Begüm Ergün

During my time at Boston University, I have served as a teaching fellow for Introduction to Sociocultural Anthropology and as the sole instructor of record for Medical Anthropology. I design my courses around experiential learning and visual methodologies, challenging students to step outside the classroom and turn a critical eye toward their immediate environments—examining their city streets, social networks, and even personal medical journeys.

This commitment to the human perspective shapes my upcoming essay in Social Anthropology, which explores the intersection of artificial intelligence and anthropological pedagogy. As generative AI models increasingly produce photorealistic imagery of human suffering, instructors face an urgent epistemic challenge: What is the distinct value of the human ethnographic eye? And how do we foster and communicate that value to the next generation of students?