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Dr. Shannon Speed Receives President’s Award from American Anthropological Association

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Dr. Shannon Speed, citizen of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma and director of the UCLA American Indian Studies Center and professor of Gender Studies and Anthropology, recently received the President’s Award from the American Anthropological Association (AAA) for her work bringing together scholarship and activism in advocating for Indigenous and Native American women. This award is given annually to encourage and reward an AAA member’s excellent contributions to the anthropological field.

To read more about Dr. Speed’s work and this award, check out the UCLA Newsroom article by clicking HERE.

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LA Social Science Book Series on Korean Intergroup Relations in LA with Professor Kyeyoung Park

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In LA Rising: Korean Relations with Blacks and Latinos after Civil Unrest, UCLA Anthropology Professor Kyeyoung Park revisits the 1992 Los Angeles unrest and provides a deep dive of the interrelations between minority groups. She provides a comprehensive examination of how race, class citizenship, and culture impacted relations between multiple groups in South Los Angeles. This is an important read as many of the past issues examined are still relevant today.

Interview Chapters:

0:04​ – Intro

0:53​ – What is the main argument/contribution of the book?

5:09​ – How did racial cartography allow you to examine relations between Korean, Black, and Latino populations?

10:09​ – How does your book add to and/or challenge the narratives around the 1992 civil unrest?

13:00​ – How does the book connect with current unrest related to police brutality?

15:34​ – Why should someone read/assign this book?

To learn more, check out Professor Park’s book LA Rising: Korean Relations with Blacks and Latinos After Civil Unrest.

 

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LA Social Science Book Series About Incarcerated Indigenous Women Migrants with Professor Shannon Speed

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UCLA Professor Shannon Speed‘s new book, Incarcerated Stories: Indigenous Women Migrants and Violence in the Settler-Capitalist State, examines the myriad forms of violence that Indigenous women from the Americas face. Dr. Speed, UCLA American Indian Studies Center Director and Gender Studies and Anthropology Professor, characterizes the structural violence these women endure as “neoliberal multicriminalism” where economic and political policies render them vulnerable. Her book uses a critically engaged, activist-research approach, specifically ethnographic practices, to record and recount stories from Indigenous women in U.S. detention. Dr. Speed demonstrates that these women’s vulnerability to individual and state violence is not rooted in a failure to exercise agency. Rather, it is a structural condition, created and reinforced by settler colonialism, which consistently deploys racial and gender ideologies to manage the ongoing business of occupation and capitalist exploitation.

Interview Chapters:

0:04 – Introduction

0:51 – What are the myriad forms of violence that Indigenous women from the Americas face?

4:05 – What do the women’s stories reveal?

5:22 – Can you elaborate on your term “neoliberal multicriminalism”?

11:15 – What nuance can you get out of a critically engaged, activist-research approach?

12:55 – How does the book help us understand contemporary times? And how does it challenge and combat “multicriminalism”?

To learn more, check out Professor Speed’s book, Incarcerated Stories: Indigenous Women Migrants and Violence in the Settler-Capitalist State.

 

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LA Social Science Book Series on Language in the Trump Era with Dr. Norma Mendoza-Denton

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In the latest interview in the book series, Dr. Norma Mendoza-Denton, UCLA Anthropology Professor, discusses her highly anticipated, co-edited book Language in the Trump Era: Scandals and Emergencies that examines the power of language and how President Trump has used it to further his agenda.

Interview Chapters:

0:00 – Intro

1:15 – What made you decide to do a book on language in the Trump era?

2:14 – What is the power of language?

5:44 – How has Trump’s language regarding women, Latinos, Muslims, LGBTQ+ impacted society?

10:04 – What is the impact of social media and 24-hour news cycle on spreading narratives?

12:40 – What do these narratives say about Trump and those who agree with him?

19:06 – Why is this an essential book to pick up right now?

To learn more, check out Dr. Mendoza-Denton’s book Language in the Trump Era: Scandals and Emergencies.

 

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Challenging the Problematic Description of Being “Articulate While Black”

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Dr. H. Samy Alim, UCLA Professor of Anthropology and David O. Sears Presidential Endowed Chair in the Division of Social Sciences, and Dr. Geneva Smitherman, Michigan State University Distinguished Professor Emerita, recently released an opinion piece in The New York Times titled “Of Course Kamala Harris Is Articulate.” They challenge the often used description that high-achieving Black people are “articulate.” They assert that these types of descriptions are highly problematic and offensive, because the exceptional descriptions imply that the opposite is true of other Black people. As co-authors of the book Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, and Race in the U.S., Drs. Alim and Smitherman further explain why comments like these denigrate Black Americans, even if done unintentionally.

To read the full op-ed, please click HERE.

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The Juxtaposition of the Stories Monuments Tell in the Philippines

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UCLA Professor Stephen Acabado recently co-authored an essay for INQUIRER.net that discusses how monuments in the Philippines “glorify both our fight for self-determination and the contributions of our colonial overlords.” The authors credit the #BlackLivesMatter movement for this renewed investigation into monuments and the histories they represent, as they urge the reader to see monuments as elevations of history.

A pre-war photo of the Plaza Quince Martires in Naga City. The monument honors the 15 martyrs of Bicol who were executed by the Spanish in 1897 for rebellion. (Photo: Savage Mind: Arts, Books, Cinema)

To read this essay, click HERE.

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LA Social Science Summer Course Previews: Anthropology Department Courses in 2020

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Summer 2020 starts this month, and LA Social Science will continue to highlight some of the summer courses being offered within the Division of Social Sciences at UCLA.

UCLA summer courses are open to BOTH UCLA students and NON-UCLA students. All Summer 2020 courses will be offered online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. You can enroll as long as you are 15 years of age or older by the first day of summer and you do NOT have to be enrolled in an academic institution in order to participate in UCLA Summer Sessions. For more information, click HERE.

UCLA’s Department of Anthropology has several summer course offerings. Check out the course list below. Enroll HERE TODAY!

Session A:

ANTHRO 142P – Anthropology of Religion

Survey of various methodologies in comparative study of religious ideologies and action systems, including understanding particular religions through descriptive and structural approaches, and identification of social and psychological factors that may account for variation in religious systems cross-culturally.

ANTHRO 143 – Economic Anthropology

Introduction to anthropological perspectives for interpretation of economic life and institutions. Economic facts to be placed in their larger social, political, and cultural contexts; examination of modes of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services in their relation to social networks, power structures, and institutions of family, kinship, and class.

ANTHRO 153 – Language and Identity

Language as social phenomenon. Introduction to several angles from which language use can be critically examined as integral to interactions between individuals and between social groups.

Other Session A offerings:

ANTHRO 3 – Culture and Society

ANTHRO 110 – Principles of Archaeology

ANTHRO 124S – Evolution of Human Sexual Behavior

ANTHRO 133 – Anthropology of Food

ANTHRO 137P – Anthropology of Deviance and Abnormality

Session C:

ANTHRO 126P – Paleopathology

Evidence of disease and trauma, as preserved in skeletal remains of ancient and modern human populations. Discussions of medical procedures (trepanation), health status, ethnic mutilation (cranial deformation, footbinding), cannibalism, and sacrifice and roles such activities have played in human societies.

ANTHRO 132 – Anthropology of Environment

Environmental anthropology explores relationship between complex human systems and environments in which they are entangled. Examination of how people impact and are impacted by their environments, and how relationships between people are negotiated through management of place and space throughout time. Traces multiple theoretical lineages, beginning with early work in cultural ecology and including political ecology, environmental history, contested ontologies, and contemporary environmental justice. Through engagement with grounded, multimodal ethnographies (in text, film, and new media), study of historical movements of people across ecosystems, politics of managing common goods resources such as rivers and atmosphere, bioeconomics of environmental contamination, and development of climate change adaptation strategies in hard-hit areas.

ANTHRO 138P – Field Methods in Cultural Anthropology

Introduction to skills and tools of data ascertainment through fieldwork in cultural anthropology. Emphasis on techniques, methods, and concepts of ethnographical research and how basic observational information is systematized for presentation, analysis, and cross-cultural comparison.

Other Session C offerings:

ANTHRO 1 – Human Evolution

ANTHRO 4 – Culture and Communication

ANTHRO 135 – Visual Anthropology

ANTHRO 146 – Urban Anthropology

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Any Plans for the Summer? Enroll TODAY in an Online UCLA Summer Course

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Have you always wanted to take a course in the social sciences?

Did you think you would never have the time as a working professional?

Are you an upper-level high school student interested in taking a college course?

Are you a current UC student who needs to fulfill a requirement for your major?

Then, take an official UCLA course online from anywhere in the world.

And, learn from renowned faculty who are experts in their field.

UCLA summer courses are open to BOTH UCLA students and non-UCLA students. All summer 2020 courses will be offered online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. You can enroll as long as you are 15 years of age or older by the first day of summer, and you do NOT have to be enrolled in an academic institution in order to participate in UCLA Summer Sessions. For more general information, click HERE.

But, DON’T DELAY! Register TODAY HERE!

Payment is due by June 5 at 5pm PDT for visiting non-UC students who enrolled before June 5 and by June 19 at 5pm PDT for UC students AND for visiting non-UC students who enrolled between June 6 to June 19. Check HERE to keep up to date on the deadlines.

Check out the amazing courses being offered by the departments within the Division of Social Sciences. Each department’s course list is found in the following links:

African American Studies (additional video course previews)

Anthropology

Asian American Studies

Chicana & Chicano Studies

Communication

Economics

Gender Studies (additional information)

Geography

History

Political Science

Sociology

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UCLA Professor Akhil Gupta Named President of the American Anthropological Association

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Dr. Akhil Gupta, UCLA Professor of Anthropology, has officially become president of the American Anthropological Association (as of November 2019). The American Anthropological Association is the largest association for professional anthropologists in the world. Dr. Gupta is a sociocultural anthropologist who works on questions of transnational capitalism, infrastructure, and corruption.

LA Social Science would like to congratulate Dr. Akhil Gupta on this well-deserved appointment.

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Doing Good with Dr. Fessler

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By Lara Drasin

What makes someone want to “do good?” Dr. Daniel Fessler of UCLA’s Anthropology department—the inaugural director of the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute and 2018 recipient of the UCLA Gold Shield Faculty prize—is trying to figure that out, and sat down with LA Social Science to share some thoughts on the subject from an evolutionary perspective.

Fessler and his colleagues are currently conducting research on altruism, or “pro-social behavior.” He says that altruism, or moments in which a person goes out of their way to help another, can actually be “contagious:” witnessing the kindness of others can trigger an emotional reaction in us and inspire us to commit altruistic acts ourselves. The team of researchers are interested investigating what specifically triggers those reaction—or the “machinery inside the mind,” as he puts it, that causes us to make decisions as to whether to be helpful or not. This includes the role that our expectations play in the process. Fessler says that idealists are most likely to be affected, while cynics—or people who are prone to not expect the best from others—are less likely to have this reaction.

What makes someone idealistic or cynical? In addition to studying altruism, Fessler also looks at media and its effects, including how the messages we consume through media may impact the expectations we have of others. “When you choose to repeatedly consume information about the darker aspects of human behavior,” he said, “you’re shaping your own expectations about how other people will behave. It makes you less likely to respond pro-socially when there’s an opportunity to behave in a cooperative situation with others.”

Fessler says that there’s reason to believe our minds process information presented to us through media as though it’s firsthand experience. For example, people who watch a lot of local news overestimate the likelihood that they’ll become victims of violence.

“I love action movies as much as the next person, but I don’t watch them anymore,” he said. “I intentionally avoid realistic depictions of violence because I think it increases our estimation that other people are hostile and violent toward us, and that’s not an orientation I want to have.”

Fessler admits that it is “early days” when it comes to making definitive claims on the psychological effects of media consumption, but he draws a parallel to tobacco. He notes that though it’s legal to buy tobacco products, one can’t pick up a pack of cigarettes without seeing messages reminding us that it is harmful. “I could see a day when we want the same kind of public information campaigns that we have for tobacco use for media consumption,” he said, suggesting that whether or not to consume certain types of media could then become a matter of personal choice, but informed personal choice. “The best thing we can do as scientists is study these things and inform people,” he said, “so that everyone involved can recognize the consequences of their decisions more fully.”

When it comes to his students, Fessler likes to focus on subjects that the students can connect to in their own lives. Everyday subjects including questions like why women tend to be evaluated based on looks; why physical altercations tend to spur from trivial disagreements; and the relationship between economic inequality and violence are all discussed. “It’s important that I teach students in the way that they understand the personal impact of the information,” he said. Usually, conversations take place in a learning environment that Fessler fosters to invoke the same small-scale, face-to-face interactions in which people normally learn outside the context of formal education. He hosts the “FessLab,” where students are invited to assist Dr. Fessler with research outside of class. “The students named it FessLab,” he said, laughing. “It seems kind of self-aggrandizing to me.”

Fessler says that what he loves about UCLA is that it is full of scholars and students who are excited, interested, collaborative and genuinely want to make the world a better place. “That’s not commonly found,” he said. “There is so much good work being done here.”

 

To learn more about the establishment of the new UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute, please click HERE.

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