Shadows

Graduate / Professional

This course grapples with the surprisingly complex relationships people have with shadows, both real and imaginary, material and metaphorical, across cultures, in varied geographies, and at different points in time. If storytellers sometimes evoke the shadows of night to portend sentiments of doom, they also sometimes draw on shadows to describe spaces of sanctuary and escape. If the worst parts of human experience are said to cast a shadow over the living, it is worth remembering that the comfort of shade is a kind of shadow too. Criminals rely on shadows to conceal illegal activities and even death itself is said to lurk in the shadows, but artists use shadow to represent the world in three dimensions, imbuing a kind of life into the empty whiteness of flat paper. Undesirable governments cast shadows over their people, but people seeking to flee state oppression might find the shadows a convivial place to hide. All these dualities promise to make shadow an elusive but provocative topic that will demand the nuanced kinds of reading and discussion that can animate a good seminar. Using shadows as our provocation, the course is modeled on what anthropologists call praxis—a combination of theory and practical engagement with the real world. On the one hand, our praxis involves empirical engagement with actual shadows, both through course readings and engaged assignments (e.g., adopting a shadow for the semester, studying Javanese shadow puppets, making a sundial, observing shade patterns in New Haven, and engaging in playful experiments that fit the needs of the class as they emerge through the semester). On the other hand, our praxis uses shadow as a flexible theoretical prompt that allows us to move through conceptual readings drawn from philosophy, analytic psychology, art history, folklore, literature, and, of course, anthropology. Expect readings from beyond anthropology (by authors like Bloch, Casati, DaVinci, Jung, Plato and Tanizaki) as well as anthropologists (like Sophie Chao, Jane Goodall, Mary Douglas, Michael Dove, Erik Mueggler, Carolyn Nordstrom, James Siegel, Terence Turner, and more). No specific prerequisites exist for this course, but students should note that it is designed to appeal to students with a background in humanistic social sciences, so it is desired to have some background in anthropology or adjacent fields like sociology, intellectual history, social theory, philosophy, art history, humanistic area studies, and so on. Students without such background, but who come with practical skills in optics, physics, fine arts, astronomy or sextant-based navigation may appeal in writing to the instructor for special permission. T 1:30pm-3:25pm