In Communicating in American Culture(s), bilingual students examine how various aspects of American culture—history, geography, institutions, traditions, values—have shaped dominant Anglo-American communication norms and responses to critical events in the world. In addition, you can expect to practice and strengthen your analytical and communication skills in a carefully scaffolded manner, starting with frequent short writing and speaking tasks and progressing to longer, more formal tasks.

Constraints and Affordances of Media

Short Description:
This book is a compilation of undergraduate student research, from a class at the University of Notre Dame: ANTHROPOLOGY 40470, Fall 2021, "Zoom Text Talk Insta Sing Chat: Modalities and Media of Interaction," taught by Susan D. Blum

Word Count: 13904

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

In this course the conquest and colonization of the Americas is considered, with special attention to the struggles of native peoples in Guatemala, Canada, Brazil, Panama, and colonial New England. In two segments of the course-one devoted to the Jesuit missionization of the Huron in the 1630s, the other to struggles between the government of Panama and the Kuna between 1900 and 1925-students examine primary documents such as letters, reports, and court records, to draw their own conclusions. Attention focuses on how we know about and represent past eras and other peoples, as well as on the history of struggles between native Americans and Europeans.

What is race? What is ethnicity? How can communication and relationships between men and women be improved? What causes segregation in our society? How do stereotypes develop and why do they persist? How do an individual's racial, ethnic, and sexual identities form and develop? This course explores these topics and more.

Nancy Scheper-Hughes, a noted Anthropology Professor at UC Berkeley and author of numerous award-winning works joins UC Berkeley's Harry Kreisler. (59 min)

The attached file is a short essay that can be read in one sitting that explains the things that sometimes prevent cooperation from happening and provides advice for how to overcome them. The essay is aimed at advanced high school students, college students, and anyone else who is interested in fostering cooperation in any setting. The author, Lee Cronk (Rutgers University, anthropology) is an expert on cooperation. Much of what is contained in this essay is distilled from this book that he co-authored:Cronk, Lee, and Beth L. Leech. 2013. Meeting at Grand Central: Understanding the Social and Evolutionary Roots of Cooperation. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

This survey instrument is designed to understand how creators use (or decide not to use) Creative Commons licenses. The target survey participants are people who create materials for documentation, maintenance, instruction, learning, and/or revitalization of Indigenous, minority, endangered, and/or low-resourced languages. Part 1 of this survey is designed to learn about the digital creation formats and sharing practices in this specific community of practice. Parts 2 through 4 of this survey contain general questions intended to elicit information about research participants’ knowledge and awareness of Creative Commons (CC) licenses; understanding of how to apply CC licenses to their digital creations; interest in and experience with applying CC licenses to their digital creations; motivations for and barriers to applying CC licenses to their digital creations; and understanding of how to adapt or reuse digital creations licensed with CC licenses.

This survey can be easily adapted for use in other communities of practice by editing some of the questions and multiple-choice responses.

If you wish to read this survey and background information about it, please start with the file ReadMe-CCLuseSurvey.pdf.

The file Creative_Commons_License_Use_Survey.qsf is a Qualtrics Survey File that can be used to recreate this survey in your own instance of the Qualtrics software.

The file Creative_Commons_License_Use_Survey.pdf is a PDF of the survey. This version includes Creative Commons graphics that are used in the survey questions. The file ReadMe-CCLuseSurvey.pdf does not include the graphics.

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.

This course is an intermediate subject designed to help students gradually build an in-depth understanding of France. The course focuses on French attitudes and values regarding education, work, family and institutions, and deals with the differing notions that underlie interpersonal interactions and communication styles, such as politeness, friendship and formality. Using a Web comparative, cross-cultural approach, students explore a variety of French and American materials, then analyze and compare them using questionnaires, opinion polls, news reports (in different media), as well as a variety of historical, anthropological and literary texts. Throughout the course, attention is given to the development of relevant linguistics skills. This course is recommended for students planning to study and work in France and is taught in French.

An introductory cultural anthropology textbook covering all major topics and produced by Lumen Learning.

This textbook aims to provide an introduction to the field of cultural anthropology. The initial chapters introduce the concept of culture and review the historical, theoretical, and methodological influences on the field. Chapters four through twelve discuss the major domains of the study of culture; symbolism, communication, ritual, production, healing, rights, reproduction, kinship, conflict, and globalization. These chapters provide ethnographic examples (both etic and emic perspectives) and case studies to support the central concepts in each chapter. Additional case studies are available via the Anthrobase website and others can be developed in wikibook format and integrated through links in this book.

Word Count: 212182

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Resources in this file includes a D2L adapted  version of Michael Wesch's The Art of Being Human textbook, Quizzes, and 10 Challenges. The textbook was transferred into Rise 360 before being loaded into HTML shells. The structure of the course was built for a 7 week semester but could be easily adapted to a 15 week semester.    

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.