I found myself looking forward to the Theory & History Unit 4-5 class on Friday. The Mauss text took away my innocent view of gift-giving, as it exposed it as a highly calculated business and an important way of building a society and keeping it together through the “spiritual bonds” that gift-giving creates. It’s definitely one of the things that define us as humans.
I loved Ruth Benedict’s text – for Theory & History Unit 8. It’s the first of the historic texts we read that really spoke to me. It’s prophetic in its plea for cultural humbleness and thereby social tolerance. Benedict wrote the text in 1934, but it could as well have been written today.
I started creating my machinima in Digital Anthropology. I’m starting by building a 15 minute skeleton of a movie: Basically a mix of explanations and quotes by informants. It gives me a good grasp of how much material I will be able to use. I recorded a sketch narration, and yesterday I had my Japanese friend K record a sketch reading of the interviews. It showed me that I must cut the quotes in half, at least. In all this, I’m inventing my own process, which is really fun. I’d be interested to hear afterwards how the others are doing it.
The week ended with Donald L. Donham’s introduction to The Erotics of History, which is utterly brilliant, to the extent that it causes “highlighting inflation”. I found the essay by accident when searching for readings for my project in Theory & History. I can’t wait to get deeper into it and see how I can use it in my own research. We think very much along the same lines, me and the Distinguished Professor!
Streetfood Thursday at Markthalle 9 with friends and a new acquaintance.
Immediately after fixing my bike I got another puncture (small, pointed piece of glass in the tire), and right after that a tube failure. But now it’s up and rolling again, and I took it for a ride around the city today, in beautiful sunshine and perfect temperature around 9 degrees.
Study
Theory and History of Social and Cultural Anthropology
Unit 5: Precise Comparison: French Sociology and Anthropology (Mauss)
- Mauss, Marcel (1925): Introductory and Chapter 1: Gifts and the Obligation to Return Gifts. In The Gift: Forms and Functions of Change in Archaic Societies (1925, 1966), pp. 1-16.
Unit 8: Culture-Personality (Benedict), Auto-Ethnography (Hurston), Early Women Anthropologists
- Benedict, Ruth (1934): VIII: The Individual and the Pattern of Culture. In Patterns of Culture: An Analysis of Our Social Structure as Related to Primitive Civilizations, pp. 218-240. 👍
Extra
Readings related to my research (Theory & History)
- Donham, Donald L. (2018): Preface and Heading South: An Introduction. In The Erotics of History: an Atlantic African Example, pp. xiii–xvi and 1-17. 👊
Other
Articles
- The Economist: Bernie Sanders announces another run for president
- The Economist: Donald Trump’s real target is not illegal immigration but diversity
- BBC: Venezuela aid: Genuine help or Trojan horse?
- Engadget/Violet Blue: How sex censorship killed the internet we love
- Hyperallergic: WTF is… Superflat?
Video
- Matt Mullenweg: State of the Word 2018
Podcast & radio
- The Intelligence: Saudi prince on tour, corporate-tax avoidance and an activist’s Oscar run
- The Intelligence: Vatican child-abuse meeting, the world’s largest building and a Hawaiian resurgence
- The Intelligence: Venezuela’s aid stand-off, Warren Buffett’s letters and Japan’s geriatric literature
- Sveriges Radio, P1 Dokumentär: Regeringsbildningen – om svek, fika och Alliansens död
- Sveriges Radio, P1: Godmorgon, världen!
Leave a comment