Author:
Zoe Wool, Paige West, Chloe Ahmann, Laura Story Johnson, Kate Fischer, Maira Hayat, Kim de Rijke, Daniel Souleles, Devin Proctor, Rose Wellman, Emily Hammerl, Katrina Thompson, Rebecca Lester, Emily Yates-Doerr, Andrew Flachs, Rosalyn Bold, Noah Theriault, Jonathan Wald, Heikki Wilenius, Flosha Diliena Liyana Saran Arachchige Don, Sabra Thorner, Jonathan Padwe, Laura Ogden, Geir Henning Presterudstuen, Lauren Visconti, Brett Hill
Subject:
Anthropology
Material Type:
Activity/Lab, Homework/Assignment, Lecture, Lesson Plan, Reading, Syllabus, Teaching/Learning Strategy
Level:
Community College / Lower Division, College / Upper Division, Graduate / Professional, Adult Education
Tags:
  • Anthropology
  • Culture
  • OERC Reviewed Textbooks
  • Open Washington
  • OpenWA
  • Qualitative Analysis
  • Tennessee Open Education
  • WA 100
  • Washington 100
  • open-washington
  • openwa
  • wa-100
  • washington-100
  • License:
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    Language:
    English
    Media Formats:
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    Anthropology Mini Lectures: A collective resource for online teaching in the time of COVID19

    Anthropology Mini Lectures: A collective resource for online teaching in the time of COVID19

    Overview

    This is a collection of mini lectures created by anthropologists and those in conversation with anthropology as supplimental material to assist college and university instructors who were made to shift their courses online because of COVID19.

    For more information, see here.

    To contribute, please create an OER author account and send your name and OER registered email to AnthropologyTeaching@gmail.com.

    Medical Anthropology And The US Military -- Concept Work vs Matters of Concern

    This lecture could work as a way of talking about anthropology and its relevance beyond academia, or as a companion to any of the articles included here: On Movement is a critique of PTSD as the dominant framework for thinking about how the violence of war transforms US soldiers; Queer Theory and the Possibilities of Critique is an article about how to think about US war-making as coestensive with assemblages of heteronormativity, looking at the case of how heteronormative love is transformed into a technology of suicide prefention for post-9/11 US soldiers; Slow Research is a call to do Global Health differently.

     

    This mini lecture is called "Medical Anthropology and U.S. Military Harm: A fable of concept work and public concern." It's pitched to a general medical anthropology class, but could also be useful for any class where you discuss the question what it means for anthropology to be 'useful', particularly when we're working on issues of urgent social concern.

    The video isn't loading properly here, but you can download it below.

    Introduction to Environmental Anthropology: Place and Landscape in Papua New Guinea

    Dear Colleagues,

    This is my first attempt at an online video for teaching. It is ROUGH. Please forgive that. I thought that people might be able to use it to introduce questions about the environment, dispossession, colonial landscape histories, human / animal relations, and / or  Papua New Guinea.

    Peace, 

    Paige

    Introduction to Environmental Anthropology: Place and Landscape in Papua New Guinea

     

    Anthropology and GMOs in India (Environmental/Cultural/Science and Technology in context)

    Dear colleagues,

    This talk is adapted from an ANTH 100 lecture on Genetically Modified Crops in India that is also a companion to a larger book (Cultivating knowledge: Biotechnology, sustainability, and the human cost of cotton capitalism) on Bt cotton in India. The lecture is positioned as a case study against technological determinism, showing how seeing agrarian distress as a technological problem solvable by technological interventions doesn't get at the heart of the problem.  I've attached a ppt with slide notes as well as two articles that could accompany the presentation.

    Anthropology and GMOs in India

    Andrew Flachs
    Assistant Professor,  Anthropology
    Purdue University
    he/him/his
    www.andrewflachs.com

    Are vegetables good for your health?

    Dear Colleagues, 

    I originally made this video for an e-campus unit on "medical anthropology and health" that was part of an intro-level cultural anthropology class. It draws from my book "The Weight of Obesity: Hunger and Global Health in Postwar Guatemala" and is pitched for an undergraduate audience. 

    I hope you might find it useful and look forward to what others are sharing. 

    Emily

    Based on ethnographic research in Guatemala, Dr. Emily Yates-Doerr analyzes how the diagnosis of obesity creates confusion about healthy eating. It begins with the provocation, "Are vegetables good for your health?" and unpacks why the answer to this questions speaks to value-systems and cultural politics.  

    Keywords: Health, Food, Cultural Anthropology, Guatemala

    Are Vegetables Good For Your Health

     

    Seeing financial markets like a trader in a time of crisis

    This mini lecture is about how traders see financial markets and is meant to give a basic primer on how people active on financial markets see them and make decisions. The lecture is also meant to give students some analytic tools for understanding how and why financial markets are behaving the way they do in our current pandemic moment, and more generally in times of crisis.

    Attached are the slides, my notes, as well as a couple of readings that are topically related.

    PS--Apologies for video quality. Like others, this is my first attempt.

    Seeing financial markets like a trader in a time of crisis

     

    Do "property rights" protect the environment?

    Hi, I'm Noah Theriault, an environmental anthropologist on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. This unit was developed for an online course that I taught at the University of Oklahoma.  It was not an anthropology course per se, but it applied anthropological principles to environmental problems. In this unit, we critically examine the concept of "the tragedy of the commons" and review associated debates over the role of "property" institutions in environmental degradation and conservation.  The main mini lecture (Part 1) is supplemented with a series of assigned texts and with a video overview of those texts (Part 2).

    Please note: the videos were professionally produced by a company called NextThought. I did not choose the images, and the captions are not reliable.  I've uploaded transcripts for those who may need them.

    Assigned texts

    Angus, Ian. 2008. "The Myth of the Tragedy of the Commons." Climate & Capitalism, 25 Aug.

    Hardin, Garrett. 1968. "The Tragedy of the Commons." Science,162 (3859), 1243-1248.

    Nadasdy, Paul. 2002. "'Property' and Aboriginal Land Claims in the Canadian Subarctic: Some Theoretical Considerations." American Anthropologist, 104(1), 247-261.

    Ostrom, Elinor. 1990. Governing the Commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge University Press, pp. 58-102.

    How do environmental narratives reflect and reinforce differences of culture and power?

    Hi, I'm Noah Theriault, an environmental anthropologist on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.  This unit was developed for an online course that I taught at the University of Oklahoma.  It was not an anthropology course per se, but it applied anthropological principles to environmental problems. In this unit, we use the concept of "environmental narratives" to consider how dominant knowledge about the environment is produced and embedded into identities and instituions.  The main mini lecture (Part 1) is supplemented with a series of assigned texts and with a video overview of those texts (Part 2).  

    Please note: the videos were professionally produced by a company called NextThought. I did not choose the images, and the captions are not reliable.  I've uploaded transcripts for those who may need them.

    Assigned texts

    Leach, Melissa, & Fairhead, James. 2000. "Challenging Neo-Malthusian Deforestation Analyses in West Africa's Dynamic Forest Landscapes." Population and Development Review, 26(1), 17-43.

    Liverman, Diana. 2009. "Conventions of climate change: Constructions of danger and the dispossession of the atmosphere." Journal of Historical Geography, 35(2), 279-296.

    Mann, Charles C. 2002. 1491. The Atlantic. (Please note: this article has been fairly criticized for understating the role of genocidal violence in the colonization of the Americas. It can thus be considered as producing its own sort of environmental narrative.)

    Intertextuality and the Meme

    Since many of us are doing asynchronous mini-lectures anyway, I thought I could frame some of mine in a way that works within this project. Here is the first, but I plan on uploading more.

    This mini-lecture is hopefully the first of several, exploring anthropological concepts through Internet culture. This particular lecture, paired with the readings below, introduces the multi-layered intertextual sources at work within Internet memes, and how knowledge of these sources can form publics, exclude populations, and even create unanticipated associations. It even has an assignment at the end!

    Intertextuality and the Meme

     

    Anthropology Mini Lectures Series: From Political Ecology to Bipedialism

    Dear colleagues,

    Here is a link to a series of mini-lectures Sienna Craig and I produced to use for our Introduction to Anthropology course at Dartmouth.  Each video is from 3 to 4 minutes long and features interviews with an anthropologist who talks about a concept in anthropology and their research. Topics are: 

    1) Political Ecology with Laura Ogden

    2) Care and Cancer in India with Dwai Banerjee

    3) Race in Biological Anthropology with Jerry DeSilva

    4) Language and Gender in East Africa with Sabrina Billings

    5) Ethics in Anthropology with Sienna Craig

    6) Understandings of Health and Illness with Sienna Craig

    7) Route to Medical Anthropology with Sienna Craig

    8) Potlatch:  A Definition with Sergei Kan

    9) Origins of Bipedalism with Jerry DeSilva

    10) Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers with Vivek Venkataram.

    Here is the link:  https://anthropology.dartmouth.edu/research/ethnography-lab-videos

    I would upload the actual videos, but they are on a hardrive in my office . . . best, Laura Ogden

     

     

    Space, distance and the limits of the social

    This brief lecture is meant as a social sciences intervention into current debates about social life in the time of a global pandemic. I draw upon some relatively well-known concepts from anthropology and social theory to discuss the notions of social distance/proximity and sociality in a way that is meant to stimulate reflection and discussion about the role of anthropology in times of crisis. 

    Space, distance and the limits of the social

    This brief lecture is meant as a social sciences intervention into current debates about social life in the time of a global pandemic. I draw upon some relatively well-known concepts from anthropology and social theory to discuss the notions of social distance/proximity and sociality in a way that is meant to stimulate reflection and discussion about the role of anthropology in times of crisis. 

    Heritage and Archaeology in the American Southwest: Huhugam, Hohokam, and Casa Grande

    This is a video/slideshow of my research on the relationship between O'odham heritage and Hohokam archaeology. Through examination of the O'odham Man in the Maze symbol in relation to Sivañĭ Va’aki, or Casa Grande, I propose an interpretation that emphasizes a phenomenological perspective. This interpretation illustrates how archaeological understanding might benefit from a subjective orientation like that taken by descendant communities. A discussion follows of the mathematical implications of such a perspective in a braided stream, or rhyzotic, model of ethnogenesis, which shed

    Heritage and Archaeology in the American Southwest

    light on long-standing debates about the "collapse" of Classic Period Hohokam. Implications for this perspective have global application. This research is related to my recent book "From Hohokam to Huhugam: Heritage and Archaeology in the American Southwest." Lexington Press 2019

    Biopolitics Explainer

    Biopolitics Explainer

    Here is a 30 min lecture defining Foucault's concept of biopolitics for undergraduate students who have not read (or may not be at all familiar with) Foucualt. It is an exerpt from an anthropology/disability studies course called Queer Bodies: Gender, Disability, and Illness (syllabus attached below), but it is a general (and, of course, imperfect) explanation so should be usable in other contexts as well.

    The video is autocaptioned (so not everything is captured correctly). All slide images are also described.

    -Zoë H Wool, Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Mississauga