Manuela Carneiro da Cunha

21103. Classical Readings in Anthropology: (Marxian) Theory of Value. Topics addressed: Aristotole’s concept of value and the classical view; A classical Marxist View and critique; Marxian theory of value as a critique of alienation; A third view—Value is constituted by social acts of exchange; Value-form in capitalism; Value-form in non-capitalism; Exploitation with and without labor theory; Exploitation in non-capitalist societies.

21204/33800. Intensive Study of a Culture: The Brazilian Amazon. This course will deal with the Amazon and sustainable development. It will focus on the critique of international and Brazilian development policies for the Amazon and on the involvement of traditional peoples in environmental issues. Special attention will be given to extractive reserves. It will also discuss the ways in which different Amazonian societies perceive and act on their environment.

21402/33500. The Practice of Anthropology: Levi-Strauss. Class limited to twenty students. This course discusses some fundamental topics in Levi-Strauss's anthropology, namely kinship, myth, and structure. Starting with alliance theory, it proceeds to examine the structural analysis of myths, its relationship to art, and the very notion of structure in Lvi-Strauss, relating it with models in other sciences which were its inspiration.

21403/33900. The Practice of Anthropology: Trends in Amazonian Ethnology. A latecomer to the anthropological debate, Amazonian ethnology is presently becoming an interlocutor to other regional Anthropologies. Major current debates and their ethnographic sources will be discussed. A privilege will be given to monographs in the first part of the course. Three themes will be explored in some depth: the idea of nature, social organization, and shamanism.

50600. Levi-Strauss and some Descendants. This course will discuss some fundamental topics in Lvi-Strauss's anthropology, namely kinship, myth and structure.

214/310. The Practice of Anthropology: Ethnography and Cultural Commodities in Today's World. Class limited to twenty students. This course will deal with aspects of contemporary ethnography, particularly with problems raised by dealing with 'cultural property'. It will discuss some shifts in the anthropological fields and fieldwork, the dimensions of culture as a product and a commodity and the issue of intellectual property rights for indigenous peoples.

21800/31200. Amazonian Shamanism and Knowledge.This course discusses, on Amazonain ethnographic grounds, a major current debate, namely the appropriation of local knowledge by the West. Following a general introduction to Amazonian ethnology, the course particularly deals with the nature of shamanism and knowledge, the process of generating and acquiring knowledge among some Amazonian societies, and then goes on to discuss issues around intellectual rights in relation to biological and knowledge prospection.

24400. Image and Fetish. This course discusses issues arising from visual representation, such as the role of image and iconography as a system. Examples will be taken from diverse cultural contexts.

245/40500/514. Traditional People’s Intellectual Rights. This course will examine the field of discussion for indigenous intellectual rights in relation to knowledge of biological resources. Many different actors participate in it, ranging from indigenous people, their organizations, other NGOs of different scopes, academics of different disciplines – such as botanists, anthropologists, ecologists, legal scholars, economists, biological and chemical researchers in academy research institutions and in industry – industry as such (seeds, pharmaceuticals, etc.) with diverse strategies, multilateral banks and institutions, international institutions such as several UN organs, national governments, science foundations and many others. The debate also impinges on a larger one about the public and the private spheres. Anthropology is implicated in more than one way: it has stakes in the debate, since it deals with culture and knowledge; it purports to analyze the field itself, its structure, its rhetoric and its internalization and it endeavors to study the actual empirical situations resulting from various initiatives. [Indigenous rights in Brazil, their history and major sources of conflict.]

509. Seminar: Man and Nature in the Amazon. This seminar concentrates on two issues: styles and methods in ethnoscience and the discussion of intellectual property rights for traditional societies. For example, one topic is forest management in the Amazon.

516. Seminar: Images, Idols, Icons - Problems in Visual Representation. PQ: Consent of instructor. This seminar deals with problems in representation. It will discuss the status of images in classical antiquity and in early Christianity, and the ethical and aesthetical aspects of religious images. It will conclude by concentrating on Catholic iconography from the trecento and quattrocento.

517. Seminar: Paths and Maps for Memory. PQ: Consent of instructor. Topics considered include memory and society (the Ecole Sociologique, memory and identity), paths and maps for memory (pilgrimages, transform-ing time into space, the art of memory, and memory and ritual), the politics of memory, and the physiology of memory.

558. Seminar: Structure and History. PQ: Consent of instructor. Class limited to twenty students. This course features the role of cultural order in historical change, with analytic examples from diverse ethnographic sites in the early modern and modern periods.