ANTHR 3777 - [The United States]

(crosslisted) AMST 3777, LSP 3777
(CA-AS)

Fall. Next Offered: 2019-2020. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Co-meets with AMST 6777/ANTHR 6777/LSP 6777.

V. Santiago-Irizarry.

The anthropological inquiry into one’s own culture is never a neutral exercise. This course will explore issues in the sociocultural construction of the United States as a “pluralistic” society as well as on-going debates over its “anthropologization.” We will look at the historical and ideological contexts that have produced a sociocultural profile predicated upon ideas intrinsic to the U.S. national imaginary such as individualism, freedom, and equality as well as the ways these are, in practice, applied within a capitalist order. We will draw upon a variety of historical and ethnographic material for our anthropological examination of the paradoxes involved in the construction of the United States, including scholarly and popular accounts.