MIT OpenCourseWare: New Courses in Anthropology

21A.265 Food and Culture (MIT)

Paxson, Heather — 2012-01-09T15:39:55+05:00

Explores connections between what we eat and who we are through cross-cultural study of how personal identities and social groups are formed via food production, preparation, and consumption. Organized around critical discussion of what makes "good" food good (healthy, authentic, ethical, etc.). Uses anthropological and literary classics as well as recent writing and films on the politics of food and agriculture.

21A.470J Gender and Representation of Asian Women (MIT)

Buyandelger, Manduhai — 2011-09-23T15:56:16+05:00

This course explores stereotypes associated with Asian women in colonial, nationalist, state-authoritarian, and global/diasporic narratives about gender and power. Students will read ethnography, cultural studies, and history, and view films to examine the politics and circumstances that create and perpetuate the representation of Asian women as dragon ladies, lotus blossoms, despotic tyrants, desexualized servants, and docile subordinates. Students are introduced to the debates about Orientalism, gender, and power.

21A.232J Rethinking the Family, Sex, and Gender (MIT)

Paxson, Heather — 2011-08-22T15:05:00+05:00

Through investigating cross-cultural case studies, this course introduces students to the anthropological study of the social institutions and symbolic meanings of family, household, gender, and sexuality. We will explore the myriad forms that families and households take and evaluate their social, emotional, and economic dynamics.