Global Arc

Humans have always been in multispecies relationships---to study the human effectively we need to recognize this. We will lay out the core theoretical and methodological frameworks for engaging in anthropologically centered multispecies approaches to the human. We will familiarize ourselves with relationships in the Anthropocene, pushing against (and/or reconceptualizing) nature/culture and human/nonhuman boundaries. Foregrounding anthropological perspectives in the discourse on multispecies we center the ethnographic and ecological and decenter assumptions that run through much majority mythos and perspectives on human-other entanglements.

Two major myths-about race and sex-have a negative impact on our society and inhibit an accurate understanding of what it means to be human. These myths create a false set of societally accepted "truths" that in turn cause a range of problems. Busting deeply ingrained myths about human nature requires some effort. It means breaking the stranglehold of simplicity in our view of what is natural and forcing ourselves to realize that being human is very complicated. It means challenging common sense and our reliance on generalities and popular perception, and actually delving into the gritty details of what we know humans actually are and do.

Indigenous peoples have been both pathologized and endowed with mystical abilities, cast in timeless Noble Savage fantasies, and mourned as teetering on the brink of extinction. These representational extremes have political consequences, and fail to do justice to the lived experience of indigenous peoples, who are actively crafting futures for themselves and their communities amid real political, economic, and environmental challenges. This course examines the politics, theories, and conditions of indigeneity from an anthropological perspective, covering issues ranging from settler colonialism and sovereignty to environmental movements.

An examination of the interactions of evolution, biology and culture in human health and sickness. The course will emphasize the influence of pathogens and other environmental selective agents in the evolution of human biology and behavior. The action of cultural factors in the spread and containment of disease and other abnormal conditions will also be integrated. Discussions will focus on the patterns of health and disease over time and in a cross-cultural perspective.

Explores issues surrounding the relation of individual memory to collective trauma, the social forms of redress to trauma, and attempts to establish accountability for harm. Takes up three major approaches to memory: social organization (Halbwachs), psychoanalysis (Freud), and associative temporalities (Sebald). Examines various genres in which the memory of loss is retained or displaced, and the landscapes and histories in which such memories are recalled and losses repaired. A better understanding of such memories will improve our approaches to cultural observation, documentation, analysis, and interpretation. One three-hour seminar.

From Brazilian capoeira, Japanese dance, and American jazz piano, to glassblowing, lawyering, and navigating a warship: how do people acquire the skills necessary to perform expert activities in different cultural settings? What kinds of knowledge can anthropologists gain as apprentices, and how does it translate into writing? This course focuses on apprenticeship as a subject and method for anthropological research. We examine theories of learning and their application to case studies of wide-ranging domains of expertise. Students conduct ethnographic and experiential activities, generating original data for discussion and analysis.

Subaltern Studies and Postcolonial Studies have shown how critiques of capitalism were based on a provincial account of western history. Postcolonial studies, in turn, was based on analysis of places that were directly colonized. In this course, we will critically read and compare approaches based on Marx, subaltern studies, and orientalism to think about the case of the former Ottoman Empire, which was not colonized. Readings will draw on social theory, political economy, postcolonial studies, critical infrastructure studies, history of the Middle East, and ethnography and are appropriate for students of any region or discipline.

Michel-Rolph Trouillot (1949-2012) argued that «theory is done at the center; color comes from the margin.» Anthropology offers knowledge and insights into the lived worlds of humanity at large. Calls to «decolonize anthropology» are by no means new. But anthropology continues to be a discipline dominated by Western scholars and institutions, and overwhelmingly white. This course will offer an introduction to post- and de-colonial literature and scholarship, and important scholars of and from the `Global South', and/or of indigenous or racialized minority background from the `Global North.'

This seminar focuses on the social institutions and symbolic meanings of gender, sexuality, family, and the household through the lenses of race, culture, and historical contexts. We will study how understandings of masculinity and femininity, the orientation of desire, sexual acts, and sexual identities impact gender roles in the household across various cultural and social contexts. We will ground our work in historical and ethnographic research on the connections between colonialism, chattel slavery, capitalism, and gender, sexual relations, and the family.

An exploration of the reciprocal influences of anthropology and gender studies, considering both classic and recent contributions; an evaluation of key interpretive categories (for example, "nature,'' "domestic,'' "woman'') specifically in the context of cross-cultural translation; and comparison of various approaches to questions about the universality of gendered power hierarchies. One three-hour seminar.