Anthropology

The anthropological approach to the study of culture and human society. Using ethnographic case studies, the course explores the universality of cultural categories (social organization, economy, law, belief systems, arts, etc.) and the range of variation among human societies.

This course focuses on some of the present, and possible future, socio-ecological conditions of life on planet
earth. In particular we will work to understand the historic, economic, political, and socio-cultural forces that
created the conditions we call climate change. With this we will take a particular interest in the question of how
race, ethnicity, Indigeneity, class, and gender articulate with the material effects of climate change. The course
also focuses on how we, as scholars, citizens, and activists can work to alter these current conditions in ways
that foster social and ecological justice for all living beings. Although we will ground our scholarship in
anthropology, to encourage interdisciplinary and even transdisciplinary thought, weekly readings will be drawn
from across scholarly and activist canons. While becoming familiar with scholarly and activist conversations
about space and place, risk and vulnerability, and ontology and epistemology, we will work through a series of
recent events as case studies to understand causes, effects, affects, and potential solutions.

This course centers on the constantly changing ambivalent everyday lived realities, experiences, interpretations as well as the multiple meanings of Islam and focuses less on the study of Islam as a discursive tradition. Furthermore, the course challenges stereotypes of Islam, and of people who one way or another can be called Muslims; most often perceived as a homogenous category through which all Muslim societies are imagined. The course is divided into six parts. The first part introduces the idea of “anthropology of Islam” through different readings in anthropology and various, experiences, practices, dimensions of Islam as a relationship between humans and God. In the second part, the focus is to listen to Islam and connect the different sonic bodies of Islam to power and politics. The third part interrogates preconceived ideas about Islam, gender, feminism, and agency. The fourth part studies Islam, body, sexuality and eroticism. The fifth part is concerned with Islam, youth culture, identity, belonging and rebellion. The last part critically analyzes Islam, modernity, orientalism, post-colonialism and not least today’s fear and notion of imagined enemies.

This course will explore contemporary anthropological approaches to the issue of violence with an exploration of three particular themes. Our main focus will be on the idea of representation, ethnographically and theoretically, of the concept of violence. First, we will look at how violence has been situated as an object of study within anthropology, as a theoretical concept as well as in practice. We will then look at the issue of terrorism and how anthropology as a discipline contributes to understanding this particular form of violence. Finally, we will consider gender-based violence with close attention to the colonial/post-colonial settings where Islam is a salient factor. Gender based violence is one of the main forces producing and reproducing gender inequality. We will pay particular attention to the concept of the 'Muslim woman' in both the colonial and colonized imagination.

This course explores the social, cultural, and political dimensions of water primarily through ethnographic studies, in a variety of geographic and spatial contexts, that engage both with water itself and with the things that surround and mix with it (pipes, walls, ditches, dirt, waste, sugar). Anthropology encourages us to consider water in its myriad arrangements and meanings—water can be dynamic, vital, threatening, toxic, a material through which our lives are structured and governed. Its relevance has only become heightened amid the constraints and hazards of climatic and sociopolitical change. We will be attentive to the many forms and combinations that characterize water’s place in our world, finding inspiration in its liquid ways while taking care not to become too occupied with its metaphorical qualities. The course is divided into thematic areas that have taken on critical weight and urgency in recent years: water futures, infrastructure and power, urban ecologies, and (de)colonial waters.