WesMaps - Wesleyan University Catalog 2018-2019       Summer Session       Winter Session       Home       Archive       Search
CS92PROD
Theory 2: Anthropology and Capitalist Globalization

ANTH 296
Spring 2019
Section: 01  
This course may be repeated for credit.
Certificates: Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory

Theory 1 and Theory 2 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 will be anthropology and capitalist globalization.

This course examines a history of the capitalist globalization through an anthropological lens. Our broad concern is with power, social change and justice, and how anthropologists have historically shed critical light on the economic, cultural, and political struggles that define capitalist modernities across the globe. We will read range of both classic and contemporary theoretical and ethnographic works on this topic. This course is divided into 3 units. The readings in Unit I introduce the basic concepts and debates that have shaped anthropology's engagement with transnational capitalism and social change. Unit II probes the cultural dimensions of global economic processes, such as factory work, finance, affective labor, class identities, logos and brands, and consumption. We use and expand upon the concepts learned in Unit I through ethnographic work. In Unit III we consider the impact of contemporary neoliberal capitalist transformations on political imagination and struggles. We read ethnographic texts that look at mobilizations in and against neoliberal capitalism, which are rethinking the meanings of freedom and democracy and enacting new forms of subjectivities, communities, and economic relations.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS ANTH
Course Format: Lecture / DiscussionGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: ANTH101
Fulfills a Major Requirement for: (ANTH)(CSCT)(STS)
Past Enrollment Probability: 75% - 89%

Last Updated on MAR-29-2024
Contact wesmaps@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions. Please include a url, course title, faculty name or other page reference in your email ? Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459