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Anthropology P402
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The mid-term is an open-notes, open-book take home exam. You may use any notes, books, or consultations with classmates or me to prepare your essay responses. You should not, however, prepare the same essays. Your responses should be thorough and complete: that means a good answer should be AT LEAST a page long.
Your essays must be typed, double-spaced with one-inch margins, checked for spelling and grammar, and stapled or otherwise firmly bonded together. Put your name on the final paper. I will take off points for papers that do not follow these guidelines.
You should end up with five essays: i.e., one for EACH of the five sections.
The mid-term is due on or before Wednesday March 26. Late papers will be penalized a letter grade for each day they are late.
Section I
You must answer EITHER ONE the following essays (30 points).
1) What are the fundamental concepts in Marxian archaeologies? How does this sort of archaeology differ from cultural ecology? What are the strengths of Marxian thinking? What are its implications on archaeology; i.e., how might it change the way we do archaeology?
2) What are the basic premises of processual archaeology? How was processual archaeology a break from previous archaeological approaches? What are the significant strengths of processual archaeology over what came before it? What seem to be some of its shortcomings?
Section II: Ideology
You must answer ANY TWO of the following essays (20 points each).
1) What is ideology? Using the Bettina Arnold essay "The Past as Propaganda," how might we see National Socialist archaeology as ideological, in both the past and present? Why should contemporary archaeologists be interested in Nazi archaeologies? The Nazi archaeologists aspired to create a vision of the present which involved archaeological legitimization; could the results of these Nazi excavations be used today to contribute to a politics of a far less reprehensible sort?
2) What is ideology? How do Joan Gero and Dolores Root see ideological representations in National Geographic? What sorts of ideologies does the National Geographic reproduce?
3) How do Leone, Potter, and Shackel define critical theory? How do they suggest Frankfurt School critical theory can be used in historical archaeology?
Section III: Shopping Essay
You must answer this essay (30 points).
You recognize that your colleagues Lewis Binford, Mark Leone, Joan Gero, and Michael Shanks need to update their look, so you take them to Castleton Mall. How do they each analyze the mall as a material space, and why do they see the mall in such a way reflecting their distinctive theoretical positions? For instance, what specific features of the mall figure most prominently in their analysis, and why?
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Last updated March 11, 2008