Anthropology 216WC - Special Topics in Anthropology: 'Writing Capitalism's Ruins'

There's a low buzz; we feel nervous. Is this capitalism's end? Have zombies hit the horizon yet? Keep checking. Anthropology narrates collective feeling, gives form to the ambience. But what is late industrialism's ambience? As factory buildings crumble, we wonder whether the tap water's clean. The question of how to write the world is also a question of how to survive and even flourish. Drawing from archaeology, cultural anthropology, ecology, and literary theory, this course is a writing-oriented study of contemporary experiences of infrastructural failure, capitalist collapse, and ruination. One focus is the effects of capitalism on people of color and North American non-English speakers.

Prereq: ANTHR-105.