Theory in Anthropology: Anthropology of Affect
ANTH 295B
Fall 2023 not offered
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| This course may be repeated for credit. |
| Course Cluster and Certificates: Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory Certificate |
Theory in Anthropology courses are core courses for the major, designed to elucidate historical influences on contemporary anthropological theory. While precise topics may vary from year to year, the overall goal of the courses remains the same: to familiarize students with the main traditions from which the discipline of anthropology emerged and to explore the diverse ways in which contemporary anthropological practice defines itself both with and against them.
This semester, our topic is the anthropology of affect. Affect: to affect and be affected. Anthropologists and other social theorists from Durkheim onward have considered questions of bodies, sensation, emotion, and social change. In recent years, the "affective turn" in the humanities and humanistic social sciences has brought renewed attention to these dynamics. For some, affect is contrasted with emotion; it is potential or capacity, not set cultural meaning. For others, affect is contrasted with structure or form; it is bodily sensation or intensity--dynamic, energetic, mobile. And for others still, affect might enable us to grasp how it feels to inhabit a life world, a particular atmosphere, texture, sensuality, the feel of things.
This course explores the genealogy and range of theories of affect, foregrounding anthropology's distinctive contributions to and critiques of the study of affect. We'll discuss ways that centralizing affect might disrupt dichotomies of structure/agency, opening up modes of analysis that are not centered on cultural meaning-making, and enabling us to explore forms of life that exceed human subjects and socialities. Readings will tack between more theoretical essays and ethnographic representations of affect, sensuality, mobility, and emotion. Weekly experimental sensoriums, designed to attune us to the world, are a central component of the course. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS ANTH |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: ANTH101 |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (ANTH)(CSCT)(STS) |
Major Readings:
Readings TBD. Possibly including: Kathleen Stewart, ORDINARY AFFECTS; Anne Allison, PRECARIOUS JAPAN; Deborah Gould, MOVING POLITICS; Ann Cvetkovich, DEPRESSION: A PUBLIC FEELING; Ruth Behar, THE VULNERABLE OBSERVER, and essays by Émile Durkheim, Gilles Deleuze, Brian Massumi, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, William Mazzarella, Lauren Berlant, Yael Navaro-Yashin, Diane Nelson, Nais Dave, Sara Ahmed, Erin Manning, Wendy Brown, Michael Taussig, Paul Stoller, Karen Barad, James Bielo, and Michael Jackson.
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Examinations and Assignments:
Reading/discussion memos, ethnographic sensorium workshops, short reading papers, final paper or project. |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
Students must attend the first day of class. |
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