Spencer Orey Plan of Study 2011

Ethnographic and Theoretical Fields of Interest I came to Duke with two recent research projects, both of which I have been pushing

forward through coursework: 1) the project I applied with that builds off of my Fulbright

research, on how humanitarian aid intervention to West Africa from France and the United States

is reconfiguring circuits of opportunities for musicians in Mali and 2) the project that began

during the months in between my applying to graduate school and coming to Duke, based on my

encounters in working retail and collecting stories at Mystic Journey Bookstore in Los Angeles.

Through the Mali music project, I have developed theoretical interests in the

anthropology of humanitarianism and development, the anthropology of media (music,

ethnomusicology, music videos, ethnographic films, film theory), and urban anthropology. Last

fall at the AAAs, I presented a paper on humanitarianism and music in Mali through a music

video I filmed on cleaning up trash in Bamako, and I expanded that paper into a 25-page research

paper for a course with Ian Baucom on Bare Life, Precarity, and Enmity. I am currently applying

for funding for summer programs for intensive French language training in either Montreal or

France, both of which have large West African diaspora populations and are sites for me to think

through questions of global connection to the Malian music industry.

The Mystic Journey Bookstore project has developed my interests in the anthropology of

storytelling, anthropology of religion, the commodification and consumption (of spirituality),

performance theory, the poetics of/and ethnography, enchantments and disenchantments of

capitalism, urban anthropology, and precarity. At the end of last semester, I worked stories with

theory into a paper for Louise Meintjes’ class on Voice. I continue to be absorbed by this project

and devote my time and resources towards tracing and theorizing a genealogy of the

anthropology of storytelling in order to rework my paper with the goal of eventual publication.

Spencer Orey Plan of Study 2011

This semester, I have continued to actively think through and expand upon both projects

through coursework. For my documentary filmmaking course, I am currently filming a 10-12

minute documentary film on a humanitarian aid organization working to expand beekeeping

from Duke to Freetown, Sierra Leone. For the course on Mobility, I am planning to write a paper

about the historical and contemporary mobility of spirituality to Los Angeles from abroad.

I am looking for a way to synthesize my interests into a dissertation project. My goal is to

specify three specific theoretical fields of interest by the end of my second year, and towards that

aim, I plan to take courses that build on my interests in the anthropology of humanitarianism,

urban anthropology, the anthropology of poetics and performance, the anthropology of religion,

and Africanist and Africanist diaspora anthropology.

Portfolio Requirements I plan to expand and revise these papers for my portfolio: - 1 25 page Research Paper on music and humanitarianism in Mali, originally written for a AAA

panel, then rewritten for Ian Baucom’s class - 1 25 page Research Paper on storytelling at Mystic Journey Bookstore, originally written for

Louise Meintjes’ s class - 1 Theoretical paper on the foundations of ethnography in American Anthropology, originally

written for Theories 330 Courses thus far: Year 1 Fall Theories 330 (Anne Allison) Voice (Louise Meintjes) Bare Life, Precarity, Enmity (Ian Baucom) (TA for Africa & Development for Charlie Piot) Spring Theories 331 (Anne-Maria Makulu) Mobility (Engseng Ho) Performance-based Documentary Filmmaking (Charlie Thompson/Gary Hawkins) (RA for Anne-Maria Makhulu and Louise Meintjes)

Spencer Orey Plan of Study 2011

Potential Future Courses Year 2 - Africa and Postcolonial Theory (Achille Mbembe) - Poetry/Poetics (Fred Moten) - Anthropology of Religion (or a class in Religion) - Anthropology of Humanitarianism - Research Methods - Race Year 3 - Film theory/new media theory - Performance theory (Patricia Sawin) - Space, Place, and Power - Grant Writing - a History course Summer Plans Summer 2011 - intensive language training in French in Montreal or France Summer 2012 - preliminary fieldwork