Work and Culture Prof. David Kideckel

Anthropology 339 110 C DiLoreto, TR 9-11, 1-2

Fall, 2004 832-2611; Kideckel@ccsu.edu

Labor is a cultural universal; it occurs among all human groups in all times and places. Though universal, the nature, meaning, and goals of labor differ cross-culturally. The first half of the course explores similarities and differences in human labor and examines the culture-labor interrelationship especially in regard to the division of labor, the uses of time and technology, and the relation of labor to human social and political life.

The second half of the course focuses on labor in modern society. It examines the historical development of modern labor, the diversity of contemporary labor, and what future labor may look like. By examining contemporary work and its relation to modern culture, the course will hopefully contribute to your understanding of what awaits you outside the university.

TEXTS AND READINGS: There are two assigned texts. These are:

Loïc Wacquant, Body and Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer, Oxford University Press. (LW in the Course Outline)

Carla Freeman, High Tech and High Heels in the Global Economy, Duke University Press. (CF in the Course Outline).

You will also read selected chapters from David A. Kideckel, Working Stiffs: Labor and the Body in Post-Socialist Romania.

Aside from these, most of our class reading will come from articles placed on reserve in the Burritt Library and in the main Anthropology Department office. These readings are designated by (R) in the course outline below.

REQUIREMENTS: Your grade will be based on five components:

1) a mid-term and final exam, each 25% of total grade, or 50%

2) two 8-10 pp. essays of original research that combine library and ethnographic components, each 20% of the total grade, or 40%

3) four "pop" quizzes on assigned reading (of which you may drop your lowest), worth a total of 10% of your grade.

Attendance will not be taken, but frequent absence can not help but affect your grade. Missed quizzes can not be made up, but will be treated as the "low score."

(R) Applebaum, Theory and the Anthropology of Work;

(R) Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer: Interest in Cattle.

(R) Lee, Hunting Among the !Kung San;

(R) Hoebel, Women and Men’s Work Among the Cheyenne

(R) Pospisil, Organization of Labor Among the Kapauku.

(R) Braverman, Part I, Labor and Management, from Labor and Monopoly Capital;

(R) E.P. Thompson, Time, Work Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism;

(R) Braverman, Ch. 6, The Habituation of Workers to Capitalism

(R) Braverman, Chaps. on Sci-Tech Rev. and Machinery from Labor and Monopoly Capital; (R) Hakken, Computing and Social Change from Annual Review of Anthropology, 1994.

Essay Assignment Due 10-7

CF, 1-2; (R) Blim, The Emerging Global Factory and Anthropology;

Movie: Global Assembly Line

VIII 10-19 Meaning of Labor in the Global Culture and Economy

CF, 3-5 (Kideckel away. Class Schedule To be Announced)

IX 10-26 The End of Labor as We Knew It

Kideckel, Ch 1, 3, 4

CF, 6-7; Kideckel, 6-7

(R)

LW, to pp. 76

(Kideckel away, 11-18)

XIII 11-23 Labor, Meaning, and Modern Identity

(No class 11-25, Thanksgiving)

(R) Brecher and Costello, Race to the Bottom; other readings TBA

No Reading