Feb 17, 2025  
Catalogue 2013-2014 
    
Catalogue 2013-2014 [ARCHIVED CATALOG] Add to Portfolio (opens a new window)

ANTH 260 - Current Themes in Anthropological Theory and Method

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)


The focus is upon particular cultural sub-systems and their study in cross-cultural perspective. The sub-system selected varies from year to year. Examples include: kinship systems, political organizations, religious beliefs and practices, verbal and nonverbal communication.

Topic for 2013/14a: Virtually Mediated Social Worlds. This is a class designed to explore a set of emerging questions about the virtual- or computer- mediated character of contemporary social worlds. The class will consider three broad themes in the literature: 1) the significance for human social life of the possibility of living in multiple, parallel social worlds; 2) the relationships that obtain between computer-mediated “virtual worlds” and other forms of sociability (e.g., “actual worlds” characterized by social differentiation and local forms of cultural imagination); and 3) methodological questions about the proper ethnographic or discourse-based ways to study virtually-mediated social worlds. Students will complete a research project in which they participate in and make observations about some online, virtual world. May be repeated for credit if the topic has changed. Mr. Smith.

Prerequisite(s): previous coursework in Anthropology or permission of the instructor.

Two 75-minute periods.



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