Anthropology

This course introduces some of what anthropologists do with complex social phenomena, what tools they bring, and the significance of their inquiries. The discipline has gone through several historical realignments concerning the relationship between culture, power, colonialism, and representations of difference. Thus, giving a single genealogy of “how we got here” is never going to be complete. Instead, this course is engineered to give a sense of what anthropological methods can do, why they remain relevant in a planetary world, and how the discipline that was once dubbed “the handmaiden of colonialism” can be taken up as a critical practice for confronting our troubled present. If there is one thing that draws many of us to the discipline, it is the conviction that the “big” questions that vex and enliven us take shape in the details of our daily actions, habits, and encounters. Ethnography can be seen as a way of giving an account of how these theaters of operation shape our lives and our world, and as a practice of “learning to learn from that which we cannot understand.”

Through this course, students identify the elements of cultural heritage, both tangible and intangible, as representations of identity; understand the value that each society places on its own culture; examine the appeal that this type of heritage holds for tourists; and develop the ability to promote it within the tourism sector. Additionally, conserving and exhibiting heritage objects in museums, as well as in current exhibition methods, whether on-site or in museum spaces is discussed. 

This course examines anthropological engagements with "nature" and the more-than-human world. It explores how ideas about "nature" have been theorized and critiqued within anthropology, how such ideas are put to work in different world-making projects, and how rethinking human relations with the more-than-human world might offer insights into navigating uncertain ecological times.

This course surveys the topic of gods’ minds: how (we think) they think, what (we think) they want and know, and why they might matter for human relationships. Drawing from many fields including theology, philosophy, cognitive science, cultural anthropology, behavioral economics, and evolutionary biology, this course examines human fascination with the gods from a variety of theoretical and disciplinary perspectives.

This course expands our understanding of the night and considers the range of lessons from such a reflection. It begins with two baseline assumptions. First, the night is not only a time but also a space. This social fact is important when we consider foundational research areas within social science and the humanities, such as urban anthropology. The city at night is significantly different than during the day, in terms of labor, geography, age groups and expressive culture. Second, when we entertain the idea of the night as a time-space, we can begin to think about inequality, one of the keywords of this course. The qualities of the night and our judgments about such qualities influence how social inequalities are expressed. Despite the fact that inequalities are produced/maintained, albeit differently, at night, it is important to emphasize the creative, transgressive energies of darkness. This course is transdisciplinary, meaning that it discusses methods and theories from multiple disciplines (anthropology, history, cultural studies, geography) and moves towards a creative mix for Night Studies. Readings cover cities in Europe, including Aarhus, as well as Latin American and African locales. It also takes into consideration the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the night.

This course examines how the collection, cultivation and consumption of food shapes human society and culture.

This course examines how people around the world are engaging with, and having their lives mediated by, digital technologies. Ethnographies of digital activities have revealed how the constraints and affordances of various platforms are potentiating distinct modes of relationality, communication and experience. At the same time, anthropological research complicates simplistic metanarratives of "the digital" by revealing the use and experience of digital devices to be powerfully shaped by cultural, historical, infrastructural and political-economic context, amongst other factors. By attending to these various insights, the course enables students to develop conceptual frameworks that they can use not only to understand diverse ethnographic case materials, but also to inform their responses to pressing political and ethical questions surrounding "the digital," and to shape future engagements with digital technologies in their personal and professional lives.

Beyond the idea that revolutions are the driving forces of social and political transformation, this course examines revolutions in their historical time as well as across history from the perspective of political anthropology. It uses the concepts of liminality, social dramas, crowd behavior, imitation, tricksters, and meaning formation. These concepts disentangle the study of revolutions from structures and the search for causes and outcomes, as well as from ideology, culture, and agency, opening them to a comparative analysis at the level of process, form, and symbolism. After a theoretical introduction, the course turns its focus on historical experiences of the major socio-political revolutions of the modern era: the "big three" revolutions (French, Russian, and Chinese revolutions); the "third world" (Mexico, Cuba) to eastern Europe in 1989; from Iran (1978-1979) to the Arab Spring (2011). The course concludes by looking back at the main themes covered by the class and examining the prospect for revolutionary change in the contemporary world, thus considering whether the concept of revolution should be consigned, or not, to the "dustbin of history." Students are encouraged to develop comparisons across time and space.

In this course, students explore how anthropology contributes to understanding humanity beyond simply documenting ways of life in different societies. Students learn how anthropologists theorize, interpret, analyze, and explain different ways of life, make these ways of life understandable to outsiders, such as informing policy and development, and build a broader picture of the nature, capacity, and variation of humankind. Students also critically examine the limitations and assumptions of different anthropological approaches, helping them develop a nuanced understanding of the discipline’s methods and contributions.

What does it mean to study religion anthropologically? This course introduces students to anthropological approaches of studying religion. Students explore how anthropologists have struggled to define religion, and what debates and contestations about definition can tell us about the assumptions of classic anthropological understandings of religion, and how our thinking has changed since. Students explore multiple religious beliefs, meanings, experiences, expressions, and practices across diverse sociocultural environments. Through an engagement with anthropological works on ritual, self-cultivation, and joy, students learn how religion is understood, experienced, and expressed.