Course (Catalog) Description: Development of analytic and collaborative writing skills in the context of ethnographic study. Emphasis on written analysis in a variety of forms including case study analysis and ethno-methodological investigation. Appropriate advanced writing experience for majors in communication, education, psychology, anthropology, sociology and political science. This class satisfies General Education requirements in Knowledge Applications, Diversity, and Writing areas.

In this course, students will explore current debates by reading a selection of anthropological texts, such as Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Somoa and Dan Rose’s Black American Street Life, that represent various approaches to ethnography both as a way of performing cultural research and as a way of writing about culture. In doing so, this course allows us to engage broad interdisciplinary conversations about the nature of writing and knowledge-making in the social sciences. Using a body of data from a particular ethnographic context (either from library research or their own field data), students will try their hand at experimenting with several ethnographic writing styles themselves.