|
11315 |
ANTH 101
A Introduction to Cultural
Anthropology |
Nadia Latif |
. T . Th . |
10:30 - 11:50 am |
HEG 201 |
SSCI/DIFF |
Cross-listed: Environmental
& Urban Studies, Related interest:
GIS; Gender and Sexuality Studies,
Human Rights This
course provides an introduction to the ways in which anthropologists have
developed the elusive concept of “culture” as a means of examining human
societies. We will explore the ways in which anthropology as a discipline
emerged from, responded to, and changed the ways in which societies think
about: identity and difference; barbarism and civilisation; modernity,
pre-modernity, and post-modernity. By focusing on a number of thematics that
have organised anthropological enquiry since the late nineteenth
century—exchange, kinship, language, magic, science and religion, social roles
and heirarchies—we will explore paradigm shifts within the discipline from a
earlier focus on non-western societies anachronistic remanants, to a
contemporary interest in examining global-local flows, intersections, and
conglomerations of peoples, commodities, capital, ideas, practices, and power.
|
11265 |
ANTH 101
B Introduction to Cultural
Anthropology |
Megan Callaghan |
M . W . . |
10:30 - 11:50 am |
OLIN 205 |
SSCI/DIFF |
Cross-listed: Environmental
& Urban Studies, Related interest:
GIS; Gender and Sexuality Studies,
Human Rights During the past few decades,
‘culture’ has suddenly become pervasive in popular discourses, with phrases
such as ‘internet,’ ‘fetish,’ and ‘corporate cultures’ automatically conjuring
certain sets of images and assumptions. This course explores the intellectual
angles through which anthropologists have engaged culture as a central, and yet
often elusive concept in understanding how societies work. The analysis of
culture has undergone many transformations over the past century, from arguing
for the existence of integrated systems of thought and practice among so-called
‘primitives’, to scrutinizing the cultural values of colonial subjects, to
attempting to decipher the anatomy of enemy minds during World War II. In recent years, anthropology has become
more self-reflexive, questioning the discipline’s authority to represent other
societies, and critiquing its participation in the creation of exoticized
others. Thus, with our ethnographic
gaze turned inward as well as outward, we will combine discussions, lectures,
and films to reflect upon the construction of social identity, power, and
difference in a world where cultures are undergoing rapid reification. Specific topics we will examine include the
transformative roles of ritual and symbol; witchcraft and sorcery in historical
and contemporary contexts; cultural constructions of gender and sexuality; and
nationalism and the making of majorities/minorities in post-colonial states.
|
11313 |
ANTH 208B American Anthropology 1850-1970 |
Mario Bick |
M . W . . |
9:00 - 10:20 am |
OLIN 301 |
SSCI/DIFF |
Cross-listed: American Studies American anthropology to the
Second World War had three central concerns:
(1) the description and understanding of Native American peoples based
on participant observation through residential fieldwork. This concern began in the early nineteenth
century, and was mainly directed from the Smithsonian Institution. This research focus was carried on in the
twentieth century by the European-influenced Boasian school of anthropology,
centered at Columbia University, which was also responsible for the
modernization of anthropology, and the efforts of American anthropology to (2)
defeat scientific racism, and (3) to place the concept of culture at the center
of anthropological thought. This course
examines this history, in the Boasian centenary year, as well as the rise of
sociological, psychological and neomarxist evolutionist thought in American
anthropology in this period. Works by
such anthropologists as Frank Cushing, James Mooney, Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict,
Margaret Mead, Robert Lowie, Alfred Kroeber, Paul Radin, Melville Herskovits,
Robert Redfield, Clyde Kluckhohn, Leslie White and Julian Steward will be read
and discussed.
|
11411 |
ANTH 210 Kinship:Identity & Difference |
Nadia Latif |
. T . Th . |
1:00 -2:20 pm |
RKC 101 |
SSCI/DIFF |
Cross-listed: Gender and Sexuality Studies, Global & Int’l Studies The study of kinship within anthropology has a history as long as
the discipline itself. Until recently it served as the primary lens for
analyzing social, political, and economic organization in non-Western
societies. The aim of this course is to examine the ways in which kinship
analyses have contributed to historic and contemporary claims of identity and
difference. Beginning with kinship analyses produced within the historical
context of Western Colonial expansion, we will chart the contribution this body
of scholarship has made to colonial, anti-colonial, and post-colonial
constructions of self and other in Western, as well as non-Western societies.
|
11318 |
ANTH 212 Historical Archaeology |
Christopher Lindner |
. . . . F |
12:30 -5:30 pm |
HEG 300 |
SSCI/DIFF |
Cross-listed:
Environmental & Urban Studies As a writing intensive class, we punctuate our
5-hr sessions on Friday afternoons with discussion of the week’s written and
graphical material. Before midterm, our sessions involve laboratory work and
field trips in the communities near Bard. After break we excavate and analyze
our discoveries at a nearby historical site. Our focus will be the early 18th-century
Palatine German occupation of the Hudson Valley, people closely related to the
Pennsylvania “Dutch” [Deutsch]. The
aim of our lab and fieldwork is preparation of exhibits to celebrate their 1710
arrival from the Rhineland, the largest mass migration to New York in colonial
times. Texts include theoretical material and case studies in the archaeology
of worldviews. By advance permission, enrollment limited to 12.
|
11429 |
ANTH 218 Africa: The Great Rift |
John Ryle |
M . W . . |
10:30 - 11:50 am |
OLIN 310 |
SSCI/DIFF |
Cross-listed: Africana Studies The
Great Rift Valley runs from the Red Sea to Mozambique, dividing the African continent
in two. The countries bordering the Rift are rich in natural and cultural
resources but deficient in good government; they embody many of the divisions
and challenges that confront Africa as a whole. The course offers an
introduction to the geography and political history of the countries of the
Rift – those in Eastern Africa and parts of Central Africa. This is followed by
an examination of some of the urgent themes in African studies that are
represented in the region. These include: the nature of the state, as
illustrated by ongoing civil wars in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of
Congo and by the nascent states of Eritrea and Somaliland; the complex
relations between Islam, Christianity and local belief systems in Sudan and
Ethiopia; the challenge of transitional justice; and the role of
Western – and Asian – powers in Eastern Africa from the colonial
era to the age of humanitarian intervention and counter-terrorism. The course
uses historical and anthropological research, documentary video and written
reportage to build an understanding of the diverse ways of being that endure in
the region and the varieties of modernity emerging from war and demographic
transformation.
|
11425 |
ANTH / HR
233
Problems in Human Rights |
John Ryle |
M . W . . |
12:00 -1:20 pm |
OLIN 303 |
SSCI/DIFF
|
Cross-listed: Human Rights This
course approaches a set of practical and ethical human rights issues through
the study of historical and contemporary campaigns, starting with the British
anti-slavery movement of the 18th and 19th centuries. The emphasis is on
practical questions of strategy and organization and the problems that arise
from these. What were the challenges that early campaigners faced? How did they
resolve them? What alliances of interest did they confront? And what
coalitions did they form to combat them? The course also considers how human
rights campaigners have engaged with - and been part of - wider political,
religious and economic changes. It examines the negotiations and compromises
that led to a key event in the twentieth-century human rights history: the
adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Has the subsequent
success of the human rights movement - particularly the expansion of
international human rights legislation - changed its character? The
course examines the landmine ban campaign, the campaign against female genital
cutting and the campaign against child soldiers - and considers the ideological
challenges these issues present to the international human rights regime. When,
if ever, are indigenous values more important than universal principles? What
is the relation of human rights to religious values? Is human rights itself a
quasi-religious belief system? Finally the course considers some contemporary
challenges facing the human rights movement: the return of slavery and
slave-like practices and the question of genocide in Darfur, in particular the
role of the International Criminal Court.
|
11314 |
ANTH 243 African Diaspora Religions |
Diana Brown |
M . W . . |
1:30 -2:50 pm |
OLIN 308 |
SSCI/DIFF |
Cross-listed: Africana Studies, LAIS, SRE The many contemporary religions in Latin American and the Caribbean
that draw upon African theology and practice testify to the vitality of the
African heritage in the New World. The course examines these religions within
their historical context as dimensions of the African diaspora and as they are
currently practiced. It is particularly concerned with issues of identity,
empowerment, and appropriation, in this light will explore the religious and
symbolic dimensions of these religions, from those that claim African orthodoxy
to those that have embraced innovation and heterodoxy, and their sociopolitical
structures. Issues concerning the race, class, gender, and politics of the
leaders who guided these religions and the followers attracted to them will be
examined in relation to the degree to which such affiliations may strengthen
African identities and foster movements for cultural and racial political
empowerment or may represent appropriations of the African heritage serving the
interests of dominant groups. Throughout, the class will be attentive to the
ways in which these religions are represented in ethnography and film.
Religions examined include Candomble, Umbanda, and Batuque in Brazil; Santeria
in Cuba and the Dominican Republic; Maria Lionza in Venezuela; Shango in
Trinidad; and Vodun in Haiti.
|
11576 |
ANTH 269 Ireland and the Anthropological Imagination |
Megan Callaghan |
M . W . . |
3:00 – 4:20 pm |
OLIN 304 |
SSCI/DIFF |
Cross-listed:
GISP, Irish and Celtic Studies Ireland has long captured the anthropological imagination, producing
classic depictions of kinship and community, controversial accounts of rural
decline and disorder, and current work on the country’s shifting position in
European and world politics. This course includes a range of ethnographic
exploration in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. We will
consider the multiple and contested meanings of Irish identity in contexts as
varied as the increasingly diverse city of Dublin, nomadic or semi-nomadic
Traveller communities, politically divided Northern Ireland towns, and rural
Gaeltacht, or Irish language regions. Furthermore, we will consider various
lenses through which to examine contemporary and historical Ireland. For
example, does it make sense to apply postcolonial theory to Ireland? How might
we understand the Troubles differently through an inclusion of women’s or young
people’s perspectives and participation? What is the relationship of
ethnoreligious symbolism, violence, and ritual practice? Students will be
expected to supplement assigned ethnographic texts and films with material on
current events in Ireland and Northern Ireland.
|
11412 |
ANTH 273 Anthropology of Mass Incarceration |
Jed Tucker |
. T . Th . |
2:30 -3:50 pm |
OLIN 202 |
SSCI |
|
11482 |
MUS 287 Musical Ethnography |
Mercedes Dujunco |
. . W . . . . . . F |
1:30 -2:50 pm 10:30 - 11:50 am |
BLM N210 |
AART/DIFF |
See Music section for
description.
|
11410 |
ANTH 339 Oral Accounts: Theory, Methodology, and Ethics in Fieldwork |
Nadia Latif |
. . W . . |
1:30 -3:50 pm |
HEG 200 |
SSCI/DIFF |
An oral account is both the
record of an individual life, as well as potential source material for advocacy
campaigns, scholarly, and artistic works. This seminar will provide an
orientation to debates regarding theory, methodology, and ethics in the
collection of oral accounts during fieldwork. In addition, we will study the
specific characteristics and possible uses of oral history interviews, as a
means of conducting fieldwork based research. A consideration of
anthropological and oral history scholarship regarding these issues, will serve
as the basis for learning the application of research methods developed within
these disciplines to individual projects in the social sciences and the
humanities.
|
11266 |
ANTH 343 Middle Eastern Modernities |
Jeffrey Jurgens |
. . . . F |
9:30 - 11:50 am |
OLIN 202 |
SSCI/DIFF |
Cross-listed:
Environmental & Urban Studies, GISP, Human Rights, Middle Eastern
Studies What
does it mean to be ‘modern’ in the Middle East in the aftermath of colonialism and
in the face of continuing Euro-American efforts to reform the region’s social,
economic, and political life? Does modernity require the abandonment of tribal
affiliations, cousin marriages, and the headscarf, among other putatively
‘traditional’ social forms and practices? Or does it involve more complex,
creative negotiations of existing constraints and available resources? Indeed,
is there more than one way to be ‘modern’? This course will examine these and
other questions through intensive reading of recent anthropological and other
social scientific literature, critical analysis of popular cultural artifacts,
and focused film viewing. In the process, we will primarily concentrate on
twentieth- and twenty-first-century transformations in Middle Eastern national
identities, state practices, and public spheres, especially as they have been
affected by the introduction of compulsory education, mass literacy, and the
mass media. At the same time, we will investigate what influences these larger
cultural-political processes have exerted on the production and consumption of
commodities and on more intimate practices of kinship, gender, and sexuality.
Finally, we will consider recent efforts to manage the relationship between
religion and secular-liberal life. This last theme, in particular, will require
us to examine Islam, but we will not approach the faith as a fixed, unitary
system of principles with a single meaning. Instead, we will treat it as a
discursive tradition that individuals and institutions have interpreted,
invoked, and used in multiple ways and for a variety of purposes.