Global Arc

A course taught by different members of the department or visiting faculty on various subjects that connect student interests in the humanities with the sub-field of medical anthropology.

Comparative perspectives on sexual divisions of labor, sex-based equality and inequality, and the cultural construction of "male'' and "female.'' Analysis of gender symbolism in myth and ritual, and of patterns of change in the political participation and power of the sexes. Two 90-minute lectures with discussion.

What does it mean to be a man? Or to act like a man? By calling attention to the gendered identities/practices of men-as-men, scholars of masculinities have given diverse responses to these questions across time and space. We draw on anthropology, history, critical theory, gender studies, and media to explore the processes and relationships by which men craft gendered lives. Rather than defining masculinity as biological trait or fixed object, we examine how men's life stories and prospects are shaped by social scripts, political-economic forces, labor regimes, and ethical norms.

How do people apprehend signs, traces or apparitions that emanate from what we might call the spiritual, sublime or mystical realms? How does "seeing" or otherwise sensing the mysterious register within broader regimes of knowledge, power and truth? This course explores dimensions of key enigmas that transect spirituality, consciousness and fields of vision across cultural and historical settings. It foregrounds anthropological work, but it also draws upon related work in history, philosophy, literature, psychoanalysis and film. Topics include sacrifice, magic, vitality, dreams, presence, temporality, mediums, possession and transcendence.

This course listens closely to sounds, historicizes the technologies from which they resonate, and tours their cultural surroundings. We analyze acoustics of ritual, everyday life, social identities, and nature, for example, and relate the auditory to the visual and textual. How do voices, radio, cinema, concerts, phonographs, MP3s, world music, and recording studios mediate culture? How is sound a "thing" that can be contemplated, packaged, or sold? What is at stake in debates about digital vs. analogue, liveness, fidelity, and intellectual property? Projects will explore possibilities for portraying ethnographic knowledge with sound media.

The course introduces the media as an arena for anthropological work on the relationships among culture, power and society. Our lives are "saturated" by images and new communications technologies but so too are the media saturated with social practices open to anthropological investigation. In this course, we will emphasize how the idea of reality has framed representations of cultural difference in documentary and mass media. Students will use anthropological concepts to analyze uses of technological media around the globe in order to better understand how cultures are both empowered and excluded through media.

We usually think of anthropology as a translation across different cultures and languages, but encounters between different professions and academic disciplines also call for translation. In this course, we treat interdisciplinary and cross-professional exchanges as ethnographic sites, using methods from linguistic anthropology to examine the challenges of translating expertise across professional fields. We also explore different approaches to interdisciplinary translation, in the process developing our understanding of the broader interaction between language and culture.

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At this polarizing moment of global war and migration, understanding tolerance is vital. This course explores the social, political, and religious facets of tolerance as it has developed in the Mediterranean world, from Ottoman pluralism to modern European multiculturalism. How is tolerance promoted in state policies, legal principles, moral virtues, cultural traditions, and economic practices? How is "culture clash" mediated in conflicts over minority rights, immigration, labor, citizenship, marriage, and education? This course traces the complex boundaries of identity, community, and polity at the historical crossroads of east and west.

This course provides a hands-on introduction to the methods and theories of linguistic anthropology, a sub-field devoted to the study of language and interaction in sociocultural and political processes. We will consider language as more than a neutral conduit for exchanging information or expressing ideas. Through readings and data gathering and analysis exercises, we will explore language as a resource and a factor that shapes and is shaped by our experiences, identities, relationships with and perception of the world and the people around us. Major themes include race, citizenship, gender, disability, and interpretation and power.