Anthropology

This course introduces a selection of the main theoretical works in the Western tradition. The readings present some of the most important ideas in the history of thought, including contributions to philosophy, religion, politics, and science. Different approaches to the reading of theoretical texts are discussed and evaluated, including close reading, historical contextualization, and various critical interpretations. 

In this course, students learn about various research tools, such as participant observation and qualitative interviewing. Students learn how to take field notes and are introduced to various forms of interviewing, such as the structured interview, the in-depth interview, focus groups, and life history interviews. Taking field notes and interviewing are practiced in and outside of the classroom. Moreover, students are guided through the process of crafting a feasible research question and the appropriate design for future studies they conduct. The research questions provide the basis for students' investigations. What is to be investigated is entirely up to the student(s). However, they are provided with guidance in the formulation of their topics. In this course, students have to conduct at least one interview, thus they need to have access to a tape recorder and/or video camera. This is a time and labor-intensive skills training, especially once the data collection has begun. Most of the required work is done outside of the class setting. Students are expected to work independently and should count on having to invest an extra two to four hours per week in interviewing, transcribing the interviews, and working on the data analysis. This course is for students with a background or sincere interest in sociology, anthropology, and/or cultural studies.

This course examines the concept of gender and its use in social anthropology. Topics covered include: cultural models of gender; gender and power; sociocultural constructs of femininity and masculinity; gender and motherhood; violence against women.

This course offers a study of marriage and sexuality in the classical sources of rabbinic Judaism. It focuses on the development of these concepts in the Judaism of antiquity and compare them to similar ideas of sexuality in the surrounding Greco-Roman and Christian cultures.

This course examines what is artificial intelligence (AI); current uses of AI in society; frameworks for ethical AI, including fairness, accountability and safety; technical responses, including transparency and explainability in AI; legal regimes, including privacy, consumer law, discrimination and human rights law; public and private accountability; uses of AI in the workplace; AI home assistants; autonomous vehicles; AI and robots in medicine; AI in media, including social media platforms; AI in decision-making by governments, courts, police and other public institutions; and military uses of AI.

This course takes an anthropological approach to the questions of why and how media matter. More specifically, the anthropology of media explores media as cultural practices and investigates how people navigate and create media worlds. It draws ethnographic attention to the socio-cultural contexts of media and poses questions about how media fit into societies at large.

This course introduces the major concerns, methods and ongoing debates of this new and vibrant field. Drawing on case studies from around the world (but mostly from East Asia), we explore how media practices are defined not only by available technologies but also by societal infrastructures and cultural needs; how the actual circulation of media escapes the desires and intentions of media producers; how media audiences appropriate mass media to their own ends; how old and new media are implicated in social and political change; how media shape national, ethnic and gender identities; and what challenges these complexities present to researchers of media.

The course focuses on anthropologists' discussion of art. Different definitions of the concept are considered and, in that context, the relation of art to aesthetics and ethics. Answers are sought to the question of whether all work that appears artistic to westernized perception is indeed so to those who produce this work. Authorship, authenticity, and problems arising from the interaction between different cultural traditions are considered. In order to shed light on these issues various ethnographic studies throughout the world are studied.

This course explores the theme of the three-dimensional or physical manifestations of Scotland's traditional culture systems through a series of thematic case studies. Emphasis is placed upon the examination of material culture exchange and development in relation to such issues as status, ethnicity and identity. Within this framework, form and function, aesthetics and semiotics are explored from an ethnological stance.