By now everyone in ANTH 5790 should be well into the Shankman book. Professor Shankman has also provided us with discussion questions which you will find below.
1. Anthropologists often view the same culture differently, depending on gender, ethnicity, class, historical circumstance, etc. Therefore there can be no single "right answers" about Samoa and the questions posed in the Mead-Freeman controversy. Or can there be? Why or why not?
2. What criteria would you use to determine to what extent Samoa was a sexually permissive versus a sexually restrictive society? To what extent would you use Samoan criteria versus Western criteria? Is using Western criteria ethnocentric? Why or why not?
3. According to Freeman, what is the critical evidence that he uses to demonstrate that Mead was hoaxed? According to Shankman, how convincing is this evidence? Where was this evidence found?
4. To what extent is the nature-nurture controversy relevant to the understanding of anthropology today?
5. What does this controversy tell us about anthropology in the media?
