61 - 70 of 199 results for: ANTHRO

What role does technology play in society, and vice-versa? This course considers the question from an anthropological perspective, pairing different conceptual models of social-technical relations (Social Constructivism, Actor-Network Theory, Cyborg Anthropology) with real world examples. Through such technologies as factory machines, trains, Bakelite, slot machines, computers, missiles, and PET scanners, students will gain insights both on how the social suffuses the mundane objects around us, and how technologies have radically redefined how we see the world.

What is masculinity? How are masculinities invested with power and meaning in cultural contexts? How is anthropological attention to them informed by and extending inquiry across the academy in spheres such as culture studies, political theory, gender studies, history, and science and technology studies? Limited enrollment.

This course seeks to divert attention away from bleak fantasies of an impending AI apocalypse that would be unleashed by ¿the blind and irresponsible advent of oppressively dehumanizing technology¿ and instead highlight the oppressive ¿human¿ elements that structure how AI is imagined, researched, designed, produced and utilized. The aim of the course is to analyze how culture at large influences the development of AI and how, or to what extent, AI reproduces political and moral structures of human societies.nnWhat makes us, and even Silicon Valley tycoons, become afraid of science-fictional fantasies of nonhuman villains to wipe the human race, while we easily shrug off rampant racism or sexism that is reproduced and reinforced by ¿algorithms of oppression¿? What kind of political and cultural elements influence the mostly invisible political economy of how AI, machine learning and deep learning is designed, produced and utilized as a commodity by some of the most powerful corporations in contemporary global economy? In short, how does human culture at large configure within the scientific and technological research into and development of non-human intelligence?nnAnthropology has a long history of researching about human-technology interaction and often joins forces with History of Science and Science and Technology Studies. In that spirit, we will cover a wide array of literature on the historical development of academic research on cognitive science, philosophy of mind, consciousness, machine learning, deep learning, cybernetics and robotics. However, the primary aim of the course is to offer a meta-perspective on the ¿cultural aspects¿ of how these topics have been studied and practiced by entrepreneurs, research scientists, engineers, philosophers and futurists, and not the disciplinary knowledge generated by research on these topics.nnApart from ethnographic and historic researches about how AI is studied and produced, we will utilize works by theoretical cultural critics, historians and philosophers, like Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway, Michel Foucault, as well as Gilbert Ryle, Daniel Dennett and David Chalmers. Furthermore, we will heavily rely on cultural images, fantasies and narratives about artificial intelligence in literature, arts and cinema. To that effect, we will watch a wide array of movies and will interactively analyze these cultural works in class, asking to what extent they represent actual research into and development of AI.

Waste is increasingly central as an object and medium of political contestation in the contemporary world, from struggles over garbage, labor, and dignity in Senegal; to explosive remnants of war acting as rogue infrastructure in the Korean demilitarized zone. In response, waste has also become a productive concept in the environmental humanities and humanistic social sciences. In this course we will read a selection of foundational texts focused on waste, many of which draw on case studies from different parts of the world. The case of China will be emphasized, however, since China has emerged in the last few decades as a center not only of global industrial production, but also for processing the world¿s waste, contesting pollution, and fighting for environmental justice. By pairing key theoretical texts with texts dealing with waste-related issues in China and elsewhere, we will ultimately ask how contemporary global waste politics disrupts western understandings of waste, recycling, value, and more.

This course looks at human mobility from an anthropological perspective. We will read texts that ethnographically explore the experiences of refugees, labor migrants, tourists and seafarers, among others. In particular, we will look at the intersection of physical mobility and social mobility, as people often move in order to improve their life, to increase safety or economic security, or to gain social capital. However, the mobility perspective has also been criticized for depoliticizing and celebrating movement without critical attention to its socio-political and economic context. While mobility as a term points to the ability to move, human migration is at least as often characterized by restrictions and obstacles to movement, such as borders. We will think critically about the deep inequalities that exist in terms of why and how people move, and who are able to mobilize resources to move.

Pundits proclaim that the 2016 Presidential election marks the rise of white identity politics in the United States. Drawing from the field of whiteness studies and from contemporary writings that push whiteness studies in new directions, this upper-level seminar asks, does white identity politics exist? How is a concept like white identity to be understood in relation to white nationalism, white supremacy, white privilege, and whiteness? We will survey the field of whiteness studies, scholarship on the intersection of race, class, and geography, and writings on whiteness in the United States by contemporary public thinkers, to critically interrogate the terms used to describe whiteness and white identities. Students will consider the perils and possibilities of different political practices, including abolishing whiteness or coming to terms with white identity. What is the future of whiteness? n*Enrolled students will be contacted regarding the location of the course.

What does it mean to want to help, to organize humanitarian aid, in times of crisis? At first glance, the impulse to help issue generis a good one. Helping is surely preferable to indifference and inaction. This does not mean that humanitarian interventions entail no ethical or political stakes or that they are beyond engaged critique. We need to critique precisely that which we value, and to ask some hard questions, among them these: What are the differences among humanitarianism, charity, and philanthropy? What of social obligations and solidarities? How does the neoliberal world order currently create structural inequalities that ensure the reproduction of poverty and violence? How does the current order of things resemble or differ from the colonial world order? This course examines the history of humanitarian sensibilities and the emergence of organized action in the 'cause of humanity'. In the early years of humanitarian intervention, political neutrality was a key principle; it has now come under ever greater analytical and political scrutiny. We will examine the reasons for the politicization and militarization of aid -- be it humanitarian aid in natural disasters or political crises; development programs in the impoverished south ('the Third World'), or peace-keeping. We will end with a critical exploration of the concept of human rights, humanity, and personhood. The overall methodological aim of the course is to demonstrate what insights an ethnographic approach to the politics, ethics, and aesthetics of humanitarianism can offer.

The course discusses the politics and practices of exhumation of individual and mass graves. The problem of exhumations will be considered as a distinct socio-political phenomenon characteristic of contemporary times and related to transitional justice. The course will offer analysis of case studies of political exhumations of victims of the Dirty War in Argentina, ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia, the Holocaust, communist violence in Poland, the Rwandan genocide, and the Spanish Civil War. The course will make use of new interpretations of genocide studies, research of mass graves, such as environmental and forensic approaches.

This course will explore historical as well as current market transformations of medical ethics in different global contexts. We will examine various aspects of the research enterprise, its knowledge-generating and life-saving goals, as well as the societal, cultural, and political influences that make medical research a site of brokering in need of oversight and emergent ethics.nThis seminar will provide students with tools to explore and critically assess the various technical, social, and ethical positions of researchers, as well as the role of the state, the media, and certain publics in shaping scientific research agendas. We will also examine how structural violence, poverty, global standing, and issues of citizenship also influence issues of consent and just science and medicine.