Home Essay – Anthropology of Popular Culture

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Final Take Home Exam ANT 2130 – Anthropology of Popular Culture

Instructions: This open-book, cumulative exam for Anthropology of Popular Culture is due via Blackboard between 11:30 AM on
Tuesday, April 11th, 2017 and 2:30 PM on Thursday, April 13th- Be on time-late submissions will be severely penalized- Before
answering these questions, make sure to read the instructions carefully. Use concrete examples from the text, and reference
them with parenthetical references (Author Year, pg#)- Complete all five IDs, but choose only two essay questions to answer. The
exam is worth 45% of your grade-

Part I: Short answer (IDs) (5 pts- each, for a total of 25 pts-)-

Locate a significant exposition of each term listed below in Nardi’s My Life as a Night Elf Priest and: identify the seminal thinker
she references (1 pt-): define the term (1 pt-): explain how it is important and what it has been used for in the anthropological
study of popular culture (2 pts-): and give one example from a different class reading or film (Beautiful Losers or Thank You for
Playing) in order to illustrate your definition (1 pt-)- Each short answer should be paragraph-length and must contain
parenthetical references (Author Year, pg# or Director Year, timecode)-

Aesthetic experience

Moral panic

Magic circle (your example may be an in-class activity for this term only)

Activity theory

Digital rules

Part II: Essay questions (***total of 20 pts-)

Instructions: Essay questions ask you to step back, see the whole picture, and make an original argument about the material
presented in the course- Make sure that you are answering the question posed (treat the answer as your thesis statement), that
you define relevant concepts, and that you use very specific examples from the text with parenthetical references- WRITE AN
OUTLINE before you start writing the essay-

Option #1 POPULAR CULTURE: What does anthropology teach us about contemporary popular culture? Make an argument
about this question by exploring three different topics covered in this class such as fairy tales, rumor, co
digital piracy, street art, or games and playing- Be sure to move beyond the empirical and reference s – . Chat with USyour argument. You may use readings. films or class exercise materials to answer this question (10 pts.)

Option #2 MATERIAL CULTURE: How have anthropologists defined material culture and developed it into an approach to the
study of popular culture? Make an explicit comparison between course texts and Nardi’s discussion of video game software and
computer technologies. To answer this question. draw on the texts by Kilroy-Marac. Miller and Woodward. and Nardi. as well as
any others you deem appropriate (10 pts.)