12251

ANTH 101 A  Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

Yuka Suzuki

M . W . .

1:30 -2:50 pm

OLIN 204

SSCI/DIFF

Cross-listed:  Environmental & Urban Studies;  Global & Int’l Studies; Related interest:  Gender and Sexuality Studies This course explores the intellectual angles through which anthropologists have engaged culture as a central, and yet 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.  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 and minorities in post-colonial states. Class size: 22

 

12250

ANTH 101 B  Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

Laura Kunreuther

. T . Th .

10:10 - 11:30 am

OLIN 308

SSCI/DIFF

Cross-listed:  Gender & Sexuality Studies; Global & Int’l Studies; Human Rights  Anthropology is the study of ‘culture,’ or the social power of imagination. During the past few decades, ‘culture’ has suddenly become pervasive in popular discourse, with phrases such as ‘internet,’ ‘fetish,’ and ‘corporate culture’ conjuring sets of images and assumptions. This course will trace the historical development of theories of culture from the 19th century to the present.  We will focus on how the concept of culture helps us to critically understand group and personal symbols, and how culture affects understandings of race, gender, sexuality and national identity.  We first trace the historical location of the culture concept, beginning with basic readings about cultural interpretation and the relation of language to the cultural construction of reality.  We then look at the foundational anthropological methods – fieldwork and participant observation.  In this section, we will look critically at the place of culture in relation to colonial rule, and anthropologists’ ambiguous relation to colonialism itself.   In the last part of the class, we turn to the political meanings of culture that affects the performance of gender, sexuality, and the body, as well as the power of social institutions (the state, law, science) to shape cultural and national identities.  Class size: 18

 

12055

ANTH 101 C  Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

Laura Kunreuther

. T . Th .

11:50 -1:10 pm

OLIN 205

SSCI/DIFF

See above.  Class size: 22

 

12252

ANTH 208A   History of Anthropology:

How the Victorians Put the ‘Others” in Their Place

Mario Bick

M . W . .

10:10 - 11:30 am

OLIN 308

HUM/DIFF

Cross-listed: Africana Studies, Victorian Studies    Confronted by their sudden control of much of the world, Europeans and Americans in the nineteenth century sought to both know and understand the subordinated and exotic "other."  Anthropology developed in the nineteenth century primarily to provide such an understanding.  This course will explore how the Victorians sought to know the "other" through ethnographic, missionary, government and travel encounters, through the science of race, through the objects of archaeology and museum collections, and through photography.  How the "other" was then related to the Europeans will be examined within the framework of evolutionary and diffusionary theories.  Class size: 18

 

12253

ANTH 212   Historical Archaeology

Christopher Lindner

. . W . .

. . . . F

4:40 -6:00 pm

11:50 -4:30 pm

HEG 300

ROSE 108

HIST/DIFF

Cross-listed:  American Studies, Environmental & Urban Studies   The focus of this practicum, or community service-learning course, will be the 18th-century Palatine German occupation of the Hudson Valley, people ancestral to the Pennsylvania “Dutch” [Deutsch]. 5-hr sessions on Friday afternoons include field trips to extant Palatine buildings near Bard, discussion on written and graphical materials, laboratory work on artifacts and bones. After spring break comes excavation and analysis of discoveries at the 1746 Parsonage in Germantown, 10 miles north of Bard. We aim to learn how the local populations adapted after the 1710 arrival of Palatines from the Rhineland, the largest mass migration from Europe to New York in colonial times. Note: when the class is on field trips or digging, we meet only on Friday, from 11:50 to 4:30. When we're in the lab, there will be a seminar in Hegeman 300 on Wed, 4:40 to 6 PM [this time may shift], and on Friday the lab will meet in Rose 108 from 11:50 to 2:50.  Limit 12, with permission granted in preliminary conversation with the professor.  Class size: 12

 

12524

ANTH 218   Africa: The Great Rift

John Ryle

M . W . .

4:40 -6:00 pm

OLIN 204

SSCI/DIFF

Cross-listed:  Africana Studies; Global & Int’l Studies; Human Rights   Africa’s Rift Valley runs from the Red Sea to Mozambique, dividing the continent in two. The countries bordering it, rich in natural and cultural resources, but deficient in good government, embody many of the challenges that confront Africa as a whole. This course begins with a survey of the human geography and political history of Eastern Africa from the colonial era to the present. This is followed by an examination, through case studies, of some urgent themes in African studies, as represented in the region. The themes include: the nature of the state, revealed by civil wars in Sudan and new states emerging in Eritrea, Somaliland and Southern Sudan; and the effect on the societies they encompass– the passage from pastoral nomadism to the seat at the UN. The course also considers the complex relations between Islam, Christianity and local belief systems in Ethiopia and Sudan; and the role of Western countries in the region, from the colonial era to the age of humanitarian intervention and counter-terrorism. The course will use the tools of history and anthropology, documentary video and reportage to build an understanding of the diverse ways of being that endure in the region and the varieties of modernity that are emerging from war and demographic transformation.  Class size: 22

 

12059

ANTH 232   Methods and Ethics in Ethnographic Research

Nadia Latif

M . W . .

3:10 -4:30 pm

OLIN 203

SSCI/DIFF

This course will provide an orientation to anthropological and oral history literature on methodology, self-reflexivity and ethics in the collection of material during ethnographic research. We will study the specific characteristics, possible uses, and ethical ramifications of a range of qualitative methods including: participant observation, unstructured interviews, structured interviews, focus groups, and the collection of oral histories. We will also explore the ways in which these methods may be modified for use in ethnographic research conducted in cyberspace. Discussion of anthropological and oral history literature on these subjects will be supplemented with practical exercises in designing and applying ethically informed research methods. Class size: 22

 

12507

ANTH 233   Problems in Human Rights

John Ryle

M . W . .

10:10 - 11:30 am

ASP 302

SSCI/DIFF

Cross-listed: Global & Int’l Studies;  Human Rights (core course)  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. Class size: 22

 

12254

ANTH 244   Anthropology of the Body

Diana Brown

M . W . .

1:30 -2:50 pm

OLIN 301

SSCI

Cross-listed:  Gender and Sexuality Studies; Science, Technology & Society    Anthropology has been long concerned with bodies as sources of symbolic representations of the social world and as vehicles for expressing individual and collective identities.  More recent interests center on mind-body relations and embodiment, and on bodies as targets for the production of consumer desires and sites 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.  We will view bodies as sites of negotiation and resistance and contextualize them within local and global political economies and systems of power.  Topics will include the gendering of bodies and other culturally constructed markings of social class, race, age; decisions concerning fertility and reproduction; manipulation of bodily surfaces and forms to establish boundaries and identities through techniques such as tattooing, piercing, dieting, sculpting and cosmetic surgery; commodification and fragmentation of the body through the selling and transplantation of body parts; and the blurring of body/non-body and human/non-human boundaries under the impact of new technologies.  Class size: 20

 

12255

ANTH 275   Post-Apartheid Imaginaries

Yuka Suzuki

M . W . .

11:50 -1:10 pm

OLIN 203

SSCI/DIFF

Cross-listed: Africana Studies; Global & Int’l Studies; Human Rights  As one of the few regions on the continent charted for permanent European settlement, southern Africa has been marked by histories of violence that far surpassed normative applications of colonialism. In the wake of such intense turmoil, nations struggled to reinvent themselves at the moment of Independence, scripting new national mythologies and appeals for unity. This course explores these contests over nationhood in the post-apartheid era, focusing primarily on the experiences of Zimbabwe and South Africa. Some of the main themes we will address include the politics of commemoration and the symbolic capital of liberation war veterans, the charismatic authority of individuals such as Nelson Mandela and Robert Mugabe, sexual violence and the trial of Jacob Zuma, the role of sport in reimagining national identity, and the paradox of white African belonging. We will examine memories of ethnic genocide in Matabeleland documented by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, and track new anxieties in the media precipitated by the influx of immigrants into South Africa. In the final section of the course, we will turn to recent alliances between Africa and China, and possibilities for the emergence of an alternate global order. Class size: 22

 

12256

ANTH 349   Political Ecology

Yuka Suzuki

. T . . .

10:10 - 12:30 pm

OLIN 309

SSCI/DIFF

Cross-listed:  Africana Studies; Environmental & Urban Studies; Human Rights; Global & Int’l Studies; Science, Technology & Society  Bridging two prominent schools of thought from the 1960s to the 1980s, political ecology emerged in the early 1990s from the intersection between cultural ecology and political economy. Based on the principle that environmental conditions are the product of political processes, the field is interdisciplinary in orientation, integrating the work of anthropologists, geographers, historians, political scientists, and sociologists. Through close attention to local historical and social contexts, we will explore topics such as the politics of knowledge, state power, sustainable development, mapping, urban ecology, corporations and conservation, and multilateral environmental governance. The majority of the readings will be drawn from case studies in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Priority will be given to moderated students in Anthropology and Environmental and Urban Studies.  Class size: 15

 

12057

ANTH 356   Culture, Mediation, Media

Laura Kunreuther

. . . . F

10:10 - 12:30 pm

OLIN 301

SSCI/DIFF

Cross-listed:  Human Rights, Asian Studies; Related Interest: Science and Technology Studies  As people around the world engage on a daily (and even hourly) basis with a variety of different media and technology, anthropologists have turned their attention to way new and old media shape people's perception of time, space, social and personal identity.  Just as culture is being reshaped by everyday media practices, media itself has reshaped our idea of culture and humanity.  Looking broadly at the concept of 'mediation,' this course will discuss contemporary theories and ethnographies of media and technology.  We will look at examples such as: the use of cellphones to organize political protest, the use of photography to link national with personal identity, the use of gramophones and sound recording to record voices of the dead, the use of radio to produce national and intimate subjects, social networking sites that produce new forms of public intimacy. We will do a collective ethnography on one internet site, and students will be required to do their own ethnographic project of one media or technological form. Class size: 15

 

12427

MUS 357   Ethnomusicology: Music

and Tourism in South East Asia

Mercedes Dujunco

. . W . .

1:30 -3:50 pm

BLM N210

AART/DIFF

See Music section for description.