SOAN 181 - FS: First-Year Seminar in Anthropology

FDR: SS4
Credits: 3
Planned Offering: Offered occasionally. Each first-year seminar topic is approved by the Dean of The College and the Committee on Courses and Degrees. Applicability to FDRs and other requirements varies.

First-year seminar. Prerequisite: First-year standing. SOAN 181: FS: Culture in Contemporary Africa: Beyond the Dark Continent (3). First-Year Seminar. Prerequisite: First-year class standing. This seminar examines the diverse groups of people within the African continent and how anthropologists have approached understanding this diversity, in the context of an increasingly interconnected world. Students first explore the dynamic history of the continent, with particular focus on colonialism and anthropologists’ role in colonialism, in order to examine the politics of representation and social change. We also explore several pertinent topics in specific social and historical contexts, such as the construction of personhood, gender, ethnicity, religion, and politics, and we examine the experiences, idioms, and structures of social inequality in relation to international development and clientism, with particular attention on popular discourses about wealth and power in the media and local idioms of witchcraft, vampires, and the occult. (SS4) Jenkins. Fall 2014