Amelia, Limor, Mattias, Alfred, and I met on April 11 to go over the original suggestions for the Anthropology of the Contemporary syllabus. I've summarized our discussion in the form of a skeletal syllabus. It was agreed that the syllabus shouldn't focus on the conceptual issues of the anthropology of the contemporary as a mode of inquiry because that would be more of a graduate level undertaking. Rather, we felt it should focus on "problems." Part One of the course would introduce the problem as a new approach with more theoretical readings, setting conceptual foundations. Part Two (Contemporary Problems) would focus on specific contemporary problems.

I have taken the liberty of suggesting a few additional features:

1) I added a Part Three ("Anthropology of the Contemporary") that could include Paul presenting his current synthetic biology work as an example of the anthropology of the contemporary; and then the students, divided into groups, could present the result of collaborative projects in which they focus on contemporary problems of their own choosing.

2) I've suggested ordering the readings within the "contemporary problems" section into first and second order readings. I've also suggested that we juxtapose (not necessarily as a rule) journalistic analysis and anthropological analysis throughout so as to ask the question throughout the semester on what makes an anthropology of the contemporary different from journalism. Students can learn to read both forms critically.

Although I haven't broken out the weeks into two class meetings, I assume that each week would have two separate meetings.

Everything on this draft syllabus is open for comment/revision. The suggested problems are only suggestions. Most of the suggested readings are left open now. Everyone is invited to add to and/or edit this. Don't be shy. It's good to err on the side of havign too much stuff, too many ideas.

I suggest that we have our next meeting on Thursday April 26 @ 4p.m. Please RSVP to this message about whether you can come or not that day.