Anthropology 97z is a course about what social theory is, how to read it and how it relates to the discipline of anthropology. The course encourages students to think expansively about the sources and boundaries of theory, guiding them through several approaches to theorizing social life.
Required of all Social Anthropology concentrators. Weekly 2-hour sections to be arranged.
This individual tutorial is for anthropology students intending to write a senior thesis, and is normally undertaken with an advanced graduate student during the second term of junior year. Students will have weekly meetings with the project advisor for the purposes of developing the appropriate background research on theoretical, thematic, regional, and methodological literature relevant to their thesis topic, and fully refining their summer research proposal. The tutorials final paper will be comprised of a research proposal representing...
This is a full year research and writing seminar limited to senior honors candidates. The course is intended to provide students with practical guidance and advice during the thesis writing process through structured assignments and peer feedback on work-in-progress. It is intended to supplement not replace faculty thesis advising (with the requirement of consulting regularly with the advisor built into the assignments) and, most importantly, allow students to share their work and experiences with other thesis writers in a collegial and...
Prof. Kaya Williams Thurs. 9:00 AM -11:45 AM Tozzer 203
What is punishment, and what might attention to punitive practices teach us about the cultures in which they are used? Modern American culture is so saturated with punishment that it is difficult to know where to begin such an investigation.... Read more about ANTHRO 1679 - Punishment Culture
Profs. Salmaan Keshavjee, Jason Silverstein, and Lindsey Zeve Weds. 12:00 PM - 2:45 PM Apthorp House Library
This course is designed primarily for advanced undergraduates and graduate students who are interested in the relationship between neoliberalism, the global social order, and inequities in health and wellbeing.
Profs. Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel T 12:00 PM - 4:15 PM
An introduction to “sensory ethnography,” a media practice that seeks to rejuvenate and innovate in visual anthropology, cinema, and art. Students will learn to record and edit video and audio to produce original media works about embodied experience, culture, ecology, political-economy, and history. This is a year-long course that supports students' independent projects through the summer and the following semester.
This course is also offered as AFVS 158AR. Students are strongly...
A review of the latest and most advanced contributions to theory, methods, especially ethnography, findings, as well as policy contributions in medical anthropology.
Open to advanced undergraduates with some background in social sciences or humanities (regardless of concentration), and to graduate and professional students. Because of the extent of the readings and the intensity of the analysis, the course will be limited to 25 students.
The German word for science literally means “knowledge made.” In line with this meaning, STS approaches science as practice. The interdisciplinary field asks empirically and methodologically how knowledge is made, how truths become truths, and how matters come to matter and to be matters of fact.
This course serves as basic introduction to STS, highlighting key political interventions, theoretical contributions, and the field’s recent ascent into a burgeoning academic inter-discipline.
This seminar in social anthropology presents value and the exchange of value as the foundations of economic, social, moral, and political life. The authors we read will argue that the exchange of value(s) between humans creates social solidarity. We are tied to our communities and friends through relationships of debt and expenditure; we give a gift with the expectation of receiving something in return, binding the gift giver and receiver in a social relationship that extends over space and time. For sociologist Marcel...
What does it mean when we speak of “political power”? We know, from the work of many anthropologists, that power is not a question of the state. The political anthropologist Pierre Clastres wrote about non-state societies with a deep sense of law, tradition, and propriety that actively combat the emergence of a state system. In an age where we feel constantly surveilled, it is clear that power can be invisible, yet palpable; physical force is not necessary to encourage obedience among a population. In other words, power,...
Landscape fieldwork offers the means to understand the complexities of landscapes. Through a people-centered approach, this lecture course explores landscape architecture’s ethical and political power to shape the world. A central premise of the course is that experiential knowledge—gained from the embodied engagement of landscape fieldwork—can help to revise how we understand and use western canons of landscape knowledge and offer new possibilities for the design imagination.... Read more about ANTHRO 2695 - Landscape Fieldwork: People, Politics, Practices
What is Religion? Why does it show up everywhere? Using archaeology, religious studies and social thought, this course will study the major themes in the history of religions including 'encountering the...
Students are introduced to current issues in art, aesthetics, and anthropology, and produce collaborative experimental works of sensory ethnography.
This is also offered as AFVS 158BR. Students are strongly encouraged to enroll in ANTRO 1836AR, Sensory Ethnography 1. No previous studio experience necessary.
To take this limited-enrollment course, you must first consult the Canvas course site for information about the enrollment process and procedures.
Prof. Andrea Wright Thurs. 12:00 PM - 2:45 PM Tozzer 416
What approaches and methodologies do anthropologists use to examine and strengthen theories and practices oriented towards community? What responsibilities do anthropologists have to the people and places with which they work? Can and should anthropologists engage in research that is community driven, politically conscious, and centrally concerned with the transformation of our social conditions?... Read more about ANTHRO 1718 - Activist, Collaborative, and Engaged Interventions in Anthropology
This course examines the co-articulations of race, ethnicity, and language across various historical, societal, and institutional contexts. Furthermore, we examine...
The abrupt physical closures of 2020 continuing into the present moment have brought into sharp relief the urgency of taking the digital seriously as a mode by which sociality – however constrained – is created and maintained. Rather than posit a singular method of digital ethnography, this course is designed to expose students to different methods and theoretical entry points into ethnography in order to enable students to identify the methods which work best for their present and future research purposes.
Humans have long been fascinated with anticipating, speculating, preparing, and waiting for the unknown future. ‘The future’ has a pervasive presence in our lives, when we forecast the local weather, plan the national economy, promise in legal contracts, imagine in science fictions, aspire in political movements, trade in futures markets, and much more. More than ever, the future is both an excitement and anxiety-inducing topic of interest to scholars and experts in domains ranging from public health, national security, urban design, to environmental science.... Read more about ANTHRO 1991 - Anthropology of the Future
This class examines the changing place of medicine in the long history of modernity. Focusing on key moments the birth of the clinic, the colonial encounter, the consolidation of medicine as profession, the age of genomics and biocapital, and the empire of global health it explores the distinctive role of medical knowledge and practice in the making of modernist persons, identities, economies, and political vocabularies. Readings are drawn from anthropology and the wider social sciences, with cases from Africa,...