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Anthropology

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Anthropology

American Dream: Exploring Class in the U.S.

Americans have historically preferred to think of the United States in classless terms, as a land of economic opportunity equally open to all. Yet, social class remains a central fault line in the U.S. Subject explores the experiences and understandings of class among Americans positioned at different points along the U.S. social spectrum. Considers a variety of classic frameworks for analyzing social class and uses memoirs, novels and ethnographies to gain a sense of how class is experienced in...
 
Anthropology

Anthropological Theory

This course introduces students to some of the major social theories and debates that inspire and inform anthropological analysis. Over the course of the semester, we will investigate a range of theoretical propositions concerning such topics as agency, structure, subjectivity, history, social change, power, culture, and the politics of representation. Ultimately, all theories can be read as statements about human beings and the worlds they create and inhabit. We will approach each theoretical p...
 
Anthropology

Anthropology of the Middle East

This course examines traditional performances of the Arabic-speaking populations of the Middle East and North Africa. Starting with the history of the ways in which the West has discovered, translated and written about the Orient, we will consider how power and politics play roles in the production of culture, narrative and performance. This approach assumes that performance, verbal art, and oral literature lend themselves to spontaneous adaptation and to oblique expression of ideas and opinions...
 
Anthropology

Anthropology of War and Peace

This class has been reorganized to focus primarily on the War in Iraq. As in previous years, the class still examines war in cross-cultural perspective, asking whether war is intrinsic to human nature, what causes war, how particular cultural experiences of war differ, and how war has affected American culture.

This course features an extensive reading list and a description of the assignments.
 
Anthropology

Culture, Embodiment and the Senses

Culture, Embodiment, and the Senses will provide an historical and cross-cultural analysis of the politics of sensory experience. The subject will address western philosophical debates about mind, brain, emotion, and the body and the historical value placed upon sight, reason, and rationality, versus smell, taste, and touch as acceptable modes of knowing and knowledge production. We will assess cultural traditions that challenge scientific interpretations of experience arising from western philo...
 
Anthropology

Dilemmas in Bio-Medical Ethics: Playing God or Doing Good?

This course is an introduction to the cross-cultural study of bio-medical ethics. It examines moral foundations of the science and practice of western bio-medicine through case studies of abortion, contraception, cloning, organ transplantation, and other issues. It also evaluates challenges that new medical technologies pose to the practice and availability of medical services around the globe, and to cross-cultural ideas of kinship and personhood. It discusses critiques of the bio-medical tradi...
 
Anthropology

Documenting Culture

How and why do people seek to capture everyday life on film? What can we learn from such films? This course challenges distinctions commonly made between documentary and ethnographic films to consider how human cultural life is portrayed in both. It considers the interests, which motivate such filmmakers ranging from curiosity about "exotic" people to a concern with capturing "real life" to a desire for advocacy. Students will view documentaries about people both in the U.S. and abroad and will ...
 
Anthropology

Environmental Struggles

This class explores the interrelationship between humans and natural environments. It does so by focusing on conflict over access to and use of the environment as well as ideas about "nature" in various parts of the world.

This course features an extensive reading list and detailed assignments.
 
Anthropology

Ethnic and National Identity

This course is an introduction to the cross-cultural study of ethnic and national identity. We examine the concept of social identity, consider how gender, religious and racial identity components interact with ethnic and national ones. We explore the history of nationalism, including the emergence of the idea of the nation-state, and discuss the effects of globalization, migration, and transnational institutions. We also look at identity politics and ethnic conflict.

This course features a f...
 
Anthropology

Gender, Power, and International Development

After decades of efforts to promote development, why is there so much poverty in the world? What are some of the root causes of inequality world-wide and why do poverty, economic transformations and development policies often have different consequences for women and men? This course explores these issues while also examining the history of development itself, its underlying assumptions, and its range of supporters and critics. It considers the various meanings given to development by women and ...
 
Anthropology

Gender, Sexuality, and Society

This course seeks to examine how people experience gender - what it means to be a man or a woman - and sexuality in a variety of historical and cultural contexts. We will explore how gender and sexuality relate to other categories of social identity and difference, such as race and ethnicity, economic and social standing, urban or rural life, etc. One goal of the class is to learn how to critically assess media and other popular representations of gender roles and stereotypes. Another is to gain...
 
Anthropology

Identity and Difference

How can the individual be at once cause and consequence of society, a unique agent of social action and also a social product? This course explores how identities, whether of individuals or groups, based on single behaviors or institutional practices, are produced, maintained, and transformed. Students will be introduced to various theoretical perspectives that are used to make sense of identity formation, including essentialism, constructivism, stigma, deviance, discourse, and performance. We w...
 
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