Fulfills: Area & Theory

Above course cross-listed in EALC.

Ethnography is a genre of academic writing in the humanities and
social sciences that is based on ethnographic research. In this
course, we will survey different styles of ethnographic research and
writing, focusing on: 1) the relations between ethnographic research
and the academic, political, cultural, and artistic contexts in
which it is situated; 2) the idea of ethnographers as authors; and
3) methods employed by specific ethnographers. We will consider
issues of cultural production, tropes, rhetorical strategies, and
concepts of identity, through the performing arts and through
ethnographic writing. We will examine ethnographic theories and
methods, focusing primarily on ethnographies of musical and
performative arts in China as our case. Class readings will consist
of monographs on various regions and groups in modern China, along
with several more general theoretical works on ethnographic
practices. Class members may focus their individual projects on
China or on another nation, place, and/or group.