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The multi-campus Indiana University Overseas Study Committee has announced that they have approved a new summer program to be taught by four anthropology professors in Oaxaca, Mexico. Professors Stacie King, Anya Royce, Dan Suslak, and Catherine Tucker designed the program to introduce students to a broad range of topics within anthropology, including cultural patrimony, linguistic change, cultural diversity, economic revitalization and human-environment interactions. The Department of Anthropology at IU Bloomington is truly unique in the country for having four anthropologists who specialize in Oaxaca on the faculty. They each work in different parts of the state in completely different environmental zones, with peoples of differing ethnicities who in some cases speak distinct languages, covering three of the four subfields of anthropology. All four professors will serve as faculty advisers and teach the course. The field program highlights the breadth and diversity of anthropology as a discipline and will give students the chance to see the how different kinds of anthropological research are conducted in the field setting. Students will have the opportunity to meet local activists, students, and community members, and in the process, experience Oaxaca's tremendous cultural diversity. In Oaxaca City, students will attend lectures on linguistics, the arts, and archaeology, and will take various field trips to museums, archives, archaeological sites, markets, and arts events. During the second half of the program, students will travel to the various regions of the state where each professor maintains active field research programs: the high mountains of the Sierra Norte, the Sierra Mixe, the low-lying Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and the Pacific coast. These site visits will encourage students to think about the production of anthropological knowledge and experience first-hand how anthropological research is done. The course is a 3 credit, 3 week course offered through Overseas Study. It will be open to undergraduate students by application, and will be offered for the first time in May 2008.
For more information visit the IU Overseas Study Program website: http://www.indiana.edu/~overseas/flyers/oaxaca.html |
