321 - 330 of 337 results for: Anthropology

Considers the premises of the family-systems approach to intimate and family relationships, drawing on concepts from psychology, psychiatry, neurobiology, anthropology, and organizational behavior. Examines relationship formation and commitment, intimacy and sexuality, family development and structure, interpersonal conflict and communication, historical patterns and legacies, gender and power, and the cultural and larger systemic contexts of close relationships. Frameworks for assessing relationships and tools for changing romantic, family, and social relationships are examined in detail, and case examples illustrate the relationship change strategies of major contributors to the field. Highlights practical applications of the family-systems approach in educational, medical, business, and community settings. Students do not need to have a background in Psychology or Human Biology, and all student levels are welcome (including GSB, Law, Medicine, GSE for PSYC 239).

This seminar examines how our cultural ideas and practices shape our conceptions, perceptions, and experiences of emotion. We will read and discuss empirical research and case studies from psychology, anthropology, sociology, and medicine. Course requirements include weekly reading and thought papers, weekly discussion, and a final research project and presentation.

Indigenous knowledges have been traditionally treated as a field of research for anthropologists and as mistaken epistemologies, i.e., un-scientific and irrational folklore. However, within the framework of environmental humanities, current interest in non-anthropocentric approaches and epistemic injustice, animism emerged as a critique of modern epistemology and an alternative to the Western worldview. Treating native thought as an equivalent to Western knowledge will be presented as a (potentially) decolonizing and liberating practice. This course may be of interest to anthropology, archaeology and literature students working in the fields of ecocriticism and the environmental humanities/social sciences, students interested in the Anthropocene, geologic/mineral, bio-, eco- and geosocial collectives, symbiotic life-forms and non-human agencies. The course is designed as a research seminar for students interested in theory of the humanities and social sciences and simultaneously helping students to develop their individual projects and thesis.

"Secularism" and "secularization" are two concepts whose importance to modern life is only matched by their ability to elude our understanding. Our aim in this seminar, therefore, will be to make sense of them as historical and sociological phenomena, as well as objects of theoretical and philosophical inquiry. Among other issues, we will probe the question of religious decline in modern societies, the formation of secular identity and subjectivity, the theological underpinnings of the separation of religion and state, the politics of religious minorities, and the broader transformation of religion in the modern age. Our approach to the subject will consist primarily in the discussion of a wide range of primary sources and scholarly writings, which will span the disciplines of political theory, anthropology, theology, history, and literature. Undergraduates register for 200-level for 5 units. Graduate students register for 300-level for 3-5 units.

A critical introduction to one of the most ambitious theories in the human and social sciences, which has the potential to revolutionize them, including anthropology, sociology, economics, but also philosophy and theology. Professor Girard (1923 - 2015) taught at Stanford for more than twenty years and is internationally recognized as one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century. This seminar will be anything but an exercise in proselytism. It will keep a critical distance towards the theory, questioning its internal consistency as well as putting it to the test of actual facts and events.

Required of all majors and combined majors. The study of religion reflects upon itself. Representative modern and contemporary attempts to "theorize," and thereby understand, the phenomena of religion in anthropology, psychology, sociology, cultural studies, and philosophy. WIM.

The goal of this course is to familiarize graduate students with themes, debates and methodologies in Buddhist Studies. Works covered are not all recent (though most are), but rather works that raise issues that scholars continue to address in recent works. Some weeks will focus on topics (e.g. Indian monasticism, defining meditative experience), and others on bodies of evidence (e.g. hagiography, material culture). "Buddhist Studies" encompasses a range of discrete disciplines (philosophy, history, anthropology etc.). This course is an opportunity for you to familiarize yourself with some of the most common approaches to Buddhist studies and the specific challenges they pose.

"Secularism" and "secularization" are two concepts whose importance to modern life is only matched by their ability to elude our understanding. Our aim in this seminar, therefore, will be to make sense of them as historical and sociological phenomena, as well as objects of theoretical and philosophical inquiry. Among other issues, we will probe the question of religious decline in modern societies, the formation of secular identity and subjectivity, the theological underpinnings of the separation of religion and state, the politics of religious minorities, and the broader transformation of religion in the modern age. Our approach to the subject will consist primarily in the discussion of a wide range of primary sources and scholarly writings, which will span the disciplines of political theory, anthropology, theology, history, and literature. Undergraduates register for 200-level for 5 units. Graduate students register for 300-level for 3-5 units.

This course explores the growing field of memory studies and various modes of memory-forgetting in the post-Soviet society and culture. The 'memory boom' in post-1991 Russia and Easter Europe has significantly altered the way the post-socialist subjects remember, forget, or imagine their Soviet legacy. The course proposes a critical appraisal of memory studies as an opportunity for engaging in a genuine interdisciplinary endeavor. It starts by defining the field of research at the intersection of history, anthropology, sociology, and cultural theory and examines the emergence of 'memory' as an object of study within these disciplines. In the second part of the course, we will study literary representation of memory and forgetting through the concepts of post-memory, second-generation memory, memory of eye-witnesses and perpetrators, memory of the displaced persons, and amnesia and memory loss fiction. And finally, we will engage in comparing the social practices of selective remembering and forgetting of the memory of the WWII and Soviet legacy in present-day Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.