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.

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.

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.

How do global engagements with nuclear things affect latent colonization in contemporary and future ecologies and generations? How are toxic effects of nuclear things (re)presented through scientific, technological, political or cultural intervention? We explore material, technoscientific, and cultural transmutations of nuclear things (radioisotopes, bombs, medical devices, energy) and the work of (re)making those transmutations (in)visible. The course draws from a variety of theoretical frameworks / case studies in science and technology studies, the social sciences, art and environmental and digital humanities to think with nuclear things.

Explores the theories and methods of ethnographic filmmaking. This seminar introduces students to the pioneering work of filmmakers including Robert Flaherty, Jean Rouch, and Fred Wiseman in order to address questions of documentary authenticity, knowledge, methods, ethics, and audience. One three-hour seminar.

Protestors against climate change increasingly identify economic growth as a key culprit of the climate crisis. But what is the alternative to economic growth? To imagine a world 'after growth' we need to consider how the imperative of growth emerged in the first place. In this course, we read strands of thought about 'alternative economies' that disappeared from the canon in order to think ethnographically, analytically, and politically about calls for a future after endless growth. We will focus on entanglements of the concept of growth with colonialism, nature, social equity, and 19th century liberal ideas of the 'perfectability of man.'