Anthropology

This course focuses on the history and culture of the Africans in the diaspora on the African continent (especially West Africa) and the Americas (North America, the Caribbean, and South America). The course examines major issues and conditions in Africa that sent many people into diaspora communities in Africa. Specific issues considered in this direction are those related to Islamic Jihads, Trans-Saharan Trade, Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, Colonialism, and plantation slavery in West Africa, as these events led to the relocation and redistribution of African populations in Africa. Additionally, the course reviews archaeological evidence that provides insights into the historical experiences of the African Diaspora as seen from the Americas.

This course explores archaeological cultural heritage in East and Southeast Asia and how material remains of past human behavior in this broad region play an active role in shaping human perceptions of self and others in the present day. Archaeological cultural heritage as an academic field and as a profession is rapidly evolving in East and Southeast Asia, with governmental policy making, political motivations such as nation-building and nationalistic agendas, globalization, economic expansion and development, and many other factors shaping choices for how and why archaeological sites, objects, architecture, and landscapes are preserved, protected, and presented. This course focuses on these political roles of archaeological cultural heritage and examines them in conceptual and theoretical terms using a necessarily anthropological, interdisciplinary approach with models and methods from archaeology, critical museology, material cultural theory, postcolonial theory, and memory studies, among others. Case studies from around East and Southeast Asia, including Taiwan, mainland China, Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, and Malaysia serve to provide insight into the relationship between archaeological heritage and nationalism to explore such related issues as the domination of Eurocentrism in heritage practice and theory (and see new alternatives arising); heritage's role in identity and ideology; contested ownership; commodification and value; memorialization and "dark heritage" (e.g., post-conflict or post-trauma sites); indigenous and minority rights and stakeholding; the impact of looting and the illicit antiquities trade; and heritage tourism.

Gender and kinship are key issues in anthropology. Drawing on a cross-cultural perspective, and with a view to critical reflection, the course explores the kinds of contemporary phenomena that kinship and gender help to elucidate and how these two core modes of relatedness come together. As this course demonstrates, both kinship and gender are central to our understandings of contemporary societies.

This interdisciplinary course examines historical and current social movements in Paris against social and economic disenfranchisement and discrimination based on citizenship, migratory status, racialization, gender, and sexuality. It introduces a wide range of activist tools and historical and current struggles for the access to health, education, and labor rights and against police violence, detention, and incarceration. The course introduces and reflects on a variety of ways of documenting social justice and injustice in France, ranging from documentary film and photography; reports and investigations led by state agencies and non-profit organizations and networks; and museography and artistic expressions. Through urban walks, the course explores spaces of disenfranchisement and gentrification and pays attention to official and non-official memory work, such as monuments, graffiti, and street art in the Parisian city-scape that contribute to commemorate of render invisible specific struggles for social justice.

This course offers an introduction to Māori analyses of topics that are often discussed and sometimes controversial, and that continue to shape contemporary life in New Zealand. Topics include aspects of world view, philosophy and social organization; the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Waitangi and European immigration; and contemporary issues including Treaty claims, ownership of the foreshore and seabed and constitutional issues.

Ghana Society and Culture II is a follow-up to Ghana Society and Culture and builds upon the skills acquired in the first semester. This course is purely a Research class with three-week intensive field work in subject areas such as History, Political Science, Sociology, Geography, Public Health, Gender and Development and others. The course has 15 hours of lectures/seminar and over 80 hours of field interactions. 

This course explores the intersection between food cultures and food politics, with an eye towards arguments and debates that have animated French culinary culture. How is food a portal for studying the changing dynamics of cities, global systems, and national identity? In what ways has food been employed to construct notions of community and belonging? Through discussions of interdisciplinary course readings, reporting and writing assignments, and excursions around the city of Paris, students consider how food structures identities, everyday practices, and political lives. Topics include food as a lens through which to study power and social relations in national, global, and local contexts; French culinary concepts, debates, and institutions as contested and dynamic ideas; everyday food practices in Paris; and food cultures and food politics in France and the United States.