This course provides an introduction to AI tools available to the Smith community including large language models (LLMs), AI assistants, and generative AI tools. You will learn about the definitions of different kinds of AI tools, reflect on ethical issues with the creation and use of AI, and learn about responsible uses of AI tools. The goal of this course is the be able to think critically about AI technologies, communicate and collaborate effectively, and use AI tools responsibly.

This course is an introduction to major themes in social and cultural anthropology. We will examine the concepts, methods, and theories anthropologists employ to understand the unity and diversity of human experiences across different regional contexts, with an emphasis on social, cultural, political, and economic systems of inequality. 

Perhaps you are taking this course because you are interested in becoming an anthropology major. Perhaps you are considering pursuing a career in anthropological research. If this is your situation, this course is a great place to start. But for many others – maybe even a majority of you – this might be the first or only anthropology course you will take at Smith – though I hope you will be inspired to take more! By the end of this course, you will learn what it means to “think anthropologically” in ways that I hope can serve you in any career path you choose and in your everyday life, at Smith and beyond.

To “think anthropologically” is much more than a specialized course of study; it is a way of observing and understanding the diverse practices, ideas, and sentiments through which human beings build their daily lives in an ever-changing world. Thinking anthropologically is a mode of asking critical questions about what human beings share in common and what makes us distinct from each other. Thinking anthropologically means learning to pay attention to conditions, perspectives, and structures of inequality that are often taken for granted or invisible. It gives us a conceptual tool-box for analyzing deeply complex topics like culture, race, and gender in more critical and nuanced ways. 

The cornerstone of anthropological research is ethnographic fieldwork, which is a qualitative method based on long-term participatory observation among particular groups of people in specific places. Such an immersive, fine-grained approach to research allows anthropologists to analyze how ordinary people experience the pressing challenges of our time, from issues of racism to histories of colonialism, to forced displacement, to climate change, to economic crisis. 

Thinking anthropologically also means critically engaging with the discipline’s origins and the fraught histories of colonialism, racism, and inequality in which anthropology — like all modern academic disciplines — is embedded. In the first few weeks of the semester, we will trace anthropology’s intellectual roots in 19th- and early 20th-century debates in Europe and North America about evolution and the “scientific” study of human diversity. We will then consider how anthropological research has critically evolved in relation to this history. Throughout the course, we will ask: What texts and topics are considered the “classics” of anthropology, and what does this exclude? What aspects of the classic anthropological enterprise of documenting cultural differences should be retained, and what should be abandoned or rethought? And what does it mean to “decolonize” anthropology today?

What is the archaeology of food? 

This course explores how archaeologists study past foodways—from adaptive and social perspectives—and also asks students to consider the complex relationships between past, present and future food systems. This is a highly interdisciplinary field of study that integrates data sets from environmental science, botany, zoology, human anatomy, and geochemistry, among others. It is also a field that addresses a diversity of economic, political, and social issues from an explicitly anthropological perspective. In other words, what can we understand about past human behavior and lifeways by analyzing charred plant remains, abandoned cooking areas, old pottery, and ancient trash dumps? To address these questions, the course is divided into three units: (1) an overview of the archaeology of food, focusing on both methods and theory; (2) a case study on maize, examining its domestication and spread; and (3) a collaborative exploration of global plant histories, highlighting the Smith College collections. 

Welcome to the CEEDS Summer Internship!

• Becca Malloy, Assistant Director of Sustainability, Wright Hall 007, office (413) 585-3538 OR cell (413) 336-3678
• Molly Neu '25
• Jena Kim '27

Major goals for our work this summer:

• Develop communications materials for new and returning students about starting the school year sustainably and the new SmithCycle Thrift

• Develop multimedia training materials for new EcoRep skill development program

• Draw out key messages from previous Smith student research to track and communicate students’ impacts on Smith’s sustainability

• Sort and clean move-out donations (dorm decor, linens, and school supplies) and organize and display items in preparation for SmithCycle Thrift to launch in August 

• Support the branding and communications of CEEDS’ Sustainable Events Guide

• Other sustainability projects which may include greenhouse gas tracking, program development, mapping, communications, data management or programming

Online Otrganization Leader Training needs to be completed BEFORE the Fall Student Leader Meeting on Monday, September 11, 2023 at 7 pm in the Carroll Room.

Organizations wishing to enroll other members of their organization should send their request to tbates@smith.edu.

RECURRING MEETING LINK https://smith.zoom.us/j/91621966155

Welcome!  This course supports the Pre-Practicum experience for students pursuing Initial Licensure.

The course meets weekly on Monday afternoons.

https://sites.smith.edu/eng125-03-f23/

This course is the second half of a two-semester sequence introducing Modern Hebrew language and culture, with a focus on equal development of the four language skills: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. By the end of the year, students will be able to comprehend short and adapted literary and journalistic texts, describe themselves and their environment, and express their thoughts and opinions. Learning will be amplified by use of online resources (YouTube, Slack, tutorials, etc) and examples from Hebrew song and television/film. This course is available to Mount Holyoke students though a simultaneous video-conferencing option.

The in-class portion of the course will be heavily based on active listening and speaking practice; you can expect to spend the vast majority of class time speaking with and listening to your classmates.

May only be taken S/U with approval of the instructor and the director of Jewish Studies.

The JUD 101-102 sequence is required for Smith students wishing to study abroad in Israel.

•  To introduce students to Latin America through the study of key cultural, political, environmental, economic and social issues. 
•  To familiarize students with the histories and geography of Latin America, the Caribbean, and Latino/a communities in the United States. 
• To develop awareness of global and hemispheric interdependencies and connections across borders of politics, culture, economics, ecologies, ideas and power.
• To cultivate an awareness and appreciation of the diversity of perspectives in fields and disciplines engaged in the study of Latin America, the Caribbean and the Latino/a U.S.  
• To introduce students to Latin American and Latino/a Studies faculty at Smith through their areas of teaching and research.

Instructor: Mikaela Laine, PhD

Email: mlaine@smith.edu

Class hours: M and W 9:25 – 10:40am

Class location: Bass 203

Office hours: Tues 1:30-3:00pm, W 12:00-1:30pm

Office location: Sabin-Reed 424 (+ Zoom)

Link to PHY 210 Discussion Forum

A place to share Moodle information. If you are not part of the course yet, click "Enroll me."

Course Description and Goals

“The academy is not paradise. But learning is a place where paradise can be created. The classroom, with all its limitations, remains a location of possibility. In that field of possibility we have the opportunity to labour for freedom, to demand of ourselves and our comrades, an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality even as we collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress. This is education as the practice of freedom.” (bell hooks in Teaching to Transgress, 1994, p. 207)

Drawing from bell hook’s inspiring quote above, this course introduces you to the vibrant field of Sociology of Gender and Globalization and its unique interdisciplinary perspectives, borrowing insights from Sociology; Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies; Anthropology; Economics, Politics and so on. This 200-level course moves beyond geographical and disciplinary boundaries, to engage with the key dimensions of global restructuring and globalization through the lens of gender, sexuality, race, class, ethnicity, and North-South relations. We will study how various modes of oppression and inequalities intersect in global manufacturing, supply chains, and in the transnational politics of representation and access in global media, religion, culture, war, and dissenting spaces. Questions that we will interrogate throughout the semester include: What is globalization and how and why is it a contested concept? Is globalization a new process? How can globalization be understood as a social, cultural, political, and ecological process and not just as a technological-economic process? How are structures of identity and oppression i.e., gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, nation, religion, ability, and other forms of difference, interwoven with globalization? How do biological, cultural, historical, and political frameworks shape knowledge and processes of globalization? In exploring these questions, the course incorporates sources ranging from social science research, creative non-fiction, films/documentaries, art, media, and popular culture. Topics may include transnational feminisms, gendered labor and the global economy, feminist and queer theory, reproductive politics and globalization, carceral politics, rights-based advocacy, visual cultures.

This course will accomplish its goals by:

1. Engaging students in pluralistic perspective-taking and awareness of the relationship among society, self, and others
2. Providing opportunities to develop and practice the skills of critical thinking, reasoning, communication, and integration of knowledge and perspectives, including:

●        Communicating persuasively and effectively in public speaking and writing

●        Working collaboratively and creating safe and kind spaces for each other to teach and learn in

3. Students will be expected to be self-reflective and draw from their own identities and global social issues affecting their young adult lives, using theoretical concepts and language from the course. Please remember, using personal experiences to understand academic concepts is valid and important – as the famous feminist saying goes - The Personal is Political! We should strive to use these as examples to illustrate or raise questions about readings and course debates rather than substituting anecdotes for critical thinking.

READINGS

You do not need to purchase any readings/books for this course.  All reading materials will be on the course’s Moodle website and all videos will be linked on the syllabus.  You would be able to access the videos required for the course for free through YouTube or the Smith Kanopy service (https://www.kanopy.com/en/smith/). The course schedule below lists the readings/videos we will cover each class day during the semester.

Meeting ID: 360 453 5228

To join by computer, click this link: https://smith.zoom.us/j/3604535228

Welcome! This course introduces students to the practice of sound design in audio-based storytelling settings, including in public radio, podcasts, and other creative audio pieces. The course explores the histories of these audio platforms and how music and sound have been included to help tell such stories as well as increase listener understanding and engagement, and sculpt the emotional journey of the listener. Through listening and producing projects, students learn the power of sound and music in enhancing stories, acquire skills in storytelling, recording and editing sound and apply those skills to collaboratively and independently created radio, podcast and other aural storytelling projects. 

Office Hours: T111, Wed. 1:30 - 3:30 pm

Email: ewilson@smith.edu