Anthropology

This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to the phenomenon of humor, combining literary studies, culture studies, rhetoric, philosophy, ethics, psychology, and political theory. The course presents a historical introduction, comparing examples of humor and comedy from different parts of the world and different eras, focusing on the political power of laughter and comedy. Key concepts like satire, irony, parody, black humor, wit, resistance, subversion, absurd humor etc. are clarified and major philosophical theories of humor are discussed. The main focus of the course is Czech culture and the many ways humor is present in it. Was communism a “regime that was laughed out of existence”? Why did Czechoslovak citizens find absurd humour so relatable? Is there “nothing sacred” for Czechs? Apart from literary masterpieces by Hašek, Kafka, Havel, Kundera and others, the course takse a look at comedy in theater (Jára Cimrman Theatre), film (Czechoslovak New Wave) and other forms of art. The readings always include an excerpt from a humorous text and a short theoretical text pertaining to the type of humor or the problem presented. From the divine to the obscene, from the hyper-intellectual to the nonsensical, from practical jokes to political satire, the rich palette of humor provides a unique view of Czech culture.

This course critically examines the archaeology of Ireland during the high medieval period from c.1100 until the second half of the 14th century. The background to the coming of the Anglo-Normans to Ireland in 1169 and the impact they had on the landscape are discussed in depth in the first part of the course. Themes for this section of the course include the role of castles, the manorial economy, trade, the foundation of villages, rural boroughs, and towns by mostly English immigrants and the growth of certain cities. Dispersed settlement in Anglo-Norman parts of eastern Ireland are also explored. In particular, in the first part of the course, the interplay between castle, town, and countryside in Anglo-Norman Ireland is examined in detail.

This course provides the analytical tools required to connect and address the historical, philosophical, and political dimensions in the climate crisis. The first part of the course explores the development of the idea of humans as global agents; an idea which has culminated in the notion of “The Anthropocene,” the geological epoch that ends the Holocene. It examines the conceptual and technological conditions that have enabled us to think in terms of a global climate crisis and the ways in which this history continues to shape how we think about solutions and futures in a world of climate change. Part of this is also to reconsider the relations between the human and the natural sciences in a situation in which the nature-culture distinction may have lost its meaning. The course then encourages an adjustment of human self-understanding in light of the proclamation of our time as the Anthropocene, raising ontological as well as ethical issues, which burst the time frames as well as our understanding of responsibility for climate change as we know it. It examines the consequences of the collapse of the nature-culture distinction and the distinction between earth history and world history, and explores alternative conceptual models of framing our current situation. The final part of the course develops further the political and ethical implications of the climate crisis. It discusses the relationship between the global climate crisis and economic inequality and investigates the political dimensions (is the future of the planet a form of world government – a climate leviathan?) and the ethical dilemmas (what are the responsibilities of individuals, between societies and across generations?). 

This course explores the place of food in art in France, with a focus on the modern and contemporary periods. The course studies representations of food as a means to survey the evolution of French art within a global context, and as significant markers of social, ethnic, and cultural identity. An analysis of these depiction provides the opportunity to learn about dietary and dining customs, habits and beliefs prevalent in France from the early modern period to the present. The course begins by decoding the archetypal representations of succulent food in the still life and genre painting of 16th-17th century Holland, then examines how the rise of these previously minor artistic genres in 18th century France coincided with the birth of French gastronomy. Frivolous depictions of aristocrats wining, dining, and indulging in exotic beverages like coffee and hot chocolate then give way in post-Revolutionary France to visions of austerity and “real life,” featuring potato-eating peasants. The focus then shifts to representations of food and dining in the age of modernity, when Paris was the undisputed capital of art, luxury, haute cuisine, and innovation. Drawing from these pictorial and social innovations, the course observes the place of food and dining themes in the avant-garde movements of early 20th-century Paris. The course questions the place of food—or its absence--in art to capture the suffering and violence of upheavals like the Second World War. The course considers the place of food and dining in contemporary art: from the Pop Art movement calling into question postwar consumer society through its representations of industrialized, mass-produced food; to contemporary creators in a plural and globalized art scene who use these traditional themes to challenge the status and roles of the artist, the spectator, and the work of art itself; to how depictions of food in visual art grapple with multiculturalism in France today.

This course covers twenty-first century Korean popular culture - from the Hallyu (Korean Wave) phenomenon to cultures of popular protest, including the Minjung movement; culture industry and mass culture; consumption cultures; fandom cultures; globalization of Korean food, as well as emerging cybercultures. Utilizing an anthropological perspective, the course situates these phenomena within issues of class, gender and ethnicity in South Korea.

This course covers research design and ethnographic fieldwork in anthropology. It integrates an understanding of Chinese and North American social and cultural systems through written exercises and ethnographic practices. It places students’ fieldwork experiences within a framework of the Chinese and North American contexts to provide students with conceptual and methodological tools for approaching their field placements.

The aim of this course is emphatically not to answer the question of the definition of culture, nor is it to provide a history of the development of culture. Rather, the course starts from the notion that culture creates meaning and allows us to understand ourselves, others, and the world in specific, constructed ways. What may seem natural to us, might in fact just be cultural convention, imprinted on us from such an early age that we have come to understand it as natural. This course examines how traditional cultural views on the world, concerning the uses of language, processes of othering, gender etc., have been studied, taken apart and criticized over the last few decades. In doing so, the course deals with several of the major theorists concerned with this process of deconstruction. The course necessarily deals with a limited selection of perspectives and objects. From the many methods of studying culture (anthropological, archaeological, biological, art historical, sociological etc.) the course uses the framework of Cultural Studies, a relatively recent field of study within Humanities. Furthermore, in order to focus discussions, the course takes three case studies as a starting point in the discussion sessions: the novel FOE by J.M.Coetzee, the artwork EPISODE III: ENJOY POVERY by Renzo Martens, and the documentary PARIS IS BURNING. These are discussed in light of different theoretical frameworks, allowing the study the following topics, each tightly linked to major theories in studies on culture and each functioning as a context for the analysis of cultural phenomena: language as construction, knowledge/power, the death of the author, Postcolonialism, processes of "othering." gender, and cultural memory.

This course examines globalization, internationalism and transnationalism, with a particular focus on anthropological approaches. It covers whether people have always been on the move crossing borders and how this might be different in our age of globalization; the impact of globalization on local cultures; humans moving towards a global culture; globalizing consumerism; globality in relationship to inequalities such as those involving gender, class, race, wealth; and globalization in relationship to Aboriginal concerns and International Human Rights, peace and war issues, and law and international law.