Karl Andersson

Anthropologist

Readings and more – August 2018

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This is the beginning of my study diary, where I will keep track of what I read during my studies of visual and media anthropology. The study programme will begin in October, but we have already got access to some of the content. In addition, I will include various other readings that may or may not be related to anthropology.

Study

Ethnographic Film, Unit 1: Robert Flaherty

  • Nanook of the North, 1922 (Youtube)
  • Ruby, Jay 2000 Picturing Culture: Explorations of Film and Anthropology. Introduction. p.1-39.
  • Grimshaw, Anna 2001 ‘The Innocent Eye: Flaherty, Malinowski and the Romantic Quest’ in The Ethnographer’s Eye: Ways of seeing in Modern Anthropology
  • Rony, Fatimah Tobing 1996 ‘Taxidermy and Romantic Ethnography: Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North’ in The Third Eye: Race, Cinema and Ethnographic Spectacle.

To be continued with more “recommended readings” …

Qualitative Methods

  • Bohannan, L. (1966 (reprinted)). Shakespeare in the Bush. (Context and Meaning; Universal meanings and local contexts)
  • Turner, V. (1969). The Ritual Process. Structure and Anti-Structure. P. 4-21. (What Is Ethnography? Realist and analytic ethnography, objectivity and subjectivity in anthropological research.)
  • Behar, R. (1993). Translated Woman. Crossing the Border with Esperanza’s Story. 39 p. (Narrative Anthropology.)
  • Spradley, J. P. (1980). Participant Observation. P. 53-84. (Tools of Ethnographic Research. Fieldwork.)
  • Desjarlais, R. R. (1994). Struggling Along: The Possibilities for Experience among the Homeless Mentally Ill. In American Anthropologist, 96(4), p. 886-901. (Phenomenological Anthropology.)

Related and/or interesting

Books

  • Gabriella Coleman: Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy – The Many Faces of Anonymous (2015). 👊 (An amazing if lengthy and detailed anthropological account of modern digital subcultures. I wish I had read it before I accidentally interviewed Biella at the Princeton Fung Forum in 2017.)
  • Hiroki Azuma: Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals (2001). 👍 (Not what I thought it would be, but an excellent introduction to the concepts of modernity and postmodernity, as represented by otaku. I devoured this book slowly and minutiously.)
  • Nega Mezlekia: Notes from the Hyena’s Belly: An Ethiopian Boyhood (2002).

Articles

Otaku papers

  • Thomas Lamarre, 2013: Cool, Creepy, Moé: Otaku Fictions, Discourses, and Policies.
  • Yuji Gushiken and Tatiane Hirata, 2014: Processes of Cultural and Media Consumption: The Image of ‘Otaku’, from Japan to the World. (Brazil.)
  • Anna Madill, 2015: Boys’ Love manga for girls: Paedophilic, satirical, queer readings and English law. (Skimmed and aborted, not relevant.)

Japan Review 26: Special Issue Shunga

  • C. Andrew Gerstle and Timothy Clark: Introduction. P. 3-14.
  • Hayakawa Monta: Who Were the Audiences for Shunga? P. 17-36.
  • Ishigami Aki: The Reception of Shunga in the Modern Era: From Meiji to the Pre-WWII Years. P. 37-55.

Youtube

Why should the Indians be kept under a glass dome forever? Naked with feathers, singing and dancing. There’s no point us wanting the Indians to stay the same, you know? To never change. Of course they’ll discover the world and change. Is it dangerous? It is. Will it cause trouble? It will. Will some die? They will. Will some go mad? Sure, but that’s how things are, my friend. That’s how life is. That’s how I see it. I don’t see a problem. In 20 or 30 years a Sapanahua will be reading, writing, studying in Rio Branco, at the University of Acre. What’s the problem? Whatever doesn’t change and adapt in nature dies. That’s Darwin.

— Brazilian anthropologist Carlos Morales in Uncontacted Tribes

Podcasts

I’m currently trying out several anthropology podcasts pretty randomly in the hope of “getting to know” some of them:

Tech