January 19, 2007
Labinar Pedagogy Cluster, Spring 2007
The Pedagogy cluster will meet several times this semester, and is open to all who would like to be a part.
The pedagogy cluster will address fundamental issues of how to teach the Anthropology of the Contemporary at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. This means trying to answer the following questions:
- What are the central concepts, issues and ideas students must be introduced to, at the various levels of anthropological training, in order to understand and contribute to what we are calling the “Anthropology of the Contemporary”?
- What readings, literature and/or other material and equipment can serve as the basis for this pedagogy?
- Whare the methods best suited to teaching the anthropology of the contemporary?
During the Spring 2007 semester, we will attemp to answer these questions by focusing on two concrete projects:
- Course development.
We will develop two undergraduate courses, each aimed at offering students a founation in contemporary anthropological problems. The first course will be Anthropology 3AC: Introduction to Cultural(?) Anthropology, a course directed towards first and second-year undergraduates (including non-majors). The second will be Anthropology 156B: Anthropology of the Contemporary, an upper-division undergraduate course aimed at giving advanced anthropology majors an understanding of the issues pertaining to an anthropology of the contemporary.
- Bibliography project
As an offshoot of the above project, we will begin to create an archive of useful pedagogical materials.
Writing Group Meeting, Thursday January 25th at 5pm
For those of us interested in getting together to discuss one
another’s texts, the first meeting will be on Thursday, January 25, at
Henry’s, 5-7pm. (Close to campus, the place seems reasonably quiet,
and has a wide range of beers on tap.) Kevin has agreed to present an
excerpt from his dissertation (see attached).
Everyone who takes part on this occasion is of course expected to have
read the text, but to get the discussion going, Amelia and Mattias will
prepare to talk for 10-15 minutes. We suggest the following structure:
(1) Introductory comments (by Amelia and Mattias); (2) a general
discussion about the text and responses from Kevin; and (3) a brief
evaluation of the meeting to improve its form. We should also decide
on a timeslot for subsequent labinar events this semester.
Chapter 3–The King’s Two Bodies: Hierarchy and Distance at the École Nationale de Police