Thursday, October 3

Readings:
Napoleon Chagnon, Yanomamö: The Last Days of Eden
Napoleon Chagnon, Studying the Yanomamö. preface, author's preface, and chapters 1 and 4.

Assignment:
Post on the class listserv a 3-part account, including one paragraph each on your impression of Chagnon's works from three perspectives:

1. The version of evolutionary theory that he deploys, and how well he deploys it
2. His skill as a writer
3. The ethics of his field research.

Do not refer to outside works in formulating your account.

In class:
First hour: Free-for-all responding to each other's postings. Make sure you print them off and bring them to class.

Second hour: Lecture on my take on what problems in anthropology are confronted by reading Chagnon's work: Evolution, Rhetoric, and Ethics. Then a short introduction to how we're going to approach the evolution problem.

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