON: Pre-registration is not allowed for this class. Please try again during regular registration.
Add Consent: Instructor Consent Required