COLLEGE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND PHILOSOPHY

DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY

COURSE OUTLINE: ANTHROPOLOGY 10 (SSP)
Course Title: Bodies, Senses and Humanity
Course Description: Interaction of biology and culture in the shaping of humanity
Course Credit: 3 units
Prerequisite: None

A. Orientation: The Tools for Inquiry. A review of the spectrum of social and natural
sciences and humanities, and the place of anthropology in this spectrum. Emphasis on the
need for multidisciplinary approaches toward understanding "reality". (Week 1)
B. Whats human? Drawing from physical anthropology, a preliminary exploration of what
makes us human: our brain? Our upright bipedal posture? Our genes? But going beyond
the physical, students will be encouraged to think about how evolutions tempo has
been amplified through culture and society. An introduction to the nature versus nurture
debate. (Week 2)
C. The Senses. Looking at how the senses are used to apprehend reality. Looking at the
biological bases of these senses and at the same time showing the broad cultural
differences in sensory categories and attributes. The difference in emphasis on senses:
why do the British so emphasize the visual, and reading while the Filipino seems more
oral and aural, preferring the "kuwento"? Why do Filipinos smell everything, and
describe their loved ones as "mabango"? This module shows how the use of our senses is
in fact a function of a cultural interpretation of reality (Weeks 3 and 4)
D. What is culture? Taking off from the discussion of the senses, students will now be in a
better position to define culture. What makes culture, emphasis on the small "c"? Are
smells and sounds culture? Are graffiti and text messages and cellphones culture?
Driving habits? Food, fashions, fantasies? Traditional definitions of culture (e.g., "shared
beliefs and practices transmitted from one generation to another") will be presented and
dissected. A case study, "Do apes have culture?" will be used to challenge existing
definitions. As students begin to appreciate cultural complexity, we will be able to
introduce the range of social science study methods to emphasize how a combination of
the quantitative and qualitative are vital toward capturing intersubjectivity (Webers
verstehen) in culture. (Weeks 5 and 6)
E. Mindful Bodies that meet and move. We will now link the two modules on senses and
culture. How do we make sense of the world around us? What role do our bodies play in
this sensory apprehension of the world around us? Are we programmed to react in a
certain way to this world? What programs us our genes? Instinct? Brains? Culture?
Relationships between the body and aspects of culture (rhythm in music, numbers in
math) will be explored, oriented toward explaining the roles our bodies play to make us
see and not just look, listen and not just hear. This module provides a vital link between
the individual and society as students understand how their identities are embodied, both
in the physical individual body as well as in the social body. We end the module by
asking, as bodies meet and interact, how and under what conditions is this identity shaped
and reshaped? (Weeks 7 and 8)
F. Bodies and power. In this module we emphasize the broader biological and social context
of culture. We help students to look at how bodies encounter and process the world in the
context of power differentials, based on class, gender, ethnicity, religion. These
differences affect the way we look at reality, and the way we relate to each other. We will
dissect stereotypes and show how they relate to that broader context, e.g., why the
Ilokano is thrifty (or stingy who uses which term and why) in the context of ecology,
society, history. We will also show how we inscribe power and status on our bodies
(from logos and name brands to piercing, from fashions to dietary practices) and how this
inscription enables individual bodies to relate to the body politic. We will show how
people tap into a wide repertoire of symbols and meanings, how, for example, the hijab
(head veil) can be seen as a restrictive covering by outsiders, but as an ethnic marker by
Muslim women themselves. (Weeks 9 and 10)
G. Controlling bodies. We will look at the different mechanisms of social control, with
emphasis on "micropolitics" of control such as media representations. We will look into
how notions of patriotism, nationalism, religion, are manipulated to control not just
bodies and minds but the very processes of thinking and sensory apprehension. Linking
this module to earlier ones, we will reexamine how social control shapes what we do to
our bodies (including a discussion of current body image disorders) and how we move.
We will show how even non-conformity is in fact a form of social control, e.g., the
artificial sense of autonomy when in fact we are conforming to consumerism and
faddism. (Weeks 11 and 12)
H. Survival and subversion. This module challenges the notion of culture as consensus,
showing how people make rules to break them. The previous module emphasizes social
control; this module shows how people constantly subvert those attempts at control, and
how these strategies for survival ultimately remake societies and culture. We will show
the range of these strategies, from the creation of slang to broader political action such as
the EDSA mobilizations and how these different strategies converge or clash. Students
will see culture as the result of accommodation as well as resistance, with exposure to
examples of syncretism and radical overhauling of norms and practices. (Weeks 13 and
14)
I. Into the ancient future. Looking at the brave bold new world of computers and the
Internet, of genomes and cloning of street parties and resolutions, we will ask students to
project into the future. What changes are to be anticipated and how much of a role will be
played by biology, by culture? How much space will there be for individual agency?
How new, or ancient is the future, as we retool and reinvent our bodies, our societies and
ultimately our humanity? (Week 15 and 16)
IV. Resource requirements
While we want to link to students high-tech worlds, we want to show that it is possible
to use "old-fashioned" methods to teach in a high-tech world. We will emphasize, in the
anthropological tradition, the value of participant-observation methods, of observing the
minute details of the world around us, of social interactions.
We do recognize the need to plug into young peoples worlds of cable television,
cinema, and the media in general, mainly by presenting these as options for students in
their quest of knowledge. We want to encourage a return to reading, by showing the joys
of active reading and re-reading, as well as active writing and rewriting as students
explore the world around them, and their power to move beyond rhetoric and to change
reality.
V. Number of sections:
Three sections will be offered as a start.