Shakespeare in the Bush

Some of the previous ICC students have read Laura Bohannon’s article “Shakespeare in the Bush”, about an anthropologist’s failed attempts to tell some African tribesmen the story of Hamlet. The Savage Minds anthropology blog has some commentary on that article and a link to an online version of it. Check it out!

Definitions of ethnography

For Tracy–and anyone else interested–here are some definitions of ethnography:

• from M. E. Graue: “a qualitative research process and product whose aim is cultural interpretation” (click the definition for more information)
• from Dictionary.LaborLawTalk.com: “the qualitative description of human social phenomena, based on months or years of fieldwork“
• from Brian A. Hoey (an anthropologist at the University of Michigan): “both a qualitative research process or method (one conducts an ethnography) and product (the outcome of this process is an ethnography) whose aim is cultural interpretation. The ethnographer goes beyond reporting events and details of experience and works to explain how these represent the webs of meaning (cultural constructions) in which we live“

Hope these definitions help!

Stereotypes about American and Asian Cultures

Michael Turton has a good post on his blog, responding to a Taipei Times article about differences in how Euro-Americans and Chinese “process visual data differently”. He exposes some of the dangers of jumping to conclusions about cultures based on a particular kind of study. We’ll read this in class at some point, so check it out!

Update: There’s also a discussion about this article on Savage Minds, an anthropology blog.