ANTH 1170: Exploring Culture and Gender through Film
3 Credit Hours
A&S Core: Human Diversity
A&S Gen Ed: Distribution-Social Sciences, Diversity-Global Perspective
This course explores culture and gender from an anthropological perspective, using both films and written texts. Some of the films are fiction, some are nonfiction, some blur the line. All of the films have documentary or ethnographic value: they tell us something about the people they depict, the people who made them, and us, the viewer. By reading and watching films about other people and ourselves, students will learn the basic concepts of cultural anthropology and be able to apply them to any society. In addition, students will learn to think critically about films and other media.
Learning Objectives
- Be able to use the basic concepts of cultural anthropology to think critically about cultural and media practices in any social context;
- Understand the concepts of culture, ethnocentrism, cultural relativism, and human rights and be able to apply them to the world beyond the classroom;
- Learn how to use the ethnographic method to understand cultural practices;
- Analyze and think critically about documentary and ethnographic representations, including visual, filmic, and other media representations;
- Explain how inequality at different scales is historically, politically, and culturally produced.
In this course, you will
Watch at least one film in every module, including recent releases;
Reflect on the films in a journal;
Synthesize brief readings, Powerpoint videos introducing key concepts, and the films through regular online activities.
Christian Hammons
christian.hammons@colorado.edu
Christian Hammons is a writer, producer and director who works in documentary, fiction, and the space in between. Ethnographically informed, his work often focuses on the everyday lives of marginalized people. His most recent work includes the short film "Rumor", which premiered at the Beverly Hills Film Festival in 2020, the short documentary "Messengers", which premiered at the IFS Los Angeles Film Festival in 2019 and the short film "Lemonade", which premiered at the Lone Star Film Festival in 2018. His in-between work includes the live documentary "Tripod: Mead, Bateson, Bali" and participatory media projects on the Ft. Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota and in the Mentawai Islands in Indonesia.
Chris is a cultural anthropologist by aptitude and training. He received his PhD in anthropology from the University of Southern California. His research on indigeneity and the state in the Mentawai Islands has been published widely and he is the author of the book "Exploring Culture and Gender through Film." He also holds an MFA in film production from the USC School of Cinematic Arts. He has worked at PBS, Cruise-Wagner Productions/Paramount, ICM, Disney Channel and Bunim-Murray Productions/ABC. He now heads up the production company Deranged Penguin (with Eric Coombs Esmail) and teaches anthropology and critical media practices at the ºù«ÍÞÊÓƵ. He is the Associate Chair of Graduate Studies in the Department of Critical Media Practices and the Associate Director of the Center for Documentary and Ethnographic Media.