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 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.

Diversity and Multiculturalism

Short Description:
In this course in addition to culture, we will learn about norms, values, systems of beliefs, social interaction, verbal and non-verbal communication, race and ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation and gender, technology and culture, cultural universalism and relativism and how these affect our shared or distinct day to day cultural practices and social interaction in our various communities. Students will share their day-to-day social interactions, travels, and cross - cultural experiences in and around New York City.

Long Description:
The fundamental knowledge of understanding culture and teaching from diverse backgrounds. Examination of the nature and function of culture, development of individual and group cultural identity, definitions and implications of diversity, and the influences of culture on learning, development, and pedagogy. This course has a required field experience component – an ethnographic survey of diverse cultures and groups in New York City.

At the end of this course, students will work on an assignment on eliminating biases, prejudice, racism, discrimination on gender, sexual, cultural, religious, disabilities, and aging. They will provide recommendations, suggestions and solutions on how to promote diversity, inclusion, equity, cross-cultural understanding and include anti – racist activities in schools and in our communities. The assignment will be based on student experiences or observations as a minority or majority living in the US. In addition, students will provide critical thinking analysis on case study scenarios on issues in cultural diversity and multi -culturalism as they relate to the individual and society.

This course has been designated as an OER / COIL / ZTC . The instructor will provide the learning materials and will collaborate with a faculty at the Institute for Cultural Studies at the Obafemi Awolowo University [OAU], Nigeria in providing additional learning resources on “living in complex societies”. A list of recommended texts have been provided for students wishing to obtain them for their personal libraries and research.

Please see the Note/Disclaimer page for book content info.

Word Count: 140711

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Études culturelles africaines

Short Description:
Comment lire et comprendre les pratiques culturelles africaines? Comment mobiliser les savoirs sur l’Afrique, ses arts et ses cultures sans verser dans la réification ou le folklorisme? Profondément novateur, cet ouvrage collectif mobilise les outils théoriques des cultural studies pour proposer un généreux panorama de l’étude de la culture en Afrique. Il rassemble des textes d’auteurs et d’autrices d’Afrique de l'Ouest, théoriques ou descriptifs, qui mettent en lumière la réévaluation passionnante des modes d’appréhension des pratiques et objets en contexte africain que proposent les études culturelles africaines. L’épilogue qui clôt le livre n’est donc point fermeture, mais plutôt ouverture sur les enjeux relatifs à ce nouveau champ d’études, plein de promesses pour rendre compte de l’extraordinaire créativité des cultures africaines.

Long Description:
Comment lire et comprendre les pratiques culturelles africaines? Comment mobiliser les savoirs sur l’Afrique, ses arts et ses cultures sans verser dans la réification ou le folklorisme? Profondément novateur, cet ouvrage collectif mobilise les outils théoriques des cultural studies pour proposer un généreux panorama de l’étude de la culture en Afrique. Il rassemble des textes d’auteurs et d’autrices d’Afrique de l’ouest, théoriques ou descriptifs, qui mettent en lumière la réévaluation passionnante des modes d’appréhension des pratiques et objets en contexte africain que proposent les études culturelles africaines. L’épilogue qui clôt le livre n’est donc point fermeture, mais plutôt ouverture sur les enjeux relatifs à ce nouveau champ d’études, plein de promesses pour rendre compte de l’extraordinaire créativité des cultures africaines.

Word Count: 78460

ISBN: 978-2-924661-82-6

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Short Description:
Today, First Nations peoples living in Yukon, Canada are reviving and practicing their cultural traditions in exciting ways. At the same time, there has been an influx of newcomers to the territory who want to learn more about Yukon's Indigenous peoples and their cultures. With hundreds of references for those wanting to delve deeper into particular topics, ECHO is a handbook that provides the most current research pertaining to Yukon First Nations peoples. Topics include archaeology, ethnology, and lifeways, relationships with newcomers (in the past and currently), the arts, and modern-day land claims. The volume also includes interviews with research collaborators who discuss the importance of community-based research. Castillo, Schreyer, and Southwick's solidly researched handbook serves as an important tool, both for teachers and students, seeking accurate information pertaining to the Indigenous cultures of Yukon.

Long Description:
Recently, Yukon, Canada has experienced huge growth in First Nations cultural revival as well as an influx of newcomers brought on by the growth of the education, industrial and tourism sectors, who are also interested in learning about Yukon First Nations peoples and their cultures. The need for academic teaching materials that can educate adult learners about Indigenous peoples of the Yukon has resulted in the publication of this handbook. ECHO is meant as a teaching tool that provides the most current research pertaining to Yukon First Nations peoples on topics such as archaeology, ethnology and traditional lifeways, and relationships with newcomers (in the past and currently), as well as the arts. With a focus on topics that are relevant to students learning about Yukon Indigenous peoples history and culture, such as collaborative research with anthropologists, the history of the Yukon, and, most importantly, an overview of the modern-day land claims movement. Although generalized material on Yukon First Nations is provided within other publications, these are primarily out-of-date and out-of-print books. Castillo, Schreyer, and Southwick’s solidly researched ECHO: Ethnographic, Cultural, and Historical Overview of Yukon’s First Peoples will serve as an important tool, both for teachers and students, seeking accurate information pertaining to Indigenous cultures of the Yukon.

Word Count: 62227

ISBN: 978-1-988804-32-3

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This subject is an introduction to various forms of culture in East Asia (focusing on China, Japan and Korea), including both traditional and contemporary examples. Critically examines the shared cultural elements that are widely considered to constitute "East Asian culture," and also the diversity within East Asia, historically and today. Examples include religious and philosophical beliefs (Confucianism and Buddhism), literature, art, food, architecture, and popular culture. The study of gender will be an integral part of this subject. The influence and presence of Asian cultural expressions in the U.S. are also considered.
This class is suitable for students of all levels, and requires no Asian language background. Students who wish to fulfill the MISTI-Singapore requirement may do the final project on Singapore. Taught in English.
The course includes field trips to the Museum of Fine Arts and the Peabody Essex Museum.

This course will explore the relation of women and men in both pre-industrial and modern societies to the changing map of public and private (household) work spaces, examining how that map affected their opportunities for both productive activity and the consumption of goods and leisure. The reproductive strategies of women, either in conjunction with or in opposition to their families, will be the third major theme of the course. We will consider how a place and an ideal of the "domestic" arose in the early modern west, to what extent it was effective in limiting the economic position of women, and how it has been challenged, and with what success, in the post-industrial period. Finally, we will consider some of the policy implications for contemporary societies as they respond to changes in the composition of the paid work force, as well as to radical changes in their national demographic profiles. Although most of the material for the course will focus on western Europe since the Middle Ages and on the United States, we will also consider how these issues have played themselves out in non-western cultures.

This course surveys the social, cultural, and political development of western Europe between 500 and 1350. A number of topics are incorporated into the broad chronological sweep of the course, including: the Germanic conquest of the ancient Mediterranean world; the rise of a distinct northern culture and the Carolingian Renaissance; the emergence of feudalism and the breakdown of political order; contact with the Byzantine and Islamic East and the Crusading movement; the quality of religious life; the vitality of the high medieval economy and culture; and the catastrophes of the fourteenth century.

Examines theories and practice of environmental justice, concerns about race, poverty, and the environment in both domestic and international contexts, exploring and critically analyzing philosophies, frameworks, and strategies underlying environmental justice movements. Examines case studies of environmental injustices, including: distribution of environmental quality and health, unequal enforcement of regulations, unequal access to resources to respond to environmental problems, and the broader political economy of decision-making around environmental issues. Explores how environmental justice movements relate to broader sustainable development goals and strategies. This class explores the foundations of the environmental justice movement, current and emerging issues, and the application of environmental justice analysis to environmental policy and planning. It examines claims made by diverse groups along with the policy and civil society responses that address perceived inequity and injustice. While focused mainly on the United States, international issues and perspectives are also considered.

This class explores the interrelationship between humans and natural environments. It does so by focusing on conflict over access to and use of the environment as well as ideas about "nature" in various parts of the world.

Since the CoVID19 pandemic, essential workers have been impacted beyond that of others in the labor force.  Statistics on nonmedical essential workers and how CoVid19 affects their health and livelihood are lacking. No centralized reporting exists and corporations do not either collect or provide this data. This OER attempts to bring together various sources information from March-July 2020 for future research. This material is a compilation of original sources of varying restrictions to be used for educational purposes, so I have chosen the CC BY NC ND license.