Profile
External Links
Kamran Asdar Ali
Associate Professor — Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University
Contact
- E-mail: asdar@austin.utexas.edu
- Phone: 471-7531
- Office: SAC 5.126
- Office Hours: Spring 2012: Wednesdays 2pm-4pm
- Campus Mail Code: C3200
Biography
Kamran Asdar Ali is associate professor of anthropology, Middle East Studies and Asian Studies and the Director of the South Asia Institute at the University of Texas, Austin. He is the author of Planning the Family in Egypt: New Bodies, New Selves (UT Press, 2002). He is the co-editor of Gendering Urban Space in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa (Palgrave 2008) and Comparing Cities: Middle East and South Asia (OUP, 2009), both with Martina Rieker, with whom he also coordinates the Shehr Network on Comparative Urban Landscapes. He has published several articles on issues of health and gender in Egypt, more recently his published work has been on Pakistan’s cultural history, popular culture, urban politics and gender issues. He has previously taught at the University of Rochester (1995-2001). He was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (1998-99) and a senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) in Leiden, The Netherlands (2005). More recently he was a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg at Berlin (2010-2011) where he finished a book length manuscript on the social history of the working class movement during Pakistan's early years.
Additional affiliations: South Asia Institute, Population Research Center, and Women and Gender Studies.
Interests
ANT 392M • Intro To Grad Social Anthro
31625 •
Fall 2013
Meets
W 900am-1200pm SAC 5.124
show description
This course introduces students to theory in sociocultural anthropology from its colonial roots to the contemporary period. This course is not a history of anthropological theory, but will provide a chronological and contextualized perspective as we explore and interpret the relationships between varying and, at times, competing theoretical, epistemological, and ethical claims on anthropology.
ANT 391 • Culture, History, And Power
31335 •
Fall 2012
Meets
T 900am-1200pm SAC 5.118
(also listed as
ANS 391, HIS 381, MES 384 )
show description
Culture, History and Power. In a cross cultural and inter-disciplinary perspective, the course will critically engage with historiographical debates in on issues related to narrative, the history and politics of the archives, the politics of representation and the construction of facts. We will read works by Hayden White, E. P. Thompson, Reinhart Koselleck, Fernand Braudel, Marshall Sahlins, Carlo Ginzburg and Michel-Rolph Trouillot among others. Over the course of the semester we will also follow the debates in Subaltern Historians by scholars like Ranajit Guha, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Gyan Pandey and Partha Chatterjee. Regionally, the course will be broad. While most of the monographs will be on South Asia and the Middle East, there will be ample discussion of European, Latin American and African cases.
ANT 324L • Anthropol Of Health & Illness
81400 •
Summer 2010
Meets
MTWTHF 1130am-100pm WEL 2.256
show description
The course seeks to make the students critical of dominant bio-medical assumptions of health and illness by exposing the historical, social, political, economic and cultural foundations of Western Medicine. The readings will critically discuss the historical construction of the modern medicalized body by looking at some nineteenth century debates on anatomy, physiology, psychiatry and anthropology. The issue of race and gender inherent in these debates will be explored by linking them to the expansion of the colonial enterprise and the rise of capitalism. Material will be introduced to help students evaluate the contemporary emphasis on the biomedical model of health and illness in relation to the plurality of health systems in the different parts of the world. The course seeks to further evaluate the linkage between modern medicine and the construction of modern subjectivity and personhood.
ANT 324L • City In S Asia/Mid East/Africa
30280 •
Spring 2010
Meets
TTH 1100-1230pm GAR 1.126
(also listed as
ANS 361, ISL 372, MES 322K, URB 354 )
show description
The City in South Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
Anthropology 324 L. Spring 2010
Tuesday and Thursday: 11 am - 12.15 pm
Kamran Asdar Ali.
Office: EPS 1.116
Phone: 471 7531
Email: asdar@mail.utexas.edu
Office Hours: Tuesday and Thursday 1 pm -2 pm and by appointment.
The class will focus on how recent scholarship on cities has concentrated on the informal sector, rural-urban migration and peri-urban spaces. During the course of the semester the students will engage with material from the three regions of the world to address some of the following questions: Does the city represent a site of personal autonomy and political possibilities for women/men? At different moments public discourse in distinct societies has produced the city as both site of modern citizen-making and site of corruption/ pollution. How have different classes of people in distinct temporalities/spatialities negotiated these tensions? How do urban politics and policies reshape households and communities' relationship to the city? What political space is provided for subjects to resist or renegotiate state sponsored attempts to re-order the urban landscape?
Grading Policy and Requirements: The students will be required to regularly attend the class. I shall also expect students to have read the assigned material, as I shall run the class as a seminar rather than a lecture course. I shall intervene and explain where necessary, but the onus will be on the student(s) to lead and engage in discussions.. More than three absences without notice shall reflect on your final grade. There shall be no exams. Instead I shall expect one class presentation, two papers and a final group project. The paper and research topics will be discussed and elaborated upon during the course of the semester.
Grades Distribution:
Attendance and Participation: 15 points
Class presentation: 10 points
First paper: 25 points
Second paper: 25 points
Group Project: 25 points
Books Ordered at the CO-OP.
Alaa Al Aswany. The Yacoubian Building. Harper Press.
Christopher Davidson. Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success. Columbia University Press
Mike Davis: Planet of the Slums. Verso Press.
Naguib Mahfouz: Midaq Alley. Anchor Books
Laura Ring: Zenana. University of Indiana Press.
There is also a course pack available at Speedway (Dobie Mall) that has additional readings.
Week One: January 19 and 21
Introduction
Saskia Sassen: Whose City Is It? Globalization and the Formation of New Claims. In Course Pack.
Kamran Asdar Ali and Martina Rieker: Urban Margins. In Course Pack
Week Two: January 26 and 28
Timothy Mitchell: An Appearance of Order. In Course Pack
Driss Maghraoui: Gendering Urban Colonial Casablanca. In Course Pack
Zeynep Celik: An Outline of Urban Structure. In Course Pack
Week Three: February 2 and 4
William Glover: Changing Houses. In Course Pack
Achille Mbembe: Aesthetics of Superfluity. In Course Pack
AbdouMaliq Simone: People as Infrastructure: Intersecting Fragments in Johannesburg. In Course Pack
Week Four: February 9 and 11
Derek Gregory: Defiled Cities. In Course Pack
Danny Hoffman: The City as Barracks. In Course Pack
Week Five: February 16 and 18
Thomas Blom Hansen: Race, Security and Spatial Anxieties in the Post Apartheid City. In Course Pack.
AbdouMaliq Simone: Remaking Urban Socialities. In Course Pack.
Week Six: February 23 and 25
Film: District Nine.
First Paper Due on February 25, 2010.
Week Seven: March 2 and 4
Mike Davis: Planet of the Slums.
Week Eight: March 9 and 11
Planet of Slums, Continued.
Mathew Gandy: Learning from Lagos
Rem Koolhass: Fragments of a Lecture on Lagos.
Spring Break: March 15-20, 2010.
Start Reading Midaq Alley and Yacoubian Building.
Week Nine: March 23 and 25
Asef Bayat: Cairo Cosmopolitan. In Course Pack.
Naguib Mahfouz: Midhaq Alley
Week Ten: March 30 and April 1.
Alla Al Aswany: Yacoubian Building
Second Paper Due April 6, 2010.
Week Eleven: April 6 and 8
Film: Q2P by Paromita Vohra
Paromita Vohra: No Man’s Land: A Visual Essay (to be distributed)
Thomas Blom Hansen: Sovereigns Beyond the State: On Legality and Authority in Urban India. In Course Pack.
Week Twelve: April 13 and 15
Arjun Appadurai: Spectral Housing and Urban Cleansing: Notes on Millennial Mumbai. In Course Pack.
Laura Ring: Zenana
Week Thirteen: April 20 and 22
Zenana Continued.
Norma Moruzzi: Tied up in Tehran: A Metaphor
Ahmed Kanna and Arang Keshavarzian: The UAE’s Space Race
Christopher Davidson: Dubai.
Week Fourteen: April 27 and 29
Dubai Continued
Presentations.
Week Fifteen: May 4 and 6.
Presentations
Final Paper/Group Project Due on Thursday May 6th, 2010. Before 5 pm in my office.
ANT 391 • Cities And Citizenship
30565 •
Spring 2010
Meets
W 200pm-500pm EPS 1.128
(also listed as
ANS 391, MES 381 )
show description
ANTHROPOLOGY 391. Spring 2010
CITIES AND CITIZENSHIP
Wednesday 2-5 pm.
Kamran Asdar Ali
EPS 1-116
471-7531
Office hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 1-2 pm or by appointment.
Requirements: I would expect you to come to class regularly and participate equally in the discussion. There would be presentations of the material and we will decide the modalities in class. Please come on time and attend all classes.
1. Each student will hand in a paragraph on the readings for every session. These response papers will not be returned.
2. A research paper on a topic of your choice due at the end of the semester. The paper should reflect your engagement with the texts and discussions in the class. We can discuss the exact topics during the course of the semester.
The following texts have been ordered at the COOP.
Javier Auyero: Poor People’s Politics. Duke University Press, 2000.
Ananya Roy: City Requiem, Calcutta: Gender and the Politics of Poverty. University of Minnesota Press, 2002.
Partha Chatterjee: The Politics of the Governed. Columbia University Press, 2004
Giorgio Agamben: State of Exception. University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Michael Taussig: Law in a Lawless Land. University of Chicago Press, 2005.
There is also a course-pack at Speedway Copies (Dobie Mall), this has most of the readings.
Week 1: Introduction and Overview.
January 20
Week 2: Cities and Citizenship
January 27
James Holston and Arjun Appadurai, “Cities and Citizenship” (Public Culture 8(2), 1996), 187-204.
Saskia Sassen, “Whose City is it? Globalization and the Formation of New Claims” (Public Culture 8(2), 1996), 205-223.
Jean and John Comaroff. Occult Economies and the Violence of Abstraction (AE 26(2), 1999), 279-303.
AbdouMaliq Simone, For the City Yet to Come. Chapters, Introduction, 2, 3, 6 and 7.
Week 3: The Historical Construction of Space and Spatiality
February 3
Frederick Jameson. Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, 1-54
Frederick Jameson. Future City. New Left Review 21 May-June 2003.
David Harvey. The Urban Experience, chapter 9.
Kamran Asdar Ali and Martina Rieker: Urban Margins. Social Text, 2008.
Susan Buck-Morris, The Dialectics of Seeing, Chapter 8.
Week 4: The Postmodernist City
February 10
Nigel Thrift. But Malice Afterthought: Cities and the Natural History of Hatred
Nigel Thrift. Intensities of Feeling: Toward a Spatial Politics of Affect
Achille Mbembe and Janet Roitman. Figures of the Subject in Times of Crisis. In the Geographies of Identities.
Arjun Appadurai. “Deep Democracy: Urban Governmentality and the Horizon of Politic”
(Public Culture 14(1), 2002), 21-47.
Week 5:
February 10
Film: The Blade Runner.
David Harvey. The Condition of Postmodernity, chapter 18.
Simon Cole. “Do Androids Pulverize Tiger Bones to Use as Aphrodisiacs”, (Social Text 42, Spring 1995), 173-193.
Week 6: The City Modern or Postmodern
February 17
D. Massey. “Flexible Sexism”. ((Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 9, 1991). 31-57.
Mike Davis. Planet of Slums. New Left Review 26 March-April 2004.
David Scott. Refashioning Futures. Chapter 8.
Mathew Gandi. Learning from Lagos New Left Review 33 May-June, 2005
Rem Koolhas. Fragments of a Lecture on Lagos. In Under Siege Four African Cities
Week 7: Citizenship Debates
February 24
Wendy Brown. States of Injury. Chapters 5.
Karl Marx. On the Jewish Question
Carole Pateman. The Disorder of Women, 71-89, 118-140, 179-209.
Uday Mehta. The Anxiety of Freedom, Chapters 3-4.
Week 8: Citizenship Debates Continued
March 3
Chantal Mouffe. The Return of the Political, Chapters 2-4 and 9.
Charles Taylor. “Modern Social Imaginaries” (Public Culture 14(1), 2002) 91-124.
Partha Chaterjee. “Community in the East” (Economic and Political Weekly, Feb. 7, 1998) 277-282.
Uday Mehta. Liberalism and Empire. Chapters 2-3.
John and Jean Comaroff. Criminal Justice. Cultural Justice (American Ethnologist 31(2), 2004), 188-204.
Week 9: The State of Exception.
March 10
Giorgio Agamben. State of Exception.
Georgio Agamben. Mean Without End.
Foucault, Michel. Society Must be Defended. 238-263.
Achille Mbembe. Necropolitics (Public Culture 15(1), 2003) 11-40
SPRING BREAK
Week 10: Remapping the City and Rethinking Citizens.
March 24
Humphrey Caroline. Rethinking Infrastructure. Siberian Cities and the Great Freeze of January 2001.
Thomas Blom Hansen. Race, Security and Urban Anxieties in the Post-Apartheid City. Gendering Urban Space in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa.
AbdouMaliq Simone. Remaking Urban Socialities. Gendering Urban Space in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa.
Jean and John Comaroff. Criminal Obsessions After Foucault.
Week 11:
March 30
Partha Chatterjee. The Politics of the Governed.
Week 12:
April 7
Javier Auyero: Poor People’s Politics.
Week 13:
April 14
Ananya Roy. City Requiem. Calcutta.
Week 14:
April 21.
Michael Taussig: Law in a Lawless Land
Week 15: Review
April 29
Week 16.
May 5
Last Day of Class. Paper due on May 5th before 5 pm in my office.
Papers Due on May 4th before 5 pm.
ANT 392M • Intro To Grad Social Anthro
30710 •
Fall 2009
Meets
W 1030-1200 EPS 1.128
show description
Introduction to Graduate Social Anthropology
Anthropology 392M (30860, 30865)
Fall 2009
Professor James Brow Professor Kamran Asdar Ali
Office: EPS 2.208 Office EPS 1.116
Office Hours: M 1:30 to 3:00 and W 2-4 Tuesday 1-3
Office Phone: 471-0058 Office Phone: 471-7531
jbrow@mail.utexas.edu ` asdar@mail.utexas.edu
Description
This course introduces students to theory in sociocultural anthropology from its colonial roots to the contemporary period. This course is not a history of anthropological theory, but will provide a chronological and contextualized perspective as we explore and interpret the relationships between varying and, at times, competing theoretical, epistemological, and ethical claims on anthropology.
There are two sections of the course, both of which are co-taught by Professors Ali and Brow. The sections meet together on Wednesdays from 10:30 to 11:45 A.M. in EPS 1.128 for a common lecture that introduces the assigned readings for the week. Each section meets separately in a seminar to discuss the week’s readings, Seminars will be held on Mondays in EPS 1.130KA, one at 9:00 and the other at 10:30. Both seminars will be led by the professor who introduced the week’s topic the previous Wednesday.
Requirements
Students will be expected to write four papers of 5 to 6 double-spaced pages (approximately 1250 to 1500 words) over the span of the semester. Two papers will be submitted to each of the two instructors. Papers are to be concise and cogent discussions of the readings, and are based on a focus questions provided for each assignment. Late papers will be marked down substantially, and papers more than two days late will ordinarily not be accepted. Each paper will be worth 15% of the overall grade.
Each student will be expected to lead the discussion, and to write a discussion paper of one to one-and-a-half pages, for four seminars, two for each of the instructors. These papers, copies of which are to be distributed to all members of your seminar group, should address significant issues raised by the readings and provide a focus for the seminar discussion.
Class participation is absolutely essential. Students are expected to attend class regularly, and to be ready to participate in the seminar discussion. Unexcused absences will lower a grade. Attendance, participation in class discussions, and discussion papers will comprise 40% of the final grade.
Grading Summary
Four papers, each worth 15% of the overall grade……………………………….60% of overall grade
Discussion papers and leadership, class participation and attendance…………...40% of overall grade
TOTAL 100%
Books
The following books are available at the University Co-op Bookstore:
Tucker, Robert C., ed., The Marx-Engels Reader (2nd ed). New York: Norton,1978
Wolf Heydebrand, ed., Max Weber: Sociological Writings. New York: Continuum, 1994.
E.R. Leach, Political Systems of Highland Burma. London: Berg, 1954.
Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1977.
Williams, Raymond., Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977
Marshall Sahlins, Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan, 1981.
Giorgio Agamben, Means Without End. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2000
Course Packets
A packet of readings assigned by Brow will be available at Abel’s Copy Shop, 715-D West 23rd Street (Ground Floor, University Towers Garage), 472-5353. The readings assigned by Ali will be available at Speedway Copies in Dobie Mall. Please notify the instructors immediately if you have difficulty securing a book or packet.
Class Topics and Reading Assignments
Wed. Aug. 26 (10:30) Introduction (KA)
Mintz, Sidney. Culture: An Anthropological View. The Yale Review. 1982.
Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. Anthropology and the Savage Slot: The Poetics and Politics of Otherness. In Recapturing Anthropology. Richard Fox, ed. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 1991.
Clifford, James. On Ethnographic Authority. In The Predicament of Culture. James Clifford ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988.
Foucault, Michel. What is an Author. In the Foucault Reader. Paul Rabinow ed. New York: Panthoen Books, 1984.
Said, Edward. Representing the Colonized: Anthropology’s Interlocutors. Critical Inquiry 15(2):205- 225, 1989.
Geertz, Clifford. Being There: Anthropology and the Scene of Writing. In Works and Lives. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988.
Asad, Talal. Ethnographic Representation, Statistics and Modern Power. Social Theory 61(1):55-88. 1994.
Mon. August 31 (9:00 and 10:30) Discussion
Wed. Sept. 2 (10:30) Marx (JB)
Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels,The Marx-Engels Reader (2nd ed.), edited by Robert Tucker, pp. 3-6, 136-75, 203-26, 294-384, 431-42, 473-83, 586-617, 760-68. New York: Norton, 1978.
Eric Wolf, “The Mills of Inequality: A Marxian Approach. “ In Gerald Berreman, ed., Social Inequality Comparative and Developmental Approaches, pp.41-57. New York; Academic Press, 1981.
Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature, part 1 chapter 2 (“Determination”), pp.83-89. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.
Mon. Sept. 7 Labor Day
Wed. Sept. 9 (10:30) Weber (JB)
Max Weber, Sociological Writings, edited by Wolf Heydebrand, chapters 11-13, 15-16, 18-19, 21-22, 27-31, pp. 28-46, 59-122, 151-73, 179-204, 228-303. New York: Continuum, 1994.
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, ch.5 (“Asceticism and the Spirit of Capitalism”), pp. 155-83. New York: Charles Scribner’s, 1958.
Mon. Sept. 14 (9:00 and 10:30) Discussion sections (JB)
Wed. Sept. 16 (10:30) Boas: Culture and Race (KA)
Boas, Franz. A Year Among the Eskimo. In The Shaping of American Anthropology 1883-1911: A Franz Boas Reader. George Stocking ed.
--------. The Mind of a Primitive Man. Rev. ed. New York: Macmillan. Chapters 8 (Race Language and Culture), 10 (The Interpretation of Culture) and 13 (The Race Problem in Modern Society.
Bashkow, Ira. A Neo Boasian Conception of Cultural Boundaries. American Anthropologist 106(3):443-459, 2004.
Trouillot, Michel Rolph. Culture, Color and Politics in Haiti. In Race. Stephen Gregory and Roger Sanjek eds. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1994.
Du Bois, W.E.B. ‘The Conservation of Races’ in Theories of Race and Racism, edited by Les Back and J. Solomos. Pp. 79-86.
Hall, Stuart ‘Old and new Identities, old and new Ethnicities’ in Theories of Race and Racism, Pp. 144-153.
Young, Robert. ‘White Power, White Desire. The Political Economy of Miscegenation’ in Colonial Desire. Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race. London: Routledge.
Mon. Sept. 21 (9:00 and 10:30) Discussion sections (KA)
Wed. Sept. 23 (10:30) Structure and Function (JB)
Emile Durkheim, “The Field of Sociology” and “Methods of Explanation and Analysis,” chs. 1 & 2 of his Selected Writings, Anthony Giddens, ed., pp. 51-88. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.
Bronislaw Malinowski, Argonauts of the Western Pacific, “Introduction: The Subject, Method and Scope of this Enquiry,” pp. 1-25, and ch. 3 (“The Essentials of the Kula”), pp. 81-104. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1961 (1922).
A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, Structure and Function in Primitive Society, “Introduction,” pp. 1-14, ch. 6, (“The Sociological Theory of Totemism”), pp. 117-32, ch.9 (“On the Concept of Function in Social Science”), pp. 178-187, and ch. 10 (“On Social Structure”), pp. 188-204. New York: The Free Press, 1965 (1952).
E.E. Evans-Pritchard, “Social Anthropology: Past and Present.” Reprinted in Paul Bohannan & Mark Glazer, eds. High Points in Anthropology (2nd ed.), pp. 410-21. New York: McGraw Hill, 1988.
E.R. Leach, Political Systems of Highland Burma, “Introduction” and chs.1-4, pp. 1-100. Boston: Beacon Press, 1964 (1954).
J. Van Velsen, “The Extended-Case Method and Situational Analysis.” In A.L. Epstein, ed., The Craft of Social Anthropology, pp. 129-49. London: Tavistock, 1967.
Mon. Sept. 28 (9:00 and 10:30) Discussion sections (JB)
Wed. Sept. 30 (10:30) Structuralism (KA)
Saussure, Ferdinand de. Course in General Linguistics. Illionois: Open Court, 1986.
Levi-Strauss, Claude. History and Anthropology, Structural Analysis in Linguistics and Anthropology and The Sorcerer and his Magic. In Structural Anthropology. Basic Books, 1963.
Volosinov V.N. Sections from Marxism and the Philosophy of Language (Harvard University Press:1973).
Sahlins, Marshall. Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Geertz, Clifford. The World in a Text: How to Read Tristes Tropiques. In Works and Lives. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988.
Geertz, Clifford. The Cerebral Savage: On the Work of Claude Levis Strauss. In The Interpretation of Culture. Basic Books, 1973.
Mon. Oct. 5 (9:00 and 10:30) Discussion sections (KA)
Wed. Oct. 7 (10:30) Political Economy (JB)
Sherry Ortner, “The Seventies: Marx,” part of “Theory in Anthropology since the Sixties.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 26 (1): 138-44, 1984.
William Roseberry, “Political Economy.” Annual Review of Anthropology 17 (1988), pp. 161-85.
Neil Smelser, “Towards a Theory of Modernization.” In Wilbert Moore & Bert Hoselitz, eds., The Impact of Industry. Paris: International Social Science Council, 1963. Reprinted in George Dalton, ed., Tribal and Peasant Economies , pp. 29-48. Garden City: Doubleday, 1967.
Karl Polanyi, excerpt from “The Economy as Instituted Process.” In Polanyi et al. eds., Trade and Market in the Early Empires, pp. 243-56. Chicago: Regnery, 1971 (1957).
E. R. Leach, Political Systems of Highland Burma, ch. 5, pp. 101-95 (skim pp. 108-36, 172-94). Boston: Beacon Press, 1964 (1954).
Eric Wolf, “Closed Corporate Peasant Communities in Mesoamerica and Central Java.” The Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 13:1-18, 1957. And “The Vicissitudes of the Closed Corporate Peasant Community.” American Ethnologist 13:325-29, 1986. Both reprinted in Eric Wolf, Pathways of Power: Building an Anthropology of the Modern World, pp. 147-65. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.
Eric Wolf, Europe and the People Without History, ch.1 (“Introduction”), pp. 3-23, and ch. 12 (“The New Laborers”), pp. 354-83. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.
Eric Wolf, “Incorporation and Identity in the Making of the Modern World.” Suomen Antropologi 3: 82-92, 1984. Reprinted in Wolf, Pathways of Power, pp.353-69.
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil, excerpt from “Introduction: Tropical Sadness,” pp. 1-21, and ch. 1 (“O Nordeste: Sweetness and Death”), pp. 31-64. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
Mon. Oct. 12 (9:00 and 10:30) Discussion sections (JB)
Wed. Oct. 14 (10:30) Culture, Power and History (KA)
Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. Introduction, Silencing the Past. Boston: Beacon Press. 1995
Comaroff, John and Jean. Ethnography and the Historical Imagination. Introduction. Boulder: Westview Press. 1992.
N. Abu El-Haj 1998 "Translating truths: Nationalism, the practice of archaeology, and the remaking of past and present in contemporary Jerusalem, American Ethnologist 25(2):166-188.
White, Hayden. The Question of Narrative in Contemporary Historical Theory. In The Content of Form. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987.
--------. Chapters 1 (The Burden of History), 2 (Interpretation of History), 3 (The Historical Text as Literary Artifact) and 5 (The Fictions of Factual Representation). In Tropics of Discourse. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978
Thompson, E. P. Folklore, Anthropology and Social History. The Indian Historical Review 1977.
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. Chapters 1 (Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History) and 3 (Translating Life- Worlds into Labor and History). In Provincializing Europe. Princeton University Press, 2000.
Feeley-Harnik, Gillian. The Political Economy of Death: Communication and Change in Malgasy Colonial History. American Ethnologist 1191):1-19. 1984
Mon. Oct. 19 (9:00 and 10:30) Discussion sections (KA)
Wed. Oct. 21 (10:30) Structure and Agency (JB)
Sherry Ortner, “Into the Eighties: Practice” and “Conclusions and Prospects,” parts of “Theory in Anthropology since the Sixties.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 26 (1): 144-65, 1984.
E.R. Leach, Political Systems of Highland Burma, chs. 6-10, pp. 197-292 (skim ch. 8). Boston: Beacon Press, 1964 (1954).
Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, “Section 1: Analyses,” part of ch. 1 (“The Objective Limits of Objectivism”), pp. 1-30, ch.2 (“Structures and the Habitus”), pp. 72-95, ch. 3 (“Generative Schemes and Practical Logic: Invention Within Limits”), pp. 96-158, and ch. 4 (“Structures, Habitus, Power: Basis for a Theory of Symbolic Power”), pp. 159-97. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
Anthony Giddens, Profiles and Critiques in Social Theory, ch. 3 (“Action, Structure, Power”), pp. 28-39. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.
Mon. Oct. 26 (9:00 and 10:30) Discussion sections (JB)
Wed. Oct. 28 (10:30) Feminism and Anthropology (KA)
Strathern, Marilyn. An Awkward Relationship: The Case of Feminism and Anthropology. Signs 12(2):276-292. Winter, 1987.
Stacey, Judith. Can there be a Feminist Ethnography. Women’s Studies International Forum 11(1):21- 27. 1988.
Mahmood, Saba. Feminist Theory, Embodiment and the Docile Agent: Some Reflections on the Egyptian Islamic Revival. Cultural Anthropology 16(2):202-236. 2001
Stoler, Ann. Gender and Morality in the Making of Race. Chapter 3, Pp. 41-59. In Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power. University of California Press. 2002.
Mohanty, Chandra Talpode. Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and the Colonial Discourses. In Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism. Chandra Mohanty, Ann Russo and Lourdes Torres eds. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1991.
Abu-Lughod, Lila. Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and its Others. American Anthropologist 104(3):783-790. 2002.
Visweswaran, Kamala. Histories of Feminist Ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology 26:591-621. 1997.
Mon, Nov. 2 (9:00 and 10:30) Discussion sections (KA)
Wed. Nov. 4 (10:30) Culture and Hegemony (JB)
Antonio Gramsci, “Culture,” “Hegemony,” “Ideology, Popular Beliefs and Common Sense,” “The Intellectuals,” and “the State.” In Tony Bennett et al., eds., Culture, Ideology and Social Process, pp. 191-218. London: The Open University Press, 1981.
Stuart Hall, “Gramsci’s Relevance for the Study of Race and Ethnicity.” Journal of Communication Inquiry 10 (2): 5-27, 1986.
E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, “Preface,” pp. 9-15. Harmonsworth: Penguin Books, 1968 (1963).
E.P. Thompson, “Patrician Society, Plebeian Culture.” Journal of Social History, Summer 1974, pp. 382-405.
Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature, “Introduction,” pp.1-7, Part One (“Basic Concepts”), chs. 1, 2 & 4 (pp.11-44, 55-71), and Part Two (“Cultural Theory”), chs. 1-10, pp. 75-141. Oxford: OUP, 1977.
James Brow, “Notes on Community, Hegemony, and the Uses of the Past.” Anthropological Quarterly 63 (1): 1-6, 1990.
James Brow, “The Incorporation of a Marginal Community Within the Sinhalese Nation.” Anthropological Quarterly 63 (1): 7-17, 1990.
Paul Willis, “Class and Institutional Form of Counter-School Culture.” In Tony Bennett et al., eds., Culture, Ideology and Social Process, pp. 81-109. London: The Open University Press, 1981.
Paul Gilroy, “”’Race’, Class and Agency.” Ch 1 of his There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack, pp. 15-42 & 251-66. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987.
Mon. Nov. 9 (9:00 and 10:30) Discussion sections (JB)
Wed. Nov. 11 (10:30) The Foucauldian Turn (KA)
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish (Part 3, Chapters 1-2). New York: Vintage Books. 1979.
--------. The History of Sexuality, Volume 1. pp.77-159. New York: Vintage. 1980
-------- Governmentality. In the Foucault Effect. Graham Burcell et.al eds. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1991.
----- -- Society Must be Defended pp.239-264. New York: Picador. 2003
Brown, Wendy. The States of Injury (Chapter five: Rights and Losses). Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1995.
Chatterjee, Partha. Community in East. Economic and Political Weekly. February 7, 1998.
Mbembe, Achille. Necropolitics. Public Culture 15(1)11-40. 2003.
Agamben, Giorgio, Means Without End. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000
Scott, David. Refashioning Futures (Chapter 8: Fanonian Futures). Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1999.
Ghosh, Kaushik. Between Global Flows and Local Dams: Indigenousness, Locality and the Transnational Sphere in Jharkand, India. Cultural Anthropology 21(4):501-534.
Mon. Nov. 16 (9:00 and 10:30) Discussion sections (KA)
Wed. Nov. 18 (10:30) Questions of Difference and other Ways of Being (KA)
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. Chapters 2 (The Two Histories of Capital) and 3 (Translating Life-Worlds into Labor and History). In Provincializing Europe. Princeton University Press, 2000.
Asad, Talal. Chapter 4 (Redeeming the “Human” through Human Rights). In Formations of the Secular. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 2003.
Mehta, Uday. The Anxiety of Freedom. Chapters 3 and 4. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 1992.
Lipuma, Edward. Modernity and Forms of Personhood in Melanesia. In Bodies and Persons, Michael Lambeck and Andrew Strathern eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1998.
Boddy, Janice. Afterward: Embodying Ethnography. In Bodies and Persons, Michael Lambeck and Andrew Strathern eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1998.
Clifford Geertz, Negara: The Theatre State in 19th century Bali, 1980. Pp. 11-25
Alan Klima. The Funeral Casino. Mediation, Massacre and Exchange with the dead in Thailand. Princeton University Press. 2002 Pp. 29-52.
Mon. Nov. 23 (9:00 and 10;00) Discussion sections (KA)
Wed. Nov. 25 (10:30) Globalization, Culture and Identities (JB)
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (revised edition), ch. 1 (“Introduction”), pp.1-7, and ch. 2 (“Cultural Roots”), pp. 9-36. London: Verso, 1991 (1983).
Research Interests
Research Interests
Gender, Health, Development, Labor History, Political Economy; Post-Colonialism;
Urban Social Histories, Popular Culture, Historiography, Memory, Liberalism, Middle
East; South Asia (Egypt, Pakistan).
Shehr Network on Comparative Urban Social Histories. Coordinated by
Kamran Asdar Ali and Martina Rieker (AUC)
Selected Publications
Selected Publications:
Books and Edited Volumes
2009 Comparing Cities: Middle East and South Asia. Edited Volume, Martina Rieker and Kamran Asdar Ali Editors. Oxford University Press.
2008 Urban Margins: Envisioning the Contemporary Global South. Kamran Asdar Ali and Martina Rieker, Editors. Guest Edited Journal, Social Text, Volume 26, Number 95.
2008 Gendering Urban Space in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. Kamran Asdar Ali and Martina Rieker Editors. Palgrave Press.
2002 Planning the Family in Egypt: New Bodies, New Selves. University of Texas Press.
Articles in Peer Reviewed Journals
2008 Introduction with Martina Rieker, Urban Visions of the Margins. In Urban Margins: Envisioning the Contemporary Global South Special edition of Social Text. Volume 26, number 95.
2005 Strength of the State meets the Strength of the Street: The 1972 labor struggle in Karachi.” International Journal of Middle East Studies. #37, 83-107. Reprinted with permission in Crisis and Beyond: Pakistan in the Twentieth Century. Naveeda Khan, Editor. Routledge India (2008).
2004 “Pulp Fictions: Reading Pakistani Domesticity.” Social Text #78. pp 123-145. Reprinted with permission inGendering Urban Space in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. Kamran Asdar Ali and Martina Rieker Editors. Palgrave Press (2008)
2003 “Myths, Lies and Impotence: Structural Adjustment and Male Voice in Egypt.” Comparative Studies in South Asia, Africa and the Middle East #23(1):321-334
2002 “Faulty Deployments: Persuading Women and Constructing Choice in Egypt.” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 44(2):370-394.
Peer Reviewed Book Chapters
2009. Men and their “Problems”: Notes on Contemporary Karachi. In Comparing Cities: Middle East and South Asia. Edited Volume, Martina Rieker and Kamran Asdar Ali eds. Oxford University Press.
2009. Introduction with Martina Rieker. In Comparing Cities: Middle East and South Asia. Edited Volume, Martina Rieker and Kamran Asdar Ali Editors. Oxford University Press.
2008 Introduction with Martina Rieker, Gendering Urban Space in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. Kamran Asdar Ali and Martina Rieker Editors. Palgrave Press.
Other Scholarly Articles and Book Chapters
Forthcoming (2009). Structural Adjustment, Impotence and Family Planning: Men’s Voices in Egypt. In Markets and Malthus: Gender, Health and Population in Neoliberal Times (Sage Publications). Sarah Sexton and Mohan Rao Editors.
2009 Foreword, Muhajirs and Nation: Bihar in the 1940s by Papiya Ghosh. Delhi: Routledge India
2008 The Fracturing of Pakistan (with Humiera Iqtidar). ISIM Review #21.
2007 Rounding Off our Space on Anthropologists and the Middle East. In Focus, Anthropology News, pp. 13-14. May 2007.
News and Recent Work:
Books and Articles
Books and Edited Volumes
2009 Comparing Cities: Middle East and South Asia. Edited Volume, Kamran Asdar Ali and Martina Rieker Editors. Oxford University Press.
2008 Urban Margins: Envisioning the Contemporary Global South. Kamran Asdar Ali and Martina Rieker, Editors. Guest Edited Journal, Social Text, Volume 26, Number 95.
2008 Gendering Urban Space in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. Martina Rieker and Kamran Asdar Ali Editors. Palgrave Press.
2002 Planning the Family in Egypt: New Bodies, New Selves. University of Texas Press.
2003 Planning the Family in Egypt: New Bodies, New Selves, Middle East Edition, American University in Cairo Press.
Under Review.
SURKH SALAM (Red Greetings): Communists in a Muslim Land. Book Length Manuscript under review at Indiana University Press.
Recent Articles in Peer Reviewed Journals
Forthcoming Progressive, Punjab and Pakistan: The Early Years. In the Journal of South Asian History and Culture. Special Issue on State of Subversion: Radical Politics in 20th Century Punjab. Issue Editors, Shalini Sharma and Virinder Kalra
2012 Women, Work and Public Spaces: Conflict and Co-Existence in Karachi’s Poor Neighborhoods. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 36/3. 585-605.
2011 Progressives and “Perverts”: Partition Stories and Pakistan’s Future. Social Text . Fall, #108.
2011 Communists in a Muslim Land: Cultural Debates in Pakistan’s Early Years. Modern Asian Studies. 45/3. 501-534.
2010: Voicing Difference: Gender and Civic Engagement among Karachi’s Poor. In Wenner Gren Symposium Series, Engaged Anthropology: Diversity and Dilemmas. Current Anthropology Volume 51, Supplement 2 (October): S313-S320.
2008 Introduction with Martina Rieker, Urban Visions of the Margins. In Urban Margins: Envisioning the Contemporary Global South, Special edition of Social Text. Volume 26, number 95.
2005 Strength of the State meets the Strength of the Street: The 1972 labor struggle in Karachi.” International Journal of Middle East Studies. #37, 83-107. Reprinted with permission in Beyond Crisis: Pakistan in the Twentieth Century. Naveeda Khan, Editor. Routledge India (2010).
2004 “Pulp Fictions: Reading Pakistani Domesticity.” Social Text #78. pp 123-145. Reprinted with permission in Gendering Urban Space in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. Kamran Asdar Ali and Martina Rieker Editors. Palgrave Press (2008)


