Douglas R. Holmes
Office S1-221 x4550
Office Hours:
Email: dholmes@binghamton.edu

Class Meetings: Tuesday & Thursday 2:50-4:15 pm
Class Location:  SW321

Description

The course will explore how anthropological analysis can provide meaningful access to crucial forms of political struggle. The fears and aspirations of a range of political actors — from urban street fighters to peasant insurgents — will be scrutinized. A series of major European political movements-socialism, national socialism, anarchism, and neo-fascism — will be examined from the standpoint of participants who are pursing radical reform and transformation of the human condition. The unifying issue posed by the course is how these diverse political movements seek to define society as a moral framework, analytical construct, and empirical fact. Isaiah Berlin, Antonio Gramsci, Raymond Williams, and Eric Wolf provide the theoretical grounding for the course.

Required Books

Browning, Christopher 1993 Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. New York: Harper.

Buford, Bill 1993 Among the Thugs. New York: Vintage.

Holmes, Douglas R. 2000 Integral Europe: Fast-Capitalism, Multiculturalism, Neofascism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Mintz, Jerome 1994 Anarchist of Casa Viejas. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press.

Recommended Books

Berlin, Isaiah 1977 Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas. New York: Viking.

Verdery, Katherine 1996 What was Socialism, and What Comes Next? Princeton: Princeton University Press.

William, Raymond 1977 Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wolf, Eric 1999 Envisioning Power: Ideologies of Dominance and Crisis. Berkeley: University of California Press.

The actual requirements for the notebook are very simple, but must be followed rigorously. For each reading assignment you must write a concise summary. In your entries you must keep strictly to the assigned readings and not introduce any extraneous materials. We will discuss how to write these entries in more detail in class. If you have any questions about the notebook I will be glad to review your entries and give you feedback.

Take-Home Mid-Term

The take-home mid-term will be given during week of seven.

Final Exam
There is a three-hour final exam for the course and you can bring your notebook for the test

Discussion

Active participation means coming to class prepared to discuss the assigned readings for that week. This includes occasional participation in group work as well as actively contributing your questions ideas and opinions to class discussion.

Assignments and Grading

Your grade will be based on four elements:
Informed Participation (20%)
Take-home Mid-Term (20%)
Notebook (30%)
Final Exam (30%)

Plagiarism and Cheating

Students are expected to abide by the rules of academic honesty. Under no circumstances will plagiarism and/or cheating be tolerated in this course. These offenses carry a severe penalty, ranging from a possible "F" in the course to suspension or expulsion from this university. If you are unsure of what constitutes plagiarism, consult a copy of the University Rules and Expectations or your teaching assistant.