ANTH 424

CULTURE, IDENTITY & EMOTION

CRN: 81191

     http://blackboard.hawaii.edu/

Objectives

How do language and cultural practices shape self-understanding and emotional experience? And, conversely, how do cultural formations of self and emotion work to maintain social identities such as gender, ethnicity, and nation? This course explores these questions by taking up recent work in cultural and psychological anthropology as well as cultural psychology.

By examining local concepts of self and emotion in a number of communities, the course illuminates the role of culture in aspects of psychology commonly regarded as universal or biologically determined. This includes consideration of the role of life stories, collective histories, and other narrative practices in the creation of emotional meaning in everyday life.

Overall, the course reflects upon ways in which cultural and ethnographic approaches can expand our understanding of the "psychological" in society and history. The course offers an opportunity to think critically about the role of emotions in social and political process, including contemporary struggles over cultural, gender and national identities.

This is a writing-intensive (WI) course. Assignments are aimed at generating reflection and critical thought. The first part of the course reviews a number of key concepts (self, identity, emotion, memory, life history), as these have been studied across cultures. The second part of the course takes up several ethnographic studies that explore the production of identity and emotion in more depth in specific contexts. Assignments include weekly reading notes, several short writing assignments, and final paper.

Requirements

Active student participation is required and will consist of preparation and contributions to class discussion. These components will make up 20% of the final grade. The remaining 80 % consist of written assignments in the form of weekly reading notes (20%), three short essays (5 pages) on September 11 memory, life histories, and a book essay (10% each), and a final paper (10-15 pages, 30%) due the last week of class. The final paper may be a research project based on library sources, media, and/or the student's own research focusing on life stories, collective memory, emotions or related topics.

Course Readings

Readings for this course are all available on reserve in Sinclair Library.  Required books may be purchased at the bookstore.  Other readings may be purchased as a course packet (Anthropology 424) from the photocopy store Professional Image located at 2633 S.King Street (one block toward Diamond Head from University Avenue). 973-6599

Required Books [in bookstore and on reserve, Sinclair Library]

Bruner, Jerome (1990). Acts of Meaning. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.

Hochschild, Arlie R. (1983). The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley, University of California Press.

Ito, Karen L. (1999). Lady Friends: Hawaiian Ways and the Ties that Define. Ithaca, Cornell University Press.

O'Nell, T. D. (1996). Disciplined Hearts: History, Identity, and Depression in an American Indian Community. Berkeley, University of California Press.

Week by week outline:

I. Introduction: Culture, Emotion, Identity

1. Aug 26: Introduction: The cultural study of identity & emotion

NO READING assigned

2. Aug 28: Culture and subjectivity: anthropology & psychology

Bruner, Preface, ix-xiii; Ch 1: "The Proper Study of Man," 1-32

3. Sept 2: "folk psychology": person, self, experience

Bruner, Ch 2: "Folk Psychology as an Instrument of Culture," 33-65

4. Sept 4: Interpreting emotions: the role of language and culture

Wierzbicka, "Human Emotions: Universal or Culture-Specific?," 584-594.

5. Sept 9: Interpreting emotions: cultural models and metaphors

Lakoff & Kövecses, "The Cognitive Model of Anger Inherent in American English," 195-221.

II. Emotions in/of History

6. Sept 11: Momentous events: flashbulb memories     [Sept 11 project DUE]

Brown and Kulik 1982 , pp. 23-40

Colegrove 1982 pp 41-42

Deaux, "Negotiating Identity and Community after September 11," 5 pp.

7. Sept 16: Sacred places and emotional histories

White, "Emotional Remembering," 493-510.

III. Narrating Selves: Constructing Lives and Histories

8. Sept 18: Narrative and the self

Bruner Ch 4: "Autobiography and the Self," 99-138

9. Sept 23: Life histories / life stories

Peacock & Holland, "The Narrated Self: Life Stories in Process," 367-383.

10. Sept 25: Life stories in history: Hawai'i

Mast & Mast, Introduction," 1-15; and two life stories of your choosing

11. Sept 30: Life stories

Menchu biographical sketch (1 page)

Burgo-Debray, "Introduction," xi-xxi

Stoll, "Life Story as Mythopoesis" 1-4.

Gelles, "Testimonio, Ethnography and Processes of Authorship," 1-5.

12. Oct 2: Telling life stories: performing lives

Meyerhoff, "Life History Among the Elderly: Performance, Visibility, and Re-Membering," 99-117

13. Oct 7: Doing things with stories: identity and empowerment

Cain, "Personal Stories: Identity Acquisition and Self Understanding in Alcoholics Anonymous," 210-53.

14. Oct 9: Life story projects     [Life story project DUE]

no assigned reading

IV. Cultural Emotions and Political Histories

15. Oct 14: Making Native American identities [Final paper proposal DUE]

O'Nell, Introduction: 1-13; Ch 1, "Telling about Whites, Talking about Indians,": 17-44; Ch 2: "The Making and Unmaking of the "Real Indians," 45-73

16. Oct 16: Ways of talking / ways of being

O'Nell, Ch 3: "Speaking to the Heart," 77-109

17. Oct 21: Social meanings of emotion: Native American perspectives

O'Nell, Ch 4: "Feeling Bereaved, Feeling Aggrieved, and Feeling Worthless," 110-139

18. Oct 23: Emotion, Suffering and Cultural experience

O'Nell, Ch 5: "Speaking from the Heart," 143-176;

Gone, " 'When the Whiteman Came': American Indian Mental Health in (Post)Colonial Context," 1-7.

19. Oct 28: Anthropological critiques of psychiatric categories

O'Nell, Ch 6: "Culture and Depression," 177-210; "Afterword," 211-215

V. The Social Life of Emotions

20. Oct 30: Cultural selves: Hawaiian perspectives

Ito, Introduction, 1-16; Ch 1: "Lady Friends and Their Island Home," 17-49

21. Nov 4: Cultural models and the social construction of emotion

Ito, Ch 2: "Comeback and the Ties that Bind," 50-75; Ch 3: " 'My Heart is in My Friend'," 76-115

22. Nov 6: Ho'oponopono

Ito, Ch 4: "Ho'oponopono and Conflict Resolution," 116-149.

23. Nov 11: HOLIDAY: VETERAN'S DAY

VI. The Politics of Emotion

24. Nov 13: Managing emotions

Hochschild, Preface, ix-x, & Chs 1-3: "Exploring the Managed Heart," 3-23; "Feeling as Clue," 24-34; "Managing Feeling," 35-55

25. Nov 18: Feeling rules and the social work of emotions

Hochschild, Chs 4-5: "Feeling Rules," 56-75; "Paying Respects with Feeling," 76-86

26. Nov 20: Emotions and power: On the job

Hochschild, Chs 6-7: "Feeling Mangement: From Private to Commercial Uses," 89-136; "Between the Toe and the Heel: Jobs and Emotional Labor," 137-161

27. Nov 25: Gender, work and emotion  [Book essay DUE]

Hochschild, Chs 8-9: "Gender, Status and Feeling," 162-184; "The Search for Authenticity," 185-198

28. Nov 27: HOLIDAY: THANKSGIVING

29. Dec 2: Commodifying emotional life

Hochschild, "The Commercial Spirit of Intimate life and the Abduction of Feminism: Signs from Women's Advice Books," 13-44

VI. Paper presentations

30. Dec 4: Paper presentations

31. Dec 9: Paper presentations

32. Dec 11: Paper presentations & Conclusions [FINAL PAPER DUE]

Reading List {see p. 2 for course books}

Brown, Roger, and James Kulik 1982 Flashbulb Memories. In Memory Observed: Remembering in Natural Contexts. U. Neisser, ed. Pp. 23-40. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman & Co.

Cain, Carole 1991 Personal Stories: Identity Acquisition and Self-Understanding in Alcoholics Anonymous. Ethos 19(2):210-253.

Colegrove, F.W. 1982 The Day They Heard About Lincoln. In Memory Observed: Remembering in Natural Contexts. U. Neisser, ed. Pp. 41-42. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman & Co.

Deaux, Kay 2001 Negotiating Identity and Community After September 11. Social Science Research Council website: www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/deaux.htm. 5 pp.

Gelles, Paul H. 1998 Testimonio, Ethnography and Processes of Authorship. [Anthropology Newsletter March:16-17] 5 pp.

Gone, Joseph P. 2003 "When the Whiteman Came": American Indian Mental Health in (Post)Colonial Context. Paper read at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Psychological Anthropology. San Diego, CA. April 13.

Hochschild, Arlie 2003 The Commercial Spirit of Intimate life and the Abduction of Feminism: Signs from Women's Advice Books. In The Commercialization of Intimate Life: Notes from Home and Work. Pp. 13-44 Berkeley: University of California Press.

Lakoff, George 1987 The cognitive model of anger inherent in American English. In Cultural models in language and thought. N. Quinn and D. Holland, eds. Pp. 194-221. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Myerhoff, Barbara 1982 Life History Among the Elderly: Performance, Visibility, and Re-Membering. In J. Ruby, ed. A Crack in the Mirror: Reflexive Perspectives in Anthropology. Pp. 99-117. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Neisser, Ulric 1982 Snapshots or Benchmarks. In Memory Observed: Remembering in Natural Contexts. Pp. 43-48. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman.

Peacock, James L., and Dorothy C. Holland 1993 The Narrated Life: Life Stories in Process. Ethos 21(4):367-383.

Stoll, David 1998 Life Story as Mythopoesis. [Anthropology Newsletter (April):11-12] 4 pp.

White, Geoffrey M. 2000 Emotional Remembering: Pragmatics of National Memory. Ethos 27(4):505-529.

Wierzbicka, Anna 1986 Human Emotions: Universal or Culture-Specific? In Semantics, Culture and Cognition. Pp. 119-134. Oxford: Oxford University Press.