61 - 70 of 337 results for: Anthropology

This seminar explores sartorial practices as a means for examining formations of identities and structural inequalities across space and time. Building off the definition of dress, pulled from Mary Ellen Roach-Higgins and Joanne B. Eicher, this course examines sartorial practices as social-cultural practices, shaped by many intersecting operations of power and oppression including racism, sexism, and classism, that involve modifications of the corporal form (i.e., scarification, body piercings, and hair alteration) as well as all three-dimensional supplements added to the body (i.e., clothing, hair combs, and jewelry). The emphasis on intersecting operations of power and oppression within this definition of dress draws on Kimberlé Crenshaw's conceptualization of intersectionality. Through case studies and examples from various parts of the world, we will explore multiple sources of data - documentary, material, and oral - that have come to shape the study of dress. We examine how dress intersects with facets of identity, including race, age, ethnicity, sexuality, and class.

Once almost exclusively associated with the radical leftist thought, 'dispossession' has become a household concept. This course aims to place dispossession within the historical and philosophical traditions that shape it and addresses the key question of how to think about it. We will also explore some of the following questions that are central to discourses and practices of dispossession: Why are certain forms of human deprivation and exploitation called dispossession? What is included within the framework of dispossession, and what is left out? What relationships are connected to dispossession? Recognizing dispossession as a theoretical trope, readings and discussions will cover various social processes globally. In line with the anthropological maxim that "knowledge is always situated," more theoretical texts will be complemented by ethnographies. Property at the center, and personhood always already accompanying it, the course will traverse a broad range of connected topics currently prevalent both in the discipline and public discourse.

In this course, we will examine the ways a variety of publics learn about and engage with archaeological topics, including fictional media, science journalism, pseudoarchaeology media, social media, publicly-accessible sites and museums, public archaeology programming, and community-driven archaeology projects. We will evaluate the effectiveness of these forms of public engagement for teaching non-archaeologists about the human past and its inhabitants. Students will choose among a variety of projects that allow them to practice engaging with non-archaeologist publics about archaeological topics in a variety of media or formats. No archaeological experience required.

From grocery stores and farmers' markets to real estate and financial markets, how have markets come to dominate so many spheres of our lives? In this course, we will explore an anthropological understanding of how markets have come to shape human life. We will trace the socio-cultural and historical contexts that define these markets. Further, the course will outline how these markets have both negotiated and transformed the most significant social relations of power, hierarchy and identity shaping our world - race, ethnicity, gender, caste, and religion, among others.

From lawsuits over coffee spills to military action staged in the name of human rights, 'law' is one of the most potent ideas to proliferate the modern world. In this course, students will engage with the philosophical questions that the concept of law raises about 'human nature' and 'society,' and explore the forms that legality takes in different cultural traditions. Using a set of case studies that range from tribal councils and Islamic legal debates to transnational business arbitration and shoplifting, we will interrogate law's relationship to social domination, political mobilization, and ideals of freedom, dignity, and morality. Students will leave the course a grasp of key debates in legal philosophy, an expanded knowledge of legal systems throughout the world, and a deeper understanding of the relationship between law, politics, and social conflict.

This course builds on the idea that considering environmental and social justice concerns together is possible and necessary. As such, it examines key issues in environmental justice alongside anthropological studies of related social and environmental concerns. We will study topics related to cities, agriculture, extraction, water, toxicity, and climate, alongside attentions to racial capitalism, settler colonialism, development, war-making, and state-sanctioned violence. In doing so, we will center a critical race and historical perspective that is attentive to social and environmental dynamics that have shaped present injustices. Through readings, discussions, hands-on projects, and interactive classroom engagement, we will consider the ongoing lived, analytical, and political stakes of these issues. Further emphasis on environmental justice strategies and movements will enhance our critical and heterogeneous understanding of these topics, their lived impacts, and their alternative possibilities.

This class seeks to familiarize students with a variety of theoretical perspectives and methodological tools for a study of the state. The social sciences have long deconstructed the image of the state as a coherent unit (along with the Weberian ideal of a neutral bureaucracy) but the idea remains globally prevalent. Therefore, this course's central objective is to contemplate and rethink diverse conceptions of the state in order to open new perspectives and develop the methodological tools necessary for comprehending the state in a distinctively anthropological manner. Our discussions will center around ethnographic and other social scientific research that emphasize the state as a historically situated reality, embodied in the work of its agents and negotiated in everyday encounters with citizens. Important question include how bureaucratic interactions mobilize values and emotions and thereby (re)produce the state, as well as classificatory systems of inclusion and forms of marginalization. Therefore, we will investigate seemingly negative or coercive aspects of states, such as border regimes and military practices, but also aspects that could be seen as their benevolent side, like welfare bureaucracies. By reading different anthropological, humanities, and other social science texts, we will ask how can one think of and research the state, what types of relations characterize different state formations, what kind of routines and subjectivities are formed in interaction with diverse state actors, how well Western concepts of the state, sovereignty, bureaucratic rationality travel to non-Western contexts, how citizens experience and relate to the state in their day to day lives, and how we can think about alternative forms of governing?

What is global trade? How does it affect social and political life and how is it shaped by politics? Under globalization the world appears to be seamlessly connected. This is in part because of the ease and speed of access we have to goods, services, and commodities. In this class we look at global trade (the flow of goods and services between different countries) as a product of political relations at various scales. This class introduces students to global trade as a product of power and a producer of unequal economic conditions across the globe. Students will explore the categories, meanings, and experiences of labor, work, gender, and race produced in contexts such as logistics, mining, domestic work, migrant labor, and corporations. This course is aimed at students who are interested in anthropology, development studies, geography, international political economy, and politics.

Modern life is marked by institutions - schools, hospitals, international conglomerates, even prisons - so how did they develop and become so common? Historical archaeology can help us tell a different history of institutions because it combines documents, especially official records, with the material items left behind by the people who lived and worked in the institution. This course uses archaeological case studies to look at the different theoretical frameworks used to explain why institutions exist and how they function. We will also use practical examples to make connections between historical institutions and modern life. For example, what can looking at nineteenth century prison menus tell us about prison or hospital food today? And how can we use the archaeology of institutions to 'read' the Stanford campus? No prior archaeological experience required.