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OSPOXFRD 67: Pandemics in Cultural Context

A pandemic is a biological and medical event, but it is also a social one. Medical anthropology studies these intersections and the biosocial and cultural dimensions of health, illness, and disease. This course uses anthropological theory, social science research methods, writing across the humanities, and visual representations to help us understand infectious disease. We will explore broad debates in medical anthropology, though the focus will remain on recent pandemics. In this course, we will explore and unpack many large questions which shape our lives: what is it to be ill? To be healthy? How do we experience and narrate pain and illness, and how might others do so differently? How might health disparities and outcomes be culturally created? In probing these questions, this course will provide students with a framework for critically engaging with discourse on infectious diseases, as well as approaching the social challenges illuminated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Through this course we will learn to approach disease and illness within their specific cultural, political, economic, and ecological contexts.

Terms: Sum | Units: 4-5 | UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI

OSPOXFRD 72: Oxford Fantasists

The lives and selected fantasy literature of famous Oxford alumni William Morris (Exeter College), Lewis Carroll (Christ Church), Oscar Wilde (Magdalen), C.S. Lewis (University and Magdalen), and J.R.R. Tolkien (Exeter, Pembroke, and Merton), looking at each writer's unique take on the fantasy genre. To place readings in context, this course will also explore and compare selected source materials used by these writers, including examples of classic "high" and "low" fairy tales, selections from Norse and Welsh mythology, and Arthurian romance.

Last offered: Autumn 2021 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP

OSPOXFRD 114Z: Political Violence and International Order

Human history is a story of violence and its effects. Scholars have theorized on violence with little agreement. Debates range from definitions of violence to its causes and effects. Scholar or not, every individual has their own conceptualization of violence, which they employ in their daily lives. For many, violence is a harm to be avoided. Depending on the person, this threat can be distant or close. To others, violence is a tool to be used for an objective. Those who use violence intentionally often publicly justify their action. As such, there is a normative element to violence, evidenced in that it is considered something to condemn.Instructor: Samuel Ritholtz

Last offered: Spring 2022 | UG Reqs: WAY-EDP

OSPOXFRD 117W: Gender and Social Change in Modern Britain

Changes in the social institutions, attitudes, and values in Britain over the past 20 years with specific reference to shifts in gender relations. Demographic, economic and social factors; review of theoretical ideas. Men's and women's shifting roles in a fast-moving society.

Last offered: Autumn 2020 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI

OSPPARIS 37: Paris, Maghrebi Capital City

This course explores the ways in which Paris can be seen as a cultural capital city of the Maghreb in the 20th and 21st centuries. It will center on the understanding of the place of the French capital city in the production of writers (including food writers), filmmakers, visual artists, architects, public intellectuals from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, and from the French citizens of the so-called 'second and third generations' of migrant parents from the Maghreb. We will examine foundational works while considering their engagement with the historical and political contexts in which they were produced, conveying the changing aspects of Parisian social landscape in the broader Francophone cultures of Paris (e.g. examining the dialogue with Francophone artists from Sub-Saharan Africa). The diverse topics discussed will include migration, colonialism and decolonization, political and social dissent, national and cultural identity, the politics of language, race and class, gender and more »

This course explores the ways in which Paris can be seen as a cultural capital city of the Maghreb in the 20th and 21st centuries. It will center on the understanding of the place of the French capital city in the production of writers (including food writers), filmmakers, visual artists, architects, public intellectuals from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, and from the French citizens of the so-called 'second and third generations' of migrant parents from the Maghreb. We will examine foundational works while considering their engagement with the historical and political contexts in which they were produced, conveying the changing aspects of Parisian social landscape in the broader Francophone cultures of Paris (e.g. examining the dialogue with Francophone artists from Sub-Saharan Africa). The diverse topics discussed will include migration, colonialism and decolonization, political and social dissent, national and cultural identity, the politics of language, race and class, gender and sexuality, orality and textuality, and transmediterranean dynamics. We will analyse recent initiatives in the realm of commemorative events of the colonial past and its legacy, specifically of diverse controversies facing contemporary French and North African societies today. We will also have the opportunity to interact with some of the authors as special guests: Benjamin Stora, Leïla Slimani, Sophia Aouine, Tarik Oualalou. Class-visits to the Institut du Monde Arabe, Great Mosque of Paris, Palais de la Porte Dorée, Jewish North African quarters (Le Marais, Belleville), cooking class and couscous lunch in the Latin Quarter

Terms: Win | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP

Instructors: Ulloa, M. (PI)

OSPPARIS 77: Literature and Philosophy of Place

Themes of place and displacement in literature and philosophy of the larger French-speaking world, focusing on diasporic writers. Paris as a magnet for artists and thinkers seeking freedom from restrictive environments. Contrast the experiences of characters who are at "home" and those who are "away," the anxieties of exile and of colonialism, how one person's claim on home can be another's experience of being invaded,. Philosophers' analyses of the interdependence of place and identity, place and belonging, the sometimes contradictory nature of 'home,' as they pertain to the literary (fiction, essay, poetry) texts we will read.

Last offered: Spring 2022 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP

OSPPARIS 80: The Body, Race, and Difference in Contemporary France

Using anthropological frames, students will learn to think about the body and its role in everyday life, paying particular attention to the ways that ethnicity, citizenship, race and belonging are lived and experienced in contemporary France. We will work with materials ranging from the colonial collection of human remains that were used to represent French Universalism in museum projects, to cultural artifacts acquired during the colonization of Africa (their circulation and the current debates around them), to interactive ethnographic work with current social organizations centered around the body, rights and health. Broad questions pivot on two fundamental queries: Is the differentiated body a natural fact? When and how have ethnic and multicultural discourses come into play in the cultural context of France where the political categorization of race is legally forbidden?

Last offered: Autumn 2020 | UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI

OSPPARIS 87: Immigration and Citizenship in Comparative Perspectives

International migration patterns have shaped and reshaped individual and collective identities throughout history and across the world. In the present time of globalization, these dynamics have posed particular political and social challenges in both the United States and Europe and have thus commanded the attention of scholars working in diverse disciplines on both sides of the Atlantic. Immigration and citizenship have been among the most central topics in social sciences in the last 25 years. National history in the United States, immigration in the European context is the result of the reconstruction of the economy after WWII and of the decolonization of the 1960s. Today with the settlement of economic and postcolonial migrants the question is raised in terms of integration and national unity, sovereignty and identity. The seminar will emphasize changes and continuity, convergences and divergences among policies, rhetoric and approaches with regard to immigration, incorporation and more »

International migration patterns have shaped and reshaped individual and collective identities throughout history and across the world. In the present time of globalization, these dynamics have posed particular political and social challenges in both the United States and Europe and have thus commanded the attention of scholars working in diverse disciplines on both sides of the Atlantic. Immigration and citizenship have been among the most central topics in social sciences in the last 25 years. National history in the United States, immigration in the European context is the result of the reconstruction of the economy after WWII and of the decolonization of the 1960s. Today with the settlement of economic and postcolonial migrants the question is raised in terms of integration and national unity, sovereignty and identity. The seminar will emphasize changes and continuity, convergences and divergences among policies, rhetoric and approaches with regard to immigration, incorporation and citizenship in Western democracies. New developments with regard to migration policies and their effect on identity politics, institutional arrangements, multiculturalism, secularism and religion, as well as on the modes of organization, mobilizations and claims of immigrants or minorities will be analyzed. Based on empirical researches, theoretical reflections and normative considerations, the seminar will question will the terms of citizenship, membership and allegiance, and the changing relationship between citizenship, rights, identities, culture and politics. Primary language: French

Terms: Aut | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI

Instructors: Kastoryano, R. (PI)

OSPPARIS 94: Paris noir and the spaces of otherness

Paris and the African-American diaspora have been historically intertwined through political activism, literature, architecture, cinema, music, and beyond. In this course we will map the spatial presence of the avant-garde of African-American artists in Paris and how their being in the City of Light has inherently shaped the French Capital and its understanding of alterity throughout the twentieth and the twenty-first century. We will not only focus on the Parisian connections and the long-lasting imprint they left on Paris by othering the urban landscape, offering alternative conceptions of the parisian territories for generations of Black and non-Black artists to come, but also on their own journeys of self-discovering and intellectual awakening in the streets of Paris: how Paris transforms them and how they transform Paris. From Richard Wright to Beyonc¿, from James Baldwin to Ta-Nehisi Coates, from Josephine Baker to Thomas Chatterton Williams, from Beverly Loraine Greene to Angela more »

Paris and the African-American diaspora have been historically intertwined through political activism, literature, architecture, cinema, music, and beyond. In this course we will map the spatial presence of the avant-garde of African-American artists in Paris and how their being in the City of Light has inherently shaped the French Capital and its understanding of alterity throughout the twentieth and the twenty-first century. We will not only focus on the Parisian connections and the long-lasting imprint they left on Paris by othering the urban landscape, offering alternative conceptions of the parisian territories for generations of Black and non-Black artists to come, but also on their own journeys of self-discovering and intellectual awakening in the streets of Paris: how Paris transforms them and how they transform Paris. From Richard Wright to Beyonc¿, from James Baldwin to Ta-Nehisi Coates, from Josephine Baker to Thomas Chatterton Williams, from Beverly Loraine Greene to Angela Davis & Black Lives Matter in Paris : exploring how the pioneers of the Afro-American parisian diaspora paved the way for the future generations of Paris noir. From Caf¿ Tournon to the Louvre museum, from Montparnasse to La Sorbonne, from the Unesco headquarters co-designed by Beverly Loraine Greene the First African-American woman to be a registered architect in the USA, we will explore the ways those parisian territories, symbols of power, knowledge and French (non) art de vivre came to define the socio-political Paris of Afro-American artists and public intellectuals, and to refine their intimate vision of America from a distance.

Terms: Aut | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP

Instructors: Ulloa, M. (PI)

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