Viewing: ANTH 109 O: Anthro of the Senses

Last approved: Wed, 22 Aug 2018 19:23:56 GMT

Last edit: Wed, 01 Aug 2018 15:27:53 GMT

Rationale for Inactivation

Last Effective Term

Requested By

First Name	Last Name	Userid	Title	Home School	Org Short Name
Lauren	Ristvet	lristvet	ASSOC PROFESSOR A	School of Arts and Sciences	Anthropology

Course Subject

ANTHROPOLOGY

Course Number

109

Start Term

Spring 2019

Committee Term

Fall 2018

Course Title

Anthro of the Senses

Course Description

Smelling, seeing, hearing, tasting, and touching are the foundation of our empirical knowledge of the world, providing the most basic information we have. These senses are biological yet our sense perception—how we see, smell, taste, hear, and touch—is both shaped by and shapes our different cultures. As a result, they provide a useful framework to investigate a classic problem in anthropology, the intersection between biology and culture. This class investigates the senses as cultural and historical phenomena, drawing on readings from a range of disciplines, including anthropology, history, psychology, musicology, and cultural studies.

Also Offered As

Syllabus

Anth 109 Anthropology of the Senses.docx

Course Frequency

Every Other Year

Sector Requirements

Your department or program fields a variety of courses to meet distinct educational needs. Please explain how this course fits into your department's plan for participating in the general education curriculum of the College. The sector panel will want to know what is distinctive about this course along with the other courses your department lists in the sector that makes them suitable for the sector requirement.

Endorser Justification

The Anthropology endorses this course as one of 4 that will be available to fulfill Sector 4 for spring 19. The course bridges all the concentrations within anthropology and connects with the physiological experience of the senses as well as the artistic and performance aspects of the senses, especially in music. It includes enduring evidence for the senses in ancient artworks as well as fleeting experiences in smell and sound that carry extraordinary cultural weight. It will provide basic social theory that any student will put into use in more traditional courses in anthropology, HSOC, history, art history, or music.

Term Offered

One-term course offered either term

Sector Requirements

Humanities & Social Science Sector

Format

SEM

Instructor Name

Lauren Ristvet

Instructor Type

Standing Faculty

Instructor Status

Standing Faculty

Place in Curriculum

This is a lower level class that will usually be offered as a freshman seminar. As a lower level course, but not one of the intro courses for the major, it is similar to the other courses in anthropology that fulfill this sector requirement. However, as a class that cuts across the subfield divisions in anthropology, it is unique at the moment in the curriculum. We do envision offering more classes like this to capitalize on anthropology's wide breadth, but this is the first attempt to do so.

Instructor's Objectives

This class is designed to make students think seriously about the interface betweeen culture and biology and to investigate the cultural and historical specificity of sensory experiences.

Methods of Assessment

Number and size of paper(s) assigned

Two papers (second paper includes a proposal, annotated bibliography, short paper, conference presentation, and final draft)

Number and type of exams

None

Other Requirements

Daily reading responses, seminar participation.

Sector I - Society

How does this course allow students to formulate and test social science hypotheses?

How does the course provide students with an understanding of social theories?

How will students understand the basis of empirical social science?

How will students gather and interpret data about social phenomena?

How does the course encourage students’ understanding of culture, religion, class, gender, race, or other fundamental social constructs?

How does the course enable students to understand the role of institutions in society, the relationship between individuals and those institutions, or the relationship among ideologies, values, and individual behavior?

Sector II - History and Tradition

How does this course allow students to read and interpret primary sources?

How will students be able to contextualize the primary materials they examine?

How will students closely read materials and discuss their core ideas?

How will students learn to interpret visual or material objects?

How do students have the opportunity to write significant interpretive essays about the sources they study?

How does the course provide students with an interpretive framework for analyzing change over time?

How does the course contribute to understanding of how knowledge is constructed and how interpretive frameworks change over time?

Sector III - Arts & Letters

How does the course allow students to develop interpretive strategies for analyzing visual, aural or literary texts?

How does the course offer students ample opportunity to write significant interpretive essays?

How does the course allow students to develop an appreciation of the creative process within a medium or in a variety of artistic media?

If a course is narrowly focused, how does it provide for breadth through understanding the social context or continuing significance of the work(s) being analyzed?

Sector IV - Humanities and Social Science

How does the course integrate theory with practical applications?

The class begins with approaches to the study of the senses drawn from anthropology, cultural studies, history, and philosophy. After writing a paper about these various approaches, students will choose their own research project about the senses and develop a theoretical approach.

How are students allowed the opportunity to reflect on practice?

The class is designed to teach students how to write an original research paper and reflect seriously on academic practice. This paper is broken down into a number of steps: proposal, annotated bibliography, short paper, conference presentation, and final paper. These steps are roughly the same that many scholars take when writing their first articles (preparing an abstract, giving a paper at a conference, and then revising it for publication).

How does the course allow students to integrate approaches from two or more humanities or social science disciplines?

The class integrates readings from all three of the humanities and social sciences sectors, particularly considering history and tradition and society. The initial weeks of the class invite students to read and discuss theoretical approaches drawn from a range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, while the rest of the class (focused on each individual sense) draws upon articles written by historians, anthropologists, psychologists, musicologists, art historians, and scholars of literature. The class asks students to consider these diffferent ways of approaching the senses in discussion and then directs them to use a similar range of approaches in their papers.

How does the course place creative practice in writing, music or the fine arts in an interpretive context?

The class offers a different approach to music, art, perfume, and cuisine, by interpreting these via sensory experience in its cultural and historical context.

Sector V - Living World

How does the course allow students to examine data, critically assess their origins, and consider the conclusions that can be drawn from them?

How does the course teach students how experimental and observational methods, as well as quantitative reasoning, are applied to the study of living systems?

How do students learn the methods used by contemporary natural science to study how organisms influence and are influenced by the environment?

How do students learn how to characterize and analyze basic population dynamics?

How do students learn about ecological diversity and how to measure it?

Sector VI - Physical World

Does the course allow students to examine data, critically assess their origins, and consider the conclusions that can be drawn from them?

How does the course teach students how experimental and observational methods, as well as quantitative reasoning, are applied to the study of physical systems?

How do students learn the methods used by contemporary natural science to study interactions among physical systems?

How does the course have students use mathematical methods to test observational data and formulate and test hypotheses?

How do students learn about the relevance of theory to the world of ordinary observation?

Sector VII - Natural Sciences and Mathematics

How does this course integrate knowledge across two or more disciplines in the natural sciences/mathematics?

How does the course integrate theory with practice?

Administrative Field

College reason for proposal

Committee

Committee reader

Administrative Status

Reviewer Comments

Molly Mcglone (mmcglone) (Fri, 27 Jul 2018 14:26:56 GMT): Rollback: Please provide endorser justification information. Thank you.