Anthropology

The mythologically masculine figure of the creative genius has often been employed to minimize and excuse violence against marginalized people. In exchange for great art, audiences might be more than willing to look the other way when women, people of color, queer people and children get hurt. With the arrival of social media, the violent price of art by monstrous men has become harder to ignore. Their crimes are all over the internet. When knowledge of the wrongdoings by artists spread, it becomes challenging for fans to ignore the reprehensible behavior of people like Michael Jackson, Roman Polanski, Louis CK, Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, Kevin Spacey and R. Kelly. In this course, we reflect on the dilemma this leaves for audiences: How do we deal with great art made by horrible people? Students will learn how to make use of an intersectional feminist toolbox to engage with questions like: -- Does art have to be moral? -- Can we separate art from artist? Is this dependent on the medium? -- Is the audience complicit or culpable if they continue consuming the work created by monstrous men? -- How does the art by monstrous men play into discussions around individual taste and political identity as shaped by cultural consumption? -- What do strategies of ethical cultural consumption look like? -- Can we have harmless, morally sound cultural products in patriarchal, white supremacist capitalism? -- What is “woke capitalism” and does canceling culture ever work? -- What do accountability and consequences look like? -- Can monstrous men redeem themselves through confessions, apologies and contrition?

This course introduces students to the history, archaeology, art, and texts of Ancient Egypt, from the Paleolithic age to the end of the New Kingdom. It covers the development of low-level food producing communities living in the eastern Sahara, to the emergence and growth of the complex society responsible for the construction of some of the world’s most spectacular and (now) famous monuments such as the pyramids of Giza, and the temples of Karnak and Abu Simbel. The course includes studies of many diverse sources for the history and culture of Egypt, including art and sculpture, administrative, monumental, personal, and religious texts, settlements, temples, and tombs, and material culture such as ceramics, stone tools, wooden artefacts, plants, and animal remains. Additionally, the course introduces students to the history of Egyptology, and archaeology in Egypt. 
 

The course introduces foreign students to Icelandic folk culture past and present: from the folk beliefs implied by the Icelandic sagas to the famous collection of folk tales concerning "hidden people", elves, magicians, seal-folk, ghosts and more which was published by Jón Árnason in 1862-64; the ballads and music enjoyed by the people in the countryside; and the beliefs, behavior, and lifestyles encountered by the somewhat dumbfounded and awe-inspired early foreign travelers to Iceland during the last century. Students are introduced to modern Icelandic traditions and beliefs, from the Christmas men to the "elf stones" that road builders avoid, to the eating of sheep heads, and the continual interest in the supernatural. 

This course examines ecological anthropology, focusing on social and cultural adaptations to different environments, human impact on the environment, cultural constructions of the environment, management of common resources, and conflict over the use of resources.

This course examines anthropological approaches to foodways and agricultural sustainability. It considers how small-scale producers and their communities fulfill their basic needs, and how they relate to the living world, including the plants and animals that are the sources of valued foods. It also undertakes the critical analysis of food movements, food systems and the socio-economic contexts of food provisioning and food production, particularly through ethnography.

The course offers a study of the conceptual framework of cultural heritage, from the theoretical point of view and the application of national and international legislation, to the reality of the expressions present in Chile today. It uses case studies, bibliographic reviews, and practical work in the field, to discuss the problems related to initiatives to safeguard and protect the intangible, material, and natural areas of cultural heritage.

This course focuses on the basic elements of the history of anthropological research in the Americas. It provides a general overview of indigenous America and the tools to begin to undertake an ethnographic analysis of the indigenous Americas. The course is divided into two parts. In the first part, the topic of colonization is discussed, the category of “indigenous” is defined, and the issue of indigenous rights is exposed. In the second part of the course, some contemporary ethnographies are presented to understand the ethnographic analysis of the indigenous Americas.

The human body offers historians a gateway onto understanding the cultures of the past. On this course students examine several groups of objects from the visual culture of medieval Europe and the Middle East through this contemporary theoretical lens, examining how the techniques and society of the medieval craftsman at once idolized and distorted the medieval body's forms. In previous years this course has also featured a study trip to museums and galleries in London to meet with curators and handle objects.

This course provides a study on the social structure of Spain taking into account trends of social inequality, social stratification and mobility, family life, labor markets and new forms of cultural diversity. 

This course examines people and cultures. Women and men, merchants and monks, Christians and Jews all formed the cultures, classes and statuses which constituted late medieval European society. The study themes of this course focus on the means by which ideas, cultures and expectations were constructed and transmitted, and include topics such as healthcare, civic life, the body, gender and sexuality, religious beliefs and practices, otherness, death, political theory, art and architecture, travel.