Below is a grad course that may be of interest to you.



CULT 860
Critical Ethnography
Prof. Roger Lancaster
Tues, 4:30-7:10

Ethnography-literally, 'writing about (a) people (or culture)'-is a powerful method for examining social practices in specific settings. And because it asks after what people actually do and think (as opposed to what they would do or think if they acted according to an abstracted theoretical paradigm), it also provides a means for both testing and developing theories of culture. Long associated with anthropology and sociology, ethnographic methods are taken up today by cultural studies practitioners in many fields (English, folklore, history, etc.). This course will survey classical and contemporary ethnographies, laying out the basic methodology of participant-observation fieldwork while asking key questions about the ethnographic product. How have ethnographic techniques served contradictory aims: colonial snooping or spying on the one side and liberationist aspirations on the other? What procedures might distinguish critical ethnographic practices from their power-serving alternatives? How do successful ethnographies connect the 'micro' setting to the 'macro' system?