New Anthropology Course for Winter!

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

THINGS ARE EVERYWHERE. We make them, they make themselves, and they also make us. Things can be evocative, aesthetic, and sometimes unnerving. They define who we are and what we stand for. We need them to communicate. We need them to remember. We need them to govern. But things need us too. They demand our attention and care. They demand our sacrifices. They demand our obedience. This course explores the complex and diverse interrelationships humans maintain with the material world. In it, we will navigate across various theoretical and methodological approaches in anthropology, archaeology, and other fields and consider the fundamental interdependence between people and the material world. The course will challenge the commonly held assumptions that we are ‘above’ things, that things our ‘secondary’ to our ideas, and that we live lives independent of the material world that surrounds us. Key questions guiding this course include: what do things mean; how and why do we give them meaning; what is their relation to memory; how do they direct our lives; how do they shape our identities; how do they relate to power; do they have lives of their own?

Course Days and Times:

Monday/Wednesday 12:30‐2:20 – Quiz Sections Thursday 11:30‐2:20

I&S