1. 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)
2. What’s 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 evolution’s tempo has been amplified through culture and society. An introduction to the nature versus nurture debate. (Week 2)
3. 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)
4. 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 (Weber’s verstehen) in culture. (Weeks 5 and 6)
5. 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)
6. 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)
7. 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)
8. 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)
9. 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)

4. 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 people’s 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.

5. Number of sections:

Three sections will be offered as a start.

Back to RGEP webpage http://www.upd.edu.ph/~ovcaa/rgep/index.html