ANT 3820 - Anthropology of Media (3)

When Offered: Fall; Alternate years
In this course, we consider from an anthropological perspective the nature and force of mass media in cultural life. The anthropology of media can be understood as a natural history of the human senses in relation to science and technology, while additionally considering these shifts in connection to social and political phenomena. As we map this particular history of the senses primarily through ethnographies and other literary forms, we want to keep in mind these questions: (1) What structural, psychic, and social forms of life are made possible by the technologization, and more recently, the electronification of communication in various milieus? (2) How does the materiality of media itself transform the human experience of space-time? (3) What is the role of media in the production of difference and understandings of the self? This is a theory-driven course with a lab component, where students will be asked to explore philosophical questions through multimedia projects produced in the Ethnography Lab.