Introduction to
Cultural Anthropology |
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Professor: Laura Kunreuther |
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Course
Number: ANTH 101 |
CRN
Number: 10181 |
Class cap: 22 |
Credits:
4 |
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Schedule/Location:
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Mon Wed 10:10 AM
- 11:30 AM Olin 201 |
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Distributional Area: |
SA Social
Analysis D+J Difference and Justice |
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Crosslists: Global & International Studies |
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Anthropology is the study of 'culture,'
a concept that has been redefined and contested over the discipline's long development.
The term 'culture' opens up major questions. What, if anything, does it mean
to be human? How does our language shape what we can and can’t see in the
world? When does difference create conflict and when does difference inspire
gift-giving? This course will trace the history of the culture concept from
the nineteenth century to the present. In doing so, it will explore
anthropological approaches to human groups, collective rituals, personal
symbols, and systems of exchange. It will examine how anthropology came to
focus on questions of identity, race, gender, labor, sexuality, nationalism,
and (post-)colonial power. Our ethnographic gaze will be turned inward as
well as outward. We will therefore consider the reasons behind, and
ramifications of, anthropology's self-reflexive turn in and around the 1980s.
We will enter debates about anthropologists' engagement in activism and
policy. We will then examine the more recent anthropological fascination with
the non-human (e.g. other animals, technology, the built environment,
'nature'), looking at how notions of selfhood, materiality, and
anthropology's own methodological foundations have been transformed as a
result. |
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Divided Cities |
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Professor: Jeff Jurgens |
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Course
Number: ANTH 219 |
CRN
Number: 10339 |
Class cap: 22 |
Credits:
4 |
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Schedule/Location:
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Mon Wed 11:50 AM
- 1:10 PM Olin 102 |
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Distributional Area: |
SA Social
Analysis D+J Difference and Justice |
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Crosslists: Environmental & Urban Studies |
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This class offers an introduction to
modern cities and everyday urban life, with a central focus on cities that
are both socially and spatially divided. On the one hand, we will examine how
political-economic inequalities and collective differences (organized in
relation to race, color, gender, sexuality, class, [dis]ability, and other
social categories) are expressed in geographic boundaries and other aspects
of the built environment. On the other, we will explore how state agencies,
real estate developers, activists, residents, and other social actors make
and remake city spaces in ways that reinforce, rework, challenge, and refuse
the existing terms of inequality and difference. The class will revolve
around case studies of cities around the world (e.g., Istanbul, Rio de
Janeiro, and Tel Aviv) as well as cities in the US (e.g., Baltimore, Chicago,
Los Angeles, San Francisco, and St. Louis). More broadly, we will trace the
history of urban segregation from a perspective that is both transnational
and committed to the pursuit of racial justice (as well as other forms of
societal transformation). This class builds on assigned reading in
anthropology and other disciplines, critical writing and discussion, and
focused film viewing. At the same time, it is an Engaged Liberal Arts and
Sciences (ELAS) class that provides students with an opportunity to reflect
on urban theorizing through collaborations with community partners in
Kingston and other cities. |
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Ethnographies of
South Asia |
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Professor: Sucharita Kanjilal |
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Course
Number: ANTH 251 |
CRN
Number: 10338 |
Class cap: 22 |
Credits:
4 |
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Schedule/Location:
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Tue Thurs 3:30 PM
- 4:50 PM Olin 201 |
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Distributional Area: |
SA Social
Analysis |
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Crosslists: Asian Studies; Global & International Studies |
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How would our understanding of the world
change if we started our inquiry from South Asia? This course uses anthropological
works and theories rooted in South Asia to examine political, economic and
social life more broadly, with an eye towards de-westernizing dominant ideas
about race, class, caste, gender, sexuality and globalization. South Asia is
a complex and contested geopolitical region that spans several countries —
such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan — as well as
countless cultural, linguistic and ethnic peoples and practices that do not
adhere to or even live within its national or regional borders. It is a part
of the world constituted through and implicated in multiple colonial
projects, violent nationalist and communal struggles, intersecting social
movements, and global flows of capital, technology and labor. South Asia and its
diasporas have also served as a rich source for ethnographic writing and
contemporary social theory. In this class, we will draw on several of these
ethnographies of South Asia in order to develop new tools and perspectives on
topics such as the rise of xenophobic nationalism, third world feminist
struggles, the anti-caste and racial justice movements and contemporary
global capitalism. |
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Anthropology of
Violence and Suffering |
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Professor: Laura Kunreuther |
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Course
Number: ANTH 261 |
CRN
Number: 10340 |
Class cap: 22 |
Credits:
4 |
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Schedule/Location:
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Mon Wed 3:30 PM
- 4:50 PM Reem Kayden Center 101 |
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Distributional Area: |
SA Social
Analysis D+J Difference and Justice |
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Crosslists: Asian Studies; Gender and Sexuality Studies; Global &
International Studies; Human Rights; Science, Technology, Society |
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(Human Rights Core course) Why do acts of violence continue to grow in the ‘modern’
world? In what ways has violence become naturalized in the contemporary
world? In this course, we will consider how acts of violence challenge
and support modern ideas of humanity, raising important questions about what
it means to be human today. These questions lie at the heart of
anthropological thinking and also structure contemporary discussions of human
rights. Anthropology’s commitment to “local culture” and cultural
diversity has meant that anthropologists often position themselves in critical
opposition to “universal values,” which have been used to address various
forms of violence in the contemporary world. The course will approach
different forms of violence, including ethnic and communal conflicts,
colonial history, war, torture and its individualizing effects, acts of
terror and institutionalized fear, and rituals of bodily pain that mark
individuals’ inclusion or exclusion from a social group. The course is
organized around three central concerns. First, we will discuss
violence in its structural and everyday forms that becomes a means of
producing and consolidating social and political power. Second, we will
look at forms of violence that have generated questions about “universal
rights” of humanity versus culturally specific practices. Finally, we will
look at the ways human rights institutions have sought to address the
profundity of human suffering and pain, and ask in what ways have they
succeeded and/or failed. Students will be given the opportunity to
reflect on how recent events might be thought about through an
anthropological perspective on violence and suffering. In addition to
fulfilling one of the 200-level anthropology requirements, this course is a
Human Rights core class for the Human Rights major and fulfills one of the requirements
for the forthcoming Human Rights certificates. |
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Post-Apartheid
Imaginaries |
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Professor: Yuka Suzuki |
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Course
Number: ANTH 275 |
CRN
Number: 10341 |
Class cap: 22 |
Credits:
4 |
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Schedule/Location:
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Tue Thurs 10:10 AM - 11:30
AM Olin 203 |
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Distributional Area: |
SA Social
Analysis D+J Difference and Justice |
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Crosslists: Africana Studies; Global & International Studies;
Human Rights |
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South Africa and Zimbabwe have been marked
by one of the most brutal systems of racial segregation ever seen in the
world. Before Independence, the distinction between white and black signaled
the stark difference between a life of guaranteed comfort and privilege on
the one hand, and a life of limited access to inferior land, education,
housing, and employment on the other. Following decades-long struggles for
liberation, both countries worked to reinvent themselves, crafting new
national narratives of cross-racial, cross-ethnic unity. This course explores
what it means to imagine postcolonial nationhood in the context of clearly
visible and deep inequality. We consider the politics of land redistribution
and resettlement in contexts where the vast majority of arable land remains
under white ownership after Independence. We look closely at the charismatic
authority of politicians like Jacob Zuma and Robert Mugabe, alongside the
intensification of ethnic discourses that culminated in genocide in Zimbabwe.
Other topics include intersections between race and gendered violence, the
rise of witchcraft and the occult, student protest movements, rooibos tea
economies, and paradoxes of white African belonging. This course fulfills the
Difference & Justice requirement through its examination of the ongoing
effects of apartheid in southern Africa. |
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Archaeology of
African American Farms, Yards, and Gardens |
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Professor: Christopher Lindner |
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Course
Number: ANTH 290 |
CRN
Number: 10342 |
Class cap: 12 |
Credits:
4 |
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Schedule/Location:
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Thurs 1:30 PM
- 2:50 PM Hegeman 201 |
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Fri 1:30 PM
- 4:30 PM Hegeman 201 |
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Distributional Area: |
LS Laboratory
Science |
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Crosslists: Africana Studies; Environmental Studies; Environmental
& Urban Studies; Historical Studies |
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How can we use archaeological methods to
identify, analyze, and interpret places where the growing of plants by
African Americans flourished. How can we contextualize our findings on these
sites to help counter racism in the present? The laboratory science aspect of
this ELAS course will derive from protocols and strategies of exploratory
sampling excavations. Our goal will be identification of deposits that remain
relatively undisturbed and contain artifacts that represent particularly
relevant eras in the past. On Thursdays, seminars will take place in person
&/or by videoconference. In the winter labs on Friday, we’ll examine
artifacts excavated nearby in Germantown, at the Reformed Parsonage, to prepare
for excavations there in spring. Our focus is the family headed by a free
African American farmer, Henry Person. His wife, Mary, was likely born to a
bondswoman at the house in 1805. Their children lived there until 1911.
Evidence of African American spiritual practices have been found in the
cellar of the house and its yard. We’ll strive to involve community
colleagues from the neighboring towns and the city of Hudson. The Bard Archaeology Field School will
take place for three weeks in the summer at the Germantown Parsonage, for 4
credits in Anthropology at the 200-level. Scholarships are available to cover
tuition charges. For an online application and further information, go
to https://www.bard.edu/archaeology/fieldschool/ and/or speak with Prof Lindner
during registration. |
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Doing Ethnography |
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Professor: Maria Sonevytsky |
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Course
Number: ANTH 324 |
CRN
Number: 10344 |
Class cap: 15 |
Credits:
4 |
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Schedule/Location:
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Tue 12:30 PM
- 2:50 PM Reem Kayden Center 102 |
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Distributional Area: |
SA Social
Analysis |
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Crosslists: Environmental Studies; Environmental & Urban Studies;
Human Rights |
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What are the ethical stakes, practical
questions, and methodological tools that we use when we practice ethnography?
Ethnography is the cornerstone of contemporary cultural anthropology, and
includes both fieldwork and representation. This course is a survey of, and
practicum in, ethnographic field methods. We will study and critique
traditional ethnographic methods such as participant-observation,
interviewing, archival research, visual, sonic, textual and spatial analysis,
and address the challenges of doing fieldwork in a variety of contexts,
including the virtual domain. A series of sequenced intensive research
exercises will raise guiding questions about how ethnographic research can be
ethically and effectively “translated” into written text. We attend also to
emergent ethnographic forms and methods, such as multi-sited ethnography,
critical moral anthropology, and indigenous methodologies and critiques. To
complement the fieldwork projects, we will also read exemplary, and sometimes
controversial, texts of ethnography in practice. Students will develop a
community- or environmentally-based ethnographic research project of their
own design throughout the course of the semester. Ethical aspects of
conducting ethnographic fieldwork, including preparing for Institutional
Review Board (IRB) approval, will be addressed. This course satisfies the
“field methods” requirement for moderation in anthropology and/or
environmental and urban studies. Prerequisites: Introduction to Anthropology
101 and/or EUS 101. |
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Political Ecology |
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Professor: Yuka Suzuki |
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Course
Number: ANTH 349 |
CRN
Number: 10345 |
Class cap: 15 |
Credits:
4 |
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Schedule/Location:
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Wed 9:10 AM
- 11:30 AM Olin 308 |
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Distributional Area: |
SA Social
Analysis D+J Difference and Justice |
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Crosslists: Africana Studies; Environmental Studies; Environmental
& Urban Studies; Human Rights; Science, Technology, Society |
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Political ecology emerged in the early 1990s
at the intersection of cultural ecology and political economy. Defining
itself in opposition to the dominant conception of ecology as apolitical, the
field is anchored in the assertion that environmental conditions are the
product of political processes. This seminar begins with an examination of
some of the early texts that led to the emergence of political ecology, and
then moves on to more recent scholarship integrating the work of
anthropologists, philosophers, biologists, historians, physicists, and
artists. Paying close attention to social, historical, and political
contexts, we explore topics such as development and growth, extinction and
loss, nuclear waste, slaughterhouses, wildfires, botanical gardens, and life
after the Anthropocene and beyond Earth itself. The course is designated as
Difference & Justice because it centers race, indigeneity, and the
nonhuman as we consider how environmental issues sustain and amplify
inequality on local and global scales. |
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Ethnography of Law and
Affect |
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Professor: Andrew Bush |
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Course
Number: ANTH 377 |
CRN
Number: 10343 |
Class cap: 15 |
Credits:
4 |
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Schedule/Location:
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Tue 5:10 PM
- 7:30 PM Olin 310 |
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Distributional Area: |
SA Social
Analysis D+J Difference and Justice |
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Crosslists: Human Rights; Middle Eastern Studies; Study of Religions |
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Ethnographic method offers
a unique perspective on how ordinary affects in daily life give shape to legal
processes in different social contexts. This course moves beyond asking what
the law says, or how the law makes us feel, to also ask how we give feelings
to law. The course begins with introductory material in legal studies that
highlight the role of the forgotten, suppressed, or critical tendencies
internal to law. We then study the transformations of love, solidarity,
vengeance, forgiveness, and grief that appear in legal processes in civil
courts in Iran; LGBT social movements in Myanmar; Islamic legal forums in
Morocco; or Peruvian truth and reconciliation processes. Authors to read may
include Peter Goodrich, Panu Minkkinen,
Arzoo Osanloo, Lynette
Chua, Stefania Pandolfo, or Isaias
Rojas-Perez. Combining affect theory, legal studies, and ethnography we
seek to challenge common assumptions about what law is and how law works. |
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Cross-listed
Courses:
Archaeology and
Colonial Entanglements |
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Course Number: ARTH 264 |
CRN
Number: 10089 |
Class cap: 22 |
Credits: 4 |
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Professor:
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Anne Chen |
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Schedule/Location: |
Tue Thurs
11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin
102 |
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Distributional Area: |
AA Analysis of
Art |
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Crosslists: |
Anthropology; Classical Studies; Human Rights; Middle
Eastern Studies |
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Ethnography: Music
& Sound |
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Course Number: MUS 247 |
CRN
Number: 10565 |
Class cap: 20 |
Credits: 4 |
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Professor:
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Whitney Slaten |
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Schedule/Location: |
Tue Thurs
11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Blum
Music Center N210 |
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Distributional Area: |
SA Social
Analysis |
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Crosslists: |
Anthropology |
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