printer friendly pageANTHRO 135: Cultural Studies (ANTHRO 235)
Identity, community, and culture; their interactions and formation.
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci
ANTHRO 135A: The Anthropology of Security (ANTHRO 235A)
This seminar begins by outlining the main theoretical and empirical challenges in the areas of surveillance studies and security studies. The seminar provides a space wherein students will be able to discuss these inter-disciplinary areas and develop their own Anthropology-informed perspectives. The seminar then discusses the work of Anthropologists who through their ethnographic and theoretical work have helped developed and important and emergent area: ¿The Anthropology of Security¿. Areas covered include, inter alia, national security, security and war, biometrics, gated-ness, and environmental and bio-security threats.
ANTHRO 135H: Conversations in CSRE: Case Studies in the Stanford Community (CSRE 135H)
Race, ethnicity, gender, and religion using the tools, analytical skills and concepts developed by anthropologists.
ANTHRO 135I: CSRE House Seminar: Race and Ethnicity at Stanford (CSRE 135I)
Race, ethnicity, gender, and religion using the tools, analytical skills and concepts developed by anthropologists.
ANTHRO 137A: Traditional Medicine in the Modern World
This class considers "traditional medicine" in contemporary times. We will survey major systems of traditional medicine while considering their broader social, cultural, and political contexts. The class will study the symbolic uses of traditional medicine, the role of traditional medicines in early modern medical knowledge, the place of indigenous knowledge in bioprospecting, health-seeking behavior and medical pluralism, and the WHO's approach to traditional medicine and how it has affected government health policies. The class emphasizes a critical approach to the concepts of tradition and modernity, and an understanding of traditional medicine as a changing, flexible, and globalized category of healing.
ANTHRO 138B: Urban Africa (AFRICAST 138B, URBANST 139)
This course explores the production of urban space and the social, cultural, and political significance of cities in sub-Saharan Africa. Topics include: architecture and the built environment; urban planning and colonial public health; migration and rural-urban dynamics; youth, politics, and popular culture; violence, policing, and the privatization of public space; (in)formality in housing, transportation, and employment; class, gender, and mobility in the public sphere; urban citizenship and `right to the city¿ movements; gentrification, tourism, and the commodification of poverty; and efforts to (re)theorize postcolonial African cities. Readings are drawn from anthropology, history, urban studies, and geography. Discussion will situate struggles over urban forms and the contours of everyday life within broader trends in the political economy of the region from the late colonial period to the present.
Instructors:
West, A. (PI)
ANTHRO 139: Ethnography of Africa (ANTHRO 239)
The politics of producing knowledge in and about Africa through the genre of ethnography, from the colonial era to the present. The politics of writing and the ethics of social imagination. Sources include novels juxtaposed to ethnographies.
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci
ANTHRO 139A: Forgotten Africa: An Introduction to the Archaeology of Africa (AFRICAST 139A, ARCHLGY 139A)
This course provides an introductory survey of Africa¿s past from prehistoric times through the 19th-century. The course will challenge Western depictions of Africa as a dark continent `without history¿ by highlighting the continent¿s vibrant cultures, sophisticated technologies, complex political systems and participation in far-reaching commercial networks, all predating European colonization. In tandem, the course explores how these histories are mobilized in the production of negative ideas about Africa in contemporary discourse.
ANTHRO 140A: Ethnographic Archaeologies (ANTHRO 240A, ARCHLGY 137)
How have ethnographic and archaeological methods been combined in anthropological research? What methodological and theoretical implications do these kinds of projects generate? Seminar topics will include ethnoarchaeology, ethnographies of archaeological practice, public archaeology and heritage ethics. Lecture and discussion.
ANTHRO 141A: Science, Technology, and Medicine in Africa (AFRICAST 141A)
Africa is often depicted as a place simply in need of science, technology, andnmedicine. This class will introduce students to the culture and politics of science innsub-Saharan Africa: to the diverse and rich traditions, histories and contemporarynpredicaments of knowledge practices on the continent. We will consider the rolenof science in the colonial period, covering the expansion of European empires intonAfrica and the forms of technical knowledge that colonial governments encountered, especially as they relate to health and the environment. We will examine the role of science at African independence and in international development work. Finally, we will discuss the techno-politics of medical training and research, resource extraction, and the internet in contemporary Africa. This course will provide some important background for those with an applied interest in Africa as well as provide an introduction to a growing area of scholarship. Course materials include historical and ethnographic works, as well as primary sources and films emphasizing scientific practice in the context of geopolitical relations of power and inequality.
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