This was the homepage for Cultural Ecology 2017 with four books:
- Tim Ingold, The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill, 2000
- Hugh Brody, Maps and Dreams: Indians and the British Columbia Frontier, 1988.
- Eduardo Kohn, How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human, 2013.
- Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins, 2015
For the 2020 course, see Cultural Ecology 2020.
At the end of the course we tackled nine big questions about life in the Anthropocene. The questions (or see part 3 below):
- Will Machines Replace Humans?
- Will Technology Save Humanity?
- Too Much Time on My Hands?
- Is DNA a Blueprint?
- Can We Reunite Art and Technology?
- Is Life Getting More Complex?
- Have we stopped evolving?
- Would the world be better off without humans?
- Are Humans Intelligent?
For 2022, I used Ingold and Brody for a History of Anthropological Thought course:
Part 1. Nature and Culture: Who are we?
1. Ingold (part 1), “Culture, nature, environment” (13-20).
2. Ingold (part 2), “Culture, nature, environment” (20-26); Brody, 1-33.
3. Ingold, “The optimal forager and economic man” (27-39); Brody, 34-102.
4. Ingold, “Hunting and gathering as ways of perceiving the environment” (40-60); Brody, 103-135.
5. Ingold, “From trust to domination” (61-76); Brody, 136-213.
7. Ingold, “Ancestry, generation, substance, memory, land” (132-151); Brody, 256-283.
Film: Rabbit-Proof Fence
Part 2. Living in the World: What are we doing?
8. Ingold, “A circumpolar night’s dream” (89-110); Kohn, 1-25.
9. Ingold, “Totemism, animism and the depiction of animals” (111-131); Kohn, 27-68.
10. Ingold, “Culture, perception and cognition” (157-171); Kohn, 71-100.
11 & 12. Ingold, “Building, dwelling, living” (172-188); Kohn, 103-128.
Ingold, “The temporality of the landscape” (189-208); Kohn, 131-150.
13. Ingold, “Globes and spheres: the topology of environmentalism” (209-218); Kohn, 153-188.
14. Ingold, “To journey along a way of life” (219-242); Kohn, 191-228.
Part 3. Salvation and Damnation: Where are we going?
15. Will Machines Replace Humans?
Ingold, “Tools, minds and machines” (294-311); Tsing, 1-26
16. Will Technology Save Humanity?
Ingold, “Society, nature and the concept of technology” (312-322); Tsing, 27-54
17. Too Much Time on My Hands?
Ingold, “Work, time and industry” (323-338); Tsing, 55-96
18. Is DNA a Blueprint?
Ingold, “On weaving a basket” (339-348); Tsing, 97-120
19. Can We Reunite Art and Technology?
Ingold,“Of string bags and birds’ nests” (349-361); Tsing, 121-178
20. Is Life Getting More Complex?
Ingold, “The dynamics of technical change” (362-372); Tsing, 179-216
21. Have we stopped evolving?
Ingold, “‘People like us’” (373-391); Tsing, 217-250
22. Would the world be better off without humans?
Ingold, “Speech, writing and the modern origins of ‘language origins’” (392-405); Tsing, 251-276.
23. Are Humans Intelligent?
Ingold, “The poetics of tool-use” (406-419); Tsing, 277-288