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ANTH 243: ANTHROPOLOGY OF FAMILY
Summer 2024
FINAL ESSAY GUIDELINES
In your Final Essay, I would like you to write about The Gift of a Bride. As you have already demonstrated in an earlier discussion, this ethnographic novel (i.e., this work of fiction based on ethnographic information) depicts a number of the phenomena that you have been learning about in this class. In this final piece — which should serve as a bit of a critical review of the book — I would like you to do two things:
Summarize this book and/or explain what it is about in your own words; and
Respond to one of the following prompts:
Ethnographic fiction is a unique genre, that combines a wealth of known cultural and social information into a story that, while it did not actually happen, actually might have happened.
What do you think are some of the reasons that an author might choose to write a work of fiction using ethnographic/anthropological information, rather than a non-fiction monograph about the people or phenomena they study?
Does the inclusion of ethnographic/anthropological information in a work of fiction make it more or less accessible to a wider range of people? Why do you think so?
How well do you think this work (i.e., The Gift of a Bride) introduces ethnographic/anthropological information to its readers? What specific parts do you think are effective or ineffective at bridging the gap between the anthropological academy and the general public?
In Unit 5, you have been reading about contemporary social issues that relate to the family, as well as about the complexities of globalization that make it difficult to decide what is a social problem and what is simply “cultural difference.”
What contemporary social issues do you see presented in The Gift of a Bride?
How common are these issues in the world? (You will have to do some outside research to find this out. Please remember to cite any outside information that you collect.)
What difficulties does this novel suggest might exist for anyone who tries to address these particular social issues in the context of Indian communities, especially of the diasporic Indian community (i.e., the part of the broader Indian culture that lives outside of India or between India and some other place, like the United States)?
In reading The Gift of a Bride, the character of Dr. Julie Norman, the anthropologist, is someone to whom readers can relate, but she also sometimes makes decisions that are confusing or that seem to complicate matters further for the people involved in the main action of the story.
What are your impressions of Dr. Norman and the decisions she makes?
Having read some material in Unit 5 about “thinking like an anthropologist,” how might you explain the “tightrope” that Julie might feel she has to walk. (Hint: Here it might be good to think about things like cultural relativism, ethnocentrism, and research ethics.)
What do Nanda and Gregg (the authors) seem to be showing us about the challenges faced by sociocultural anthropologists as they seek to understand families and family dynamics in societies very different from their own?
I ask that you write an essay of approximately 1,000 to 1,200 words (roughly 3-5 double-spaced pages) in response to these questions. Most of your writing should be in your own words and express your own opinion(s). If you use outside source material, remember that it will need both in-text citations and a full bibliographic listing in a “Works Cited” section at the end of your essay.
The most effective essays will make a claim or argument related to the prompt they are addressing. This claim should be clearly laid out in the introduction to your essay. Among your goals for the essay should be defending or demonstrating your claim/argument.
Your completed essay is due in the “Final Essay” dropbox (located within the UNITS 5 & 6 folder) by 12:00 PM, Monday, 7/1. (Please note that this is 12 hours later than listed in your original syllabus.)
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