• Spring 2007

• Anthropology of Art

This course is an exploration of art as defined and practiced in different cultures. We will look at how peoples of diverse world cultures create, use, manipulate, conceptualize, exchange, and evaluate objects of material culture. We will look at how material items are considered to be artistic or aesthetic in some fashion, and think of how, and if, we can translate those values across cultural boundaries.

Intermediate Level

• (Re)Presenting Culture

Anthropologists use ethnographic writing and films to present cultures to outsiders. Both inscribe/transcribe social life, but the portraits they create differ. Theoretical considerations as well as stylistic conventions influence both the shape and the content of the final product. In this course we examine closely a body of films to explore how each genre (e.g., observational, realist, non-narrative) serves to inscribe experienced/observed realities. Topics addressed include how well does film/video allow for a holistic framework, including historical background? How do visual portrayals conceal or highlight the perspective of the author/filmmaker? What is the relationship between the audience and the subject? To what extent do the subjects of ethnographies have control over how they are represented? Throughout, comparisons with written ethnographies as well as with Hollywood filmmaking influences will be drawn out.

Intermediate Level

• Cultural Localities

This advanced research seminar offers the opportunity for detailed study of the culture of people living in a particular area of the world, including their society, politics, economy, world view, religion, expressive practices, and historical transformations. In the initial segment of the course we will cover shared materials, the second segment is devoted to individual pursuit of a topic, as relevant to a specific peoples or culture. The aim is to explore detailed histories of colonialism, civilization, dictatorships, markets, nationalism, neo-colonialism, and gender relations, as they apply to a specific, contemporary society and the issues that shape it at the beginning of the third millennium. Through readings of literature, colonial theory, anthropology, history, political economy, video documentary, and fieldwork footage, the course provides critical perspectives that form bridges among texts produced by indigenous and exogenous observers.

Advanced Level