This course seeks to explore the heritage of the Spanish Caribbean‰ÛÓprimarily Cuba, …
This course seeks to explore the heritage of the Spanish Caribbean‰ÛÓprimarily Cuba, Dominican Republic/Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico. We will place particular emphasis on the historical, cultural and ethnic forces that have shaped the character of the people of these islands. As well we will explore the variety of societies and cultures of the Spanish Caribbean in their historical and contemporary setting up to and including the (im)migration experience of Spanish Caribbean people to urban North America.
" This course explores recent historical and anthropological approaches to the study …
" This course explores recent historical and anthropological approaches to the study of life, in both medicine and biology. After grounding our conversation in accounts of natural history and medicine that predate the rise of biology as a discipline, we explore modes of theorizing historical and contemporary bioscience. Drawing on the work of historian William Coleman, we examine the forms, functions, and transformations of biological and medical objects of study. Along the way we treat the history of heredity, molecular biology, race, medicine in the colonies and the metropole, and bioeconomic exchange. We read anthropological literature on old and new forms of biopower, at scales from the molecular to the organismic to the global. The course includes readings from the HASTS Common Exam List. The aim of this seminar is to train students to be participants in scholarly debates in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences about the nature of life, the body, and biomedicine."
Where did we come from? What were our ancestors like? Why do …
Where did we come from? What were our ancestors like? Why do we differ from other animals? How do scientists trace and construct our evolutionary history? The History of Our Tribe: Hominini provides answers to these questions and more. The book explores the field of paleoanthropology past and present. Beginning over 65 million years ago, Welker traces the evolution of our species, the environments and selective forces that shaped our ancestors, their physical and cultural adaptations, and the people and places involved with their discovery and study. It is designed as a textbook for a course on Human Evolution but can also serve as an introductory text for relevant sections of courses in Biological or General Anthropology or general interest. It is both a comprehensive technical reference for relevant terms, theories, methods, and species and an overview of the people, places, and discoveries that have imbued paleoanthropology with such fascination, romance, and mystery.
Examines the dynamic interrelations among physical and behavioral traits of humans, environment, …
Examines the dynamic interrelations among physical and behavioral traits of humans, environment, and culture to provide an integrated framework for studying human biological evolution and modern diversity. Topics include issues in morphological evolution and adaptation; fossil and cultural evidence for human evolution from earliest times through the Pleistocene; evolution of tool use and social behavior; modern human variation and concepts of race. Includes study of stone artifacts and fossil specimens.
This course explores how identities, whether of individuals or groups, are produced, …
This course explores how identities, whether of individuals or groups, are produced, maintained, and transformed. Students will be introduced to various theoretical perspectives that deal with identity formation, including constructions of "the normal." We will explore the utility of these perspectives for understanding identity components such as gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, religion, language, social class, and bodily difference. By semester's end students will understand better how an individual can be at once cause and consequence of society, a unique agent of social action as well as a social product.
This Geography assignment, ideal for Political Geography, Cultural Geography, Urban Geography, and …
This Geography assignment, ideal for Political Geography, Cultural Geography, Urban Geography, and so forth (and of course other related disciplines like Anthropology and Sociology), undergraduate courses, explores the concepts of in place and out of place. Based on a reading of the introduction of Tim Cresswell's 1996 book In Place/out of Place Geography, Ideology, and Transgression, this assignment is a great way to get students to think about these issues and connect them to their own experiences.
Through the comparative study of different cultures, anthropology explores fundamental questions about …
Through the comparative study of different cultures, anthropology explores fundamental questions about what it means to be human. It seeks to understand how culture both shapes societies, from the smallest island in the South Pacific to the largest Asian metropolis, and affects the way institutions work, from scientific laboratories to Christian mega-churches. This course will provide a framework for analyzing diverse facets of human experience such as gender, ethnicity, language, politics, economics, and art.
This class provides a space for medical students and MD/PhD students, as …
This class provides a space for medical students and MD/PhD students, as well as HASTS (History, Anthropology, Science, Technology, and Society) PhD students to discuss social and ethical issues in the biosciences and biotechnologies as they are being developed. Discussions are with course faculty and with leading figures in developing technologies such as George Daley or George Church in stem cell or genomics research, Bruce Walker or Pardis Sabeti in setting up laboratories in Africa, Paul Farmer and Partners in Health colleagues in building local support systems and first world quality care in Haiti, Peru, and Rwanda, and Amy Farber in building patient-centered therapeutic-outcome research for critical but orphan" diseases. Goals include stimulating students to think about applying their learning in Boston to countries around the world, including using the experiences they have had in their home countries or research experience abroad. Goals also include a mix of patient-doctor care perspectives from medical anthropology, and moving upstream in the research chain to questions of how to move discoveries from basic research through the pipelines into clinical and bedside care. "
Introduction to Paleoanthropology covers the various species and subspecies that gave rise …
Introduction to Paleoanthropology covers the various species and subspecies that gave rise to human beings. Paleoanthropology is a subdiscipline of physical anthropology that focuses on the fossil record of humans and non-human primates.
An introduction to diverse musical traditions of the world. Music from a …
An introduction to diverse musical traditions of the world. Music from a wide range of geographical areas are studied in terms of structure, performance practice, social use, aesthetics, and cross-cultural contact. Includes hands-on music making, live demonstrations by guest artists, and ethnographic research projects. This course explores the ways that music is both shaped by and gives shape to the cultural settings in which it is performed, through studying selected musical traditions from around the world. Specific case studies will be examined closely through listening, analysis, and hands-on instruction. The syllabus centers around weekly listening assignments and readings from a textbook with CDs, supplemented by hands-on workshops, lecture/demonstrations and concerts by master musicians from around the world.
This resource was developed to incorporate OER initiatives into introductory anthropology courses …
This resource was developed to incorporate OER initiatives into introductory anthropology courses at Kingsborough Community College. The website includes a full 12 week course schedule with links to readings as well as an aggregated list of other available OER resources that instructors may be interested in.
A unique perspective on the confluence of the three basic conceptual frameworks …
A unique perspective on the confluence of the three basic conceptual frameworks in human experience. Contains several studies, with data, of remarkable world views of disparate cultures based on their specific cultures language. The premise is that how people experience the world, then think about it, then create a language around it, alters their perception of the world in very fundamental ways. The radical notion is that thought and language, creates the circumstances of, and contribute to significantly different realities for different peoples.
The internalization and realization of this concept is significant and can possibly radically alter and change how different cultures assess their ability to, at the most basic levels, understand other cultures realities.
This open educational resource / zero-cost textbook (OER/ZTC) course site was created …
This open educational resource / zero-cost textbook (OER/ZTC) course site was created as part of the CUNY and SUNY 2017-19 Open Educational Resources Initiatives.
Course Description: What does it mean to lose or risk losing your language? What is the value of language, to speakers, to experts like anthropologists, to humanity more broadly? This course explores answers to these questions through thinking about language as a cultural practice and object, a political activity and topic, and something that is deeply entwined with speakers’ senses of self. We will consider case studies from the US immigrant experience as well as cases of language endangerment and loss around the globe. To analyze these issues more immediately, you will do a research project about a multilingual community to which they have access. You will collect online and/or offline evidence to tell a story about the ways multilingual practices shape relationships, life trajectories, collective histories, and material and symbolic spaces in a community.
Spiritual, magical, and "occult" aspects of human behavior in anthropological and historical …
Spiritual, magical, and "occult" aspects of human behavior in anthropological and historical perspective: magic, ritual curing, trance, spirit possession, sorcery, and accusations of witchcraft. Material drawn from traditional nonwestern societies, medieval and early modern Europe, and colonial and contemporary North America.
This is a guide for the field study and urban lab as …
This is a guide for the field study and urban lab as partial requirements for GEG 260 Urban Geography at CUNY College of Staten Island. The field study introduces students to spatial ethnography and offers an opportunity to observe, experience and examine a range of spatial urban phenomena that they have learned in the classroom within actually-existing urban environments. Designed as a collaborative activity, students will work in teams in exploring and examining the built environment on-site and then produce multimedia deliverables to capture their reflections throughout the field study using creative and experimental methods. The collaborative and experimental design of the field study offers students to see, sense and re-imagine the city in ways that students might not have done so before. Spatial ethnography allows us to capture and examine the ways in which space (material, built, embodied, represented, or symbolic) and our interactions with space shape a variety of social, cultural, political and economic relationships, meanings and expressions. As a research method, spatial ethnography is grounded upon an understanding of space as constituted and constitutive of power and relations of power. Through spatial ethnography, students have the opportunity to individually and collectively examine the role of space and their interactions with space framed within the broader themes of spatial politics, spatial agency, and spatial justice. For this field study, students will draw from the concept of “thick mapping” (Presner et al., 2014) in conducting spatial ethnography to better understand select sections of Staten Island’s North Shore, specifically Tompkinsville Park, Bay St., and the waterfront area. A “thick map” is defined as a temporally layered, multimodal/multimedia, cartographic representation. Part of the “thickness” comes from the different historical, cultural, economic, political, and geographic layers captured in the map. These multiple layers may be presented through a combination of written texts, memories, images, sense of place, sounds, videos, and other types of data. As Presner et al., (2014) remind us, a thick map tells a story and makes an argument about the past, the present, and the future.
Everyday we are bombarded with the word "global" and encouraged to see …
Everyday we are bombarded with the word "global" and encouraged to see globalization as the quintessential transformation of our age. But what exactly does "globalization" mean? How is it affecting the lives of people around the world, not only in economic, but social and cultural terms? How do contemporary changes compare with those from other historical periods? Are such changes positive, negative or simply inevitable? And, finally, how does the concept of the "global" itself shape our perceptions in ways that both help us understand the contemporary world and potentially distort it? This course begins by offering a brief overview of historical "world systems," including those centered in Asia as well as Europe. It explores the nature of contemporary transformations, including those in economics, media & information technologies, population flows, and consumer habits, not through abstractions but by focusing on the daily lives of people in various parts of the world. This course considers such topics as the day-to-day impact of computers in Silicon Valley and among Tibetan refugees; the dilemmas of factory workers in the US and rural Java; the attractions of Bombay cinema in Nigeria, the making of rap music in Japan, and the cultural complexities of immigrant life in France. This course seeks not only to understand the various forms globalization takes, but to understand its very different impacts world-wide.
Examines the ways in which people in ancient and contemporary societies have …
Examines the ways in which people in ancient and contemporary societies have selected, evaluated, and used materials of nature, transforming them to objects of material culture. Some examples: glass in ancient Egypt and Rome; powerful metals in the Inka empire; rubber processing in ancient Mexico. Explores ideological and aesthetic criteria often influential in materials development. Laboratory/workshop sessions provide hands-on experience with materials discussed in class. Subject complements 3.091. Enrollment may be limited.
Medical anthropology examines how health and illness, as well as medical knowledge …
Medical anthropology examines how health and illness, as well as medical knowledge and practice, are shaped not only by culture but also by social, political and economic realities. In this course you will be introduced to the key theoretical frameworks, concepts and debates that have shaped this vast subfield of cultural anthropology. Together, we will draw on this knowledge to critically examine questions of cultural difference, power, and inequality in relation to local and global current events as well as our own experiences of health, illness and medical care. On this site you will find all of the readings, assignments and resources associated with the course as well as a virtual space to connect with each other beyond the classroom.
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