Stanford University Explore Courses

ANTHRO 322: From Biopolitics to Necropolitics and Beyond

This seminar examines scholarship produced and informed by Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben, particularly as relating to biopolitics, governmentality, subjectification, and death. Focus is given to how anthropology and related disciplines have been applying, challenging, and extending these areas of thought in order to address contemporary predicaments. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

Last offered: Winter 2019

ANTHRO 323: Graduate Seminar in Economic Anthropology

Classical and contemporary anthropological perspectives on topics such as money, markets and exchange; capitalist and non-capitalist modes of production; class and socio-economic differentiation; globalization and neoliberalism; and the social and cultural construction of the object, "the economy". Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

Last offered: Spring 2019

ANTHRO 324: Political Anthropology

An anthropological approach to politics through bringing anthropological ways of thinking and modes of analysis to bear on key presuppositions of modern Western political thought. Ideas of rights, the individual, society, liberty, democracy, equality, and solidarity; ethnographic accounts used to identify the limits of conventional analytical approaches and to document the forms of politics that such approaches either ignore or misunderstand. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

Terms: Aut | Units: 5

Instructors: Ferguson, J. (PI)

ANTHRO 326: Postcolonial and Indigenous Archaeologies

The role of postcolonial and Indigenous archaeologies as emergeant disciplinary activities within contemporary society. Community based archaeologies; the roles of oral history, landscape, and memory; archaeology as political action; and history in archaeological projects. The emergence of Indigenous archaeology within N. America in relation to limitations imposed by processual or new archaeology; and NAGPRA, Kennewick, essentialism, and terminal narratives within this context. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

Last offered: Spring 2018

ANTHRO 330A: The Archive: Form, Practice, Thought

This seminar offers a wide-ranging exploration of the `archive.' Drawing from ethnography, social theory, philosophy, photography and literature, we will examine the archive's diverse material, narratological and structural dimensions, its epistemological, political and representational functions, processes of archivisation and recuperation, and related domains of experience, memory, absence and loss. Prerequisite: consent of instructor

Terms: Spr | Units: 5

ANTHRO 332: Anthropology of Ethics

Recent decades have witnessed what some scholars have termed an ethical turn in anthropology. This course explores the emergence of this field of study, asking the following questions: What has motivated a renewed anthropological interest in the subject of ethics? How has a focus on ethics enabled the development of new theoretical currents in the discipline? To what extent have anthropological studies of ethics provided new understandings of traditional topics, concerning social hierarchy, power relations, embodiment, and subject-formation?

Last offered: Spring 2018

ANTHRO 338B: History and Memory

How are history and memory important in the making of collective and public memory? This seminar draws together an interdisciplinary collection of readings with an aim to provide a foundation for seminar participants¿ projects, both historical and contemporary projects. We will explore critiques of the practice of gathering material, i.e., archival and oral histories as well as delve into experimental forms that combine improvisational approaches to history and critique in an effort to develop a methodological tool kit that allows for a push beyond established projects.

Last offered: Winter 2018

ANTHRO 339: Anthropology of Religion (RELIGST 343X)

This course presents classic and contemporary work on the anthropology of religion: Durkheim Elementary Forms of the Religious Life; Levy-Bruhl; Primitive Mentality; Douglas Purity and Danger; Evans Pritchard Nuer Religion; and recent ethnographies/scholarly work by Robbins, Keane, Keller, Boyer, Barrett, and others. Prerequisite: consent of instructor

Terms: Spr | Units: 5

Instructors: Luhrmann, T. (PI)

ANTHRO 340A: Fit: The Anthropology of Sports, Medicine, and Debility

Sport has long been a domain in which everyday people, medical professionals and political authorities have interfaced with the making of institutional definitions and social norms regarding fitness and debility. This course will challenge students to reflect on that interface through consideration of recent research findings within sociocultural anthropology and allied fields.

Terms: Win | Units: 5

ANTHRO 345: New Visions in Medical Anthropology

Recent experimental histories of the field. Emphasis is on how, working within anthropology's classic format, the ethnographic monograph, authors have innovatively responded to the challenges of representing amorphous, unspoken, and often violent relationships between the body and social change. The authors' expository techniques, and how they engage and extend theoretical debate. How to assess works within medical anthropology and its allied fields. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.