Anthropology

This course focuses on the performativity of engaged citizenship through an array of practices that includes theoretical discussion and experiential learning, especially through the lens of creative activism and decolonial practice. The first part of the course is acquainted with a historical and theoretical framework in which debates on engaged citizenship will be raised, especially touching on issues regarding rights and democracy (sovereignty and subjectivity, non/territorial and psychological citizenship), Western and non-Western conceptions of citizenship (indigenous movements, migration, decolonial politics) as well as issues of inclusion and exclusion (feminist and queer critique, racial politics, planetary citizenship, civil disobedience). The theoretical part of the course develops activist, relational, and post-national accounts of citizenship. The second half is taught from a media and performance studies lens, centering on decolonial theory and experience-based learning. Students learn how to sketch, plan, and enact “micro-actions” - on and off campus, live or mediated - and thereby probe concepts of engaged citizenship. The practice-based exercises (such as live-action prompts, improvisation, visual projection, culture jamming, and tactical media) are oriented towards a plural, diverse, and open society, earth justice, and planetary citizenship.

This course aims to provide a range of qualitative research tools to invoke different stories, views, voices, identities, embodimenets and experiences. We discuss the theory, methodology and foundation of non-textual research methods. These different methods are hoped to provoke a new way of thinking away from the Western canon, contribute to more democratic and just research settings, and open up possibilities for transforming social inequalities. Through readings, class discussions, lectures from invited guests, and practical exercises students will explore the potentials and challenges of various methods, identify opportunities to use them, and consider how to treat and deal with data that comes out of the use of creative methods. This course is suitable for anyone who would like to experience and learn more about alternative and/or complementary methods to existing qualitative approaches (i.e. focus groups, interviews). It is of advantage if participants have prior experience of and with qualitative research. Participants at the early, middle and final stages of a qualitative research project will benefit, but if possible, it is best to consider data collection and analysis at the proposal stage.

In this course, students learn about contemporary archaeological and anthropological perspectives in the study of material culture. Questions that come up include: why the summer solstice is celebrated at Stonehenge; how houses differ across cultures; why we give each other gifts and wrap them; and how clothing gives us identity? Studying human-object relations from a range of perspectives, students explores the role of materiality and the consumer society.

This course introduces students to some key ideas and debates around human kinship and relationality; in other words, how humans relate to one another and how relationships are formed, maintained, severed, and conceptualized. In this way, the unit explores what constitutes kin, friends, lovers, and others. The study of relationality forms the foundation of anthropology, but also offers fascinating insights into what it means to be human in a range of historical and global contexts. Drawing on both classic and contemporary material from the study of kinship and beyond, the course traverses themes of marriage, reproduction, love, parenting, friendship, sexuality, reproductive technologies, and relations with non-humans. Students learn the wider significance of the topics to the interpretation and analysis of human societies more broadly. 

This course examines myths and rituals associated with the ancient world. It focuses on topics in the literature and material culture of antiquity including the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, the myths of Homer, Greek tragedy, Roman epic, epitaphs commemorating the deceased, and archaeological evidence from funerary and other ritual contexts.

This course adopts an interdisciplinary perspective to examine Korean digital cultures. The course covers topics ranging from the local histories of the internet and digital media to its censorship in the South and the North; from online activism to mukbang micro-celebrities and Instagram influencers; from right-wing trolls of ilbe to K-pop virtual idols; from gamers subcultures to Seoul's experiments with the metaverse. 

This course explores what infrastructure is, what infrastructure does, and what the study of infrastructure can contribute to anthropological knowledge. Topics include: the promise of infrastructure; how infrastructure can broaden our understanding of the political; what happens when infrastructure does not work, remains unfinished, or fails; how infrastructure challenges or supports social inequalities and discriminations; and how alternative infrastructure can be imagined. Drawing on a range of ethnographic case studies, the course advances the capacity to interpret existing materialities and structures, including their failures and unintended consequences; as well provides a solid understanding of some of the key theories and analytical approaches that inform this field of study, and their methodological and ethical implications.