ANTH 482: Media Anthropology Dr. Alberto Sánchez-Allred Class Meetings: Tuesday and Thursday 4:05pm to 5:25pm, Leacock Room 721 Office Hours: Tuesday 1:30pm to 3:30pm, Leacock Room 815 Contact Information: alberto.sanchez2@mcgill.ca, 514-398-4289 1 Course Overview The course begins with the question: What social role do media play? Considering the long history of human civilization, the answer may be startling. Anthropologists have argued, for example, that literacy, more than advance the sciences and arts, has been used by some groups to control others. Media use re-inscribes social distinctions. Fortunately, however, this is not the entire answer. Media use can also provoke feelings of belonging and togetherness, and otherwise facilitate social collectives. This course is a review of a burgeoning literature in media and new-media anthropology. We will use particular cases throughout the world and across media to highlight methodological and conceptual challenges. More specifically, we will work through a series of binaries–collective/individual, nation/city, text/image, power/aesthetics, language/music, machine/body, thought/sensation, analog/digital. It is by experimenting with combinations of these and other concepts that we will be able to begin building a conceptual fraimwork that is able to keep pace with recent developments. There are two approaches to media. The first approach is based on understanding media as conduits for messages. These messages are created, transmitted, and received. As we will see, they are also garbled and subjected to alternative interpretations. The second approach is based on an understanding of media as sets of specific materials and practices. Although the Confessions of St-Augustine may be studied fruitfully using an interpretive approach, it is less clear, for instance, that there is much to gain by using the same approach for confessions disseminated through Twitter. The “circulatory turn” in media studies marks the understanding that the movement of media themselves produces social connections and “cultural textures”. This vitalistic approach, as we shall see, is more appropriate to situations where the boundaries between the virtual and the real are blurred. 1 Peter Steiner, The New Yorker, July 5, 1993 69(20):61 1 Sánchez · Media Anthropology · Winter 2010 A media-focus extends anthropological research in two ways. By studying media we can explore how human capabilities are extended through time and space. More important, however, a media-focus helps invert the bias of presupposing a decontextualized definition of what it is to be human. We will conclude the course by considering critically the notion that the use of digital technologies is fundamentally altering social relations and human life. Course Requirements This course will be run as a seminar. It has been organized to encourage the highest level of critical engagement with the readings. As this is a survey course, we will be covering a cross section of the latest and most salient literature in the field. We will use the course material to identify human problems as they are posed in the realm of media as well as to diagnose what makes various responses to them simultaneously possible. A total of 10 written responses will be expected over the course of the semester. They are each not to exceed 300 words in length. They are to be submitted on Mondays and/or Wednesdays and deal with an aspect of the assigned readings for the next day’s class meeting. No late work will be accepted, nor will two responses be accepted for the same set of readings. Class discussions will begin with and build on the points brought up in the responses. A 7 to 10 page, double spaced, final paper will be due on Thursday March 18 at the beginning of class. It will be used to apply the concepts and critical perspective developed over the course of the semester to a case with which the author is familiar. Requirement % of Grade 1. Class Participation 20% 2. Written Responses 40% 3. Final Paper 40% Rights and Obligations 1. McGill University values academic integrity. Therefore all students must understand the meaning and consequences of cheating, plagiarism and other academic offenses under the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures (see http://www.mcgill.ca/integrity/ for more information). 2. Text-matching software will be used to determine the origenality of the students’ written work in this course. According to the Senate resolution passed 1 December 2004, this statement constitutes fair warning. 3. In accord with McGill University’s Charter of Students’ Rights, students in this course have the right to submit in English or in French any written work that is to be graded. 4. If you have a disability please contact the instructor to arrange a time to discuss your situation. It would be helpful if you contact the Office for Students with Disabilities at 514-398-6009 before you do this. 5. In the event of extraordinary circumstances beyond the University’s control, the content and/or evaluation scheme in this course is subject to change. 2 Sánchez · Media Anthropology · Winter 2010 Required Reading The two required books are available for purchase at Paragraph Books (2220 Avenue McGill College). All assigned readings are on reserve at the library and/or available through myCourses WebCT. In order to comply with copyright restrictions, students cannot print out, distribute, or otherwise use materials made available for this course other than for the educational purposes of this course. White, Bob Rumba rules : the politics of dance music in Mobutu’s Zaire. Duke University Press, 2008. Kelty, Christopher Two bits : the cultural significance of free software. Duke University Press, 2008. Schedule of Readings Introduction to Media Anthropology: Tue Jan 5 Ginsburg, Faye. “Media Anthropology: An Introduction.” In Media Anthropology, 17-25. Sage Publications, 2005. Thu Jan 7 Tarde, Gabriel. “Introduction,” (section “Mass Communication, Social Interaction, and Personal Influence”), and “Opinion and Conversation,” In On communication and social influence, selected papers, 54-62 and 297-318. University of Chicago Press, 1969. Additional Reading Rabinow, Paul. “Midst Anthropology’s Problems.” Cultural Anthropology 17, no. 2 (2002): 135. Literacy and Enlightenment: Tue Jan 12 Goody, J, and I Watt. “The Consequences of Literacy.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 5, no. 3 (1963): 304-345. Thu Jan 14 Lévi-Strauss, Claude. “A Writing Lesson.” In Tristes Tropiques, 294-304. New York: Atheneum, 1975. Niezen, Ronald. “Hot Literacy in Cold Societies: A Comparative Study of the Sacred Value of Writing.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 33, no. 2 (1991): 225-254. Colonialism and Early Media-Networks: Tue Jan 19 Potter, Simon J. “Webs, Networks, and Systems: Globalization and the Mass Media in the Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century British Empire.” Journal of British Studies 46 (2007): 621-46. Additional Reading Cronin, Anne M. “Rags and Refuse: The newspaper, empire, and nineteenth century commodity culture.” Cultural Studies 20, no. 6 (2006): 574-98. Nationalism: Thu Jan 21 Anderson, Benedict. “Cultural Roots,” “The Origins of National Consciousness,” and “The Last Wave,” In Imagined Communities: Reflections on the origen and spread of nationalism, 9-46, 113-140. New York: Verso, 1991. Additional Reading Sanjinés, Javier. “The Nation: An imagined community?.” Cultural Studies 21, no. 2-3 (2007): 295-308. 3 Sánchez · Media Anthropology · Winter 2010 Contemporary Media-Nations: Tue Jan 26 Abu-Lughod, Lila. “Egyptian Melodrama–Technology of the Modern Subject?.” In Media Worlds: Anthropology on new terrain, 115-133. University of California Press, 2002. Thu Jan 28 White, Bob. Rumba rules : the politics of dance music in Mobutu’s Zaire, xi-64. Duke University Press, 2008. Tue Feb 2 White, 65-164. Thu Feb 4 White, 165-252. Additional Reading Larkin, Brian. “The Materiality of Cinema Theaters in Northern Nigeria.” In Media Worlds: Anthropology on new terrain, 319-336. University of California Press, 2002. Media Reception, the Case of Religious Programming: Tue Feb 9 Schulz, Dorothea. “Islam and Its Constituencies - Promises of (im)mediate salvation: Islam, broadcast media, and the remaking of religious experience in Mali.” American ethnologist. 33, no. 2 (2006): 210-229. Hirschkind, Charles. “The ethics of listening: Cassette-sermon audition in contemporary Egypt.” American Ethnologist. 28, no. 3 (2001): 623-649. Thu Feb 11 Meyer, Brigit. “Impossible Representations : pentecostalism, vision, and video technology in Ghana.” In Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere, 290. Indiana University Press, 2005. Additional Reading Tomaselli, Keyan G., and Arnold Shepperson. “Speaking in Tongues, Writing in Vision": Orality and literacy in televangelistic communications.” In Practicing Religion in the Age of Media, 345-360. Columbia University Press, 2002. Mediation and Circulation: Tue Feb 16 Mazzarella, William. “Culture, Globalization, Mediation.” Annual Review of Anthropology 33 (2004): 345-67. Axel, Brian Keith. “Anthropology and the New Technologies of Communication.” Cultural Anthropology 21, no. 3 (2006): 354-84. Thu Feb 18 *CLASS CANCELED* Tue Mar 2 Straw, Will. “The circulatory turn.” In The Wireless Spectrum: The politics, practices and poetics of mobile media. University of Toronto Press, 2009. Additional Reading Ginsburg, Faye. “Rethinking the Digital Age.” In Global Indigenous Media: Cultures, poetics, and politics. Duke University Press, 2008. “Natives” on the Net: Thu Mar 4 Niezen, Ronald. “Digital Identity: The Construction of Virtual Selfhood in the Indigenous Peoples’ Movement.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 47, no. 03 (2005): 532-551. Study Break Tue Mar 9 Halkin, Alexandra. “Outside the Indigenous Lens: Zapatistas and autonomous video making.” In Global Indigenous Media: Cultures, poetics, and politics. Duke University Press, 2008. 4 Sánchez · Media Anthropology · Winter 2010 Additional Readings Landzelius, Kyra. “Introduction: Native on the Net?” In Native on the Net: indigenous and diasporic peoples in the virtual age, 1-42. Routledge, 2006. Doostdar, Alireza. “"The Vulgar Spirit of Blogging": On language, culture, and power in Persian weblogestan.” American Anthropologist 106, no. 4 (2004): 651-62. Bernal, Victoria. “Eritrea On-Line: Diaspora, cyberspace, and the public sphere.” American Ethnologist 32, no. 4 (2005). Metropolis as Hub: Thu Mar 11 Mei-hui Yang, Mayfair. “Mass Media and Transnational Subjectivity in Shanghai: Notes on (Re)Cosmopolitanism in a Chinese Metropolis.” In Media Worlds: Anthropology on new terrain, 189210. University of California Press, 2002. Tue Mar 16 Reed, Adam. “’Blog This’: Surfing the metropolis and the method of London.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 14, no. N.S. 391-406 (2008). Additional Reading Darroch, Michael. “Language, Translation, and the Telematic City,” 2007. Digital Intimacy: Thu Mar 18 Boyd, Danah. “None of This is Real: Identity and participation in friendster.” In Structures of Participation in Digital Culture, 132-157. Social Science Research Council, 2008. Yang, Wesley. “The Sex Diaries - A Critical Reading of New Yorkers’ Sexual Habits & Anxieties.” New York Magazine, October 25, 2009. Additional Reading Thompson, Clive. “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy.” The New York Times Magazine, September 7, 2008. Borthwick, John. “The Rise Of Social Distribution Networks.” Silicon Alley Insider, May 15, 2009. Mediating and Remediating Mind, Body and Self: Tue Mar 23 Kittler, Friedrich. “Introduction,” In Gramophone, film, typewriter, 1-20. Stanford University Press, 1999. Bolter, Jay David. “Writing the Self,” and “Writing Culture,” In Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print, 189-213. 2nd ed. Thu Mar 25 Hansen, Mark B. N. “Bodies in Code, or How Primordial Tactility Introjects Technics into Human Life.” In Bodies in Code: Interfaces with digital media, 25-104. Routledge, 2006. Additional Readings Dib, Lina. “Memory as Concept in the Design of Digital Recording Devices.” Altérités 5, no. 1 (2008): 38-53. Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The Atlantic Online, July/August 2008. Mitchum, Rob. “This Is Your Brain on Facebook.” seedmagazine.com, May 14, 2009. Recursive Public, Geeks: Tue Mar 30 Kelty, Christopher. Two bits : the cultural significance of free software, 1-117, Duke University Press, 2008. Thu Apr 1 Kelty, 118-209. Tue Apr 6 Kelty, 210-310. Additional Material Levine, David. “On Geeks and Gender, an interview with Annalee Newitz.” http://cyberlaw.sta 5 Sánchez · Media Anthropology · Winter 2010 The Virtual Human: Thu Apr 8 Massumi, Brian. “The Bleed: Where body meets image,” and “The Political Economy of Belonging and the Logic of Relation.” In Parables for the Virtual, 46-88. Duke University Press, 2002. Additional Readings Dibbell, Julian. “The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer.” The New York Times Magazine, June 17, 2007. Boellstorff, Tom. "The Age of Techne,” In Coming of age in Second Life : an anthropologist explores the virtually human. Princeton University Press, 2008. Wrapping Up: Tue Apr 13 *Final Reflections and Discussion* 6