ANTH 560: Ethnographic Writing

ANTH 560-001: Ethnographic Writing
(Fall 2026)

04:30 PM to 07:10 PM T

Innovation Hall 330

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Section Information for Fall 2026

This course will enable students to see (or perhaps taste) the “secret sauce” of how ethnographies are made, by reading and analyzing classic and contemporary  works, and by learning to write ethnographically themselves. What is distinctive about the epistemologies of ethnography?

What can its ways of producing knowledge teach us about the politics and poetics of writing as well as issues of power, place, and point of view?
 
Central to the ethnographic endeavor is the writing itself, and so we will consider issues of form and style, narrative and theory. How do ethnographers bring people and places to life through the writing? What does ethnography share with long-form journalism, creative non-fiction and even fiction, and how does it differ from those genres? This course will give students the tools, practice, and insight into this process in a format that is part seminar, part workshop. Our study of ethnography will alternate between reading ethnographies and practicing our own writing. We will also evaluate how the general move toward more public facing scholarship in a range of disciplines is connected to how and why we write. 

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Course Information from the University Catalog

Credits: 3

Examines a variety of ethnographic texts with attention to issues of form, style, and content in order to understand how authors blend theory, data, and narrative. Offers students the tools, practice, and insight on how to write ethnographically through discussion and writing exercises in a course that is part seminar, part workshop. Offered by Sociology & Anthropology. May not be repeated for credit.
Registration Restrictions:

Enrollment limited to students with a class of Advanced to Candidacy, Graduate, Junior Plus, Non-Degree or Senior Plus.

Students in a Non-Degree Undergraduate degree may not enroll.

Schedule Type: Seminar
Grading:
This course is graded on the Graduate Regular scale.

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