Anthropology

Waste and recycling seem like every-day, if important, issues with which we are all familiar. But do we actually know what waste is? This course introduces students to the anthropological study of waste, an area that straddles politics, economy, and the environment. Early anthropological studies focused on issues such as the symbolic pollution beliefs associated with persons and substances within a coherent cultural framework. A more recent and clearly defined "anthropology of waste" has taken discards and the regimes of production, labor, and value that generates them, as its central areas of study. This course introduces key theoretical understandings of waste alongside compelling ethnographic accounts of waste work that involves both dignity and discrimination, citizenship, and segregation. 

The course provides an overview of the development of Icelandic culture from early to modern times, with emphasis on contemporary culture and art. Focus is placed on the rapid development of the country from a rural to an urban society during the past decades and the way in which the development has influenced Icelandic music, visual arts, films, theatre, and literature. 

 What is culture? What is technology? How are the two related? What is our relationship with each or both? How do we live in a culture surrounded by technological objects, artifacts, structures, and institutions? How does technology change culture, and vice versa?

This course is designed to provide students with the theoretical tools to begin asking questions for themselves and seeking better answers. The course examines key themes in technology studies that involve the social, political, economic, and cultural contexts in which technological artifacts, services, and platforms are produced, distributed, networked, and used. 

This course introduces students to the key concepts that social anthropologists use in social analysis. It provides introductions to the principal areas of anthropological enquiry, placing kinship, economics, religion, and political life in a cross-cultural comparative context. Bringing these perspectives together, students consider how anthropology shines light on the interconnected nature of life in contemporary global societies.

The course introduces students to literature and debates in the fields of the anthropology of geopolitics and the anthropology of diplomacy. It explores historical expressions of geopolitical projects and processes, focusing on the spatial, cultural, political, and social characteristics of these, the experiences of societies living in contexts shaped by geopolitical processes across the world, and the forms of informal diplomacy that are also an important aspect of the contemporary world (dis)order.

This course discusses the place of philosophical anthropology in the whole of philosophy. It analyzes the differences and relations between philosophical anthropology and positive anthropologies. This course examines different ways of conceiving philosophical anthropology, both historically and systematically, and its basic themes. It also explores theoretical and practical dimensions of philosophical anthropology and connections between this field and the philosophy of action and culture.

This course addresses the following questions: What is the history of Human Rights discourse, and what is the place of Anthropology therein? Should Human Rights be universal or should they be listed or applied with reference to particular cultural worldviews? What critiques of the international human rights regime have been put forth by anthropologists thus far? How can international organizations that promote Human Rights, and state governments that sign on to international human rights legal instruments, benefit from the historical emphasis by the anthropological community on the notion of cultural relativism and respect for diversity? What is the role of NGOs in parallel to Anthropology in these processes? 

The first section of the course includes a revision of the history of International Human Rights Law. The second part addresses the anthropological critique of that body of law and its applications. 

What does anthropology have to say about some of the most important issues facing us today? Anthropologists don't just engage with small-scale exotic societies but have always contributed to public debates about global issues that affect us all. In this course, students examine how concepts and ideas that have driven anthropology help us shed new light on debates that are at the heart of contemporary questions about how our societies work. The issues explored vary from year-to-year, examples include climate change, hunger, well-being, body modification, and human rights.

This course examines the ways in which Paris has, more or less successfully, upheld its position as the fashion capital of the world, through corporate strategies and government policies to bolster an industry, which faces issues related to environmental sustainability and labor ethics. Besides a critical understanding of the economics and politics of Parisian fashion, the class equips students with a thorough knowledge of the social significance of fashion which, in French 19th century author Balzac’s words, “is an expression of society”. How then, has French society shaped and been shaped by fashion? Through lectures, site visits and urban walks through the streets of the city, the students discover the creativity of Parisians, who have mobilized fashion as forms of political and aesthetic expression during some of the most important events of the city, including the 1789 French revolution, the industrial revolution, May 1968, and more recent youth culture and social movements. Students reflect upon historical and current regulations and norms around covering and uncovering our bodies with textile, and what they say about living up to or disregarding social identities and inequalities related to sexual and gender identities, religion, class and racialization. What are the societal consequences of shifting ideals of beauty and style? What does it mean to shop, thrift or mend clothes in Paris today? Whose labor matters and why? And how may one of the World’s most polluting industries evolve to the better in the near future?