ANTH 240 - Cultural Localities

Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1 unit(s)

Detailed study of the cultures of people living in a particular area of the world, including their politics, economy, worldview, religion, expressive practices, and historical transformations. Included is a critical assessment of different approaches to the study of culture. Areas covered vary from year to year and may include Europe, Africa, North America, India and the Pacific.

May be repeated for credit if the topic has changed.

Topic for 2023/24a: Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa. (Same as AFRS 240 ) This course introduces students to the anthropological study of the region commonly referred to as “the Middle East” – a modern geographical concept encompassing the Eastern Mediterranean, parts of Southwest and Central Asia, North Africa, and the Arabian Peninsula. Through close engagement with scholarly texts, films, photographs, literature, and music, we will bring an ethnographic perspective to wide-ranging human experiences across the Middle East, with an emphasis on dynamics of historical transformation, cultural production and circulation, identity formation, and inequality. By exposing students to the diverse histories and everyday lives of people in this multiethnic, multilingual, and multireligious region, the course invites students to challenge common media portrayals of the Middle East as a monolithic, territorially bounded place defined by a single, unchanging “culture.” Exploring topics including racial capitalism, empire, war, the state, ecology, displacement, gender, and revolution, this course is organized around a series of cross-cutting anthropological themes that not only recast many taken-for-granted stereotypes about the Middle East, but offer a critical vantage point from which to think differently about the world. China Sajadian.

Topic for 2023/24b: Atlantic Worlds. (Same as AFRS 240 and ASIA 240 ) Scholars use the Atlantic World as a shorthand for talking about the peoples who inhabit the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and its marginal seas, and who are interconnected by histories of imperial expansion, enslavement, commerce, and migration. Imperial conquest led to the displacement and decimation of indigenous peoples, while slavery, indenture, and trade led and the creation of African, Asian, and European diasporas in the Americas. These processes gave birth to capitalism and imperialism as well as the ideals of freedom and universal rights. This course introduces the diasporas, empires, and economic flows that integrate the Caribbean, Africa, the Americas, and Europe. Using ethnographies, histories, narratives, music, and film, we explore the processes that continue to shape the peoples, languages, and cultures of the Atlantic World. We also critically examine the strengths and limitations of concepts and theoretical frameworks used to produce knowledge about the peoples and histories of the Atlantic world. Topics include imperialism and its legacies, (de)colonization, capitalism, slavery, indenture, marronage, piracy, revolution, abolition, creolization, race, class, and gender. Louis Römer.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS