This course examines how anthropologists have studied the way that people hope, imagine, love, and despise. Ethnography of the intimate realms of affect raises important questions about knowledge production and methodology as well as offering insight into how people come to act upon the world and what the human consequences of such action are. The course will also examine how the intimate is socially produced and harnessed in the service of politics and culture. Topics will include grief and its lack; dreams and activism; love and social change; memory and imperialism; sexuality and care; and violence and hope.
This course examines how anthropologists have studied the way that people hope, imagine, love, and despise. Ethnography of the intimate realms of affect raises important questions about knowledge production and methodology as well as offering insight into how people come to act upon the world and what the human consequences of such action are. The course will also examine how the intimate is socially produced and harnessed in the service of politics and culture. Topics will include grief and its lack; dreams and activism; love and social change; memory and imperialism; sexuality and care; and violence and hope.
