ANT431H5F Special Problems in Sociocultural and Linguistic Anthropology (SSc)

Topic Title: The Politics of Grief and Mourning

  • Instructor: Zoë Wool
  • Offered in the Fall 2023 "F" Term at UTM
  • Prerequisite(s): ANT204H5F

Description

We often think of mourning as a universally and fundamentally human experience, if one whose rituals vary across place and time. However, as movements such as Black Lives Matter and MMIWG remind us, mourning is also political. Thinking especially about whose lives are publicly grieved and whose are not can tell us a lot about whose lives count in a given context. That is the politics of mourning. In this course, we'll draw from anthropology and critical theories of race and colonialism to explore the politics of mourning in the contemporary world, what it can tell us about limits of the human as a supposedly universal category, and the radical political possibilities of mourning and grief for projects of social justice.

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A stylized poster of a woman who glares up at a fighter jet overhead while cradling a child, who looks at the viewer
Image description: A stylized poster of a woman who glares up at a fighter jet overhead while cradling a child, who looks at the viewer. These figures are surrounded by a red background composed of crammed together faces sketched in black. This fills the bottom two thirds of the image, ending in an abrupt line, above which rise destroyed buildings, giving the impression that the faces and figures are underground. In the center, a red fist surges up from the underground in resistance. The bottom of the image shows three red stars between stripes, recalling the Iraqi flag.