Spring 2019 Courses

Posted in Courses | Tagged Courses, Student

ANTH 001 Intro to Cultural Anthropology

(Ibrahim, King; multiple sections) – Most people know that anthropology is the study of cultures and cultural differences around the world, but few know what anthropologists actually do. What was once the study of ‘distant’ and ‘exotic’ cultures and peoples by immersing oneself in their daily lives has over the course of the 20th century developed into a critical approach to studying difference no matter how far or near it might occur. As a discipline, anthropology has studied and debated issues of race, ethnicity, language, religion, belonging, power, class, gender, and sexuality across the globe. In more recent times, it has also come to embrace the study of institutions like medicine, trade, and law. Come see how an understanding of an anthropological way of thinking can broaden your views on the world and how it works.

ANTH 204 #FakeNews, Parody & Performance

ANTH 205 Justice and Media

(Ibrahim; TTh 12:30pm-1:45pm) – How do racial, gender, and sexual inequalities frame political and social life? Using ethnography – the medium by which anthropologists present their findings – both in book and film form, we explore how anthropology approaches problems of structural inequality and injustice. In both, the anthropologist or filmmaker is the primary medium through which the reader gains an intimate glimpse into the lives of others. Explore how anthropology goes beyond the headlines to connect you to the real people caught up in powerful, often unequal, global forces.

ANTH 215 Youth Culture

(Onder; TTh 2pm-3:15pm) – This course will take an anthropological and cross-cultural look at topics related to youth culture, including: the invention of childhood; coming of age and puberty; child soldiers, refugees, and homeless children; cultural norms about gender, sexuality, and body image; political action and resistance by youth; youth and racism; global and national musical forms; and cultural concepts of the transition to adulthood.

ANTH 219 Gender/Race/Nationalism

(Haynes; MW 9:30am-10:45am) – This course explores the articulations of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and nationalism in different world contexts. We will explore the conceptual frameworks of gender, race, and nationalism, then look at specific ethnographic accounts. The aim is to understand how particular historical, political, economic, and social processes influence these articulations. We will ask: How do popular conceptions of gender and race shape the ways nationalism is represented and experienced? Why is the management of gender and race important to the maintenance of the nation-state? and How does nationalism become a key mode of inequality along lines of gender and race?

ANTH 278 Cultures of Security

(Bickford; TTh 12:30pm-1:45pm) – This course examines current trends and foci of security and securitization. Engaging these areas from an anthropological perspective, we will examine questions of security through the lenses of narrative, affect, political economy, and constructions of violence and “the other.” Throughout the course, we will think about what an “anthropology of security” tells us about security and conflict. We will examine the links between security and war, policing, torture, insurgency and counter-insurgency, soldiering, immigration, and drone warfare. We will examine security not just as a kind of political system, but as a cultural system as well, and how ideas of security impact everyday life. We will also look at what security officials and policymakers say and do, and how “security” is experienced by people who are the objects of security programs and systems.

ANTH 280 Urban Anthropology

(King; TTh 11am-12:15pm) – This course explores the city as a product of, and a rich site for, human beings’ negotiations over social and economic rights, power, identity, cultural meaning, and community. Drawing on a variety of historical, geographic, and ethnographic studies, we will ask what is qualitatively distinct about urban life. Throughout the course, methodological questions regarding the city as an object of historical and ethnographic study are highlighted. We will explore these themes through readings as well as field research survey visits.

ANTH 363 Anthropology and Islam

(Onder; MW 3:30pm-4:45pm) – This course will examine the role of anthropology and anthropologists in the history of the contact that Europe and the U.S.A. have had with the Muslim World. Examples will include anthropological writing produced both during and following the period of British, French, and Russian colonialism, along with more recent ethnographies of Bosnia, Pakistan, Syria, Turkey, and Indonesia. Muslim youth in Germany and global musical trends will round out the course. Intellectual engagement with both primary anthropological texts and critical responses will be required.

ANTH 381 Art/Entertainment/Consumerism

(Haynes; TTh 3:30pm-4:45pm) – Popular culture is an arena in which Latin Americans make cultural offerings of their own through both creativity and reappropriation. Pop culture forms can be key sites for the formation of identities, for the ways in which people make sense of the world, and understand their location within it. This course looks at pop culture forms throughout Latin America, including music, dance, sport, media, art, beauty, and consumer products. Taking an anthropological approach, we will explore the ways that pop culture draws from, comments upon, and at times resists political issues, notions of authenticity, social problems, and inequalities.

ANTH 393 Africa/Anthropology/Public Policy

(Mikell; T 2pm-4:30pm) – This seminar course uses anthropological approaches to examine how culture affects the issues of ‘public policy’ that continue to play out in Africa today. We examine these subjects in two ways: first, we use ethnography and case studies to examine the dialogues between local, national, and regional cultures in Africa to see how policy concerns have been discussed; second, we use public policy articles, speeches, and visuals (both domestic and foreign affairs) to assess how policymakers have conceptualized and implemented African policies. Differing configurations of power groups and/or cultural groups, as well as differing national interests, may affect how African countries think about and respond to policy problems. The issues with which we are concerned include governance and leadership transitions, peace-conflict-and security dynamics, HIV-AIDS and health crises, development and trade dynamics, gender and human rights, and Muslim-Christian dynamics. We rely upon seminar readings, guest speakers, audio-visuals, and student research projects.

ANTH 495 Anthropological Theory

(Bickford; TTh 9:30am-10:45am) – This course will survey the major debates in sociocultural anthropology that have taken place over the past 75 years. Instead of reviewing the major texts in chronological order, the course will be organized around four anchor texts that are relatively recent but will allow us to project both backward and forward in time to related debates and issues. The course will take a seminar format, requiring intensive reading and discussion by students. Pre-Requisite: ANTH-320 Ethnographic Imagination or ANTH-358 Doing Anthropological Fieldwork, or by permission of the instructor.