Anthropology 433

Week One

Introduction to class
Movie: Where the Mountains Tremble

Week Two

Menchu, Rigoberta, with Elisabeth Burgos-Debray. 1984. Trans. Ann Wright. I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala. London:Verso.

Week Three

Stoll, David. 1999. Rigoberta Menchu and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans. Boulder: Westview Press. Preface, chapter 1, chapter 20.

The following readings are from The Rigoberta Menchu Controversy, 2001, edited by Arturo Arias, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press:

Pratt, Mary Louise. I, Rigoberta Menchu and the "Culture Wars," pp. 29-48.

Part II, Documents: The Public Speaks, pp. 58-129.

Nelson, Diane M. 1999. A Finger in the Wound: Body Politics in Quincentennial Guatemala. Appendix: Selected Rigoberta Menchu Jokes, pp. 373-378.

Week Four

Online:
Horowitz, David 1999. I, Rigoberta Menchu, Liar 1:55 PM 4/8/04 Salon.com
D'Souza, Dinesh 1999. Fraudulent Storyteller Still Praised Boundless.org.

From The Rigoberta Menchu Controversy:

Smith, Carol A. Why Write an Expose of Rigoberta Menchu, pp. 141-155.

Lovell, W. George and Christopher H. Lutz. The Primacy of Larger Truths: Rigoberta Menchu and the Tradition of Native Testimony in Guatemala, pp. 171-197.

Warren, Kay B. Telling Truths: Taking David Stoll and the Rigoberta Menchu Expose Seriously, pp. 198-218.

Beverley, John. What Happens When the Subaltern Speaks: Rigoberta Menchu, Multiculturalism, and the Presumption of Equal Worth, pp. 219-236.

Patai, Daphne. Whose Truth? Iconicity and Accuracy in the World of Testimonial Literature, pp. 270-287.

Week Five

From The Rigoberta Menchu Controversy:

Earle, Duncan. Menchu Tales and Maya Social Landscapes, pp. 288-308.

Rodriguez, Ileana. Between Silence and Lies: Rigoberta Va, pp. 332-350.

Morales, Mario Roberto. Menchu after Stoll and the Truth Commission, pp. 351-371.

Montejo, Victor D. Truth, Human Rights, and Representation: The Case of Rigoberta Menchu, pp. 372-391.

Stoll, David. The Battle of Rigoberta, pp. 392-410.

FIRST ESSAY DUE!

First Essay Question: Rigoberta Menchu (1984:1) claimed that "My story is the story of all poor Guatemalans. My personal experience is the reality of a whole people." David Stoll has countered her, claiming that not only did she intentionally misrepresent important elements of her life, but that she, and supporters of her testimony, colluded in disseminating a book that distorts Guatemalan reality in fundamental ways. Is he right? Your essay should address the different hidden assumptions of the different voices in this controversy and address the hidden stakes in the debate.

The Yanomamo/Chagnon Controversy: Note that many of the articles listed below can be found as links from the website "Doug's Anthropological Niche: Darkness in El Dorado Information" at http://members.aol.com/archaeodog/darkness_in_el_dorado/

Week Six

The Turner and Sponsel letter

Chagnon, Napoleon A. 1997. Yanomamo (5th edition). Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.

Chapter 1: Doing Fieldwork among the Yanomamo, pp. 5-44.
Chapter 6: Yanomamo Warfare, pp. 185-206.

Tierney, Patrick. 2000. Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon. New York: W.W. Norton.

Chapter 1: Savage Encounters, pp. 3-6.
Chapter 2: At Play in the Field, pp. 7-17.
Chapter 3: The Napoleonic Wars, pp. 18-35.
Chapter 4: Atomic Indians, pp. 36-52.
Chapter 7: A Mythical Village, pp. 107-122.

Week Seven

Tierney, Patrick. 2000. Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon. New York: W.W. Norton.

Chapter 8: Erotic Indians, pp. 125-148

Geertz, Clifford, 2001. Life Among the Anthros. New York Review of Books, February 8.

Ferguson, Brian. 1995. Yanomami Warfare: A Political History. Santa Fe: School of American Research.

Chapter 1: Yanomami and the Study of War, pp. 5-20.
Chapter 13: The Yanomamo and the Anthropologist: 1960-1966, pp. 277-306.
Chapter 15: Explaining Yanomami Warfare: Alternatives and Implications, pp. 343-372.

Readings for Debate:
Public Anthropology Roundtable Forum. Read all 3 Rounds for your protagonist.
= Bruce Albert
= Ray Hames
= Kim Hill
= Leda Leitao Martins
= John Peters
= Terry Turner

Week Eight

Dumont, Jean-Paul 1988. The Tasaday, Which and Whose? Toward the Political Economy of an Ethnographic Sign. Cultural Anthropology 3(3):261-275.

Salamone, Frank A. 1997. The Yanomami Speak for Themselves. In Salamone, ed. The Yanomami and Their Interpreters: Fierce People or Fierce Interpreters? Lanham: University Press of America. pp. 75-88.

SECOND ESSAY DUE!

Second essay question: Jean-Paul Dumont (1988:272) writes that "social science functions as an ideology that, in its imaginary apprehension, does not 'discover' any truth, but invents--or constructs--a reality." What different ideologies are constituted through the construction of the Yanomamo and the various positions in the Chagnon-Tierney controversy? What are the stakes of this debate for: 1) anthropology; 2) the general public in the US; and 3) the Yanomamo and other Amazonian peoples?

SUMMER VACATION!