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Online classes began with a training session on Tuesday, followed by a missed inhouse class on Photography and Anthropology and a seminar on Academic Writing on Friday.

Next week the classes begin for real, with Ethnographic Film and Digital Anthropology. I’ve read up on Robert Flaherty and watched Nanook of the North, which will be discussed in Unit 1 on Tuesday. As for Digital Anthropology, we have just got access to the readings, so I haven’t looked into them yet. And I’m still a bit overwhelmed by the amount of material to read in Qualitative Methods. Even so, I kept to my favourite Spradley.

My Japanese got a boost when K and I took up our tandem trainings. Three mornings this week I came by him on my way to the studio.

In addition, S has begun taking German classes, so I’m helping him every evening, teaching him accusative, dative and genitive the way I was taught it in junior high.

Got a flat on my bike last night, so I took a Berlkönig for the first time.

Study

Qualitative Methods

• Spradley, James P. (1980): Chapter Two: Ethnography for What? P. 13-25 in Participant Observation.
• Unit 8: Interviewing. CMS overview.

Ethnographic Film, Unit 2: The Camera as a Research Tool

• Ruby, Jay (2000): Researching with a Camera: The Anthropologist as Picture Taker. P. 41-66 in Picturing Culture: Explorations of Film and Anthropology.

Japanese

• Intermediate Japanese. Review of Chapter 10.
• Memrise: 71,900
  • 2136 Jōyō Kanji by Grade, level 16 → 640 of 2136 kanji learned
• NEW! Conversation: 3 meetings with K (1h + ca 45 min + 30 min).

Project

Today I met with an informant that I want to interview. Let’s call him ”A”, since he’s my very first informant. He was not prepared to be recorded today, but we might do it next week or sometime soon.

Other

Articles

• The Economist: Arabic, a great language, has a low profile
• The Economist: A visionary abstract artist finally gets her due
• The Economist: Angela Merkel will step down as head of her party
• The Economist: A massacre in Pittsburgh illustrates America’s disunity
• The Economist: Obituary: Pik Botha
• Committee to Protect Journalists: How the Saudis may have spied on Jamal Khashoggi
• The Independent: Jony Ive interview: Apple design guru on how he created the new iPad – and the philosophy behind it
• BBC: What is ‘primitive technology’ and why do we love it?
• Süddeutsche Zeitung: Der Asphalt gehört den Radfahrern
• Tagesspiegel: Die Straße bitte im Sprint überqueren
• Morgenpost: Taxivereinigung und BVG streiten über Berlkönig

Film and video

• Jordan Peterson on Skavlan (39 min)
• The School of Life: The Danger of Being Too Polite in Love (4 min)
• Apple Special Event. October 30, 2018.
• Parker Walbeck: How to Shoot an Interview

Podcasts & radio

• WTF with Marc Maron: Episode 961 – John Cleese
• The Mutant Season: Sean Bonner
• Sveriges Radio: Spanarna

We were free this week – a well needed break after the intensive inhouse classes and before our online classes begin next week.

I took the opportunity to continue watching the ethnographic classics that we will learn about once a week this semester.

I also realised there are lots and lots of texts to read in Qualitative Methods. Most of them are voluntary reads. I really liked the Bernard chapters on interviewing, and I also started reading Spradley’s book from the start, since I liked the chapters we had to read for the inhouse classes.

It was the annual porn film festival in Berlin. I went to three screenings and saw a couple of really good movies, and made some interviews for a future podcast episode.

Study

Qualitative Methods

• Bernard (1995): Unstructured and Semistructured Interviewing. In Research Methods in Anthropology. Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches , p. 208-236.
• Bernard (1995): Structured Interviewing. Ibid, p. 237-255.
• Spradley, J. P. (1980): Preface and Chapter One: Ethnography and Culture. P. v-viii and 3-12 in Participant Observation.
• Screencast: FUVMA Field Work

Ethnographic Film, Unit 2: The Camera as a Research Tool

• Mead, Margaret (1975): Visual anthropology in a discipline of words. P. 3-10 in Principles of Visual Anthropology by Paul Hockings, ed. (1995).
• Video: Margaret Mead & Gregory Bateson: Childhood Rivalry in Bali and New Guinea 1936-1938
• Video: Timothy Asch & Napoleon Chagnon: The Ax Fight (1971)
• Video: Timothy Asch & Napoleon Chagnon: A Father washes his Children (1974)
• Video: John Marshall: The Hunters (1956)

Japanese

• Intermediate Japanese. Review of Chapter 9.
• Memrise: 45,500
  • 2136 Jōyō Kanji by Grade, level 15 → 600 of 2136 kanji learned

Other

Articles

• The Economist: Transgender politics focuses on who determines someone’s gender
• The Economist: Who decides your gender?
• The Economist: When one person’s right is another’s obligation
• The Economist: America’s new attitude towards China is changing the countries’ relationship
• The Economist: The end of engagement
• The Economist: China is broadening its efforts to win over African audiences
• The Economist: A fashionable aesthetic confounds Chinese parents—and officials
• The Economist: A journalist is confirmed dead. Saudi Arabia’s crown prince is defiant
• The Economist: Why people in rich countries are eating more vegan food
• The Economist: Quantum computers will break the encryption that protects the internet
• Expressen/Linda Skugge: Så saboterar ängsliga redaktörer språkglädjen
• SvD/Anders Q Björkman: Är det modernt att vara dålig på högskoleprovet?

Films and video

• Vice: Joshua Oppenheimer on ‘The Look of Silence’ (2015, 25 min).
• Sophie Yetton: Ordinary Streets (2015, 11 min)
• Langfocus: How I study languages

Pornfilmfestival Berlin 2018

• Marianne Chargois: Empower (FR 2018, 23 min)
• Ovidie: Everything’s better than a hooker (FR 2017, 56 min)
• Kristian Petersen: Lizzy and Seyyah (DE 2018, 10 min)
• Nayra Green, Vera Rodriguez, Emy Fem and Catalina Diaz: Behind the window (NL 2017, 5 min)
• Carmina + Fred W. Dewitt: Amateurs professionnels (FR 2017, 35 min)
• Yvette Luhrs + Andre Weststrate: Sex worker at home (NL 2018, 6 min)
• Jan Henrik Stahlberg: Fikkefuchs (DE 2017, 101 min)

Podcasts

• Monocle/The Foreign Desk: Saudi Arabia vs the world
• Sveriges Radio/Europapodden: Avsnitt 82: Kina rekordinvesterar i Europa – ska vi bli rädda?
• Bögministeriet: Det med emigrerande bögar

Work

Report from the pornfilmfestival:

I dropped out of this week’s voluntary documentary camera workshop, since it was not what I had expected and partly collided with the master course in Japanese that I had an idea of taking alongside my anthropology studies over the next two years.

I wrote the placement test on Tuesday, and it turned out to be quite a reality check. I failed miserably and will not be able to study Japanese on this level. How embarrassing, as I had elbowed myself into this course, which is normally only open for students of Japanology.

I remain optimistic though, and will continue my self-studies. After all, I spent the last month preparing for the placement test, thereby reviewing chapter 1-7 in Intermediate Japanese and continuing learning kanji from scratch, the way they learn it in the Japanese school system. I’m currently in fourth grade. I know more advanced kanji than that, but the idea is to get a thorough understanding of them and be able to write them properly – that’s what I’m hoping to achieve by doing this close learning of them. I think Japanese courses and text books in general make the mistake of not taking kanji seriously enough – it’s “too little, too late”. The result is that you learn each word twice: First in kana, then in kanji. Kanji must come first. Thereby it also becomes easier to understand the meaning of the words. So in conclusion: My Japanese has become fit again (if not master course fit) after I practiced it over the last month. That makes it inspiring to continue. I hope to be able to use Japanese in future anthropological field studies, so unlike before, I have a clear goal with my studies now.

Study

Qualitative Methods

• Fieldnotes assignment: Read Kyle’s fieldnotes

Japanese

• Intermediate Japanese. Review of Chapter 8.
• Memrise: 62,700
• • 2136 Jōyō Kanji by Grade, level 14 → 560 of 2136 kanji learned

Other

Otaku papers

• Patrick W. Galbraith: ‘The Lolicon Guy:’ Some Observations on Researching Unpopular Topics in Japan. In Mark McLelland: The End of Cool Japan. Ethical, Legal, and Cultural Challenges to Japanese Popular Culture, 2016, p. 109-133. 👊
• Patrick W. Galbraith: Fujoshi: Fantasy Play and Transgressive Intimacy among “Rotten Girls” in Contemporary Japan. In Signs, Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Vol. 37, No. 1 (September 2011), pp. 219-240.
• Midori Suzuki: The possibilities of research on fujoshi in Japan. In Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 12: “Transnational boys’ love fan studies” (March 2013).
• Paul M. Malone: Transplanted boys’ love conventions and anti-shota polemics in a German manga: Fahr Sindram’s Losing Neverland. In Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 12: “Transnational boys’ love fan studies” (March 2013).

Articles

• The Daily Beast/Jake Adelstein: Japan’s Kiddie Porn Empire: Bye-Bye? (2014)
• The Daily Beast/Jake Adelstein: Amazon Japan’s Child Porn Problem? (2015)
• The Economist: Why personalities trump parties in Philippine politics
• The Economist: For the first time in years, Eritreans can leave their country freely
• The Economist: Did Saudi Arabia kill Jamal Khashoggi?
• The Economist: What it means if Saudi Arabia murdered a journalist in Turkey
• The Economist: The Nobel committee shines a spotlight on rape in conflict
• The Economist: Medicare for all is a meaningless slogan
• The Economist: Obituary: Alan Abel died on September 14th
• New Statesman: Francis Fukuyama interview: “Socialism ought to come back”
• Teen Vogue: What “Capitalism” Is and How It Affects People
• Bloomberg: Five Ways to Redesign Cities for the Scooter Era

Films and video

• Joshua Oppenheimer: The Act of Killing, Director’s Cut (2012, 159 min). This film blew my mind. Someone commented that it’s “like the Nazis would have won the war”, and that’s also what Joshua himself says in the interview below, that it was as if he had “wandered into Germany 40 years after the Holocaust only to find the Nazis still in power”. The worst parts are not those where the perpetrators boast about their killings, but where civil society plays along as in a surreal TV show (1:47) or where a leader urges the masses to “exterminate” the communists in a “humane” way (1:55).
• Vice: Joshua Oppenheimer on “The Act of Killing” (2014, 54 min).
• Joshua Oppenheimer: The Look of Silence (2014, 104 min). Even better than the first one.
• SVT/Tom Alandh: Cornelis – dokumentären (2013, 89 min.)
• SVT/Sverige: Peter Dalle-intervju (16 min.) Genius.
• Andrew Jarecki interview on “Capturing the Friedmans” (2003)
• Hervé Martin-Delpierre: Game Over (2014, 52 min). Via Alexander Street.
• André Hörmann: Calcutta Calling (2006, 16 min). Via Alexander Street.
• Public Lecture Video: Japanese Popular Culture in the News. Exploring Debates about Sexual Norms and Politics. With Patrick W. Galbraith, Renato Rivera Rusca and Takashi Yamaguchi. (2014, 115 min.)
• The Nerdwriter: How Michael Jackson Crafted His First Solo Hit
• Kaiman Wong: Atomos Ninja V – The 4K Mirrorless Must-Have + Lok Eats a Sandwich

Podcasts

• Bubb.la: Japan uppges överväga neka inresevisum till medborgare i länder som vägrat samarbeta vid deportering
• Anthropod: AnthroBites: Queer Anthropology

Work

Filmed and did the audio for HAX’ explainer video:

Monday was the last day of Qualitative Methods, my favourite course so far. I felt very weak but kept going on Coldrex all through the evening, when the G9 graduation movies were screened at Kino Central. Next day I woke up with high fever and had to stay at home. But I rebound on Wednesday and participated in Anthropology and Photography after lunch, followed by an assignment and more G9 screenings. Friday was Media Anthropology, which turned into hands-on information about the program, plus an introduction to our teacher in Digital Anthropology.

Next week will be a voluntary camera workshop that I’ve signed up for, but I’m also taking a placement test for a Japanese course.

Study

Qualitative Methods

• Robert M. Emerson, 1995: Fieldnotes in Ethnographic Research, chapter 1 in Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes, pp. 1-16.

Assignment: Take fieldnotes during two hours in or after class. I took mine during the first two hours of Media Anthropology. It became 10 pages and I will partner with Kyle for the peer review.

Anthropology and Photography

• Lucie Ryzova, 2014: Nostalgia for the Modern: Archive Fever in Egypt in the Age of Post-Photography, in Costanza Caraffa and Tiziana Serena (eds.): Photographic Archives and the Idea of Nation, pp. 301-318.

Our first assignment was to bring a photo, the taking of which we had been involved in and which had a relation to one of the texts we had read. I chose Christopher Pinney and had prepared a little oral essay on his analysis of the ascension of colonialist photography, and how the opposite perspective of my photo might have contributed to making it so easy to take:

Our second assignment was to make a photo essay with insta cameras on the theme of “unmarked categories”. My group shot ours at Kottbusser Tor and called it “Kreuzberg – proudly marked”:

Japanese

• Intermediate Japanese. Review of Chapter 6 and 7.
• Memrise: 37,800
• • 2136 Jōyō Kanji by Grade, level 13 → 520 of 2136 kanji learned

Other

Articles

• The Economist: One of Japan’s great institutions makes way for a car park
• The Economist: Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony disqualifies him from the Supreme Court
• The Economist: China has designs on Europe. Here is how Europe should respond
• The Economist: Chinese investment, and influence, in Europe is growing
• The Economist: An African enclave in China shows the limits of Chinese openness
• The Economist: How governments should deal with the rise of the gig economy
• The Economist: The genius and legend of Anne Frank’s diary

Films – G9 graduation screening 2018

• Solomon Mekonen: Emails to my Little Sister
• Katherine Montgomery: Big Bons
• Aldonza Contreras: Into the Mazatec Dream
• Ben Boteler: Microstories: A Summer Experiment Microdosing LSD

Radio & podcasts

• The Familiar Strange: Ep. #0 Introducing The Familiar Strange Podcast
• The Familiar Strange: Ep. #1 Campus free speech, mundane governance, truth in politics, and creeps v. @ssholes: this month on TFS
• The Familiar Strange: Ep. #2 Medical tribes: Tanisha Jowsey talks anthropology in the emergency room and teaching medical students to be human
• SR: Godmorgon, världen!
• SR/P1 Dokumentär: Undergångssekten

Study

Ethnographic Film, Unit 1 continued: Robert Flaherty (last text)

• Robert Flaherty, 1922: How I Filmed Nanook of the North. In World’s Work, p. 632-640.

Japanese

• Intermediate Japanese. Review of Chapter 2-4.
• Memrise: 93,100
  • 2136 Jōyō Kanji by Grade, level 12 → 480 of 2136 kanji learned

Other

Otaku papers

• Patrick W. Galbraith, 2014: Otaku Sexuality in Japan. In Mark McLelland & Vera Mackie (Eds): Routledge Handbook of Sexuality Studies in East Asia, pp. 205-217.
  
• Sharon Kinsella, 1998: Japanese Subculture in the 1990s: Otaku and the Amateur Manga Movement. In The Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 289-316.

Articles

• Japan Times, 2012: Patrick W. Galbraith: Willing prisoner of Akihabara
• The Economist: #MeToo, one year on
• The Economist: Kavanaugh and #MeToo
• The Economist: Child marriage in Africa
• The Economist: China’s high-speed rail network gains a controversial extension
• The Economist: Mexico’s new president sets out to change his country’s course
• The Economist: The centenary of the 20th century’s worst catastrophe
• The Economist: Turkey’s president visits Germany. Hopes of a reset are too optimistic
• The Economist: Teaching Arabic in France
• Queer Europe: It is Still Possible to Obtain the Exact Location of Millions of Cruising Men on Grindr

Video

• re:publica 2017 – Maciej Ceglowski: Notes from an Emergency
• Ethnography: Ellen Isaacs at TEDxBroadway
• Dr R. Husmann: In or Out? Visual Ethnography and the Ethics of Consent (only 58 views and yet so interesting and informative!) 👍
• intheinaka: Japanese Studies: A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar
• intheinaka: Masters in Japanese Studies | My Experience
• Hikikomori (2004) Francesco Jodice
• Exposing China’s Digital Dystopian Dictatorship
• Champagne Med Henrik: S02E01: Alexander Bard (live)
• Publicistklubben: Ur murvlarnas perspektiv – hur gick valbevakningen? Del 1/2 (live)
• Publicistklubben: Ur murvlarnas perspektiv – hur gick valbevakningen? Del 2/2 (live)
• Publicistklubben: SVT och (SD) (live)
• Harv: How to color grade LOG footage (SLOG2, SLOG3, V-LOG, C-LOG)

Podcast

• Anthrotalking: Mark Graham on his book “Anthropological Explorations in Queer Theory”

Study

Ethnographic Film, Unit 1 continued: Robert Flaherty

• Banks, Markus 1992 ‘Which films are the ethnographic films?’ in Film as Ethnography.
• Balikci, Asen 1975 ‘Reconstructing Cultures on Film’ in Principles of Visual Anthropology.
  • Related video: Luc Sala with Prof. Asen Balikci discuss visual anthropology, 2000
  • Related video: A month in the life of Ephtim D (Asen Balikci, same link from 18:26)
• Ruby, Jay 2000 ‘The Aggie Must Come First: Robert Flaherty’s place in Ethnographic Film History’ in Picturing Culture.

Japanese

• Intermediate Japanese. Review of Chapter 1.
• Memrise: 132,155
  • 2136 Jōyō Kanji by Grade, level 8-10 → 400 of 2136 kanji learned

Other

Book

• Adam Grant: Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World (2017, 336 p)

Otaku papers

• Anna Madill, 2018: Erotic Manga: Boys’ Love, Shonen-Ai, Yaoi and (MxM) Shotacon. P. 130-140 in C. Smith, F. Attwood, & B. McNair (Eds), Routledge Companion to Media, Sex and Sexuality.
• Saitō Tamaki, 2007: Otaku Sexuality (introduction by Kotani Mari). P. 222-249 in Christopher Bolton, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr., and Takayuki Tatsumi ed., Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams. 👊

Articles

• Wired: How Wikipedia Portrayed Humanity in a Single Photo
• Wired: Tinder Wants to Make Emoji for Interracial Couples
• Wired: Ready Player One Is a Virtually Empty Good Time
• The Economist: A manifesto for renewing liberalism
• The Economist: An exceptionally underhanded smear lands Andrew Cuomo in hot water
• The Economist: America’s government is putting foreign cyber-spies in the dock
• The Economist: Japan’s prime minister is more of a survivor than a reformer
• The Economist: Japan’s prime minister has a lot to do in his last years in office
• The Economist: Black Lives Matter is becoming slightly more conventional
• The Economist: Africa’s high birth rate is keeping the continent poor
• The Economist: How to identify anonymous prose
• 歴史館: Japansk och svensk feminism – skilda världar

Video

• Jaron Lanier interview on how social media ruins your life
• Sarah Pink: What is Sensory Ethnography
• Uncontacted Amazon Tribe: First ever aerial footage (with Carlos Morales from August 2018)
• Yaya the Wise Man
• Akihabara Geeks – Full Documentary (2005)
• Lovisa Solvik: Mitt övergrepp.
• John Fish: How I Balance Everything at Harvard
• Kaiman Wong: My Travel Video Kit Essentials

Podcasts

• The Economist asks: Francis Fukuyama
• Anthrotalking: Inge Daniels on amateur photographic practices in contemporary Japan
• Anthrotalking: Paul Boyce on queer anthropology and same-sex sexualities in West Bengal
• Anthrotalking: First day in the field
• Anthropod: Michael Fisch on Tokyo Commuter Train Suicides 👍

NP14 – Friday conference at Volksbühne

• Lennart Mühlenmeier: Wie man in 69 Jahren einen Überwachungsstaat aufbaut
• Jens Kubieziel: “Schatz, wir haben Polizei in der Wohnung” – Hausdurchsuchung bei den Zwiebelfreunden
• Abraham Taherivand: Das freie Internet ist nicht tot. Wie können wir gemeinsam dafür kämpfen?
• Hans Block: Herausforderung Content Moderation (Follow-Up von THE CLEANERS)
• Aram Bartholl: Your shopping cart is empty
• Erich Möchel: Netzpolitik in der Ära Cyber 4.0
• Jillian C. York: Offline Repression is Replicated Online
• Alina Darmstadt & Oliver Saal: Workshop: Hate Speech – Ausschalten oder Aushalten?
• Frederike Kaltheuner & Ailidh Callander: Time to hold the (invisible) data industry to account
• Max Schrems: Fight the power: Datenschutz gegenüber Plattformen durchsetzen