This PPT introduces students to the concept of cultural heritage and then gets them to reflect on cultural heritage tourism via independent internet-based research and the development of an advertisement.
This course examines cultural performances of Asia, including both traditional and contemporary forms, in a variety of genres. Students will explore the communicative power of performances with attention to the ways performers, media, cultural settings, and audiences interact. The representation of cultural difference is considered and how it is altered through processes of globalization. Performances are viewed live when possible, but the course also relies on video, audio, and online materials as necessary. There are no prerequisites for this course and it is taught in English.
This seminar considers “difference” and “sameness” as they have been conceived, experienced, and regulated by peoples of the Middle East, with a focus on the 19th and 20th centuries. The first half discusses the Ottoman Empire by exploring how this multiethnic, polyglot empire survived for several relatively peaceful centuries and what happened when its formula for existence was challenged by politics based on mono-ethnic states. The second half of the course focuses on post-Ottoman nation-states, such as Turkey and Egypt, and Western-mandated Arab states, such as Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq. Finally, the course concludes with a case analysis of Israel.
Culture, Embodiment, and the Senses will provide an historical and cross-cultural analysis of the politics of sensory experience. The subject will address western philosophical debates about mind, brain, emotion, and the body and the historical value placed upon sight, reason, and rationality, versus smell, taste, and touch as acceptable modes of knowing and knowledge production. We will assess cultural traditions that challenge scientific interpretations of experience arising from western philosophical and physiological models. The class will examine how sensory experience lies beyond the realm of individual physiological or psychological responses and occurs within a culturally elaborated field of social relations. Finally, we will debate how discourse about the senses is a product of particular modes of knowledge production that are themselves contested fields of power relations.
This class is divided into a series of sections or “modules”, each of which concentrates on a particular large technology-related topic in a cultural context. The class will start with a four-week module on Samurai Swords and Blacksmithing, followed by smaller units on Chinese Cooking, the Invention of Clocks, and Andean Weaving, and end with a four-week module on Automobiles and Engines. In addition, there will be a series of hands-on projects that tie theory and practice together. The class discussions range across anthropology, history, and individual development, emphasizing recurring themes, such as the interaction between technology and culture and the relation between “skill” knowledge and “craft” knowledge.
Culture Tech evolved from a more extensive, two-semester course which formed the centerpiece of the Integrated Studies Program at MIT. For 13 years, ISP was an alternative first-year program combining humanities, physics, learning-by-doing, and weekly luncheons. Culture Tech represents the core principles of ISP distilled into a 6-unit seminar. Although many collections of topics have been used over the years, the modules presented here are a representative sequence.
This is a short, in-class activity. Students will complete a brief individual carbon-footprint and will then be given a card with information about the carbon footprint of an individual in another part of the world. Students will then be asked to reflect on the 'climate consequences' faced by that person compared to the 'climate consequences' they themselves face. Discussion will lead into consideration of current and future effects of climate change on cultures in our own bioregion - as well as a reflection on the way our own cultural practices may be contributing to the climate catastrophe worldwide.
This course examines computers anthropologically, as artifacts revealing the social orders and cultural practices that create them. Students read classic texts in computer science along with cultural analyses of computing history and contemporary configurations. It explores the history of automata, automation and capitalist manufacturing; cybernetics and WWII operations research; artificial intelligence and gendered subjectivity; robots, cyborgs, and artificial life; creation and commoditization of the personal computer; the growth of the Internet as a military, academic, and commercial project; hackers and gamers; technobodies and virtual sociality. Emphasis is placed on how ideas about gender and other social differences shape labor practices, models of cognition, hacking culture, and social media.
This course is an introductory exploration of documentary film theory and production, focusing on documentaries about science, engineering, and related fields. Students engage in digital video production as well as social and media analysis of science documentaries. Readings are drawn from social studies of science as well as from documentary film theory. The courses uses documentary video making as a tool to explore the worlds of science and engineering, as well as a tool for thinking analytically about media itself and the social worlds in which science is embedded. The course includes a hands-on lab component devoted to digital video production, in addition to classroom lectures and in-class film screenings.
Short Description:
Innocent trends may foreshadow a grimmer future. You may wonder why the title refers to pleasures. If you have read Huxley's Brave New World, you may understand how pleasures can be motors of control and manipulation, which makes them dangerous.
Long Description:
Canceling” and calling out appear as the struggle against the opposite world views. I invite you to look at this cultural phenomenon from an economic perspective that outlines the social stakes of its practice. This book will encourage you to consider the unintended consequences of cancel culture and question its reliability as a tool of activism.
Word Count: 24104
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This course explores visualization methodologies to conceive and represent systems and data, e.g., financial, media, economic, political, etc., with a particular focus on climate change data in this version of the course. Topics include basic methods for research, cleaning, and analysis of datasets, and creative methods of data presentation and storytelling. The course considers the emotional, aesthetic, ethical, and practical effects of different presentation methods as well as how to develop metrics for assessing impact. Coursework includes readings, visualization exercises, and a final project.
This assignment addresses cultural sustainability by asking students to go beyond distinguishing between five subsistence strategies to examining the impact of globalization on diet and culture.
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This is an activity for introductory students to learn about how archaeologists observe and describe objects unknown to them.
An ethnography expedition enables you to gain understanding, discover insights, and (re)frame design opportunities.
The overarching goal of this exercise is for students to explore the early anthropogenic hypothesis, which claims that early agriculture had a substantial impact on greenhouse gases and global climate thousands of years ago (Ruddiman, 2003). Students compare changes in greenhouse gas concentrations that occurred thousands of years ago to more recent changes that occurred over hundreds of years. Students also relate changes in greenhouse gas concentrations to warming. The exercise is completed over a 1.5- to 2-week period as the class covers a chapter on climate change.
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This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:
"It might not be your first choice for a meal, but many mammals appear to find earth an appetizing addition to their diet Known as geophagy, scientists still aren’t sure what causes the surprisingly common urge to eat soil or clay To understand soil eating and its causes, researchers reviewed every documented case of soil eating in monkeys and apes They identified cases of soil eating in 136 species – over half of all monkeys and apes found around the globe – suggesting the behavior is more common than previously thought Evidence from the 287 articles reviewed also suggests that geophagy is a form of self-medication Geophagy may provide protection against disease-causing pathogens and supplement essential nutrients Although more research is needed, the work lays a foundation for future investigations into the causes and health impacts of geophagy The findings could also reveal new ways to promote the health of both wild and captive primate populations Pebsworth PA, et al..."
The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.
Digital Anthropology is a Spring 2003 applied social science and media arts seminar, surveying the blossoming arena of digital-artifact enabled experimental sociology/anthropology. We will emphasize on both (a) Technology Testbeds – systematically deploying research lab prototypes and corporate pre-production products in a sample human organizational population and carefully observing the social consequences, and (b) Sociometrics – using digital artifacts to better observe and measure the complex social reality of interesting human systems.
Dignity, Partnership and Jusitce Goal From an anthroplogical perspective
This course is an introduction to the cross-cultural study of biomedical ethics, examining moral foundations of the science and practice of Western biomedicine through case studies of abortion, contraception, cloning, organ transplantation and other issues. It evaluates challenges that new medical technologies pose to the practice and availability of medical services around the globe, and to cross-cultural ideas of kinship and personhood. Also discussed are critiques of the biomedical tradition from anthropological, feminist, legal, religious, and cross-cultural theorists.
Word Count: 147871
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This course examines how medicine is practiced cross-culturally, with particular emphasis on Western biomedicine. Students analyze medical practice as a cultural system, focusing on the human, as opposed to the biological, side of things. Also considered is how people in different cultures think of disease, health, body, and mind.