The Politics of Nature: Modernity and Its Others
ANTH 397
Fall 2015 not offered
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| Crosslisting:
SISP 397, ENVS 397 |
| Certificates: Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory |
This seminar explores the ways in which imaginations of nature-culture anchor particular regimes of living and power. Our larger query will concern ontology and cosmology--the worlds and worldviews we inhabit--and what happens when there is basic disagreement over what "nature" is. For example, do rocks, mountains, and glaciers listen as many indigenous peoples claim? Or are these claims merely a matter of cultural belief? Conversely, how do scientists listen to and relate to their natural objects? What social, historical, and intellectual practices make their vision of nature? And why do certain visions of nature appear more "real" and more "universal" than others? What are the political and ethical consequences for how humans live and co-inhabit with Earth Others on this planet?
We will read across the history of science, philosophy, anthropology, postcolonial studies, cultural studies, and feminist science studies to explore reflexively and open-endedly the meanings and materialities of our concept of "nature" and become more discerning about our uniquely EuroAmerican frameworks, considering "nature" and the "natural" in a variety of contexts, from natural history in the 18th and 19th centuries to current struggles over the management of natural resources. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS ANTH |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (ENVS) |
Major Readings:
LORRAINE DASTON, PETER GALISON. Objectivity. ISBN 9781890951795.
DEBORAH ROSE, Reports from a Wild Country: Ethics for Decolonisation, ISBN 0868407984.
JAKE KOSEK, Understories: the Political Life of Forests in New Mexico, ISBN 9780822338475
CORI HAYDEN, When Nature Goes Public: The Making and Unmaking of Bioprospecting In Mexico. ISBN 9780691095578.
Other readings include Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour, Lorraine Daston, Anna Tsing, Tim Ingold, Michael Taussig, Viveiros de Castro, Charis Cussins, and Stephen Helmreich, among others.
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Examinations and Assignments:
Ten weekly and substantive critical reflections on the readings, a midterm analytical paper, and a final research paper. In-class assignments on occasion. |
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