This course explores the experiences and understandings of class among Americans positioned at different points along the U.S. social spectrum. It considers a variety of classic frameworks for analyzing social class and uses memoirs, novels, and ethnographies to gain a sense of how class is experienced in daily life and how it intersects with other forms of social difference such as race and gender.

This class examines the ways humans experience the realm of sound and how perceptions and technologies of sound emerge from cultural, economic, and historical worlds. In addition to learning about how environmental, linguistic, and musical sounds are construed cross-culturally, students learn about the rise of telephony, architectural acoustics, and sound recording, as well as about the globalized travel of these technologies. Questions of ownership, property, authorship, and copyright in the age of digital file sharing are also addressed. A major concern will be with how the sound/noise boundary has been imagined, created, and modeled across diverse sociocultural and scientific contexts. Auditory examples--sound art, environmental recordings, music--will be provided and invited throughout the term.

This course enhances cross-cultural understanding through the discussion of practical, ethical, and epistemological issues in conducting social science and applied research in foreign countries or unfamiliar communities. It includes a research practicum to help students develop interviewing, participant-observation, and other qualitative research skills, as well as critical discussion of case studies. The course is open to all interested students, but intended particularly for those planning to undertake exploratory research or applied work abroad. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignments.

Students examine the anthropological perspective of human culture, including such institutions as kinship, politics, and religion, and evaluate the interrelationship between culture, environment and biology. Students explore the effects of globalization on culture while developing critical thinking skills through the application of essential anthropological approaches, theories, and methods.Login: guest_oclPassword: ocl

A practicum-style course in anthropological methods of ethnographic fieldwork and writing, intended especially for STS, CMS, HTC, and Sloan graduate students, but open to others with permission of instructor. Depending on student experience in ethnographic reading and practice, the subject is a mix of reading anthropological and science studies ethnographies; and formulating and pursuing ethnographic work in local labs, companies, or other sites.

Introduction to Sociology 2e adheres to the scope and sequence of a typical, one-semester introductory sociology course. It offers comprehensive coverage of core concepts, foundational scholars, and emerging theories, which are supported by a wealth of engaging learning materials. The textbook presents detailed section reviews with rich questions, discussions that help students apply their knowledge, and features that draw learners into the discipline in meaningful ways. The second edition retains the book’s conceptual organization, aligning to most courses, and has been significantly updated to reflect the latest research and provide examples most relevant to today’s students. In order to help instructors transition to the revised version, the 2e changes are described within the preface.

Differentiate between four kinds of research methods: surveys, field research, experiments, and secondary data analysisUnderstand why different topics are better suited to different research approaches

Global exploration in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries radically changed Western science, orienting philosophies of natural history to more focused fields like comparative anatomy, botany, and geology. In the United States, European scientific advances and home-grown ventures like the Wilkes Exploring Expedition to Antarctica and the Pacific inspired new endeavors in cartography, ethnography, zoology, and evolutionary theory, replacing rigid models of thought and classification with more fluid and active systems. They inspired literary authors as well. This class will examine some of the most remarkable of these authors--Herman Melville (Moby-Dick and "The Encantadas"), Henry David Thoreau (Walden), Sarah Orne Jewett (Country of the Pointed Firs), Edith Wharton (House of Mirth), Toni Morrison (A Mercy), among others--in terms of the subjects and methods they adopted, imaginatively and often critically, from the natural sciences.

Focuses on musical traditions of West Africa. A variety of musical practices and their cultural contexts are explored through listening, reading and written assignments with an emphasis on class discussion. Subject includes in-class instruction in Senegalese drumming, song and dance, as well as live lecture-demonstrations by guest performers from throughout West Africa. This course is an introduction to selected musical traditions of West Africa. A variety of musical practices and their cultural contexts will be explored through listening, reading, and written assignments, with an emphasis on class discussion. The course includes in-class instruction in West African drumming, song and dance, as well as lecture-demonstrations by guest artists. After an introductory unit, the course will be organized around four main geographical areas: Senegal, Mali, Ghana, and Nigeria. An in-depth study of music from these countries will be interspersed with brief overviews of Southern, Central, and East Africa.

Still photography, a practice and form of expression that has worked its way into every facet of social life and every culture in the world, is considered here from the perspectives of history and social science. We will discuss the uses and functions of pictures; how they are to be understood and interpreted; whether they have clear-cut content and meanings; how they shape and are shaped by politics, economics, and social life.

This advanced course in anthropology engages closely with discussions and debates about ethnographic research, ethics, and representation.

This course examines the problem of mass violence and oppression in the contemporary world, and the concept of human rights as a defense against such abuse. It explores questions of cultural relativism, race, gender and ethnicity. It examines case studies from war crimes tribunals, truth commissions, anti-terrorist policies and other judicial attempts to redress state-sponsored wrongs. It also considers whether the human rights framework effectively promotes the rule of law in modern societies. Students debate moral positions and address ideas of moral relativism.