CRN |
14203 |
Distribution |
C |
Course
No. |
AADS / HIST 148 |
||
Title |
African
Encounters I: Culture, History, and Politics |
||
Professor |
Jesse Shipley |
||
Schedule |
Mon Wed 11:30 am - 12:50 pm OLIN 305 |
Cross-listed: Anthropology, History, Human Rights, SRE
This course offers a historical survey of sub-Saharan
Africa from 1800 to the present. Because the scope of the course is
so broad and because African history is such a vast and complex subject, we
will inevitably leave a great deal unexplored.
However, a primary aim of the course is to provide you with a foundation
of knowledge upon which you can continue to build long after the semester has
ended. To this end, the course has been designed to introduce the outlines of
African history and to cultivate an appreciation of Africa, its peoples,
cultures, expressions, and experiences.
Major themes include slavery in Africa; the decline of the
trans-Atlantic slave trade; trade; African state formation; the Islamic
revolutions of the 19th century; Mfecane: colonial rule; nationalism; and
contemporary issues in Africa. Within the context of each of these themes, we
will consider the importance of factoring gender into historical analysis.
CRN |
14206 |
Distribution |
A/C |
Course
No. |
AADS / ANTH 259 |
||
Title |
Ethnographic Film and Visual
Anthropology in Africa |
||
Professor |
Jesse Shipley |
||
Schedule |
Mon Wed 3:00 pm - 4:20 pm OLIN 309 |
Cross-listed: Anthropology, SRE
This
course addresses the visual aspects of culture and cultural production with a
particular focus on postcolonial Africa.
How are the arts and the visual aspects of society made meaningful in
and for contemporary Africa? We will
look at how Africa has been represented through film and the display of African
peoples and “primitive” art for Western audiences, showing the ways in which
African enters global circuits of representation and mass media through its
visual representation. We will examine
the artistic and visual aspects of culture as they are made socially meaningful
both within African cultural contexts as well as when they are displayed for
art worlds and cinema audiences outside of the continent. Through these examinations we will introduce
some of the basic concerns and paradigms of anthropology, in particular ideas
of racial and cultural difference. This
class is for those interested in historical/anthropological examinations of the
visual as well as students producing film/videos, installations, and
performance pieces especially in relation to the politics of
representation. In terms of film
production we will examine the political and social messages embedded within
aesthetic decisions made by artists from choosing themes, to modes of
narration, to editing decisions. For
those interested in actually making films/videos previous experience is
required.
CRN |
14207 |
Distribution |
A |
Course
No. |
ANTH 327 |
||
Title |
Performance,
Ritual and Symbolic Practice |
||
Professor |
Jesse Shipley |
||
Schedule |
Tu 1:30 pm - 3:50 pm PRE
101 |
Cross-listed: Anthropology
This course examines public performance
and various types of theatricality. Our goal will be to analyze how lived
experience relates to politics, change, and social power. The course addresses
the tension between these theories to highlight key philosophical issues
within anthropology and social thought more generally: power and its illusory
enactment; the relationship between personal experience and broader
social processes; the nature of consciousness; structure versus agency; stasis
and change. We begin by examining classic anthropological conceptions of
ritual, symbolic meaning, and social transformation. We will then explore
various linguistic, sociological, poststructuralist, and theatrical
theories. We will look at different ways to think about space and the social
body. The second half of the course draws on particular ethnographic,
theatrical, philosophic, and literary examples from West Africa which address
the relationships between historical memory, specific kinds of performance, and
the local experience of power. We will ask in particular how African theories
of performance reflect their social and personal contexts. We will examine the
social processes through which certain symbols and practices become central
locations for the production and contestation of meaning and identity. Students
will be encouraged to consider the tension between "performance" as a
theoretical frame and an "object" of analysis. The course is
designed for students with a background in anthropology/sociology, history,
performance studies, ethnic studies, or literary and social theory.
Additional courses
cross-listed in AADS:
ECON 221 Economics
of Developing Countries
FILM 237 Contemporary
Black American Cinema
HIST 104 American
Bedrock
HIST 3113 Making
of the Atlantic World, 1500-1800
LIT 2154 Dark Comedy: Humor in African American
Lit
LIT 2155 African American Autobiographical
Narrative
LIT 246 African Women Writers
MUS 212 Jazz in Literature II
PSY 261 Intro
to Counseling Psychology
PSY 321 Multicultural
Counseling Competencies
SOC 130 Sociology
of Education
SOC 332 Seminar
on Social Problems