Questions for Reading Reviews
The reading review assignment is described in detail on page 2 of the course syllabus. I have indicated with orange text the dates of the ten one-pagers which you should submit at the end of the course -- you should indicate three of these which you want to have graded.
March 8: The characters of John Dalton (the contemporary shopkeeper) and Camagu could both be considered outsiders in Qolorha-by-Sea. How do they integrate themselves into the local community? Do you think they are successful?
March 6: How do the director of "In a Time of Violence" (Brian Tilley) and Zakes Mda use fictional accounts to illustrate the changes and uncertainties of life in South Africa after apartheid?
March 1: You can take a break from writing the one-pagers and make some progress on finding sources / drafting your final paper instead (I won't be collecting anything).
February 27: (collected) Imagine that you have been hired to advise new Nuer immigrants to America. What are the most important pieces of advice would you give them, and why?
February 22: What challenges have Nuer faced in adapting to life in the United States?
February 20: How have money and civil war transformed Nuer society?
February 15: (collected) What is structural time?
February 13: (collected) Find three more articles in the African media to use in your final paper, and write a one-page description of your paper topic and the points you might make in the paper, based on your reading so far. You should also identify gaps & areas where you need more information to contextualize the news stories properly.
February 8: How has Zambia's dependence on copper mining affected the life courses of Zambian miners and ex-miners? How have they attempted to manage their retirement?
February 6: How do the Lunda resolve the tensions created by the combination of matrilineal descent, male authority and exogamous marriage? (as I pointed out in class, where the couple lives after marriage is an important factor in matrilineal kinship given the tensions between fathers and mother's brothers over authority over children).
February 1: 1) (2 parts) What is "the environment" from a Lunda point of view? Why does Pritchett say the Lunda "regard...development projects as environmental resources" (p. 53)?
-or-
2) How did the creation of colonial borders affect the Lunda economy and political organization?
January 30: (collected) Identify an article in an African newspaper on a topic you might want to write about for your final paper. Explain the context and significance of the article. Be sure to include a printout of the article with your review. See the African media page for details on how to locate African newspapers from the BBC Africa news site
January 25: (collected) G&G, Livingstone and EP all write about ideas and practices that might be considered "mystical" or "supernatural." In your opinion, which of them has the most appropriate response? Which has the least? Why?
January 23: What are some of the obstacles that Alma Gottleib faces in establishing her field research site, and how does she go about overcoming them?
January 18: (collected) In what ways is the experience of the Baule (described in Etienne's article, "Women and Men, Cloth and Colonization" (GS pp. 518-535)) representative of Africans' experiences under colonialism?"
January 16: The authors for this class (Cooper, Rodney and Berman) and the last (Southall and Vail) describe a range of different effects of colonialism on Africa. Which of these do you see as the most significant for contemporary Africa?
January 11: (collected) What's wrong (or right) with the idea of a "tribe"?
January 9: Think about the myths about Africa described by Bohannan and Curtin and the representations described in the Comaroff article, then pick an article from an American newspaper -- does the article recreate older myths of Africa? if so, how? if not, what are the important contrasts you see?
Return to the course home page