ANTH 411
APPALACHIAN CULTURES

1. Catalog Entry

ANTH 411. Appalachian Cultures
Three hours lecture (3).

Prerequisite: ANTH 121 or SOC 110.

Contemporary Appalachian culture; anthropological explanations of regional culture explored; causes and repercussions of culture change in Appalachia examined.

2. Detailed Description of Content of Course

The content may include:

I. The Concept of Culture and the Anthropological Perspective
II. Is a Unique Appalachian Subculture Extant?

A. Describing Appalachian Culture

1. Economic structure

a. adaptive strategies: hunting/gathering, horticulture/agriculture, lumber, mines, other industry
b. correlates of adaptive strategy

1) style of work: non-routinized/routinized
2) mode of production: mode of production for use/mode of production for exchange
3) orientation toward time: past/present/future
4) orientation toward land: land as "place"/land as "property"

2. Social organization

a. kinship structure

1) the nuclear family and the ex-tended kin network
2) household composition

b. settlement and community: peer group conformity vs. individualism
c. social stratification

1) Is the community egalitarian?
2) Does "more urban" equal"higher status"?

3. Religion and cosmology

a. fundamentalism
b. lineal and non-lineal (non-discursive or intuitive) modes of thought

B. Stereotypes and Caricature of "Mountain People"

1. Individualism
2. Fatalism
3. Otherworldliness
4. Traditionalism

C. Analyzing Inconsistencies

1. A.F.C. Wallace's "Axes of Variation" as an explanatory tool

D. Analyzing the "Uniqueness" of Appalachian Culture

1. Explanatory models

a. Toennies' Gemeinschaft/Gesellschaft
b. Cooley's primary/secondary groups
c. Parson's "pattern variables"
d. Durkheim's mechanical/organic solidarity
e. Redfield's folk/urban continuum
f. Gans' person/object orientation

2. Do the models fit rural cultures around the world?

a. cross-cultural perspective on rural/urban differences
b. Do the models fit Appalachia?

III. Explaining the Nature of Appalachian Culture

A. Culture As Epiphenomenon

1. the environmental determinism approach to Appalachian culture
2. the technological determinism approach
3. the "culture of poverty" model
4. the social structural approach (internal colonialism, class model, metropolis/satellite model)

B. Culture As Basic Structure

1. the cognitive approach (ethnoscience)
2. the structuralist approach--Levi-Strauss looks at Appalachia

IV. Culture Change in Appalachia--Post World War II

A. Change in Economic Structure
B. Change in Social Organization
C. Change in Religion and World View
D. What Has Remained Unchanging?

V. Discovering and Rediscovering Appalachian Culture

A. Discovery of Appalachia in Social Science
B. The Appalachian "Myth" As An Expression of Bipolar Strains in American Culture

3. Detailed Description of Conduct of Course

A lecture/discussion and in-class writing approach is used, which encourages students to exchange information about their own respective cultural backgrounds and their perceptions of Appalachian and non-Appalachian cultures.

4. Goals and Objectives of the Course

Students will be introduced to the cultures of the Appalachian region of which Radford University is a part.

5. Assessment Measures

Graded and checked assignments may include in-class or take-home examinations and quizzes, homework assignments, in-class writing, and in-class discussions. Journals may be required and checked periodically. Formal oral presentations may be required.

6. Other Course Information

A class project may be used to focus the gathering of research materials for a particular purpose and for dissemination to an audience outside the classroom (such as the Appalachian Studies Conference, area teachers, or the news media). For graduate credit, students would write a research paper; an oral report of this paper may also be required.

7. Review and Approval

DATE ACTION REVIEWED
September, 2001 Reviewed Peggy A. Shifflett