Non-Fictional Prose

 I went through several stages of brainstorming for my final project. I ended up settling on a poster collage incorporating my ideas, some borrowed from other places (books we’ve read, things people have posted, essayed, said, etc.) This slightly incongruent poster seemed to be the best way to represent what I have absorbed in this course. I felt as though many of the ideas in the conversations we’ve had in class have been spread out in so many different directions that it was hard to find a way to connect them all. But then I thought, why do I have to find a way to connect them? If this class has taught me one thing it’s to think outside the sock drawer. Many of my class notes don’t have any logical connections anyway.

CKosarek and I worked together on our final performance for the class. It was interesting for me because--contrary to what we may have told you--Cassie and I selected the class together with the knowledge that we'd both be taking it. Two days before Virginia Woolf went to lottery Cassie graciously stepped down --for her own reasons but with the knowledge that it increased my chances of getting in and in return I have promised to go skiing with her.

Anthropology 450: Senior Thesis Seminar
Fall 2010
Friday, 1:30– 4 p.m.
Gest 103
 
Course description:
 The senior thesis seminar is a year-long course in which you (a senior
anthropology major) design, implement, and write up an original research project.  
During the fall semester, you develop and/or refine a thesis topic, do library research, and
conduct field work.  You also write one thesis chapter (by the end of the semester).  
Anthropology 450 also includes some assignments that will help you develop skills in
ethnographic methods, library research, and thesis writing.  
 
Course work:

Anthropology 103: Introduction to Anthropology
Fall 2010
TTh 10:00 – 11:30, 11:30 – 1
Chase 104
 
Course Description
 
Anthropology is the study of human beings, within and across specific social and cultural
environments.  In this course we look at some ideas about what it means to be human, and some
institutions, processes, and forces implicated in the formation and transformation of group and
individual identities.  Our approach is ethnographic and comparative: we study particular peoples
and places in depth, and we compare particular places and peoples with one another and with

Amanda Fortner

Final Project: Interview with a copyright lawyer about a book that advocates the dissolution of copyright.

David Shields’ Reality Hunger: A Manifesto has interested me for a while—all right, well, not so much interested as inflamed me. As an aspiring author and therefore creative artist, I am set to benefit from copyright law—simply, so long as I stick to writing my own words, or get the permissions from those whose words I borrow, I’m going to collect royalties from those who purchase copies of my works. If, however, David Shields’ vision of the world were to come true, as soon as the words were out of my pen I would not own them (of course, I don’t actually own the words themselves—this will come up in the interview. I mean I would own the order in which I place them): everybody would. Whoever wanted to could self-publish my books with his or her name on them, and if he or she could convince some people to pay money for them, that money would go to the swindler, not to me.

Our presentation was a sock puppet performance where Kate and I talked about all of the books we read for class. Going through all of the books we read and putting them in a pile showed that we really covered a lot this semester, and I think we, as a class, went in a variety of interesting directions to finally come to the overall idea of stories their importance. The conversation we tried to have with our puppets was our attempt to make connections between everything that we read and watched.

Here's the powerpoint of my final project. It's a little boring, but if you want to see the real thing I'm going to be handing it in to Anne with my final portfolio.

 For our final performance, we made a video that uses the progression of our friendship as a metaphor for the evolution of our class' discussions. 

 Prezi Presentation