The course focuses on developing an effective writing practice while guiding students through the basics of academic writing and publication. Through a combination of directed readings and weekly writing goals, this course provides students time and guidance for completing a substantial academic project, while encouraging reflection on both the process of writing and content of their work.
This course introduces students to basic concepts in Cultural Anthropology. The class educates students on emerging and developing notions of culture as well as the ways in which societies are rapidly changing within a globalizing world and exposes students to a wide variety of cultural practices through ethnographic writing and film.
This class explores the relationship between ethnicity, politics, and nationalism from anthropological and historical perspectives. We trace a general genealogy of the two main terms, “ethnicity” and “nationalism,” while also addressing the way nationalism and ethnic identity construct and reproduce each other. We analyze recent news articles, films, and media reports related to our core concepts, and examine the meanings and political significance of nationalism and ethnicity today.
In this course students learn how to use contemporary cultural theory to analyze current anthropological debates. Through a deep engagement with theoretical and ethnographic texts as well as in-class discussions, students practice how to read, critically analyze, and use cultural theory. This class is not designed as a historical survey of anthropological theory. Rather, this course grapples with some of the foundational questions, critical debates and concepts that have been central to our discipline.
In this course we explore the promises and contradictions of globalization and learn to analyze its consequences on our contemporary world. We will identify the opportunities globalization has created and recognize its drawbacks and potential to increase global inequality. Drawing upon theories of globalization, ethnographic research, and contemporary documentary films, this course explores the various effects of globalization and highlights how rather than an abstract theory, globalization affects most aspects of our daily lives.
Over the last few decades cultural anthropologists have increasingly grappled with the questions: what is anthropology useful for? Who reads our work? And who is our research impacting? In response to these questions, in this class, we examine how cultural anthropological theory and methods help us better understand, resolve, or advance issues surrounding care, equity, and social justice. What does anthropology look like when we see ethnographic work as a practice of care?
This class explores the increasingly important role of cultural heritage in a global context. Drawing on cultural anthropology, heritage studies, and archaeology, we will examine how heritage is defined, administered, and used to build identity, foster economic development, or negotiate legacies of colonialism across the world. Key questions we will address in class revolve around how is the past used in the present, and to what purposes? How do communities regard their cultural forms and traditions and use them in relation to other groups?
The goal of this course is for students to understand the complex relationships between epistemologies of knowledge, ethnographic methods, and the production of texts. While the course allows students to practice and experiment with a variety of ethnographic techniques, a fundamental focus is on understanding how particular methods are driven by the larger ethical, political, and theoretical frameworks and epistemologies they are connected to.
