Diversity and Human Nature: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology This course introduces students to the varieties of human experience in social life and to the differing approaches and levels of analysis used by anthropologists to explain it. Topics include: culture and race, rituals and symbolism, kinship and gender roles, social evolution, political economy, and sociolinguistics. Ethnographic examples are drawn chiefly from non-Western societies, from simple bands to great agrarian states. The ultimate aim is to enable students to think critically about the bases of their own culture and about practices and beliefs previously unanalyzed and unexamined.

The Anthropology of Warfare and Polarization In this course we will use the anthropology of human evolution, religion and politics to identify the cognitive patterns that justify feuding, warfare, witchcraft, conspiracy theory, and ideological polarization.  Beginning with animal behavior and hunting and gathering societies, we will study natural selection for accountability, moralism, and factionalism; how social groups define themselves through mimesis, othering and scapegoating; how scapegoating justifies aggression; how sacrifice and other forms of ritualizing victimhood generate sanctity, sacrilege, and outrage; and how religious and political loyalty tests enforce social boundaries

Refugees or Labor Migrants: The Anthropology of South-North Migration Millions of people from low-income countries are moving to high-income countries without work visas.  If they seek to escape poverty and government corruption, do they deserve to be classified as refugees with a human right to cross international borders? Heightened border enforcement has led to thousands of deaths in the American Southwest and the Mediterranean, and now anxious voters are electing politicians who promise even harsher crackdowns. Based on research with international migration streams, this course will explore debates over asylum rights, border enforcement, the deportation industry, the migration industry, low-wage labor markets and remittance economies, with a focus on Latin American and Chinese migration to the U.S., as well as African and Mideastern migration to Western Europe

Anthropology of Global Corporations Multinational corporations have become pervasive in the 21st Century global economy. No other social organization matches their ability to increase productivity and multiply wealth. Nor does any other social vehicle match their power to destabilize preexisting relationships. In this course we will learn about the anthropology of exchange and capitalism through ethnographies of corporations, corporate social responsibility, factory production, and financial speculation in the U.S., China, South Africa, and Papua New Guinea. We will also evaluate social-justice critiques of corporate structures: are they meritocracies or exclusionary kin-based networks? Do they build community or merely offload costs? For the final project, students will have the option of doing ethnographic research on a for-profit or not-for-profit enterprise. 3 hours, lct/disc,

Indigenous Peoples of the Americas This course introduces students to the indigenous peoples of North and South America, from before European conquest to the present. Following a brief look at the mound-builders of North America, we will explore the connection between social stratification, religious ideology, and imperial expansion in the political economy of the Aztecs and the Incas. Ethnographies of Quechua peasants in the Peruvian Andes, Yanomami Indians in the Amazon, and Oglala Sioux in the Dakotas will show how contemporary Native Americans are dealing with the never-ending process of colonialism. How Europeans have imagined indigenous peoples has had a profound impact on how the latter defend themselves. The resulting images of authenticity and resistance have always been double-edged. The course will conclude with the debate over the reservation paradigm in the U.S.

Human Ecology Environmental issues are also cultural and political conflicts, between competing social groups, economic interests and cultural paradigms. This course introduces students to human ecology, the study of how our adaptations to the environment are mediated by cultural differences and political economy. Topics include: how ecological anthropology has evolved as a subdiscipline, with a focus on systems theory and political ecology; how ritually regulated societies manage resources; how rural communities deal with environmental deterioration; and how contradictions between environmental protection, economic development, and cultural values complicate so many ecological issues.

Pyramid Schemes, Bubbles, and Crashes In this seminar we will study the anthropology of exchange, then use it to analyze ethnographies of financial speculators, labor migrants, microcredit borrowers, and other agents and victims of global capitalism.  We will focus on conflicting obligations to kin and to creditors, on how people in different cultures and social classes juggle these obligations, and how the growth of financial debt can turn social relationships into commodities.  Studying debt and how it is leveraged in different societies and historical eras will show why capitalism is so vulnerable to speculative booms, swindles, and collapses.

David Stoll

Reviews and ratings for David Stoll at Middlebury College.David Stoll teaches Cultural Anthropology, Anthro Warfare & Polarization, Anthro of Labor Migra & Refuge and more.  Explore top rated instructors and find the best for you.Is David Stoll good ? Find out on MiddCourses.

I enjoyed this course a lot, and liked the professor. Definitely important to keep up on readings in order to participate in class, they're basically all discussions. At times the readings were a lot, but the exams were doable, and fairly graded. 

I'm not in anthropology and I took it because I wanted to expand myself. It's an okay course... I don't feel compelled to explore more of anthropology after taking it. Prof Stoll was a dry lecturer. And the materials feels a bit dated (judging from fieldwork that we had to read about my own culture). I feel like the prof would like you more if you're an international student or has experience atypical to the average US culture to share at discussions.

Its definitely important content for the major and I get why its required, but it's a little dull and a lot of it comes off as common sense. Given the emphasis on teaching you how to write it really should be a CW.