SOAN 1011 New Media and Pop Culture in the Middle East
Anthropologists look increasingly to the production, circulation, and reception of new and indigenous media and their role in molding subjects and communities at local, national, and transnational levels. Since the events of 9/11, the uses of new media emerging specifically from within the Middle East--from al-Jazeera to al-Qa’ida recruitment videos--have come under intense global scrutiny. Drawing on recent ethnographies, blogs, novels, music videos, and film, we will examine the less sensational, but equally “dramatic” circulation of new media and pop culture in the Middle East and its transformative effects on youth, gender, the public sphere, and diasporic communities. SOC AAL (N. Peutz)
SOAN 1014 Visual Sociology
We live in a visual world. Thus, to understand society and culture, we must understand the images we produce and consume. This course provides a sociological lens to study the various ways we use and are used by images. We will study some key theories that analyze how visual contents (such as photographs, films, and videos) are shared with, viewed, and interpreted by various audiences. We will practice the two sides of visual sociology: picture making by researchers as data collection, and pictures social actors make in the context of everyday life. Students will learn to analyze the messages and imagery in videos and photographs to draw out their social meanings. Each student should have access to a camera to use during the course of the class. For those students who do not have their own, digital cameras are available for student check-out at the main library. ART SOC (L. Owens)
SOAN 1015 Landscape, History, and Memory
A landscape is time inscribed in space. In this course we will explore the interconnections between the concepts of landscape, history, and memory in anthropology and related disciplines. How do people produce landscapes, both symbolically and materially? How are shared histories and memories inscribed on landscapes? How do people remember landscapes of the past? We will discuss a wide range of topics including the dialectic between people and landscapes through time, the symbolic construction of place, the memorialization of history, and the cultural politics of environmental management. Readings focus on ethnographic case studies and cross-cultural comparison. SOC CMP (T. French)
SOAN 1016 Interviewing Techniques (CW)
In this course students will be introduced to the art of interviewing for research purposes. In addition to instruction in interviewing, students will be taught how to transcribe and code interview data. Students will also be instructed in the many different ways of incorporating interview data into an analysis. The skills acquired in the course should be useful to students from a range of disciplines who anticipate using interviews as a source of data for their course work or theses. SOC (P. Nelson)
Limit on Enrollment: 12