SHUM 4679 - Ethnographies of Brokenness and Repair

(crosslisted) ANTHR 4469
(ALC-AS, CA-AS)

Spring. 3 credits. Student option grading.

Co-meets with ANTHR 7469/SHUM 6679.

T. Khalvashi.

What does it mean to consider something broken? Can brokenness ever be seen as productive itself? This class explores the generativity of broken worlds. It considers the question of brokenness through analyzing thwarted infrastructures across the globe that give rise to the impulse of repair of our everyday social, material, political, and affective lives. Broken infrastructures can, indeed, afford various reparative affects, practices and spaces. Yet, to repair means that not only humans, but also nonhumans, such as plants or animals, can emerge as infrastructures of repair in their own right. This course then emerges from the idea that we are restorative species, constantly engaged in mending and fixing of broken material and affective worlds. The course ends by reffllflecting on the reparative potential of researchers. For longer description and instructor bio visit the Society for the Humanities website.