Topic for Fall 2024: Ethnography of (Post)Cold War Europe
PREREQUISITES: sophomore standing or ANTH 110 or instructor consent This course explores some of the profound ways that socialist ideals and politics structured lives in the region of Eastern Europe and Eurasia and, in many critical ways, continue to shape lives in a post-Cold War era today. We will draw on ethnographic case studies to consider the meaning and utility of the term “postsocialism;” problematize geographically fixed entities such as “Europe” and “Eastern Europe;” and explore the various cultural logics, shared political histories, and experiences of state socialism and postsocialism. Issues to be explored include materiality, precarity, class, gender, memory politics, activism, and identity construction.

Topic for Fall 2024: Anthropology of Sustainability
PREREQUISITES: None While sustainability science may be a relatively new discipline, the human species has a long history of interacting with the environment in both sustainable and unsustainable manners. Why is this? Why aren’t we always just choosing sustainability – it would be better for everyone, right? In this course we will explore these and more questions around sustainability through an anthropological lens to suggest and identify potential solutions to contemporary global and local sustainability issues.