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:

ANTH 256       Race and Ethnicity in Brazil

ANTH 337       Cultural Politics of Animals

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

MUS 335         Jazz: The Freedom Principle III

MUS 347         Music and Culture of the African Diaspora II

PSY 261          Intro to Counseling Psychology

PSY 321          Multicultural Counseling Competencies

SOC 130         Sociology of Education

SOC 332         Seminar on Social Problems