EconSyllabusCANVAS.docx

This seminar in social anthropology presents value and the exchange of value as the foundations of economic, social, moral, and political life. The authors we read will argue that the exchange of value(s) between humans creates social solidarity. We are tied to our communities and friends through relationships of debt and expenditure; we give a gift with the expectation of receiving something in return, binding the gift giver and receiver in a social relationship that extends over space and time. For sociologist Marcel Mauss, even gestures of altruism are an an attempt to create value and establish (or reinforce) relationships of alliance. We begin the semester with Mauss’s bold contention that no gift is given selflessly; we give in order to receive something in return. Mauss’s The Gift: Forms and Function of Exchange in Archaic Societies is a foundational text of economic social thought; he and the authors who follow him on the syllabus, foreground how social relationships of all s

EconSyllabusCANVAS.docx Published using Google Docs Report abuse Learn more EconSyllabusCANVAS.docx Updated automatically every 5 minutes The Price of Solidarity: Value, Sacrifice, and Capital Anthro 1617 Dr. Julia Fierman, College Fellow in Social Anthropology Department of Anthropology Email: jfierman@fas.harvard.edu Class meeting time: Wednesdays 3-5:45, Spring 2022 Tozzer 203 Office Hours: [1] Mondays 1:30-2:30 by zoom Wednesdays 1:30-2:30 in person (in Tozzer 209) This seminar in social anthropology presents value and the exchange of value as the foundations of economic, social, moral, an