ANTH 2190

Decent class. The readings open your mind about exchange and functions of economics. 4 exams which are in class essays and they are your only grades, so take this class if you can take in material and write critically about it

He was my favorite professor at UVa. Honestly, this class changed my view on life. If you would like a class where you learn how to critically think and learn about the different ways of being a human in the world, then take this class. Four exams which consist of responding one essay prompt in the allotted time.

Man, did I complain about this class a lot last semester. It wasn't actually the worst class in the world, in retrospect, but I'm glad it's finally over. George Mentore was an interesting dude and the TA (Patty) was nice, and I can now say I've had a college class with a very stereotypical liberal/academia type of professor. That's the positive spin on the class. The negative spin is that the class was very boring and I'm not sure how much I got out of it. A lot of reviews here are saying that it really encourages critical thinking, so I'll try to describe why I disagree with that opinion.

Here's a summary of what we learned in the class:

We started with a book called "The Gift" by Marcel Mauss. It basically argues against white anthropologists, who, at that point in time, had assumed that capitalist production and exchange is an inherent tendency in humans (the idea of the "economic man" that econ teachers talk about). Mauss argues that many indigenous people actually base their economies on GIFTS instead of commodities. Commodity" is a big word in this class -- it's shorthand for people changing private ownership of goods through a market economy). "Gift" is another big word -- in this class, we agree that a gift is something given to someone which then requires the person receiving the gift to reciprocate.

So you read "The Gift" and it pretty much makes sense. Then you go to lectures and George talks about some stuff that's hard to interpret. And the TA explains it in discussion, but she doesn't really explain anything you didn't already get. It's the stuff that George says in class (and presumably expects you to write about on exams) that you don't get. Don't underestimate how hard it is to understand this guy. Believe me, it is difficult. George talks using very high-level anthropology/sociology jargon and really never explains where it's coming from. This class technically has no prerequisites, but my roommate who took Intro to Anthro said that wasn't much help decoding this class either. You need to be heavily into theoretical sociology-type stuff to do well in this class (I think).

After "the Gift," you read part of Das Kapital by Karl Marx, which I thought was actually the most interesting part of the class. George gives some pretty lucid lectures about what Marxist analysis is (by "lucid," I mean about 50% understandable instead of 15%). Throughout the rest of the semester you read about 2 articles per week, some of which are more readable than others, and part of a book about sex tourism in the Dominican Republic. The skimmability, clearness, and dullness of these articles vary. The articles themselves are usually not to hard to interpet. Except for THIS* one. I challenge ANYONE to explain clearly what exactly Marilyn Strathern is saying in her article "Qualified Value: the Perspective of Gift Exchange."

In this class you'll spend about 2-3 hours per week reading and maybe 45 minutes per week typing up summaries for your TA. The nice thing is that your grade is pretty much 4 writing exams, the last of which ends before the end of classes. AKA there is no legit final. The REALLY nice thing about the course is that lecture is on Monday and Wednesday and discussion is on Wednesday, so you're (mercifully) done with this class for the week after Wednesday evening, allowing you to restore your sanity and sense of purpose in school a little bit. The exams are not terrible; there is at least one question on each that seems like it doesn't have verbal booby traps in it. I got about a B+ on each of them.

In summary, this is one of those classes where you'll take about 2 pages of notes in a lecture but won't be sure what any of it actually means. Sometimes George will say something that seems really significant and you'll think "wow!", but I just think that it's very hard to connect this stuff to a general framework of knowledge. It all seems very disorganized. Anthropology is about the analysis of human culture, so I don't think any professor who conducts a class like George is really promoting critical thinking. I really don't think that, at any point in the semester, George explained his chain of reasoning in a lot of the conclusions he drew. Here's one example (going back to the concept of the "gift" that I mentioned above). George one day said something about how the legacy of racism against blacks in America continues because the Emancipation Proclamation gave slaves the gift of freedom, which blacks could then not possibly reciprocate to the government. I was like, what? I thought the gift was a model for analyzing the economy of Polynesian societies. But now the gift is some kind of universal truth? Blacks are perceived as inferior *specifically* because they were freed from slavery? There must be a lot of assumptions you're not talking about here. The point is, training students to make broad, unsupported claims with a lot of references to academic theories is not training them to "think critically."

* Here is the link to that article: https://books.google.com/books?id=hRH-HmV9DuMC&pg=PA169&lpg=PA169&dq=marilyn+strathern+qualified+value&source=bl&ots=oHzou5G8sG&sig=LrWkLxrBf6JzMDRIFybyQjoSNRY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=n2WSVPqID8WrgwS8_4KADQ&ved=0CD8Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=marilyn%20strathern%20qualified%20value&f=false

I personally really enjoyed this class, but it definitely takes somewhat of an acquired taste. Mentore is magnificent, and he blew my mind during pretty much every lecture. With that said, the readings can be tough, and sometimes you can leave class wondering what in the world you just listened to for 50 minutes. However, I would highly recommend this class, because it really makes you think critically about the world.

I didn't like this class. There is a lot of reading to do. Half of the time it's out of a random book that you need to buy, but you're only supposed to read the introduction of. Mentore is very smart and knows what he's talking about, but teaches in a very condescending manner.

This class can be extremely challenging if you're not ready to do some highly critical thinking. Most of the anthropology classes I'd taken beforehand had been fairly easy by comparison. While I did struggle for a good bit of it, Mentore is an amazing professor and definitely does a good job of exposing you to other ways of thinking. Some of the concepts can be a bit hard to grasp, but once you do it is well worth it.

Mentor is the man. A lot of the time his views are pretty extreme but he does a great job at opening you up to very different ways of thinking. He keeps the class pretty informal and lets the class kind of run the pace. He doesn't allow laptops though which is a bit of a buzzkill for some.

An interesting class that talks about different economies around the world and why they work for the people who use them (mostly nomadic peoples). Essays are somewhat difficult because he's fairly vague on what he's looking for, he just wants you to "think critically."

Mentore makes you think critically. If you're willing to challenge your assumptions about how the world works (aka Western biases), it is an immensely rewarding class. If you are not, I'd imagine it being a rather painful lecture.

This was an interesting class. Mentore is entertaining and he is a very leniant grader