181 - 190 of 204 results for: ANTHRO

Agency is commonplace and commonsensical in the humanities and social sciences. We use it to highlight the intention behind particular actions, and especially to mark the efficacy of actions of resistance to power and the overcoming of structure; actions we understand as those of self-making and historical change. Yet, for more than twenty years we have known that agency is not what it seems. Its key aspects presume what it ostensibly negates: autonomy presumes dependence, choice presumes necessity. Agency obscures questions of suffering and passion, and it often pictures the world from a standpoint appearing adjacent to that of the (liberal) individual. Most recently, there has been extensive discussion of distributed agency and that of non-humans. What are we to make of this widespread agency-talk? This course invites students to an experimental exploration of the genealogies of agency, what it arose in response to, what effects it has had and how the concept is today transformed. We will read archaeological, ethnographic and philosophical texts to ask: what does agency have to do with action and intention, with reason and emotion, with will and drive, with need and desire, with self-knowledge and discipline. What kinds of agents are we prepared to recognize; what (patients) does this blind us to? We will consider the tragic, ludic and comedic aspects of action. We will come to ask: Across the contests of the twentieth century what was agency good for? What is it good for now? This class will involve significant preparation and in-class writing exercises.

This course engages attempts to remake social science research as more "just." We will explore Indigenous, Marxian, postcolonial, and feminist critiques of the dilemmas of representation, the place (geographic, disciplinary) of theory, and who (if anyone!) we are accountable to as university-based researchers. Drawing on these critiques, scholars have experimented with diverse approaches to research, including participatory action research, community peer review, community mapping, collaborative fieldwork and writing, and forensic fact-making and advocacy. We will also track how insurgent scholarship and methodological experimentation are captured and institutionalized by the university.

Why do people obey others in the absence of explicit coercion? Why do people accept some leaders but not others? What does it mean to say something or someone has authority? Is authority personal or institutional? Why do people believe some objects have power and others not? Can institutions wield charismatic power? These are questions that from Max Weber onwards classical and contemporary anthropologists and sociologists continue to ask. In returning to (Weberian) questions of authority and legitimacy this course will apply the question of authority broadly, not just in the explicitly political realm but also to understand for example how (culturally specific) charismatic and sacral authority can be fashioned through persons and through objects. The course will thus move between interrelated religious, moral, and political notions to try to generate some critical questions for how a contemporary anthropology that explicitly (rather than implicitly) re-addresses authority might look. The course is designed to be a somewhat canonical and fun take on some classic (as well as some classical) anthropological discussions. For anthropology students - it will introduce you to some of the complexity, expansiveness and importance of debates surrounding forms of authority, especially that derived from understanding mystical/religious as well as highly personalized authority. For those who are unfamiliar with anthropology - it will introduce you to issues that are significant across the social sciences that anthropology has a distinctive take on. The course is also designed to get students familiar with reading multiple ethnographic examples/texts together and learning how to read across and compare ethnographic and theoretical material and become comfortable with argue with and fruitfully use other people's ethnographies as a training for future dissertation writing. Significant work outside of class time is expected of the student for this course.

This graduate colloquium is a foundational and intensive course in the field of modern South Asian history. It is a course in historiography and weekly discussions will be structured around a key monograph in a specific thematic sub-field. The colloquium will begin with discussions on the impact of the Subaltern Studies collective in shaping the field; and through the quarter we will engage with monographs from various sub-fields such as studies of the transition to colonial rule; the relationship between labor and capital; agrarian history; caste society under colonial rule and Dalit resistance; studies of bureaucratic objects such as the official document; new research in feminist history and the emerging field of trans history.

This methods seminar focuses on developing ethnographic strategies for representing race, ethnicity, and language in writing without reproducing the stereotypes surrounding these categories and practices. In addition to reading various ethnographies, students conduct their own ethnographic research to test out the authors' contrasting approaches to data collection, analysis, and representation. The goal is for students to develop a rich ethnographic toolkit that will allow them to effectively represent the (re)production and (trans)formation of racial, ethnic, and linguistic phenomena.

For fifth-year Ph.D. students returning from dissertation field research and in the process of writing dissertations and preparing for professional employment. Prerequisite: By consent of instructor. This course will take place April 24, May 1, and May 15 10:30am - 11:30am.

Required of second- and third-year Ph.D. students writing the qualifying paper or the qualifying written examination. May be repeated for credit one time.

Required of second- and third-year Ph.D. students writing the qualifying paper or the qualifying written examination. May be repeated for credit one time.

How is power made material? And how do material things--objects, commodities, technologies, and infrastructures --reflect, change, consolidate, or distribute power? This research seminar is aimed at PhD students in history, anthropology, and STS who are working on such questions. All geographic specialties welcome. A small amount of common reading will launch the course, whose main goal is to guide students towards producing a research paper draft that's close to submission-ready for a journal. Along the way, we'll also address practical topics, including how to pick and submit to a journal, how to present a paper, and more.