February 28th 2008

The importance of the wiki
* New essential skills: networking, collaboration, participation
this is the dramatic shift in our society (AWESOME), a shift to the three above core skills.
* Using a wiki allows you to see how wiki-knowledge (like Wikipedia) is produced
* Writing for the world inpsires better writing
Pushes to put more in your work.
* Diigo RSS allows you to understand new ways of finding and sharing information

How to work well as a group:

• Communication, Empathy, and Thoughtfulness - work in a situation conflict and non conflict.
• Be especially well-prepared for your assigned discussion day
• But also be prepared for the other days as well
• Major decisions should be made by the group as a whole
• Person assigned to the task should take major decisions and add 3 things in the draft
• more specific details
• comparisons and contrasts with real cultures
• a paragraph explaining how it is integrated with other aspects of the culture (this may be difficult to do in the first draft - but should be worked on throughout the semester)
• Grading System:
• 100 points on your contributions to the wiki (especially your assigned page) The 100 points is divided like this:
• 30 points for a paragraph on the integration of culture
• 30 points for the comparisons and contrasts
• 20 points for overall quality of the writing
• 20 points for creativity and insight
• 100 points on your group participation (graded anonymously by your peers)
• I will hold the option of overriding group grades (I may raise or lower participation grades)
  

Quick Wiki Tutorial
* The basics of how it works (collaboration)
* What your homepage should look like & how to create it.
* What your section should look like & how to create it.
* Adding notes, pictures, videos, and other multimedia
* Making comments (e.g. Quiz 4)
* Using Diigo instead of a traditional bibliography

Two primary goals of the World System Simulation:
1. explore the integration of culture
2. explore the connections between cultures
If we succeed we will gain insights into structural power and structural violence

Last week in class:
How do you get your food? How are resources (incl. food) distributed?
INTEGRATION - should have been integrated in some way

This week:
How do you reproduce? Who has sex with who?
Marriage relations. Moving from production to reproduction

All societies regulate sexual behavior.

Three common sexual regulations
1. by gender (prohibiting either homo or hetero-sexual activities)
2. by age
3. by relation (the incest taboo)

Homosexuality & Heterosexuality:

• terms invented as medical terms in late 1800's
• Webster's 1923: "homosexuality: morbid sexual passion for one of the same sex"
• "heterosexuality: morbid sexual passion for one of the opposite sex"
• 1934: "heterosexuality: normal sexuality"
• Homosexuality became a mental illness and a perversion.

Notes on homosexuality
2-10% in America homosexual- yet nearly 100% in cultures who approve the practice.
Common in Ancient Greece - pursuing virtue - LOVE usually only between males.
Love between men and women considered a madness.

Story aboutdrum dances in Papua New Guinea, which are very erotic.
The lyrics of these songs are:
Men: "Cut the grass, cut the grass" (meaning, "women, cut your skirts off")
Women: "Make me piles of firewood in the garden, prepare for me to come." (meaning, prepare the garden for our sexual meeting there)
While Wesch was dancing: "Whiteman stop dancing and poor us some tea to drink."

Incest Taboo
Universal - but different everywhere

Endogamy/Exogamy at different levels. (See book definitions)

Cousin Marriage
Patrilateral parallel cousin (Arabic - 46% in Iraq for example, also Ancient Greece)
(see book for more information)

FORMS OF MARRIAGE:

• Monogamy: Most common but not the most preferred - talk more about it next time and its particular meanings for us in our own culture - and its associations with Romantic Love.
• Polygyny - marriage with more than one wife.
• most preferred 80-85% of world societies
• Common where women do much of the work
• or where there is a shortage of males
• only the richest where men do most work
• often welcomed by women
• Polyandry - marriage with more than one husband. example from Tibet/Nepal
• Chart showing how polyandry works in Nepal to keep the family land in one piece:
  
• Group Marriage: marriage with multiple husbands and wives: very rare.
• Not even a good solid example except communes like the Oneida community in New York 1848-1880.
• but see Polyamory in America
  

So What is Marriage?
Definition: a union between two or more people that estabishes certain rights and obligations between the people, between them and their children, and between them and their in-laws.

What about love?
Love has nothing to do with marriage in many cultures.