Anthropology 216RK - Risk

People in all societies face uncertainty. Dangers, many of our own making, confront us at every turn - in the form of global warming, market collapses, tainted food, epidemics, and accidents at work and on roads. Terrorist attacks and crime have led to the increased control of urban public spaces. Modern institutions and technologies of risk (probability, insurance, audits, sundry regulation) strive to tame chance, to make it manageable, and even potentially profitable, and have contributed to emergent cultures of risk. In this course, we examine these technologies of risk and associated cultural forms, in relation to other means by which people have dealt with uncertainty in the past.

Prereq: ANTHR-105.