Study Guide for readings on The Sacred Bundle or Four-Field Holism

1a. According to Stocking’s essay, what institution or institutions have supported or propped up the four-field model of anthropology?

1b.  According to Yanigasako and Segal, what institution or institutions have supported, or propped up, the four-field model of anthropology?  (To do a good job with this question, you have to 'worry' or unpack the concept of institution--so be prepared to explain orally the definition of institution that you have used in answering this question about which institution or institutions have, in the views of these two pieces, supported the four-field model.) 

2.  Looked at globally, how universal is the four-field model of anthropology?

3a.  What is Stocking’s attitude toward and judgment about the four-field model?

3b.  What is Yanagisako and Segal’s attitude toward and judgment about the four-field model?

4. Yanagisako and Segal write that the extent of discord between anthropology’s quadrants is something that is often kept out of view of undergraduate students of anthropology.  Do your experiences as an undergraduate fit with this claim?  Explain.

5. Drawing on, and for this exercise adopting the perspective of, Herb Lewis's review of Unwrapping the Sacred Bundle, formulate a question to challenge Yanagisako and Segal about their essay.   In other words, formulate a question for Yanagisako and Segal from the position of the second of the PRs  sketched in the assignment for last week (the PR of the challenging or skeptical peer).