Through readings, films and discussion, this course compares different production and exchange systems, contrasts differences between subsistence and market economies, and discusses the emergence and domination of a global capitalist system over tribal and tributary societies in the past 500 years. The differential impact of European conquest on tropical forest, Andean and sub-Andean Indian societies. How native cosmologies can contribute to either cultural survival or extinction as Indians respond to economic and ideological domination. This course analyzes museums as actors in producing knowledge and meaning in modern societies. Museums' relations to colonialism, nationalism, ethnic resistance and positivism are explored.
Projects entail describing and critiquing exhibit paradigms and technologies.
This course is an introduction to the study of those factors implicated in the creationa dn perpetuation of the current ecological crisis. While not exhaustive, they have been chosen as promising entry points into the study of those practices inimical or favorable to ecological health. This course will integrate community-based learning into its requirements. Students will be encouraged to volunteer in local environmental organizations or movements and test there the theoretical learning done in the course. An examination of the experience of Chinese women, especially in modern times, as expressed in documents ranging from oral history and ethnography to fiction and film.