Winter 2010 Special Topics Courses
ANT 3085 JAN1 Topic: The Anthropology of Body Image
ANT 3085 JAN2A Topic: The Politics of Food and Eating
ANT 3085 JAN2B Topic: Class, Race, Gender & Sexuality in the Modern Media
ANT 3085 JAN3 Topic: Health & Society
BLS 3085 JAN2 Topic: Hip-Hop and Urban Culture in New York City
HSP 3085 JAN2 Topic: Hip-Hop and Urban Culture in New York City
SOC 3085 JAN2A Topic: The Politics of Food and Eating
SOC 3085 JAN2B Topic: Class, Race, Gender, & Sexuality in the Modern Media
SOC 3085 JAN3 Topic: Health & Society
ANT 3085 JAN1 Topic: The Anthropology of Body Image
Too Fat? Too Thin?: The Anthropology of Body Image In this course you will learn how culture affects our view of biology as it relates to our own bodies. You will learn how certain aspects of culture (variations in economic system, diet, physical activity, etc.) affect the values placed upon body type and amounts of body fat in different cultures and historical time periods. During the course of the intercession you will not only broaden your own ideas about what constitutes the "right" or "wrong" body type but also learn insight into why cultures value certain body types over others. Reading and writing assignments, discussion and an outside ethnographic project on body image in your own life will help you gain more understanding of this important topic.
ANT 3085 JAN2A Topic: The Politics of Food and Eating
If the image of the under-fed, listless child in rural Mississippi was what animated the war on poverty’s food programs in the late 1960’s, today’s struggles for transformation of the food system coalesce around the image of the over weight, inner city child who develops type 2 diabetes at a young age. This represents a dramatic shift in contemporary cultural and political understandings of eating, food, poverty, race and health. This course will examine these shifts and the changes that have brought them about in food production, consumption, meaning and significance for Americans over the last fifty years. Course projects will be hands on, asking students to analyze the food they eat to discover what it can tell us about contemporary culture and society.
Topic: Class, Race, Gender, & Sexuality in the Modern Media
This seminar course will examine the ways in which class, race, gender, and sexuality are presented in the mass media. We will explore the ways in which stereotypical images presented in the media serves as a means by which to perpetuate racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia. This course will hone student’s analytical skills. Students will be taught basic sociological theories. Students will then be asked to utilize these theories to analyze media images. Students will be asked to think about the ways in which popular media either reifies stereotypes or subverts those stereotypes.
ANT 3085 JAN3 Topic: Health & Society
This course is intended to provide an introduction to central topics in the sociology of medicine, health and illness. We will attempt to cover this broad field through three central thematic units: (i) social and cultural factors in defining illness; (ii) the social causes of illness; and (iii) the organization and delivery of health care. Along the way, we will encourage the application of a sociological perspective to a variety of contemporary medical issues.
BLS 3085 JAN2 Topic: Hip-Hop and Urban Culture in New York City
In the 1970s, New York City was experiencing a series of vast social, economic and cultural changes. Extravagant public works projects like the Cross Bronx Expressway had changed the physical and social geography of the city. A recession and oil crisis had hurt the city economically, restricting its ability to provide for its citizens. Landlords who found themselves unable to sell their buildings were burning them down in order to collect insurance settlements. And gang activity was widespread. This class will explore the emergence of hip-hop music and culture as a creative response to these issues. Specifically, we will discuss the many ways in which hip-hop’s artistic agenda reflected the specific concerns of working-class African American and Latino youth in the 1970s. We will then explore how the choices that they made laid the groundwork for hip-hop to present day, and have been subsequently reinterpreted by people around the world.
Topic: New Frames for the Development of Intercultural Competence: A European Perspective
The course will explore some new methods for the development of intercultural competence. It will depart from some of the latest findings of intercultural theoreticians and practitioners and will guide students toward the development of self-help strategies for the management of intercultural encounters.
HSP 3085 JAN2 Topic: "Hip-Hop and Urban Culture in New York City"
In the 1970s, New York City was experiencing a series of vast social, economic and cultural changes. Extravagant public works projects like the Cross Bronx Expressway had changed the physical and social geography of the city. A recession and oil crisis had hurt the city economically, restricting its ability to provide for its citizens. Landlords who found themselves unable to sell their buildings were burning them down in order to collect insurance settlements. And gang activity was widespread. This class will explore the emergence of hip-hop music and culture as a creative response to these issues. Specifically, we will discuss the many ways in which hip-hop’s artistic agenda reflected the specific concerns of working-class African American and Latino youth in the 1970s. We will then explore how the choices that they made laid the groundwork for hip-hop to present day, and have been subsequently reinterpreted by people around the world.
SOC 3085 JAN2A Topic: The Politics of Food and Eating
If the image of the under-fed, listless child in rural Mississippi was what animated the war on poverty’s food programs in the late 1960’s, today’s struggles for transformation of the food system coalesce around the image of the over weight, inner city child who develops type 2 diabetes at a young age. This represents a dramatic shift in contemporary cultural and political understandings of eating, food, poverty, race and health. This course will examine these shifts and the changes that have brought them about in food production, consumption, meaning and significance for Americans over the last fifty years. Course projects will be hands on, asking students to analyze the food they eat to discover what it can tell us about contemporary culture and society.
Topic: Class, Race, Gender, & Sexuality in the Modern Media
This seminar course will examine the ways in which class, race, gender, and sexuality are presented in the mass media. We will explore the ways in which stereotypical images presented in the media serves as a means by which to perpetuate racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia. This course will hone student’s analytical skills.
Students will be taught basic sociological theories. Students will then be asked to utilize these theories to analyze media images. Students will be asked to think about the ways in which popular media either reifies stereotypes or subverts those stereotypes.
SOC 3085 JAN3 Topic: Health & Society
This course is intended to provide an introduction to central topics in the sociology of medicine, health and illness. We will attempt to cover this broad field through three central thematic units: (i) social and cultural factors in defining illness; (ii) the social causes of illness; and (iii) the organization and delivery of health care. Along the way, we will encourage the application of a sociological perspective to a variety of contemporary medical issues.
