TEACHING
GRADUATE
EALC525
Local/Global Asia: Tourism, Travel, and Modernity
Offered in Fall 2021 at the University of Southern California
Course Description
Where is the place of tourism in Asia and Asian studies? This seminar will analyze representations, discourses, and experiences of locality, globality, self, and difference in diverse Asian contexts and historical periods through the critical lens of tourism and travel. While contemporary tourism and leisure travel practices are often associated with the ushering in of modernity and, more specifically, "Westernization," our readings and discussions will challenge this assumption by examining the imagined geographies and recorded travels of persons and ideas within, across, and beyond "Asia." In particular, we will explore how tourism and travel have been deployed as a means of geopolitical imagining for nation and empire-building, and how contemporary debates over "cultural heritage" and "soft power" have become enmeshed in these issues. Readings will come from cultural studies, anthropology, history, literature, and art history in order to encompass a wide range of perspectives on tourism as a practice and as a discourse that has dramatically shaped the experience of modernity in Asian contexts.
Readings and films include work by Youngmin Choe, Taj Robeson Frazier, Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez, Kate McDonald, Hyung Il Pai, Emma Jinhua Teng, Wang Bo, Tim Winter, and Emily Yeh.
Local/Global Asia: Tourism, Travel, and Modernity
Offered in Fall 2021 at the University of Southern California
Course Description
Where is the place of tourism in Asia and Asian studies? This seminar will analyze representations, discourses, and experiences of locality, globality, self, and difference in diverse Asian contexts and historical periods through the critical lens of tourism and travel. While contemporary tourism and leisure travel practices are often associated with the ushering in of modernity and, more specifically, "Westernization," our readings and discussions will challenge this assumption by examining the imagined geographies and recorded travels of persons and ideas within, across, and beyond "Asia." In particular, we will explore how tourism and travel have been deployed as a means of geopolitical imagining for nation and empire-building, and how contemporary debates over "cultural heritage" and "soft power" have become enmeshed in these issues. Readings will come from cultural studies, anthropology, history, literature, and art history in order to encompass a wide range of perspectives on tourism as a practice and as a discourse that has dramatically shaped the experience of modernity in Asian contexts.
Readings and films include work by Youngmin Choe, Taj Robeson Frazier, Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez, Kate McDonald, Hyung Il Pai, Emma Jinhua Teng, Wang Bo, Tim Winter, and Emily Yeh.
EALC 535
Proseminar on Chinese Visual Culture: Media Ethnography
Offered in Fall 2022 and Fall 2018 at the University of Southern California
Course Description
This proseminar on Chinese visual culture will explore the tensions and elasticity of media as a simultaneously local and global mode of sociality and cultural politics. Through close readings of contemporary media and visual culture theory, alongside ethnographies of Chinese visual cultural production, we will examine how media forms and media technologies engage and engender particular ways of being in/knowing the world that are equally specific to local contexts and expressions of global connectivity and potentialities. Methodologically, we will explore the approach and possibilities of media ethnography, taking a “ground-up” perspective to the critical analysis of visual forms and mediated practices in the world today. This multi-modal approach forces us to confront often taken for granted assumptions about (visual) media: as information, as knowledge, as constitutive of society. “Media” for our purposes will encompass a range of technologies and types, including television, radio, film, photography, print, and online; state-sponsored, commercial, underground, and independent; verbal, visual, and interactive. Seminar discussions will challenge us to consider media both as a text and as a social context, with a particular emphasis on developing productive methodological connections and analytical insights between approaches in cultural anthropology, film and media studies, and visual culture.
Readings include work by Xiaobing Tang, Joshua Neves, Erin Huang, Jie Li, Paola Voci, and Laikwan Pang.
Proseminar on Chinese Visual Culture: Media Ethnography
Offered in Fall 2022 and Fall 2018 at the University of Southern California
Course Description
This proseminar on Chinese visual culture will explore the tensions and elasticity of media as a simultaneously local and global mode of sociality and cultural politics. Through close readings of contemporary media and visual culture theory, alongside ethnographies of Chinese visual cultural production, we will examine how media forms and media technologies engage and engender particular ways of being in/knowing the world that are equally specific to local contexts and expressions of global connectivity and potentialities. Methodologically, we will explore the approach and possibilities of media ethnography, taking a “ground-up” perspective to the critical analysis of visual forms and mediated practices in the world today. This multi-modal approach forces us to confront often taken for granted assumptions about (visual) media: as information, as knowledge, as constitutive of society. “Media” for our purposes will encompass a range of technologies and types, including television, radio, film, photography, print, and online; state-sponsored, commercial, underground, and independent; verbal, visual, and interactive. Seminar discussions will challenge us to consider media both as a text and as a social context, with a particular emphasis on developing productive methodological connections and analytical insights between approaches in cultural anthropology, film and media studies, and visual culture.
Readings include work by Xiaobing Tang, Joshua Neves, Erin Huang, Jie Li, Paola Voci, and Laikwan Pang.
ANTH674/CIMS674/COMM808/FNAR608
The Portrait as/in Ethnography
Offered in Spring 2021 at the University of Pennsylvania
Course Description
When cameras are ubiquitous and millions of people post pictures of themselves online, what counts as a portrait today? In an age of selfies, surveillance, biometric “smart” identity cards, and movements like Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, and indigenous decolonization, can the portrait do a different kind of representational work? How do visual portraits (whether photographic, painted, drawn, or sculpted) operate differently from textual portraits (such as biographies, life histories, or profiles)? This seminar aims to resituate and rethink the portrait in ethnography, and by extension, the practice of portraiture as an ethnographic method, by exploring portraiture as a culturally conditioned, socially resonant form of knowledge production. All portraits, even self- portraits, rely upon a relationship: between the portrayed and the portrayer, the sitter and the artist, the interlocutor and the ethnographer. We will interrogate how portraits have shaped identity politics, and how portraiture, as a scholarly and artistic act, can radically re-theorize forms of social engagement. Drawing on multimodal and decolonial turns in anthropology, seminar participants will produce portraits of their own, using whatever medium/media might be best suited for their interpretive work.
Readings and films include work by Richard Brilliant, Ariella Azoulay and Miki Kratzman, Chantal Ackerman, Huang Hui-Chen, Anna Grimshaw, Robert Desjarlais, Miko Revereza, and Pema Tseden.
The Portrait as/in Ethnography
Offered in Spring 2021 at the University of Pennsylvania
Course Description
When cameras are ubiquitous and millions of people post pictures of themselves online, what counts as a portrait today? In an age of selfies, surveillance, biometric “smart” identity cards, and movements like Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, and indigenous decolonization, can the portrait do a different kind of representational work? How do visual portraits (whether photographic, painted, drawn, or sculpted) operate differently from textual portraits (such as biographies, life histories, or profiles)? This seminar aims to resituate and rethink the portrait in ethnography, and by extension, the practice of portraiture as an ethnographic method, by exploring portraiture as a culturally conditioned, socially resonant form of knowledge production. All portraits, even self- portraits, rely upon a relationship: between the portrayed and the portrayer, the sitter and the artist, the interlocutor and the ethnographer. We will interrogate how portraits have shaped identity politics, and how portraiture, as a scholarly and artistic act, can radically re-theorize forms of social engagement. Drawing on multimodal and decolonial turns in anthropology, seminar participants will produce portraits of their own, using whatever medium/media might be best suited for their interpretive work.
Readings and films include work by Richard Brilliant, Ariella Azoulay and Miki Kratzman, Chantal Ackerman, Huang Hui-Chen, Anna Grimshaw, Robert Desjarlais, Miko Revereza, and Pema Tseden.
VISS 599
Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Art
Co-taught with Prof. Nancy Lutkehaus
Offered in Spring 2019 at the University of Southern California
Course Description
In the wake of recent clashes in the United States over the fate of Confederate statues, as well as earlier news from Syria on the destruction of monuments in Palymra by ISIS militants, there is a renewed urgency to reconceptualize the visual politics of cultural heritage and the power of tourism on art (and vice versa). After all, UNESCO World Heritage designations and similar domestic categories remain vital for sustaining global tourism industries, opening possibilities for local entrepreneurs, and stoking nationalist sentiments. This seminar will approach cultural heritage and the intersecting vectors of power and authority that render (the idea of) “heritage” so desirable and dangerous by addressing three categories: land, things, and bodies. Land and landscapes constitute one of the most fundamental visual and material sites of political authority based on notions of cultural belonging and historical presence. Things, from artifacts to monuments, are often the most visually recognizable objects of cultural heritage and thus the first to be destroyed, removed, stolen, and sold. Bodies, in both the sense of the embodiment of cultural knowledge and the physiological, frequently racialized body, play a central role in the formation and politicization of collective memory and the denial of minority and marginalized experiences. The aim of this seminar is to build a critical language and rhetorical framework for understanding the power of heritage—and in particular the visual politics of cultural heritage—in the context of contemporary debates over tourism, art, and belonging. The seminar will have a particular focus on how discourses of racialized, ethnic, and sociocultural differences elide with what is nowadays referred to as “heritage.” Readings will explore theoretical approaches to critical tourism and cultural heritage studies, global policies and practices of heritage recognition, the materiality of memory and historical trauma, as well as historical and contemporary debates over inclusion, representation, and belonging in art and cultural institutions.
Readings include work by Bridget Cooks, Lynn Meskell, Dean MacCannell, Dell Upton, and Peter Probst.
Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Art
Co-taught with Prof. Nancy Lutkehaus
Offered in Spring 2019 at the University of Southern California
Course Description
In the wake of recent clashes in the United States over the fate of Confederate statues, as well as earlier news from Syria on the destruction of monuments in Palymra by ISIS militants, there is a renewed urgency to reconceptualize the visual politics of cultural heritage and the power of tourism on art (and vice versa). After all, UNESCO World Heritage designations and similar domestic categories remain vital for sustaining global tourism industries, opening possibilities for local entrepreneurs, and stoking nationalist sentiments. This seminar will approach cultural heritage and the intersecting vectors of power and authority that render (the idea of) “heritage” so desirable and dangerous by addressing three categories: land, things, and bodies. Land and landscapes constitute one of the most fundamental visual and material sites of political authority based on notions of cultural belonging and historical presence. Things, from artifacts to monuments, are often the most visually recognizable objects of cultural heritage and thus the first to be destroyed, removed, stolen, and sold. Bodies, in both the sense of the embodiment of cultural knowledge and the physiological, frequently racialized body, play a central role in the formation and politicization of collective memory and the denial of minority and marginalized experiences. The aim of this seminar is to build a critical language and rhetorical framework for understanding the power of heritage—and in particular the visual politics of cultural heritage—in the context of contemporary debates over tourism, art, and belonging. The seminar will have a particular focus on how discourses of racialized, ethnic, and sociocultural differences elide with what is nowadays referred to as “heritage.” Readings will explore theoretical approaches to critical tourism and cultural heritage studies, global policies and practices of heritage recognition, the materiality of memory and historical trauma, as well as historical and contemporary debates over inclusion, representation, and belonging in art and cultural institutions.
Readings include work by Bridget Cooks, Lynn Meskell, Dean MacCannell, Dell Upton, and Peter Probst.
Anthropology 585 (Special Topics)
Infrastructure and Information: Ethnographies of Global/Local Media
Offered in Fall 2017 and 2014 at Emory University
Course Description
This seminar will explore the tensions and elasticity of media as a simultaneously local and global mode of sociality and politics. Through close readings of contemporary media and visual culture theory, alongside ethnographies of media infrastructures (production, circulation, and consumption), we will examine how media forms and media technologies engage and engender particular ways of being in/knowing the world that are equally specific to local contexts and expressions of global connectivity and potentialities. Moreover, this approach forces us to confront often taken for granted assumptions about media – as information, as knowledge, as constitutive of citizenship and relatedness. “Media” for our purposes will encompass a range of technologies and types, including television, radio, film, photography, print, and online; state-sponsored, commercial, underground, and independent; verbal, visual, and interactive. Seminar discussions will challenge us to consider media both as a text and as a social context, with a particular emphasis on developing productive methodological connections and analytical insights between approaches in cultural anthropology, film and media studies, and visual culture. Topics to be addressed include the ethnographies of journalism, media infrastructures and public culture, localized film industries (Nollywood, Bollywood, Ghanaian video films) and global circuits, soundscapes and radio, and histories of looking, witnessing, and documenting.
Readings include work by Ariella Azoulay, Brian Larkin, Nicholas Mirzoeff, Zeynep Gürsel, Daniel Fisher, Birgit Meyer, and Simone Browne.
Infrastructure and Information: Ethnographies of Global/Local Media
Offered in Fall 2017 and 2014 at Emory University
Course Description
This seminar will explore the tensions and elasticity of media as a simultaneously local and global mode of sociality and politics. Through close readings of contemporary media and visual culture theory, alongside ethnographies of media infrastructures (production, circulation, and consumption), we will examine how media forms and media technologies engage and engender particular ways of being in/knowing the world that are equally specific to local contexts and expressions of global connectivity and potentialities. Moreover, this approach forces us to confront often taken for granted assumptions about media – as information, as knowledge, as constitutive of citizenship and relatedness. “Media” for our purposes will encompass a range of technologies and types, including television, radio, film, photography, print, and online; state-sponsored, commercial, underground, and independent; verbal, visual, and interactive. Seminar discussions will challenge us to consider media both as a text and as a social context, with a particular emphasis on developing productive methodological connections and analytical insights between approaches in cultural anthropology, film and media studies, and visual culture. Topics to be addressed include the ethnographies of journalism, media infrastructures and public culture, localized film industries (Nollywood, Bollywood, Ghanaian video films) and global circuits, soundscapes and radio, and histories of looking, witnessing, and documenting.
Readings include work by Ariella Azoulay, Brian Larkin, Nicholas Mirzoeff, Zeynep Gürsel, Daniel Fisher, Birgit Meyer, and Simone Browne.
Anthropology 585 (Special Topics)
Heritage and Power
Cross-listed with History and Art History
Offered in Spring 2016 at Emory University
Course Description
In the wake of recent clashes between China and Japan over the inclusion of documents about the Nanjing Massacre into UNESCO’s “International Memory of the World” register and of news from Syria on the destruction of monuments in Palmyra by ISIS militants, there is a renewed urgency to reconceptualize heritage, its politics, and its power. After all, UNESCO World Heritage designation and similar domestic categories remain vital for global tourism industries, local entrepreneurs, and nationalist sentiments. This seminar will approach heritage and the intersecting vectors of power and authority that render heritage so desirable and dangerous by addressing three categories: land, things, and bodies. Land and landscapes constitute one of the most fundamental sites of political authority based on notions of cultural belonging and historical presence. Things, from materials to monuments, are often the most recognizable objects of cultural heritage, and thus the first to be destroyed, removed, stolen, and sold. Bodies, in both the sense of the embodiment of cultural knowledge and the physiological, frequently racialized body, play a central role in the formation and politicization of collective memory and the denial of minority and marginalized experiences. The aim of this seminar is to build a critical language and theoretical framework for understanding the power of heritage in contemporary global politics and the history of the idea of heritage itself, with a particular focus on how discourses of racialized, ethnic, and sociocultural differences elide with what is nowadays referred to as “heritage.” Readings will explore the politics of recognition, discourses of multiculturalism, war and heritage sites, the materiality of memory and historical trauma, as well as Indigenous biopolitics.
Readings include work by David Lowenthal, Ann Stoler, Kim TallBear, WJT Mitchell, Paul Ricoeur, and Brigitte Sion.
Heritage and Power
Cross-listed with History and Art History
Offered in Spring 2016 at Emory University
Course Description
In the wake of recent clashes between China and Japan over the inclusion of documents about the Nanjing Massacre into UNESCO’s “International Memory of the World” register and of news from Syria on the destruction of monuments in Palmyra by ISIS militants, there is a renewed urgency to reconceptualize heritage, its politics, and its power. After all, UNESCO World Heritage designation and similar domestic categories remain vital for global tourism industries, local entrepreneurs, and nationalist sentiments. This seminar will approach heritage and the intersecting vectors of power and authority that render heritage so desirable and dangerous by addressing three categories: land, things, and bodies. Land and landscapes constitute one of the most fundamental sites of political authority based on notions of cultural belonging and historical presence. Things, from materials to monuments, are often the most recognizable objects of cultural heritage, and thus the first to be destroyed, removed, stolen, and sold. Bodies, in both the sense of the embodiment of cultural knowledge and the physiological, frequently racialized body, play a central role in the formation and politicization of collective memory and the denial of minority and marginalized experiences. The aim of this seminar is to build a critical language and theoretical framework for understanding the power of heritage in contemporary global politics and the history of the idea of heritage itself, with a particular focus on how discourses of racialized, ethnic, and sociocultural differences elide with what is nowadays referred to as “heritage.” Readings will explore the politics of recognition, discourses of multiculturalism, war and heritage sites, the materiality of memory and historical trauma, as well as Indigenous biopolitics.
Readings include work by David Lowenthal, Ann Stoler, Kim TallBear, WJT Mitchell, Paul Ricoeur, and Brigitte Sion.
Anthropology 585
Anthropology of Tourism
Offered in Fall 2013 at Emory University
Course Description
Why do we travel? What does it mean to be a tourist, or a traveler? How does travel shape the tourist’s identity, and what are its effects on the peoples and places visited? When is tourism “sustainable” and how does tourism work (or fail) as a form of development? The central focus of this seminar will be on how and why it is vital to understand travel and tourism as core features of global modernity beginning with an examination of the subjectivity of the tourist in order to interrogate the significance of travel in forming particular Western notions of authenticity, experience, power, and civilization. Throughout these texts, we will explore the role of travel in constructing dominant Western ideas about “other” people and places, and how these beliefs, in turn, continue to permeate contemporary conflicts and discussions about race, ethnicity, and gender as forms of difference. Readings will include key theoretical and empirical studies of travel and alterity, ethnographies of tourism and its local economic effects, as well as the politics of travel. We will interrogate contemporary debates on authenticity, heritage, cultural commodification, nation-building, and economic exploitation that reveal the depth and extent to which tourism has penetrated social lives around the world. Ultimately, we will be challenged to understand the inequalities of wealth and gender that mark many tourism destinations, and we will examine contemporary non-Western tourism practices as a way to rethink the very nature of leisure travel itself. Students will be strongly encouraged to suggest additional readings and themes related to their own research projects.
Readings include work by Florence Babb, Edward Bruner, M. Bianet Castellanos, Michael Herzfeld, Johan Lindquist, Dean MacCannell, and Rebecca Stein.
Anthropology of Tourism
Offered in Fall 2013 at Emory University
Course Description
Why do we travel? What does it mean to be a tourist, or a traveler? How does travel shape the tourist’s identity, and what are its effects on the peoples and places visited? When is tourism “sustainable” and how does tourism work (or fail) as a form of development? The central focus of this seminar will be on how and why it is vital to understand travel and tourism as core features of global modernity beginning with an examination of the subjectivity of the tourist in order to interrogate the significance of travel in forming particular Western notions of authenticity, experience, power, and civilization. Throughout these texts, we will explore the role of travel in constructing dominant Western ideas about “other” people and places, and how these beliefs, in turn, continue to permeate contemporary conflicts and discussions about race, ethnicity, and gender as forms of difference. Readings will include key theoretical and empirical studies of travel and alterity, ethnographies of tourism and its local economic effects, as well as the politics of travel. We will interrogate contemporary debates on authenticity, heritage, cultural commodification, nation-building, and economic exploitation that reveal the depth and extent to which tourism has penetrated social lives around the world. Ultimately, we will be challenged to understand the inequalities of wealth and gender that mark many tourism destinations, and we will examine contemporary non-Western tourism practices as a way to rethink the very nature of leisure travel itself. Students will be strongly encouraged to suggest additional readings and themes related to their own research projects.
Readings include work by Florence Babb, Edward Bruner, M. Bianet Castellanos, Michael Herzfeld, Johan Lindquist, Dean MacCannell, and Rebecca Stein.
UNDERGRADUATE
ANTH/EALC324gw
Contemporary China: Cultural Politics and Social Realities
Offered in Fall 2021 at the University of Southern California
Previously taught as:
EALC 499
Everyday China
Offered in Spring 2019 at the University of Southern California
Course Description
This course explores everyday life, politics, social transformations, and cultural practices in the People’s Republic of China, from cultural studies and social science perspectives. At present, China is often represented by the mass media as an inscrutable, yet imminently significant, rising “superpower,” a nation that cannot be ignored and yet somehow continues to elude our understanding. While this framing may be useful for politicians and others who attempt to situate China as a straw man in global affairs, it does little to aid our knowledge of what life is like for the 1.3 plus billion people living in the country. This course foregrounds a cultural and ethnographic perspective on the study of China today, emphasizing everyday experiences, changing subjectivities and identities, and shifting desires in post-1949 China. We will critically analyze the radical transformations that have occurred in rural and urban China, with a focus on the years since “Reform and Opening” in the late 1970s and the “rise” of China in the global world order. In particular, we will examine the influences of film and media, domestic and international migration, economic “liberalization,” and social memory on the lives of contemporary Chinese citizens through the lenses of gender, ethnicity, imaginaries, and intimacy.
Readings include work by Harriet Evans, Liao Yiwu, Gordon Mathews with Linessa Dan Ying and Yang Yang, Cara Wallis, and Yunxiang Yan.
Contemporary China: Cultural Politics and Social Realities
Offered in Fall 2021 at the University of Southern California
Previously taught as:
EALC 499
Everyday China
Offered in Spring 2019 at the University of Southern California
Course Description
This course explores everyday life, politics, social transformations, and cultural practices in the People’s Republic of China, from cultural studies and social science perspectives. At present, China is often represented by the mass media as an inscrutable, yet imminently significant, rising “superpower,” a nation that cannot be ignored and yet somehow continues to elude our understanding. While this framing may be useful for politicians and others who attempt to situate China as a straw man in global affairs, it does little to aid our knowledge of what life is like for the 1.3 plus billion people living in the country. This course foregrounds a cultural and ethnographic perspective on the study of China today, emphasizing everyday experiences, changing subjectivities and identities, and shifting desires in post-1949 China. We will critically analyze the radical transformations that have occurred in rural and urban China, with a focus on the years since “Reform and Opening” in the late 1970s and the “rise” of China in the global world order. In particular, we will examine the influences of film and media, domestic and international migration, economic “liberalization,” and social memory on the lives of contemporary Chinese citizens through the lenses of gender, ethnicity, imaginaries, and intimacy.
Readings include work by Harriet Evans, Liao Yiwu, Gordon Mathews with Linessa Dan Ying and Yang Yang, Cara Wallis, and Yunxiang Yan.
GSEM130g
Nation, Culture, Power in East Asia
Offered in Fall 2018, Spring 2021 and Spring 2022 at the University of Southern California
Previously taught as:
East Asian Studies 250W/Anthropology 250W
Introduction to East Asian Studies: Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism in East Asia
Offered in Fall 2017 at Emory University
Course Description
This course uses anthropological perspectives on race, ethnicity, and nationalism to ask: What do race and racism look like in East Asia? What are the theoretical foundations of race and ethnicity, and what are the histories of these concepts in East Asia? Why is nationalism dangerous in some contexts and a source of pride in others? How can understanding the entanglements of racism, structural inequality, colonial histories, and social hierarchy in East Asia challenge assumptions about race, ethnicity, and nationalism in the US? The goal is to introduce students to contemporary society and the politics of identity in China, Japan, and South Korea, with side journeys to Taiwan and Hong Kong, by exploring these and other related questions.
Through analytical writing assignments and an independent research paper, we will interrogate the sociopolitical, cultural, and conceptual meanings of race, ethnicity, and nationalism from an East Asian perspective. We will read contemporary ethnographic studies of racism and nationalism in East Asia as well as historical and theoretical studies that provide a broader framework for understanding how social differences have been transformed into political inequality and forms of domination. While the focus of the course will be on the contemporary context, we will also examine how 19th and 20th century colonial encounters shaped ideas about race and have been used to justify the oppression of certain minority groups up to the present day. By investigating ethnic identity, national belonging, racism and racialized differences, Indigenous rights, and political (dis)unity in East Asia, our collective aim is to analyze country-specific conditions, regional similarities, and current disputes. Students are expected to attend film screenings and other events outside of the class period.
Readings include works by Nicole Constable, John Lie, Benedict Anderson, Aihwa Ong, Prasenjit Duara, Joseph Hankins, and Nelson Graburn.
Nation, Culture, Power in East Asia
Offered in Fall 2018, Spring 2021 and Spring 2022 at the University of Southern California
Previously taught as:
East Asian Studies 250W/Anthropology 250W
Introduction to East Asian Studies: Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism in East Asia
Offered in Fall 2017 at Emory University
Course Description
This course uses anthropological perspectives on race, ethnicity, and nationalism to ask: What do race and racism look like in East Asia? What are the theoretical foundations of race and ethnicity, and what are the histories of these concepts in East Asia? Why is nationalism dangerous in some contexts and a source of pride in others? How can understanding the entanglements of racism, structural inequality, colonial histories, and social hierarchy in East Asia challenge assumptions about race, ethnicity, and nationalism in the US? The goal is to introduce students to contemporary society and the politics of identity in China, Japan, and South Korea, with side journeys to Taiwan and Hong Kong, by exploring these and other related questions.
Through analytical writing assignments and an independent research paper, we will interrogate the sociopolitical, cultural, and conceptual meanings of race, ethnicity, and nationalism from an East Asian perspective. We will read contemporary ethnographic studies of racism and nationalism in East Asia as well as historical and theoretical studies that provide a broader framework for understanding how social differences have been transformed into political inequality and forms of domination. While the focus of the course will be on the contemporary context, we will also examine how 19th and 20th century colonial encounters shaped ideas about race and have been used to justify the oppression of certain minority groups up to the present day. By investigating ethnic identity, national belonging, racism and racialized differences, Indigenous rights, and political (dis)unity in East Asia, our collective aim is to analyze country-specific conditions, regional similarities, and current disputes. Students are expected to attend film screenings and other events outside of the class period.
Readings include works by Nicole Constable, John Lie, Benedict Anderson, Aihwa Ong, Prasenjit Duara, Joseph Hankins, and Nelson Graburn.
Anthropology 385 (Special Topics)
Ethnicity and Nationalism in East Asia
Offered in Fall 2014 at Emory University
This is a upper division, undergraduate course; it is cross-listed with East Asian Studies 385. The course features guest lectures and the collaborative production of a scholarly journal featuring student writing and independent research. This project-based class was supported by the Fund for Innovative Teaching grant program, offered by Emory's Center for Faculty Development and Excellence.
Course Description
What makes a “community” in today’s world? What is ethnicity and what is a nation in this contemporary era of globalization, multiculturalism, and supposedly “borderless” technologies such as social media? Why is nationalism still evoked as a problem in some political contexts and as a source of pride in others? How do global regions, such as “East Asia” or “Europe,” and countries define themselves against and alongside one another, and what everyday practices function to constitute and create meaning for the people who live in these places? This upper level, seminar-style course will interrogate the sociopolitical, cultural, and conceptual meanings of ethnicity and nationalism in the context of East Asia. By developing an anthropological perspective on ethnic identity, national belonging, racialized differences, and political (dis)unity in China, Japan, and South Korea, our aim is to build a broader perspective not only on country-specific conditions but also regional similarities and current disputes. In particular, readings will address the role and impact of economic growth, consumerism, memory and trauma, domestic and international migration, and popular social movements on changing discourses of ethnicity, race, and the nation in East Asia. Students should have taken at least one course in Anthropology, Sociology, History, International Studies, and/or East Asian Studies; film screenings, talks, and other events outside of class will be required.
Readings include works by Thomas H. Eriksen, Benedict Anderson, Tenzin Jinba, Laura C. Nelson, Marilyn Ivy, Nelson Graburn, Morris Rossabi, and Laurel Kendall.
Ethnicity and Nationalism in East Asia
Offered in Fall 2014 at Emory University
This is a upper division, undergraduate course; it is cross-listed with East Asian Studies 385. The course features guest lectures and the collaborative production of a scholarly journal featuring student writing and independent research. This project-based class was supported by the Fund for Innovative Teaching grant program, offered by Emory's Center for Faculty Development and Excellence.
Course Description
What makes a “community” in today’s world? What is ethnicity and what is a nation in this contemporary era of globalization, multiculturalism, and supposedly “borderless” technologies such as social media? Why is nationalism still evoked as a problem in some political contexts and as a source of pride in others? How do global regions, such as “East Asia” or “Europe,” and countries define themselves against and alongside one another, and what everyday practices function to constitute and create meaning for the people who live in these places? This upper level, seminar-style course will interrogate the sociopolitical, cultural, and conceptual meanings of ethnicity and nationalism in the context of East Asia. By developing an anthropological perspective on ethnic identity, national belonging, racialized differences, and political (dis)unity in China, Japan, and South Korea, our aim is to build a broader perspective not only on country-specific conditions but also regional similarities and current disputes. In particular, readings will address the role and impact of economic growth, consumerism, memory and trauma, domestic and international migration, and popular social movements on changing discourses of ethnicity, race, and the nation in East Asia. Students should have taken at least one course in Anthropology, Sociology, History, International Studies, and/or East Asian Studies; film screenings, talks, and other events outside of class will be required.
Readings include works by Thomas H. Eriksen, Benedict Anderson, Tenzin Jinba, Laura C. Nelson, Marilyn Ivy, Nelson Graburn, Morris Rossabi, and Laurel Kendall.
Anthropology 280
Anthropological Perspectives: China
Taught in Spring 2013, 2014, and 2016 at Emory University
This was the first class specifically focused on China offered in the department.
Course Description
At present, China is often represented by the mass media as an inscrutable, yet imminently significant, rising “superpower,” a nation that cannot be ignored and yet somehow continues to elude our understanding. While this framing may be useful for politicians and others who attempt to situate China as a straw man in global affairs, it does little to aid our knowledge of what life is like inside the country. This course foregrounds an anthropological perspective on the study of Chinese society and culture, emphasizing everyday experiences, changing subjectivities and identities, and shifting desires in post-1949 China. We will do this by closely reading ethnographies that document and critically analyze the radical transformations that have occurred in rural and urban China, with a focus on the years since “Reform and Opening” in the late 1970s and the “rise” of China in the global world order. In particular, we will examine the influences of media, migration, economic “liberalization,” and social memory on the lives of contemporary Chinese citizens through the lenses of gender, ethnicity, imaginaries, and intimacy. Active participation by all students is essential and expected; students should also be prepared to attend film screenings and other events outside of scheduled class hours. This course will count as an elective toward the EAS or CHN major/minors.
Readings have included work by Yan Yunxiang, Louisa Schein, Li Zhang, Vanessa Fong, Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Yu Hua, Lisa Rofel, and Cara Wallis.
Anthropological Perspectives: China
Taught in Spring 2013, 2014, and 2016 at Emory University
This was the first class specifically focused on China offered in the department.
Course Description
At present, China is often represented by the mass media as an inscrutable, yet imminently significant, rising “superpower,” a nation that cannot be ignored and yet somehow continues to elude our understanding. While this framing may be useful for politicians and others who attempt to situate China as a straw man in global affairs, it does little to aid our knowledge of what life is like inside the country. This course foregrounds an anthropological perspective on the study of Chinese society and culture, emphasizing everyday experiences, changing subjectivities and identities, and shifting desires in post-1949 China. We will do this by closely reading ethnographies that document and critically analyze the radical transformations that have occurred in rural and urban China, with a focus on the years since “Reform and Opening” in the late 1970s and the “rise” of China in the global world order. In particular, we will examine the influences of media, migration, economic “liberalization,” and social memory on the lives of contemporary Chinese citizens through the lenses of gender, ethnicity, imaginaries, and intimacy. Active participation by all students is essential and expected; students should also be prepared to attend film screenings and other events outside of scheduled class hours. This course will count as an elective toward the EAS or CHN major/minors.
Readings have included work by Yan Yunxiang, Louisa Schein, Li Zhang, Vanessa Fong, Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Yu Hua, Lisa Rofel, and Cara Wallis.
Anthropology 385 (Special Topics)
Visual Anthropology
Taught in Fall 2013 at Emory University
This was a special topics, upper division course, and the class is also a part of a new university-wide initiative, A Domain of One's Own, that explores the possibilities and opportunities for scholarly collaboration and communication using online platforms.
Course Description
How do pictures manipulate and reflect reality? What do we know from seeing, and how do we in turn use images to prove what we know? This course will attempt to tackle these basic questions by examining the relationships between our visual world (including photography, film, the visual arts, museums, and material objects) and anthropological knowledge production, ethnographic methods, and critical analysis. We will explore contemporary theories and practices of visual anthropology, and although this is not a production course, we will investigate how visual research methods are used in anthropological research, as well as how scholars, artists, and activists mobilize visual imagery and objects to communicate anthropological ideas and concepts. Questions of power and authority are integral in this quest to better comprehend, appreciate, and utilize visual images and forms in understanding human conditions. Readings will address the role of visual imagery in anthropological research, current debates over museums and cultural heritage, Indigenous media production, and the contentious relationship between seeing, believing, and understanding. Students are required to participate in museum visits and additional film screenings outside of scheduled class hours as part of the course. Required texts include studies of photography by Christopher Pinney and Nicolas Peterson, an ethnography of Aboriginal media making by Jennifer Deger, writing on ethnographic film by David MacDougall, amongst others, and an investigation of the politics of Native American museums by Amy Lonetree.
Visual Anthropology
Taught in Fall 2013 at Emory University
This was a special topics, upper division course, and the class is also a part of a new university-wide initiative, A Domain of One's Own, that explores the possibilities and opportunities for scholarly collaboration and communication using online platforms.
Course Description
How do pictures manipulate and reflect reality? What do we know from seeing, and how do we in turn use images to prove what we know? This course will attempt to tackle these basic questions by examining the relationships between our visual world (including photography, film, the visual arts, museums, and material objects) and anthropological knowledge production, ethnographic methods, and critical analysis. We will explore contemporary theories and practices of visual anthropology, and although this is not a production course, we will investigate how visual research methods are used in anthropological research, as well as how scholars, artists, and activists mobilize visual imagery and objects to communicate anthropological ideas and concepts. Questions of power and authority are integral in this quest to better comprehend, appreciate, and utilize visual images and forms in understanding human conditions. Readings will address the role of visual imagery in anthropological research, current debates over museums and cultural heritage, Indigenous media production, and the contentious relationship between seeing, believing, and understanding. Students are required to participate in museum visits and additional film screenings outside of scheduled class hours as part of the course. Required texts include studies of photography by Christopher Pinney and Nicolas Peterson, an ethnography of Aboriginal media making by Jennifer Deger, writing on ethnographic film by David MacDougall, amongst others, and an investigation of the politics of Native American museums by Amy Lonetree.
Film Studies 204
Introduction to Media Studies
Collaboratively taught course in Fall 2013, 2014, and 2017 at Emory University
Coordinated by Dr. Amy Aidman
This was a lower division, undergraduate course required of all Media Studies minors. It is taught by a group of scholars from across the Emory College of Arts and Sciences. My contribution is a one week unit consisting of two lectures and an evening screening session.
Unit Description: Ethnographic film/Film as Ethnography
In the first lecture, we critically explore the ways in which anthropologists have utilized film in order to communicate ethnographic findings, and the challenging political and ethical questions raised by these practices. Screenings will include the anthropological "classics" The Ax Fight (Napolean Chagnon and Timothy Asch, 1970) and Les Maitres Fous (Jean Rouch, 1954). We will also watch the recent short film, Two Men, by Australian filmmaker Dominic Allen, which was produced in collaboration with Yiriman, a community initiated and community driven project supported by the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre. Then, in the second lecture, we discuss the politics and poetics of understanding film as an ethnographic medium, by examining the various ways in which film and video have become integrated into Indigenous, Aboriginal, and other community focused efforts for cultural expression and political recognition.
Introduction to Media Studies
Collaboratively taught course in Fall 2013, 2014, and 2017 at Emory University
Coordinated by Dr. Amy Aidman
This was a lower division, undergraduate course required of all Media Studies minors. It is taught by a group of scholars from across the Emory College of Arts and Sciences. My contribution is a one week unit consisting of two lectures and an evening screening session.
Unit Description: Ethnographic film/Film as Ethnography
In the first lecture, we critically explore the ways in which anthropologists have utilized film in order to communicate ethnographic findings, and the challenging political and ethical questions raised by these practices. Screenings will include the anthropological "classics" The Ax Fight (Napolean Chagnon and Timothy Asch, 1970) and Les Maitres Fous (Jean Rouch, 1954). We will also watch the recent short film, Two Men, by Australian filmmaker Dominic Allen, which was produced in collaboration with Yiriman, a community initiated and community driven project supported by the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre. Then, in the second lecture, we discuss the politics and poetics of understanding film as an ethnographic medium, by examining the various ways in which film and video have become integrated into Indigenous, Aboriginal, and other community focused efforts for cultural expression and political recognition.
Anthropology 202
Concepts and Methods in Cultural Anthropology
Taught in Spring 2013 and 2018 at Emory University
This was a lower division, undergraduate course required for all Anthropology majors (both the BA in Anthropology and the BS in Anthropology and Human Biology).
Course Description
What is culture, and how do we know if we have it? What does it mean to say that humans are social animals, and how are we shaped by the political, economic, and social structures we ourselves create and maintain? This course will explore these questions from an anthropological perspective, focusing on how cultural anthropologists make sense of human lives and livelihoods both in the past and the present. Significantly, this course is not a survey of the discipline, but rather, we will engage in close readings of four ethnographies (one “classic” text and three contemporary studies) in order to understand key concepts such as race, class, and gender; power and politics; religion and belief systems; exchange, commodities, and wealth; violence, suffering, and agency; difference, diversity, and representation. We will also critically assess anthropological methods, including fieldwork and writing ethnography. Readings will include ethnographies by Bronislaw Malinowski, E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Phillipe Bourgois, Gordon Mathews, and Emma Tarlo, as well as articles and essays by Don Kulick, Alexander Edmonds, and Sherry Ortner. Students should be prepared for intensive reading, a variety of writing exercises (e.g. reading responses, short essays, and one research essay), and activities outside of scheduled class meetings (including film screenings and visits to local museums).
Concepts and Methods in Cultural Anthropology
Taught in Spring 2013 and 2018 at Emory University
This was a lower division, undergraduate course required for all Anthropology majors (both the BA in Anthropology and the BS in Anthropology and Human Biology).
Course Description
What is culture, and how do we know if we have it? What does it mean to say that humans are social animals, and how are we shaped by the political, economic, and social structures we ourselves create and maintain? This course will explore these questions from an anthropological perspective, focusing on how cultural anthropologists make sense of human lives and livelihoods both in the past and the present. Significantly, this course is not a survey of the discipline, but rather, we will engage in close readings of four ethnographies (one “classic” text and three contemporary studies) in order to understand key concepts such as race, class, and gender; power and politics; religion and belief systems; exchange, commodities, and wealth; violence, suffering, and agency; difference, diversity, and representation. We will also critically assess anthropological methods, including fieldwork and writing ethnography. Readings will include ethnographies by Bronislaw Malinowski, E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Phillipe Bourgois, Gordon Mathews, and Emma Tarlo, as well as articles and essays by Don Kulick, Alexander Edmonds, and Sherry Ortner. Students should be prepared for intensive reading, a variety of writing exercises (e.g. reading responses, short essays, and one research essay), and activities outside of scheduled class meetings (including film screenings and visits to local museums).
Anthropology 138a
History and Theory of Ethnographic Film
Taught in Summer 2009 at UC Berkeley
This was an upper division, undergraduate course in Anthropology.
Course Description
The course will trace the development of ethnographic film from its beginnings at the turn of the century to the present. In addition to looking at seminal works in the field of anthropology, more recent and innovative experimental productions will be viewed and analyzed, and we will investigate the influence that ethnographic film has had on contemporary non-fiction filmmaking practices. All together, we will engage with a diverse range of texts and films, including anthropology, art practice, journalism, and social activism, with the objective of developing a critical perspective on the filmic representation of human social and cultural lives. Topics to be discussed include the role of visual media in anthropological research methods, ethics in ethnographic filmmaking, current debates in documentary studies, and the ever contentious relationship between the act of observation and the production of knowledge.
Screenings will include an extended study of the cinema verité classic, Chronicle of a Summer, by Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin, films by Robert Gardner, David MacDougall, and Fred Wiseman, new independent documentaries, experimental non-fiction media arts such as the work of Bill Viola, and community media projects. Students are encouraged to suggest additional films and resources based on their own interests and research.
History and Theory of Ethnographic Film
Taught in Summer 2009 at UC Berkeley
This was an upper division, undergraduate course in Anthropology.
Course Description
The course will trace the development of ethnographic film from its beginnings at the turn of the century to the present. In addition to looking at seminal works in the field of anthropology, more recent and innovative experimental productions will be viewed and analyzed, and we will investigate the influence that ethnographic film has had on contemporary non-fiction filmmaking practices. All together, we will engage with a diverse range of texts and films, including anthropology, art practice, journalism, and social activism, with the objective of developing a critical perspective on the filmic representation of human social and cultural lives. Topics to be discussed include the role of visual media in anthropological research methods, ethics in ethnographic filmmaking, current debates in documentary studies, and the ever contentious relationship between the act of observation and the production of knowledge.
Screenings will include an extended study of the cinema verité classic, Chronicle of a Summer, by Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin, films by Robert Gardner, David MacDougall, and Fred Wiseman, new independent documentaries, experimental non-fiction media arts such as the work of Bill Viola, and community media projects. Students are encouraged to suggest additional films and resources based on their own interests and research.
Anthropology R5B.4
Visual Anthropology
Taught in Spring 2009 at UC Berkeley
This course was designed to fulfill university requirements in reading and composition for undergraduate students. Students were lower-division undergraduates with little to no previous coursework in Anthropology.
Course Description
How do pictures manipulate and reflect reality? What do we know from seeing, and how do we in turn use images to prove what we know? This course will introduce students to contemporary theories and practices of visual anthropology, covering a broad range of methods and products including ethnographic film, documentary photography, museum exhibition, and experimental art. We will begin by examining the politics of representation in anthropological research, and we will interrogate the primacy of vision (the idea that “seeing is believing”) in modern scientific thought. Although this is not a production course, we will explore both how visual research methods are used to produce anthropological knowledge, as well as how anthropologists mobilize visual imagery and objects to communicate ideas and concepts. Questions of power and authority are integral in this quest to better comprehend, appreciate, and utilize visual representations in understanding human conditions.
Readings will address the role of visual media in anthropological research, ethics in filmmaking, current debates over museum displays and collections, and the contentious relationship between seeing and believing. Assignments will develop skills in analyzing visual imagery, making critical connections between written scholarship and visual works, and conducting multi-sourced research on contemporary social issues. Students will be required to participate in museum visits and film screenings outside of scheduled class hours as part of the course.
Visual Anthropology
Taught in Spring 2009 at UC Berkeley
This course was designed to fulfill university requirements in reading and composition for undergraduate students. Students were lower-division undergraduates with little to no previous coursework in Anthropology.
Course Description
How do pictures manipulate and reflect reality? What do we know from seeing, and how do we in turn use images to prove what we know? This course will introduce students to contemporary theories and practices of visual anthropology, covering a broad range of methods and products including ethnographic film, documentary photography, museum exhibition, and experimental art. We will begin by examining the politics of representation in anthropological research, and we will interrogate the primacy of vision (the idea that “seeing is believing”) in modern scientific thought. Although this is not a production course, we will explore both how visual research methods are used to produce anthropological knowledge, as well as how anthropologists mobilize visual imagery and objects to communicate ideas and concepts. Questions of power and authority are integral in this quest to better comprehend, appreciate, and utilize visual representations in understanding human conditions.
Readings will address the role of visual media in anthropological research, ethics in filmmaking, current debates over museum displays and collections, and the contentious relationship between seeing and believing. Assignments will develop skills in analyzing visual imagery, making critical connections between written scholarship and visual works, and conducting multi-sourced research on contemporary social issues. Students will be required to participate in museum visits and film screenings outside of scheduled class hours as part of the course.