OSEA Winter Course Syllabi
Contemporary
Maya Peoples, Cultures and Histories
Culture Concepts and Theories
Seminar in Ethnography
Fieldwork Forum and Ethnographic
Research
Spoken Spanish and Maya for
Ethnographic Fieldwork
OSEA Winter Quarter Seminar
in Anthropology
Contemporary Maya Peoples, Cultures and Histories
Description
This course offers students the core understandings
and knowledge in the anthropology, history, and ethnography of the
Maya peoples of Yucatán, México. This course is designed
to give students the necessary foundations by which to create an engaging,
significant, and rewarding research project during the course of the
students participation in the International Training Program.
The course has two major components: (1) a classroom based seminar
that covers nine sets of topics, each in two hour sessions; and (2)
an experiential learning component based in participation in cultural
activities and events or in interactive dialogues with specialists
and experts who offer learning on-site at special locations outside
of the classroom context. Evaluation of student success is based on
short periodic essays or “thought experiments” written
throughout the course. These essays are conceived to facilitate the
student to link classroom and experiential learning in innovative
ways that provoke and express the development of original thought.
This course is offered as an undergraduate 300-level and an graduate
600-level seminar. Graduate students are given more extensive reading
and are expected to produce corresponding quality of work.
Schedule of Topics
1. Contemporary Maya Peoples, Cultures & Histories
2. Maya Religions: Spiritualisms & Syncretisms
3. Popular Cultures, Traditional Modernity, Ritual & Dance
4. Maya Identity I: Culture, Class, Community, Categories
5. Community Histories: Pisté & Xocenpich, and the Folk
Society
6. Maya Sexualities and Gender: Dynamics, Subjectivities, Structures
7. Imagining the Maya: Genders/Genres of Visual Anthropology
8. Tourism, Archeology & Development:
9. Maya Cultural Ecology & Development
10. Maya Identity II: Education, Governmentality, State, & Nation
11. Maya Healing, Midwifery, Medical Systems & Curing
12. Alternative Maya Modernities: Transculturation and Migration
TEXTBOOKS
OSEA has copies of all textbooks in Mérida and Pisté for
student use. It is suggested that students purchase their own copy to
bring with them to facilitate study. Additional readings as indicated
in the schedule below will be provided in hardcopy or electronic versions.
Required
Maya Identity of Yucatán, 1500-1935, Q. Castañeda and
Ben Fallaw, editors, Special Issue of Journal
of Latin American Anthropology. Vol. 9 (2), Spring 2004.
Robert Redfield and Alfonso Villa Rojas, CHAN KOM. Originally published
in 1934 and put into abbreviated re-editions by Univ. Chicago Press.
Peter Hervik, MAYAN PEOPLE WITHIN AND
BEYOND BOUNDARIES. Originally published only in hardback by Harwood
Academic Publishers; now in paperback by Routledge.
Betty Bernice Faust, MEXICAN RURAL DEVELOPMENT
& PLUMED SERPENT: Technology & Maya Cosmology in Tropical Forest
of Campeche. Greenwood Press.
Optional
Quetzil Castañeda, IN THE MUSEUM OF MAYA CULTURE. Out of print.
Check amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com in the out of print section
for a possible copy.
Course Packets with additional readings are available on site for student
purchase.
Graduate readings are indicated with 601. Evaluation is based on three
thought essays, approx. 300-600 words (Anth 401) or 400-700 words (Anth
601). Each thought essay must engage the readings and discussions of
2-3 seminar topics.
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