Fall 2003

LAS 391 • ORAL TRADITIONS AND HISTORY

Course Description

This course will examine oral traditions (narratives about the past) and the politics of writing histories. We will explore how ethnographers recover historical information and reconstitute community histories. Auto-ethnography and autobiography will also be explored as historical methods and theoretical approaches that attempt to change the relations between author and informant. Central issues of analysis include: hermeneutics, oral tradition theories and methods, how people remember the past, memory, the politics of writing, and race.

Grading Policy

2 essays (7 pages) and a presentation based on an oral history interview

Texts

Fabian, J: Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes its Object Foucalt: Archaeology of Knowledge Frye: Indians into Mexicans: History and Identity in a Mexican Town Manzano, Juan Francisco: Autobiography of a Slave Menchú, Rigoberta: I, Rigoberta Menchú Stoll, Rigoberta Menchú: And, the story of all Guatemalan people Menchaca, Mexican Outsiders Foley, The Heartland Chronicles A class reader will also be required. It will include articles by Rosaldo, Vansina, Bourdieu, Alonso, Taussig, Mintz, Goody, Connerton, Behar, Reed-Danahay, Lipzet, Clifford, Rabinow.

back