An initial question immediately emerges: why understand other cultures? What does it matter? What practical value does it have? While I certainly that these questions can be answered in a variety of ways and that indeed understanding cultures is a rather basic part of life today anywhere in the world, still, for starters we must understand that not everyone thinks this effort is that important. For a better part of the last 50 years for example, understanding culture had very much of a back seat to ideas about economic and political progress. In fact as the logic went, if economic and political progress take place as was often predicted, cultural (or ethnic) differences will simply dissolve as a result of modernization processes themselves. This did not happen, even in the best of cases. One result is that today the US and more generally the world as a whole has seen an explosion of conflicts in which `culture' plays either the central, or a very significant role. The urgency of `understanding cultures' is thus, once again, on the agenda.

Of course there are a great variety of reasons - practical and intellectual - to understand cultures and I suppose a good many approaches to doing so. In this course we are going to see how it is that anthropologists go about understanding cultures. Their method, often called `participant observation', has been employed, and one might say perfected, over the past 100 years, making the field as a whole rather young when all is said and done.

We will begin our study by looking at two quite eminent early 20th century anthropologists - Franz Boas and Bronislaw Malinowski - and see how it is that they went about trying to understand cultures. Their methods are rather similar but not identical. We will also look at what might be called `starting points'. For some anthropologists, the `starting point' is survival-and-or-technology. For others it is the system of ideas of a people. In the end however, regardless of where one begins to understand culture, a thorough investigation assumes relating material and spiritual existence into some cohesive cultural whole.

Having presented a theoretical or conceptual framework in the first three or four weeks - which will include videos, discussion and lecture - we will then proceed to look at cultural dynamics in Africa. This will be done in a number of ways. We'll begin with a slide show of the art of the ancient Sahara (8000-2000 years ago) and see how it impacted cultural evolution throughout the continent. We'll look at the evolution of the main cultural-linguistic groups over time. Then we'll zero in on an East African cattle raising people (the Masai) and explore how their culture relates to their environment. Then we'll look at some more modern themes: the impact of European colonialism on African culture in the 19^th century and finally some contemporary African cultural situations: The Congo and Rwanda

The Congo (until recently also known as Zaire)has been in the news lately quite a bit. It has experienced a good deal of turmoil and human tragedy which appears to continue into the present moment. A study of the Congo combines one of the richest anthropological settings (the interaction of hundreds of large ethnic groups and languages) with an extremely complex modern history that includes the slave trade, colonialism and the post colonial hopes for creating a new nation state. The political history of the past 50 years is especially charged and electrifying as the country became - despite its distance from both the USA or the USSR - one of the main staging grounds of the Cold War. However, our interest in studying the Congo stems from its rich cultural diversity and the impact that European colonialism had on 19^th century African culture. And this we will explore in some depth.

The subject of Rwanda was also chosen precisely because it is in the news, because several years ago in a six week period a million people there were slaughtered, making it one of the more horrible events of the 20th century, and perhaps, unfortunately a hint of things to come and because generally speaking we Americans know nothing of Rwanda or Africa in general. My approach is not so much to focus on the current crisis - although we will certain do that some, but to present the crisis within the broader framework of African cultural history. So we will look at some little known aspects of this cultural history, something of the lives of East African farmers and herding peoples and venture to discuss the specifics of the complex history between Tutsi and Hutu in Rwanda.

So as you can see we will take a rather elaborate intellectual journey at the end of which I hope you will have a much deeper understanding of culture in a number of different settings, including, to some degree our own.

Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold's Ghost. Houghton Mifflin. Boston 1998. (note: we are having problems getting this book this semester)

Prunier, Gérard. The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide. Columbia University Press. 1995.

There will be a few other readings assigned as we go along, articles that will be on reserve in the library under my name and the course no., among them are:
Diamond, Jared. `How Africa Became Black' in Guns, Germs and Steel. New York, WW. Norton, 1997.

You will be tested three times in this class. The dates will be announced in class.

You are expected to be in attendance the days of the exams and will be penalized for non attendance.

You will also be required to submit a 15 page research paper the details of which we shall speak about in class. In this paper I want you to first identify and then discuss, a cultural problem of a contemporary nation. Suggestions include:
- Language policy of a particular nation
- Religuous history
- Cultural problems associated with rural urban shifts
- Culture and birth control in a specific country
- Women in a specific culture
- Ethnicity and political power

I shall propose a number of more specific topics for your consideration in class sometime in the first few weeks. The purpose of the paper is to explore the cultural dimension of contemporary life. Your project must be submitted to me in writing by February 21. The paper itself is due on a date to be announced in class.

I have a rather charged schedule this semester. All the same I will try to do so either before or after class. Should this still prove to be too complicated, you can reach me by phone or email at the telephone numbers given. I do my best to get back to students within 24 hours. I do not mind getting calls at home as long they are before 9 pm.

Week 1: The evolution of an anthropological view of human culture

Week 2: The Contribution of Franz Boas to American Anthropology

Week 3: Bronislaw Malinowski, The Kula Ring and Participant Observation

Week 4: The Cultural vs. the Sociobiological Perspective - some reflections.

Week 5: Introduction to African Cultural Dynamics(I) - Cultural Pre-History (cultural and linguistic diffusion)

Week 6: Introduction to African Cultural Dynamics (II) - The Art of the Sahara and its Implications for African Cultural History

Weeks 7 and 8: The Masai: African Cattle Herding People

Week 9: The Impact of Europe on Africa - 16^th through 19^th Century

Weeks 10 and 11: Late 19^th and Early 20^th Century Colonialism in Africa: Case studies: Morocco and Congo

Week 12: The Modern Nation-state in Africa: Some Cultural Considerations

Weeks 13-15: The Modern History of Rwanda - Cultural and Political Background to the 1994 Tragedy.

Franz Boas PBS Video. GN21 B56 F72 1981

Africa: Voyage of Discovery produced and narrated by Basil Davidson. DT 20 A37 1984 (Note: This is an 8 part series on 4 tapes. Each tape has two parts. We will see at least 4 of them).

Study questions accompanying these tapes will be placed on the instructor's Web site