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    Dec 14, 2025  
American University Catalog 2023-2024 
    
American University Catalog 2023-2024 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

ANTH-440 Contemporary Ethnographies (3)


Unlike much scholarly writing, the best ethnographies engage readers emotionally and intellectually to provoke new ways of viewing the world by sensitively portraying the complexity of human lives, including the texture of people’s daily experiences and the larger forces shaping their lives. This seminar explores the art, craft, history, and politics of ethnography through a close reading of cutting-edge ethnographies and through students’ own ethnographic research and writing. Major contemporary approaches to ethnography feature prominently, such as feminist ethnography, decolonizing scholarship, Critical Race Theory, political economy, self-reflexivity, auto-ethnography, and multi-media ethnography. AU Core Integrative Requirement: Written Communication and Information Literacy II. Prerequisite: ANTH-251  and completion of Written Communication and Information Literacy I  requirement.