A179 Anthropology and Computing (60266) Fall 1998:
Including, Anthropology on and of the Internet, a very hot topic in current anthropolgy

T,Th 12:30-1:50 SST 170 (computing lab)
Doug White, Professor: Office SSPA 4169 tel. 824-5893 home 619-452-9957
UCI Electronic Educational Environment tools: Internet Software Library

• Michael D. Fischer. Applications in Computing for Social Anthropologists . ASA Research Methods in Social Anthropology.1994. Routledge. ISBN0415018196(See Centre for Social Anthropology and Computing )
• Fay Sudweeks, Margaret L. McLaughlin (Editors). Network and Netplay: Virtual Groups on the Internet 1998. MIT Press. ISBN0262692066 (See Cyberspace Culture and Society )

Format: This is an individual value added course. The value added to the student will determine their success. The value will be added through paper and book or research discussions and presentations. Each enrolled student will do an in depth analysis of a paper of interest to them. Students will bring a topic of interest to them and write a brief 2-3 page summary review by the second week. They will participate in course discussions, presentations and their own readings and discussions during the quarter and based on their learning will prepare a final paper that adds to their initial summary. They can do this in complementary teams or alone.

Paper topics can be obtained from web reference sites above.

Anthropology, like other professions, is being transformed by the information revolution, as witnessed by the plethora of web-sites linked to this page. You can expect to become anthropologically web-literate in this class. Whether you apply anthropology in government, academic, research or applied contexts, the skills you will learn through the use of on-line resources and software will be invaluable. Explore!

Exercises {under development}- In the process of developing papers and presentations, students will:

• In week 1: expand your own web page from the shell provided ( steps ): name, short bio, interests, possible projects
• In week 2: find on-line resources and/or run some on-line software
• In week 3: provide links to web-resources of interest in your web page; find/design/use some computer tools for anthropological tasks
• In week 4: run tutorial; find genealogical data on the net
• In week 5: run Pajek on some kinship data; include a draft of your paper (or a link to it) in your web page
• In week 6: use graphics (e.g., GIF animator , simulation, or modelling in some way in your project
• In week 7: run Pajek on some network data
• In week 8: run maptab on a cross-cultural topic

Est Enrollment: 15

Doug White's home page