240100 VO Introduction to Cultural and Social Anthropology for EC (2023W)

This course aims to introduce students to social and cultural anthropology. What is social and cultural anthropology? When, how, and why did this field of study originate? What historical, political, and intellectual conditions brought this discipline into being? How has it changed over time?

Anthropology is sometimes defined as the study of human difference across space and time. In this course, we will examine how anthropologists have sought to understand human difference and similarity. We will also study the forms of anthropological writing that shape how anthropologists conduct analysis. Introducing students to the core conversations and concerns that animate the discipline, the course includes both canonical and contemporary texts. Together, we will address how anthropology’s core conversations and concerns emerged and have shifted over time as anthropologists, as well as scholars in related fields, sought to understand human life in familiar and unfamiliar settings.

Broadly, the course presents anthropology as a response to modern history’s dual character: the rise of industrial capitalism in “the West,” and the imposition of colonial rule across much of the rest of the world. These origins raise questions that continue to shape social and cultural inquiry in anthropology and related disciplines, such as: the place of universalism in a world of manifest social differences; the making and management of human hierarchy; the social construction of race, gender, and cultural identity; the relation between individuals, on one hand, and groups, structures, and systems, on the other hand; and how capitalism, colonialism, and empire shape social and cultural life.

The course begins with the central conceptual and methodological tools of social and cultural anthropology, such as “culture,” “ethnography,” “structure,” and “symbol.” We will ask not only how these tools have shaped anthropological thought about human life; we will also ask how anthropological thought has shaped how human groups have been constructed and managed in different times and places. The course thus grapples with how anthropology does not simply apprehend human life but also intervenes. More than a neutral or detached social science, anthropology is itself a historical process tied to changing modes of thought, politics, and power. The course will end with contemporary discussions in anthropology around race and capitalism, imperialism and decolonization, and climate change.