The Art of Being Human: A Textbook for Cultural Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of all humans in all times in all places. But it is so much more than that. “Anthropology requires strength, valor, and courage,” Nancy Scheper-Hughes noted. “Pierre Bourdieu called anthropology a combat sport, an extreme sport as well as a tough and rigorous discipline. … It teaches students not to be afraid of getting one’s hands dirty, to get down in the dirt, and to commit yourself, body and mind. Susan Sontag called anthropology a “heroic” profession.” What is the payoff for this heroic journey? You will find ideas that can carry you across rivers of doubt and over mountains of fear to find the the light and life of places forgotten. Real anthropology cannot be contained in a book. You have to go out and feel the world’s jagged edges, wipe its dust from your brow, and at times, leave your blood in its soil. In this unique book, Dr. Michael Wesch shares many of his own adventures of being an anthropologist and what the science of human beings can tell us about the art of being human. This special first draft edition is a loose framework for more and more complete future chapters and writings. It serves as a companion to anth101.com, a free and open resource for instructors of cultural anthropology.

Material Type: Textbook

Author: Michael Wesch

Writing and Experience: Crossing Borders, Fall 2010

In this era of globalization, many of us have multi- or bi-cultural, multilingual or bilingual backgrounds, and even if we don't have such a background, we need urgently to understand the experiences of people who do. You will very likely work outside the United States at some point in your future; you will almost certainly work with people who speak more than one language, whose ancestry or origins are in a country other than the U.S., who have crossed borders of nation, language, culture, class to amalgamate into the large and diverse culture that is America. In this class we will read the personal narratives of bilingual and bicultural writers, some of whom have struggled to assimilate, others of whom have celebrated their own contributions to a culture of diversity. You will write four personal essays of your own for the class, each of which will receive workshop discussion in class and response from me; you will then revise the essays to polish them for possible publication. One of your essays will be an investigative one, where you will focus on a subject of your choice, investigate it thoroughly, and then write with authority about it. The process of the class will encourage you to both improve your writing significantly and gain a greater understanding of experiences of people who are in some way like you as well as those who are in some way different.

Material Type: Full Course

Author: Faery, Rebecca Blevins

Literature, the Humanities, and Humanity

Literature, the Humanities, and Humanity attempts to make the study of literature more than simply another school subject that students have to take. At a time when all subjects seem to be valued only for their testability, this book tries to show the value of reading and studying literature, even earlier literature. It shows students, some of whom will themselves become teachers, that literature actually has something to say to them. Furthermore, it shows that literature is meant to be enjoyed, that, as the Roman poet Horace (and his Renaissance disciple Sir Philip Sidney) said, the functions of literature are to teach and to delight. The book will also be useful to teachers who want to convey their passion for literature to their students. After an introductory chapter that offers advice on how to read (and teach) literature, the book consists of a series of chapters that examine individual literary works ranging from The Iliad to Charles Dickens’ Bleak House. These chapters can not substitute for reading the actual works. Rather they are intended to help students read those works. They are attempts to demystify the act of reading and to show that these works, whether they are nearly three thousand or less than two hundred years old, still have important things to say to contemporary readers.

Material Type: Textbook

Author: Theodore L. Steinberg

Intro to Humanities (HUM 101)

The purpose of this course is to explore the foundations of the Humanities and to increase our understanding of the relationship between history and philosophy and how these relate to the issues concerning the human condition. During this course we will learn about some of the many traditions in the humanities, including the foundations of artistic expression. One of my main goals for this course is to demonstrate that every aspect of the humanities (art, history, philosophy, science, etc.) are all inherently related, and that we cannot accurately study one component of society or humanity without having a working understanding of the related components.

Material Type: Assessment, Full Course, Reading, Syllabus

"Write it down...": Oral History & Narrative Assignment

An oral history narrative mini-project that can be used in, for example, an English or Humanities course.  Calls for students to present a "snapshot" of their pre-COVID-19 day and asks them to reflect on how their lives have changed.  Includes links to related articles/readings.

Material Type: Homework/Assignment

Author: Mandy Palmer

OPEN MUSIC THEORY

Open Music Theory is a natively-online open educational resource intended to serve as the primary text and workbook for undergraduate music theory curricula. OMT2 provides not only the material for a complete traditional core undergraduate music theory sequence (fundamentals, diatonic harmony, chromatic harmony, form, 20th-century techniques), but also several other units for instructors who have diversified their curriculum, such as jazz, popular music, counterpoint, and orchestration. This version also introduces a complete workbook of assignments.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Brian Jarvis, Bryn Hughes, Chelsey Hamm, John Peterson, Kyle Gullings, Mark Gotham, Megan Lavengood

PHI220 Ethics

This book provides a systemic study of representative ethical concepts and theories and discusses their application to concrete moral dilemmas.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: BS, Deborah Holt, MA

Introduction to College Research – Simple Book Publishing

"This book acknowledges our changing information landscape, covering key concepts in information literacy to support a research process with intention. We start by critically examining the online environment many of us already engage with every day, looking at algorithms, the attention economy, information disorder and cynicism, information hygiene, and fact-checking. We then move into an exploration of information source types, meaningful research topics, keyword choices, effective search strategies, library resources, Web search considerations, the ethical use of information, and citation." From the Introduction.

Material Type: Module, Textbook

Authors: Aloha Sargent, Butler Aloha Sargent Kelsey Smith, Kelsey Smith, Walter D

What the Aztecs can teach us about happiness and the good life

Purcell's article on Aztec moral philosophy provides a fruitful supplement to teaching the classical Greek virtue ethicists Plato and Aristotle. While the Greeks and Aztecs each center character formation, the latter lack the emphases on rationality and happiness found in the former.

Material Type: Reading

Author: Sebastian Purcell

Writing and Experience, Spring 2002

MIT students bring rich cultural backgrounds to their college experience. This course explores the splits, costs, confusions, insights, and opportunities of living in two traditions, perhaps without feeling completely at home in either. Course readings include accounts of growing up Asian-American, Hispanic, Native American, and South-East Asian-American, and of mixed race. The texts include selections from Maxine Hong Kingston‰ŰŞs The Woman Warrior, Kesaya E. Noda‰ŰŞs ‰ŰĎGrowing Up Asian in America,‰Ű Sandra Cisneros‰ŰŞs Woman Hollering Creek, Gary Soto‰ŰŞs ‰ŰĎLike Mexicans,‰Ű Sherman Alexie‰ŰŞs The Toughest Indian in the World, Jhumpa Lahiri‰ŰŞs Interpreter of Maladies, the movies Smoke Signals and Mississippi Masala, Danzy Senna‰ŰŞs Caucasia, and others. We will also use students‰ŰŞ writings as ways to investigate our multiple identities, exploring the constraints and contributions of cultural and ethnic traditions. Students need not carry two passports in order to enroll; an interest in reading and writing about being shaped by multiple influences suffices.

Material Type: Full Course

Author: Fox, Elizabeth

Immigrant and Refugee Families: Global Perspectives on Displacement and Resettlement Experiences

Immigrant and Refugee Families: Global Perspectives on Displacement and Resettlement Experiences uses a family systems lens to discuss challenges and strengths of immigrant and refugee families in the United States. Chapters address immigration policy, human rights issues, economic stress, mental health and traumatic stress, domestic violence, substance abuse, family resilience, and methods of integration.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Catherine Solheim, Elizabeth Wieling, Jaime Ballard

Foundations of World Culture I: World Civilizations and Texts, Fall 2011

This course aims to introduce students to the rich diversity of human culture from antiquity to the early 17th century. In this course, we will explore human culture in its myriad expressions, focusing on the study of literary, religious and philosophical texts as ways of narrating, symbolizing, and commenting on all aspects of human social and material life. We will work comparatively, reading texts from various cultures: Mesopotamian, Greek, Judeo-Christian, Chinese, Indian, and Muslim. Throughout the semester, we will be asking questions like: How have different cultures imagined themselves? What are the rules that they draw up for human behavior? How do they represent the role of the individual in society? How do they imagine 'universal' concepts like love, family, duty? How have their writers and artists dealt with encounters with other cultures and other civilizations?

Material Type: Full Course

Author: Ghenwa Hayek

Foundations of World Culture II: World Literatures and Texts, Spring 2012

This class continues our study of the foundational texts of human culture, focusing on early modernity until the recent past. In many ways, this includes several questions such as: Why did these works achieve the fame and influence they achieved? How do they present what it means to be a human being? How do they describe the role of a member of a family, community, tradition, social class, gender? How do they distinguish between proper and improper behavior? How do they characterize the members of other groups? However, in several ways, these texts are also iconoclastic, breaking with centuries of established tradition to shed light on previously unexplored subjects, such as the status of women in society or the legacy of the colonial expansion of European countries. They also question well-established social beliefs like religion, monarchical rule and human nature in general.

Material Type: Full Course

Author: Ghenwa Hayek

Gender and Representation of Asian Women, Spring 2010

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.

Material Type: Full Course

Author: Buyandelger, Manduhai

Speaking of Culture

The purpose of Speaking of Culture is to define culture and many other concepts associated with it. My hope is that the readings in this book will help you to better understand the breadth of the concept of culture and provide you with a vocabulary for discussing it more articulately. Culture is one of those broad concepts that is used widely, although somewhat imprecisely, in everyday English. It also cuts across many academic disciplines, and this book draws on many of them. It touches, for instance, on anthropology, biology, history, mythology, political science, psychology, and sociology.

Material Type: Reading, Textbook

Author: Nolan Weil

Writing in College – Open Textbook Amy Guptill

A Guide to Academic Writing written by a sociologist who specializes in the sociology of food among other subjects.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Amy Guptill, Jennifer Haytock