Course

ANTH 101   Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

Professor

Laura Kunreuther

CRN

15107

 

Schedule

Mon Wed     11:30 - 12:50 pm   OLIN 204

Distribution

OLD: A / C

NEW: Social Science / Rethinking Difference

Related interest: Gender and Sexuality Studies

A course in “culture,” or, the social power of imagination. This course will trace the historical development of anthropological theories and visual studies of culture from the Nineteenth Century to the present, with special emphasis on how the concept of culture functions critically in understanding group and personal symbolism, in understanding different economic systems, and how culture effects understandings of race, gender, and sexuality. The course begins with basic analytical readings on the relation of language to the cultural construction of reality. This sets the framework for understanding how culture studies can function to unsettle certainties and provide a basic method for critical thinking and reflection. Visual anthropology and ethnographic film will be explored for the additional dimensions in method which they may provide. Then, we look at the political meaning of “culture” in relation to the historical encounter between Euro-America and its “others.” We will examine the interplay between the representation of selves and cultural others within inter-cultural spheres of exchange, particularly tourism and representational media, which share certain characteristics with anthropology itself.  Finally, we examine the cultural construction of gender and sexuality and explore the limits of human imagination in the study and performance of these... “things.”

 

Course

ANTH 206   Human Variation: The Anthropology of Race, Scientific Racism, and other Biological Reductionisms

Professor

Mario Bick

CRN

15206

 

Schedule

Mon Wed     10:00 - 11:20 am   OLIN 107

Distribution

OLD: A / C

NEW: Social Science / Rethinking Difference

Cross-listed: SRE

Related interest: Victorian Studies

The relationship of human biology to behavior and the nature of cultures couched in terms of putative biological differences between human groups and subgroups has characterized scientific discourse since the late eighteenth century. This has been especially true in anthropology as the discipline has sought to answer questions of race (human variation), gender, sexuality, and some forms of compulsive behavior. This course examines scientific racism, sexism, criminology, and other biological phobias, reductionisms, and rationalizations. It does so by studying the contexts, claims, achievements, and failures of normal science (especially physical anthropology and human biology and genetics) in regard to the significance of the real and assumed variations among individuals and among human populations. Central to the discussion are concepts of race and the scientific evidence that is used to support these concepts. By permission of the instructor.

 

Course

ANTH 212   Historical Archaeology

Professor

Christopher Lindner

CRN

15040

 

Schedule

Mon Wed        1:30 - 2:50 pm    OLIN 304

Alternate Wed 1:30 - 5:30 pm

Distribution

OLD: C / E

NEW: History

Cross-listed: American Studies, ES, History

Material remains are useful to complement or challenge historical information. Archaeology can also uncover transformations of the environment that were unintentionally irresponsible or planned to create illustrations of power over nature. We will focus on change in the urban and rural landscapes of the Middle Atlantic states and the Northeast,  respectively. Colonization and slavery on the southeastern coast will be examined in regard to plantations. While it will include several field trips, Historical Archeology will concentrate on laboratory study of artifacts for practical experience. Limited to 15 students, by permission of the instructor.

 

Course

ANTH 248   British Colonials in Africa

Professor

Mario Bick

CRN

15043

 

Schedule

Tu Th          10:00 - 11:20 am   OLIN 309

Distribution

OLD: A / C

NEW: Humanities / Rethinking Difference

Cross-listed:  Africana Studies

This course will focus on the British African colonies of the early 20th century to explore the social political and ideological everyday lives of colonists. These “outsiders” will be studied through history, biography, fiction and film, as well as through the responses of Africans. Hypocrisy/idealism, brutality/bravery, racism/humanism, asceticism/corruption, repression/sexuality, sobriety/addiction will be among the realities encountered. The course seeks to develop an ethnographic portrayal of the rulers and the cultures they created in these colonial spaces; not British, not African, but something very much “other”.

 

Course

ANTH 261  The Anthropology of Violence and Suffering

Professor

Laura Kunreuther

CRN

15207

 

Schedule

Mon Wed     3:00 -4:20 pm       OLIN 204

Distribution

OLD: A / C

NEW: Humanities / Rethinking Difference

Cross-listed: Gender and Sexuality Studies, Human Rights

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 education, 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 as a means of producing and consolidating social and political power, and exerting political control. Second, we will look at forms of violence that have generated questions about “universal rights” of humanity versus culturally specific practices, such as widow burning in India and female genital mutilation in postcolonial Africa. In these examples, we explore gendered dimensions in the experience of violence among perpetrators, victims, and survivors. 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. Readings will range from theoretical texts, anthropological ethnographies, as well as popular representations of violence in the media and film.  This course fulfills a core class requirement for the Human Rights program.

 

Course

ANTH 263   Language and Mass Media

Professor

Jesse Shipley

CRN

15111

 

Schedule

Tu Th          1:30 -2:50 pm       OLIN 204

Distribution

OLD: C

NEW:  Humanities / Rethinking Difference

20th century politics and culture were intimately linked to the rapid development of radio, television, and film. These electronic media have creatively engaged with local cultural practices around the world in reshaping the nature of artistic expression, national and racial difference, and political power. This course uses anthropological notions of language to examine cultures of electronic media around the globe. We will look at radio, video/film, television, the internet, and mobile phone technologies as forms of social mediation. Mass media will be considered in relation to the formation of new types of embodiment, value, production, and consumption. In particular we will trace how actor-centered performance approaches to language, reference, and authority give insight into the making of contemporary, electronically-mediated ways of understanding the world.  Topics will include: radio and state power in Africa, mobile phones and political change in east Asia,  South African television and internet, mass media and the Rwandan genocide, video/film industry on west Africa, television and radio in the Soviet Union. This class is intended for students with some anthropological or linguistics background.

 

Course

ANTH 276  Japanimation and Culture in Post-War Japan

Professor

Yuka Suzuki

CRN

15208

 

Schedule

Tu Th          3:00 -4:20 pm       Olin L.C. 115

Distribution

OLD: A/C

NEW: Humanities / Rethinking Difference

Cross-listed: Asian Studies, GISP

Related interest: Film

Japanese animation, also known as ‘Japanimation’ or anime, constitutes one of the most dynamic sites of cultural production in contemporary Japan. One of the objectives of this course will be to trace the history of anime and its relationships to the nation’s social, political, and economic transformations over the past century. We begin by exploring the origins of Japanese animation, which emerged in the 1930s as a form of government propaganda to educate children about the imperialist project in Asia. The focus then shifts to the post-war decades, when animated films depicted the national trauma of the atomic bombs, while others created a new, utopian vision of a modern Japan that centered around industry and technology. Next, we investigate the many different sub-genres that emerged beginning in the 1960s, including ‘Tokyo cyberpunk,’ the supernatural and occult, romantic shojo ‘cute young girl’ anime, and post-apocalyptic fantasy. By examining these categories, we engage larger issues of nationalism, gender, modernity, crisis, and urban terror in Japanese society. The final section of this course considers the globalization of the genre in recent decades. Sensations such as Pokemon and Spirited Away have radically reconfigured Japan’s relationship with global popular culture, heightening the prestige and cachet of Japanese artistic production, even as the nation’s political and economic influence wanes. This course therefore aims to provide an in-depth exploration of historical and contemporary landscapes in Japan through the cultural lens of anime.

 

Course

REL / ANTH 320   Sacred Pursuits:  Seminar in the Study of Religion

Professor

Paul Murray

CRN

15007

 

Schedule

Mon             4:00 -6:20 pm       OLIN 308

Distribution

OLD: A / C

NEW: Humanities

Cross-listed: Religion

The modern study of religion is an eclectic field, drawing upon many other disciplines in its attempt to circumscribe and comprehend the diversity of human religiosity. This course examines critically various approaches to the study of religion in the 20th century, including psychological, sociological, anthropological, and phenomenological. The class considers where this field of study may be heading in its postmodern present. Required for religion majors, open to others.

 

Course

ANTH 337   Cultural Politiucs of Animals

Professor

Yuka Suzuki

CRN

15212

 

Schedule

Th               10:30 - 12:50 pm   OLIN 303

Distribution

OLD: A / C

NEW: Social Science / Rethinking Difference

Cross-listed:  Africana Studies, ES, Human Rights

Human ideas about animals have metamorphosed throughout history, giving rise to a wide spectrum of attitudes across cultures. The past century in particular has witnessed a radical reconceptualization in the nature of human-animal relations, emerging in tandem with the modern environmentalist movement. Everywhere we turn, animals have captured the popular imagination, with dinosaurs crowned as the cultural icon of the 1990s, Shamu representing the fulfillment of our romantic vision of cetaceans, and Winnie the Pooh constituting a social universe in which children are taught morality and kindness. Beneath the centrality of animals in our social, economic, and physical worlds, moreover, lies their deep implication within human cultural politics. Some of the questions we will investigate throughout the semester include: how, and by whom, is the line between humans and animal drawn? What are the politics of taxonomy and classification? How do animal subjectivities contribute to the formation of human identities? Do animals exercise agency? Where are they positioned on the moral landscapes of cultures? We will explore these shifting terrains through the angle of ‘animal geography,’ a new field that focuses on how animals have been socially defined, labeled, and ordered in cultural worldviews.

 

Course

ANTH 360   Anthropology of the Body

Professor

Diana Brown

CRN

15211

 

Schedule

Wed             1:30 -3:50 pm       OLIN 305

Distribution

OLD: A / C

NEW: Social Science / Rethinking Difference

Cross-listed: Gender Studies, HR

Anthropology has long been concerned with bodies as sources of symbolic representations of the social world and as vehicles for expressions of individual and collective identities. More recently, interest has centered on the individual body as a site of situated knowledge. It has become a target for the production of consumer desires, and as a site of commodification and political control. This course will explore a range of different issues raised by these perspectives through readings theorizing the body, supplemented by comparative ethnographic studies of bodily knowledge and practice. Topics to be examined will include the gendering of bodies and other culturally constructed markings of age, social class and race; mind-body relations; the manipulation of bodily surface and form to establish boundaries and identities through techniques such as tattooing, piercing, dieting, sculpting and cosmetic surgery; commodification of the body through the selling and transplantation of body parts; and the blurring of body/non-body boundaries under the impact of new body technologies.