Schedule (Fall 2023)

All weekly readings will be accessible via ereserve or ebooks. Click directly from the syllabus below or ereserve readings can be accessed via the course Moodle page (click link at the top for the list). Please let me know as soon as possible if you have any trouble obtaining the readings. To facilitate discussion, you should have all the readings for the day ready to consult in class (whether in person or online).

Part I: Debates/Methodologies

Week 1: What IS (was) "Globalization"?

Assignments

Week One Chronology: Important Dates in a Connected/ing World

Tues Aug 29 Introductions and Goals

  • DO: "The Globe": Do a google image search for "globe". Look at the array of images that appear, and consider: how is the earth represented, or mapped as a 'globe' or a 'global world'? For whose purposes? What assumptions and/or ideologies seem to be manifest in the image and/or its presentation on the page? Choose one of your favorites to share with the class in this Moodle forum. Using the insert image tool in the Moodle editing box, upload your image and include a line or two discussing what it is noteworthy in this light.

Thurs Aug 31 Economic Globalization? Non-Anthro Debates

Millions of people a day are better off than they would have been without those trade developments, without globalization. And very few people have been harmed by it.
--Dick Cheney, US Vice Pres, 2002

  • READ: Sachs, Jeffrey. “Introduction,” “A Global Family Portrait,” In The End of Poverty. New York: Penguin Books, 2005, pp. 1-25. (ereserve)
  • READ: Stiglitz, Joseph. “Preface” and “The Promise of Global Institutions.” In Globalization and Its Discontents, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2002, pp. ix-xvi, 3-22. (ereserve)
  • READ: Flew, Terry. "Globalization, neoglobalization and postglobalization: The challenge of populism and the return of the national," Global Media and Communication 2020, Vol. 16(1). (16 pp). (ereserve)
In Class: Sign up for discussion facilitation (see How to Lead a Good Discussion) and film discussant roles (see Film Discussant Guidelines)

Week 2: "Globalization" and its Discontents: Anthro Debates

Assignments

  • WATCH Film: The Agony of Reform, Second Episode of Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy by William Cran (6-hour PBS series, first aired 2002). (Screen via Moodle).

Tues Sept 5 Critiquing "Globalization", Rethinking Anthro

  • READ: Appadurai, Arjun. 2002 (1996). "Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy," in Inda and Rosaldo, eds. The Anthropology of Globalization: A Reader. Blackwell. (ereserve) (16 pp)
  • READ: Tsing, Anna. 2002. The Global Situation. in Inda and Rosaldo, eds. The Anthropology of Globalization: A Reader. Blackwell. (ereserve) (26 pp)
  • READ: Ferguson, James. Globalizing Africa? Observations from an Inconvenient Continent.” In Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006, pp. 25-49. (ereserve) (26 pp).

Handout/Google Doc: Walking Tours of a Transnational City: an (Auto)ethnography Blog
Assign Blog Partners

Thurs Sept 7 Rethinking Anthro Methods Beyond the "Local"

  • READ: Gupta, A. & J. Ferguson. 1997. “Discipline and Practice: “The Field” as Site, Method and Location in Anthropology”. In Anthropological Locations. Boundaries and Grounds of a Field Science, 1-47. (ereserveReading Guide: READ: 1-18, SKIM: 19-29, READ: p. 29-32, "Other Genres, Other Fields". (22 pp). 
  • READ: Bear, Ho, Tsing and Yanagisako. "Gens: a Feminist Manifesto for the Study of Capitalism," 2015. (online). (~5 pp)
  • READ: Anderssen, Ruben. "Power of Narration, Narration of Power: An Anthropological Appendix," in No Go World: How Fear Is Redrawing Our Maps and Infecting Our Politics, UCalif press, 2019. (9 pp) (ebook/ereserve)

Demonstration: Using audio, video and images in Moodle

DUE: First audio or video blog commentary, Sunday Sept 10, midnight, posted to your Moodle blog forum: Introduce yourself and begin practicing audio and video blogging in Moodle: Using the tools provided in the Moodle window, record in Moodle and post one short audio clip or one short video clip (max. 2 min) in response to this: From our readings and discussions this week, does anthropology have anything specific to contribute to debates about "globalization" or "post-globalization"? How or why not? Your comments should explicitly refer to at least two of our readings (can include a film) from this or last week.

DUE: Comments on Blogs due Monday, Sept 11, midnight, your blog partner's Moodle blog forum: Comments can be in many forms. Ask follow-up questions, comment on or compliment their writing/media use, discuss how their post made you feel, respond to the writer's use of a theorist or key term, bring in a comparison or contrast with your own readings, bring in another author or film from the course (most important) and then from other courses.

Part II: Histories/Channels

Week 3: Historicizing Globalization and Value (Europe, Africa, Caribbean, China)

Assignments

Look: Week Three Chronology: The Rise of Sugar as a World Commodity according to Sidney Mintz

Tues Sept 12 Divisions of Labor and Land: Value and Power

  • READ: Graeber, David. 2001. Three Ways of Talking about Value, in Towards an Anthropological Theory of Value. Palgrave. (ereserve) (22 pp.)
  • READ: Karl Marx "So-Called Primitive Accumulation," (Chs. 26-28), Capital Vol. 1, pp. pp. 667-693 (ereserve)
  • READ: Karl Polanyi (1944 (2000) The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Times pp. 35-80.  (ereserve). Reading Guide: FOCUS: Ch. 3 pp-35-45, FOCUS: Ch. 4 pp 45-48, SKIM: 49-58, FOCUS: ch. 5 pp. 59-67, SKIM: 67-70, FOCUS: Ch. 6: pp. 71-80.
  • LOOK: Images: Polanyi's Arguments in Charts

Thurs Sept 14 Colonized Production

  • OPTIONAL: Cooper, Frederick. 2001. "What is the Concept of Globalization Good for? An African Historian's Perspective," African Affairs 101: 189-213. (ereserve)
  • READ: Mintz, Sidney. Ch. 2 "Production," p. 19-73. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York: Penguin Books, 1986. (ereserve). Reading Guide: SKIM: up to p. 30, FOCUS: p. 30 on.

Week 4: The Corporation and Neoliberal Governmentality (Europe, U.S., China)

Assignments

  • WATCH Film: The Corporation by Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbot, Joel Bakan, 2003. (145 min) (Screen via Moodle). Content Notes: Graphic depictions of violent military crackdowns on protests, extreme birth defects, and war violence.

Tues Sept 19 Neoliberalism and the Corporation

  • READ: Bashkow, Ira. 2008. "Will the Real Leviathan Please Sit Down? The Structural Agency of the Corporation", Forthcoming at Prickly Paradigm Press. Reading Guide: READ: p 1-20, SKIM: 21-34, READ: p. 34-52. (ereserve)
  • READ: Philip Mirowski, “ Postface: Defining Neoliberalism ” in Philip Mirowski and Dieter Plehwe, The Road  from  Mont Pelerin: The  Making  of  the  Neoliberal  Thought  Collective  (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2009): 417-455. Reading Guide: FOCUS: pp. 417-428 (Wikipedia example), SKIM: p. 428-33 (Mont Pelerin Society), FOCUS: p. 433-440 (Neoliberal Primer), SKIM: pp. 440-45, (Freedom and Double Truth), FOCUS: pp. 445-6. (ereserve)
Librarian Ann Matsushima Chiu visit and intro to research guide
Thurs Sept 17 Outsourcing: Gendered Labor, Time, Discipline (China)
  • READ: Pun Ngai. Made in China: Women Factory Workers in a Global Workplace. Duke University Press, 2005, p 1-48, 76-108.  Reading Guide: SKIM: Introduction, Focus on Chapters 1 and 3. (ereserve).

DUE: First 400-word Written Blog post due Sunday, Sept 24, midnight, your Moodle blog forum: Introduce your chosen neighborhood/part of city, include a paragraph talking through at least one theorist from the course readings, focus on understanding up to three key terms, and consider applications in your city, or to you as subject/citizen/resident of it. All posts should include citations of at least two sources from the course, including films. You can also add a third from outside the course. You can insert photos or video as well.

DUE: Comments (can be audio or video) on Blogs due Monday, Sept 25, midnight, your blog partner's Moodle blog forum: Comments can be in many forms. Ask follow-up questions, comment on or compliment their writing/media use, discuss how their post made you feel, respond to the writer's use of a theorist or key term, bring in a comparison or contrast with your own blog post/experience of walking the city, bring in another author or film from the course (most important) and then from other courses.

Week 5: Infrastructures and Networks: Cities, Media and Finance (U.S.)

Assignments

Tues Sept 26 Finance/Infrastructure/Network

  • READ: Sassen, Saskia. 2002. "Introduction: Locating Cities on Global Circuits," in Sassen, ed., Global Cities, Linked Networks. Routledge. (ereserve). (28 pp)
  • READ: Karen Ho, Situating Global Capitalisms: A View from Wall Street Investment Banks. Cultural Anthropology 20(1):68–96, 2005. (ereserve)
  • READ: Zaloom, Caitlin. Introduction. Out of the pits : traders and technology from Chicago to London /Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2006. (p 1-14) (ereserve).

Thurs Sept 28

  • READ: Zaloom, Caitlin. Out of the pits : traders and technology from Chicago to London /Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2006. Reading Guide: READ: Chapter 1, SKIM chapter 2, READ chapter 5 "Economic Men," pp. 111-125 (ereserve).

Week 6: Development and the Power/Violence of Money (Egypt, Jamaica, India)

Assignments

Tues Oct 3 Problematizing "Development" and "Markets"

  • READ: Escobar, Arturo. 1995. "ch. 2: The Problematization of Poverty: the Tale of Three Worlds and Development," in Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton. (34 pages) (ereserve).
  • READ: Julia Elyachar. 2002. Empowerment Money: The World Bank, Non-Governmental Organizations, and the Value of Culture in Egypt. Public Culture 4.3: 493-513. (ereserve).

Thurs Oct 5 NGOs, Value and Debt: Microfinance in India

  • READ: Moodie, Megan. 2008. Enter microcredit: A new culture of women’s empowerment in Rajasthan? American Ethnologist, Vol. 35, No. 3, pp. 454–465 (ereserve) Content Notes: brief mentions of sexual violence and coerced sterilization of women, discussion of practices and ideas of caste hierarchy and discrimination.
  • READ: Kar, Sohini. 2013. Recovering debts: Microfinance loan officers and the work of “proxy-creditors” in India, American Ethnologist, Vol. 40, No. 3, pp. 480–493 (ereserve)

DUE: Second 400-word Written Blog Post due Sunday Oct 8, midnight, your Moodle blog forum. Delve further into understanding your neighborhood, talk a bit about any research you have done on recent events or patterns you're seeing on the streets, insert photos or videos, discuss at least TWO readings (can include one film) from this or previous weeks, bring in credible news sources.

DUE: Comments (can be audio or video) on Blog Post 2 due Monday Oct 9, midnight, your blog partner's Moodle blog forum

Week 7: (Post) Socialisms (USSR, Romania)

Assignments

Tues Oct 10 Statist Times and Postsocialist Enchantments

  • READ: Marx, Karl. “The Fetishism of the Commodity and Its Secret.” in the Marx-Engels Reader. p. 319-329. (ereserve).
  • READ: Verdery, Katherine. 1996. What Was Socialism? and What Comes Next? Princeton. Reading Guide: SKIM Introduction, READ: Chapters 1 and 7. (ereserve)

Thurs Oct 12 Asynchronous Break day (take time to tour and blog your neighborhood!)

  • DO: Moodle discussion forum: Diamonds in the Dark Film. Facilitator should post a couple questions/openers about the film to this week's discussion forum by 3:10 Thursday. Then by 8 pm Thursday everyone should post at least one 250-word or up to 2 minute audio comment on the film with explicit reference to at least one of the readings from Tuesday. Post an up to 2 minute audio or video comment on your partner's comments.

Fall Break Oct 16-20

Part III: Subjects

Week 8: Subjects of Fear and Control: Creating the Margins, Creating the Threat (Africa, Europe, United States)

Assignments

  • WATCH Film: Darwin's Nightmare, 2004, Hubert Sauper (Screen via Moodle) **Content Notes: graphic portrayals of children and adults living in stark poverty, some interpersonal violence, and discussion of sexual violence.

Tues Oct 24 Rethinking the Margins: States and Global Shadows

  • READ: Das and Poole. 2004. "State and its Margins: Comparative Ethnographies." in Das and Poole, eds. Anthropology in the Margins of the State, SAR Press. (30 pp). (ereserve)
  • READ: Ferguson, James. “Global Shadows: Africa and the World.” In Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006, pp.1-25. (ebook/ereserve.
Assign Second Blog Partners

Thurs Oct 26 Geographies of risk and fear: Securitizing Development at the Margins

  • READ: Anderssen, Ruben. Introduction: Into the Danger Zone and Ch. 5: The Snake Merchants, in No Go World: How Fear Is Redrawing Our Maps and Infecting Our Politics, UCalif press, 2019. (50 pp). (ebook/ereserve)

DUE: Third 400-word Written Blog Post due Sunday Oct 29, midnight, your Moodle blog forum. Delve further into understanding your neighborhood, talk a bit about any research you have done on recent events or patterns you're seeing on the streets, insert photos or videos, discuss at least TWO readings (can include one film) from this or previous weeks, bring in credible news sources.

DUE: Comments (can be audio or video) on Blog Post 3 due Monday Oct 30, midnight, your blog partner's Moodle blog forum

Week 9: Globalization's Others: Asia and the Rise of China (Asia Pacific, SE Asia, China)

Assignments

Tues Oct 31 The Asian Model? The China Model?

  • READ: Ramo, Joshua. "The Beijing Consensus," The Foreign Policy Center, UK, 2004. Reading Guide: pp. 1-13 ONLY (ereserve)
  • READ: Dirlik, Arif. "Beijing Consensus: Beijing "Gongshi." Who Recognizes Whom and to What End?" (online position paper), 2014. (9 pp) (ereserve).
  • READ: Ong, Aihwa. Introduction (25 pp), and ch. 1 "The Geopolitics of Cultural Knowledge," (24 pp), Flexible citizenship. 1999. (ebook/ereserve). Reading guide: Introduction (FOCUS: pp 1-8, SKIM: pp. 8-16, FOCUS: pp. 17-14); and Ch. 1 (FOCUS on whole thing).

Thurs Nov 2 The Rise of China-in-Africa

  • READ: Ong, Aihwa. "An Anthropologist at Davos (plus comments and her response)," Current Anthropology Volume 63, Supplement 25, December 2022 (20 pp). (ereserve)

Part IV: Movements

Week 10: Logistics: the Capitalist Science of Moving Things (Oceanic Earth)

Assignments

Tues Nov 7 Logistics: the Capitalist Science of Moving Things

  • READ: Harney, Stefano and Fred Moten. Ch. 6 Fantasy in the Hold, The Undercommons. Minor Compositions, 2013. (ereserve). (also available open access online)
  • READ: Cowen, Deborah. Introduction: The Citizenship of Stuff in the Global Social Factory, and Ch. 3 The Labor of Logistics, The Deadly Life of Logistics: Mapping Violence in Global Trade. University of Minnesota Press, 2014. (ereserve).

Thurs Nov 9 Online Workshop: Curating Photo Essays
Please look over these materials (including the guidelines) and post at least ONE question to the Moodle forum for this week about your photo essay ideas by 3 pm Thursday Nov 9.

  • READ: Sutherland, Patrick. "The Photo Essay," Visual Anthropology Review, Vol. 32, Issue 2, pp. 115–121, 2016 (7 pp). (ereserve).
  • READ/LOOK: Hutchings, Roger. "Auturk's Children," Visual Anthropology Review, Vol. 32, Issue 2, p. 103-114. (ereserve).
  • READ: "What Makes a Photo Essay Unforgettable?" Alex Brown, Format, 2018. (online).

Handout/Google Doc: Final Photo Essay guidelines

Week 11: Mobile Frontiers: China's Belt and Road (China, Pakistan, Eurasia)

Assignments

Tues Nov 14 Belts and Roads?

  • WATCH/READ: Loh, Peiying. "Understanding the Belt and Road," 2018. (multimodal explainer online).
  • READ: Gustavo de L. T. Oliveira, Galen Murton, Alessandro Rippa, Tyler Harlan, and Yang Yang, “China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Views from the Ground,” Political Geography 82, 2020.  (4 pp) (ereserve)
  • READ: Rippa, Alessandro. Intro (25 pp), Borderland Infrastructures: Trade, Development, and Control in Western China Amsterdam University Press, 2020. (ebook/ereserve)

Thurs Nov 16 China, Borders and Corridors

  • READ: Rippa, Alessandro. Ch. 5 Control (33 pp), Borderland Infrastructures: Trade, Development, and Control in Western China Amsterdam University Press, 2020. (ebook/ereserve)

DUE: Fourth 400-word Written Blog Post due Sunday Nov 19, midnight, your Moodle blog forum. Delve further into understanding your neighborhood, talk a bit about any research you have done on recent events or patterns you're seeing on the streets, insert photos or videos, discuss at least TWO readings (can include one film) from this or previous weeks, bring in credible news sources.

DUE: Comments (can be audio or video) on Blog Post 4 due Monday Nov 20, midnight, your blog partner's Moodle blog forum

Week 12: Displacements and Differential Mobilities (Mexico, United States)

Assignments

Tues Nov 21 Transnationalizing migrations

  • READ: De Leon, Jason. Introduction, Ch.s 1 and 7. The Land of Open Graves Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail. UCalif. Press, 2015. (60 pp) (ebook/ereserve) **Content Notes: Description of graphic violence, dead bodies.                                                                  

 Thurs Nov 23 Thanksgiving!

DUE: Fifth 400-word Written Blog Post due Sunday Nov 26, midnight, your Moodle blog forum. Lay out your design plan for your photo essay, include a diagram or mock-up of it. What story will you tell through your photos? How will you design it to achieve an aesthetic or mood/tone and draw attention of larger audiences? What sources from the course readings will you bring in and explain?

DUE: Comments (can be audio or video) on Blog Post 3 due Monday Nov 27, midnight,  your blog partner's Moodle blog forum. Give your partner feedback on their photo essay design plan, suggest other course readings/theories, offer any tips you might have.

 

Thanksgiving Break Nov 23-24

Week 13: Social Movements: The Politics and Possibilities of Hope (Everywhere)

Assignments

Tues Nov 28 (Radical) Hope?

  • Solnit, Rebecca. "‘Hope is a​n embrace of the unknown​’: Rebecca Solnit on living in dark times." The Guardian, 2016. (ereserve)
  • Clitandre, Nadège T. "Notes on Radical Hope or, The Ethical Turn in Anthropology"? in Small Axe, 2021. (13 pp). (ereserve)
  • Lempert, William. Generative Hope in the Postapocalyptic Present, Cultural Anthropology, 2018 (11 pp).  (ereserve)

Thurs Nov 30, Dec 5 Reflections and presentations

  • This is a chance for us to relax and review with a view to sparking inspiration for your final photo essay projects. 
 

DUE:  7-10 Photo, 1500-2500 word Photo Essay reflections on blogs, due Wednesday Dec 13, midnight (InDesign, Word, Powerpoint, Google Doc or Google Slides, placed in your course Google Drive folder.)

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