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Course Criteria
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3.00 Credits
Cycles of rise and collapse of civilizations are common in our human past. Among the most fascinating cases are those of empires, conquest civilizations, or states that encompass a number of different ethnicities, polities and peoples. However, their rise and often rapid collapse begs an important question: how stable have empires been in human prehistory? Are they intrinsically unstable political forms? The course will address these questions by examining the major empires of the Old and New World in pre-modern history: Persian; Assyrian; Mongol; Roman; Chinese; Ottoman; Aztec; and Inca empires. Using readings by political scientists, historians, epigraphers, archaeologists and political anthropologists, we will consider the causes of the expansion and collapse of these empires. We will also explore their sociopolitical and economic structures as mechanisms for their maintenance in order to provide a cross-cultural comparison of the differential success and final decline of all these empires.
Prerequisite:
Open to first-year students
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3.00 Credits
Since the 1970s, the international financial sector has grown dramatically, outpacing its traditional role in facilitating international trade and production. New markets in countries which had previously restricted foreign investment, new financial instruments, and new market participants have precipitated growth in the volume of financial flows and in their significance to economies and livelihoods worldwide. In this course, we will consider the financial system from the point of view of those who operate it. We will begin with historical accounts that highlight both the technological advances and the cultural work that have contributed to the development of the American financial system. Then, after an overview of expansion of financial markets since the 1970s, we will investigate the working lives, practices, and perspectives of those who make markets, with case studies from the U.S., the UK, and Japan. Considering financial traders as social beings who form communities, we will investigate their everyday experiences and beliefs, and we will examine how traders build trust, assess risk, forge identities, and create distinction (including along lines of race and gender). We will examine the interplay between knowledge and practice in the financial industry by examining practices of calculation and speculation and by investigating the role of technologies--from paper to mathematical formulae to stock tickers and computers--in shaping those practices. We will also consider shifting definitions of financial success, failure, and corruption in the history of American finance and how traders have attempted to mold public perception of their activities.
Prerequisite:
Open to all
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3.00 Credits
In this course we will study the things people make and use, from works of art to clothing, buildings, and tools. We will use anthropological theory to explore the social and communicative roles that objects play in human society and to explain how people use objects to communicate, rebel, exert power, or make sense of the world around them. We will begin by reconsidering the category "art" and by exploring the idea that visual practices are culturally constructed. Through reading ethnographic case studies, we will investigate how meaning and value are produced in different cultural contexts. In particular, we will focus on semiotic theories of value and on theories of exchange, building on Marcel Mauss's seminal work The Gift. In the second half of the course, we will attend to the role of material culture in capitalist societies by exploring the processes whereby things become commodities; by investigating the relationship between style, aesthetics, and class; and by tracing the interrelationships between design, advertising, and consumer society. Readings will include the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Dick Hebdige, Bronislaw Malinowski, Karl Marx, Annette Weiner, and others.
Prerequisite:
Open to all students
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3.00 Credits
Anthropology independent study.
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3.00 Credits
Anthropology independent study.
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3.00 Credits
Anthropology senior thesis.
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3.00 Credits
Anthropology senior thesis.
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3.00 Credits
This is a year-long course in which students will learn to read, write and converse in Arabic while becoming familiar with the basic grammar of Modern Standard Arabic. Students will also be exposed to the Egyptian variety of colloquial Arabic. This is a communicative-oriented course which revolves around the daily practice of vocabulary, conversation and different grammatical structures in class. You will be expected to speak Modern Standard Arabic in class from an early stage. Students will also be expected to take advantage of the technological resources available for the study of Arabic on the internet, as well as the technological aids available as part of our textbooks for this course, Alif Baa and Al-Kitaab fii Ta'allum al-'Arabiyya from Georgetown University Press.
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3.00 Credits
This is a year-long course in which students will learn to read, write and converse in Arabic while becoming familiar with the basic grammar of Modern Standard Arabic. Students will also be exposed to the Egyptian variety of colloquial Arabic. This is a communicative-oriented course which revolves around the daily practice of vocabulary, conversation and different grammatical structures in class. You will be expected to speak Modern Standard Arabic in class from an early stage. Students will also be expected to take advantage of the technological resources available for the study of Arabic on the internet, as well as the technological aids available as part of our textbooks for this course, Alif Baa and Al-Kitaab fii Ta'allum al-'Arabiyya from Georgetown University Press.
Prerequisite:
ARAB 101
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3.00 Credits
This course examines the careers, ideas, and impact of leading politicians, religious leaders, intellectuals, and artists in the Middle East in the twentieth century. Utilizing biographical studies and the general literature on the political and cultural history of the period, this course will analyze how these individuals achieved prominence in Middle Eastern society and how they addressed the pertinent problems of their day, such as war and peace, relations with Western powers, the role of religion in society, and the status of women. A range of significant individuals will be studied, including Gamal Abd al-Nasser, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Ayatollah Khomeini, Muhammad Mussadiq, Umm Khulthum, Sayyid Qutb, Anwar Sadat, Naghuib Mahfouz, and Huda Shaarawi.
Prerequisite:
First-year or sophomore standing
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