Human Nature: Theories, Narratives, Myths

This course interrogates mainstream narratives of human nature by putting psychological anthropology into dialogue with a range of disciplines, including gender studies, queer theory, Black and Indigenous Studies, history of science, classics, philosophy, and literary criticism. We will explore social and cultural differences in aspects of human life that biologists, psychologists, linguists, and economists often frame as universal: namely, gender, sex, child rearing and development, reason, emotion, selfishness, sympathy, and aggression. What distinguishes between men, women, and those who fall into neither category? What does it mean to grow “up?” How do language and culture influence cognition? Are selfishness, sympathy, and aggression innate, learned, or neither? Topics include Maasai childhoods, gender roles in Papua New Guinea, counting in the Amazon, Ojibwe spirits, religious violence in India, and spirit possession in Greece, Mexico, and Morocco.