Course Catalog

AFAN 201

Intro to Anthropology

No Course Description Available.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 201

Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

This course introduces the theory and method of cultural anthropology as applied to the analysis of specific cultures. The focus will be on the analysis of specific cultures and case studies of societies from different ethnographic areas. Topics to be considered include ritual and symbol systems, gender, family and kinship, reciprocity and exchange, inequality and hierarchy, cultural intrusion and resistance, and social change.

1.00 units, Lecture

LAAN 201

Intro to Anthropology

No Course Description Available.

1.00 units, Lecture

WMST 205

Anth Persp Women&Gender

No Course Description Available.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 206

Sex Gender and Power

This course explores issues of sex, gender, and power for women and men in our society and in selected cultures of Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and the Pacific. Issues to be explored include: the cultural construction of deviance, women's and men's freedom to be sexual, reproductive rights, divorce and marriage, homosexuality, ritualized genital mutilation, the relationship between sexuality and social roles. By creating "maps" of the sex/gender systems of some exotically different societies, the course encourages a reflexive analysis of our own.

1.00 units, Lecture

AFAN 207

Anth Persp Women&Gender

No Course Description Available.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 207

Anthropological Perspectives of Women and Gender

Using texts and films, this course will explore the nature of women’s lives in both the contemporary United States and a number of radically different societies around the world, including, for example, the !Kung San people of the Kalahari and the Mundurucù of Amazonian Brazil. As they examine the place of women in these societies, students will also be introduced to theoretical perspectives that help explain both variations in women’s status from society to society and "universal" aspects of their status.

1.00 units, Lecture

LAAN 207

Anth Persp Women&Gender

No Course Description Available.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 210

Peoples of Europe

This course introduces Europe as a culturally and ecologically diverse and unevenly developed region. Students will examine the dynamics of communities located in, for example, the Scottish Lowlands, London, southern Italy, Brittany, Spain, Yugoslavia and rural Greece. Topics for reading and discussion will include: ethnicity, class, gender, economic decline, emigration, and religious conflict.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 213

The Meanings of Money

What is money? What does money do? Why do so many people try so hard to get it? This course will look comparatively at the roles and meanings of money in different societies. We will consider whether money causes social decay or fosters social integration. We will examine money not only as a medium of exchange, but also as a means of power, resistance and expression. We will learn about lottery winners, counterfeiters, and gamblers and investigate pawn-shops and co-ops. Readings will include ethnography, theory, and news articles.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 214

Modern Material Culture

This course examines the reflexive relationship between things, i.e. material culture, and human thought and behavior. Social relations and questions of identity are analyzed via people’s relationship to commodities. Beginning in the 18th century and continuing to the present, various forms of material culture, from gravestones to cars and clothes, are studied with a critical eye towards understanding ways in which they influence social life. We will focus on the rise of consumer culture and the increasing development of people’s dependence on commodities to substitute for human relations. The course draws from anthropological, including archaeological, theory and method in its examination of the ways in which human experience is made sense of, mediated, and subverted by material culture.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 215

Medical Anthropology

This course covers major topics in medical anthropology, including biocultural analyses of health and disease, the social patterning of disease, cultural critiques of biomedicine, and non-Western systems of healing. We will explore the major theoretical schools in medical anthropology, and see how they have been applied to specific pathologies, life processes, and social responses. Finally we will explore and critique how medical anthropology has been applied to health care in the United States and internationally. The course will sensitize students to cultural issues in sickness and health care, and provide some critical analytic concepts and tools.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 218

Women & Family in Mid Ea

No Course Description Available.

1.00 units, Lecture

WMST 218

Women & Family in Mid Ea

No Course Description Available.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 219

Anthropology of the Body

This course views the body as a site on which social and cultural processes are imprinted. We will examine homeless, diseased, addicted, hungry, and drugged bodies to show how the body is a center of power relations emerging from a particular political economy. We will also investigate the processes through which some kinds of bodies are constructed as abnormal and are subject to attack, ridicule, or freak-show display. Finally, we will explore the ways in which bodies are used in the accumulation of wealth and power, and what happens to bodies when they are commoditized for the market, are dissected, bought, sold, and rented. Students will have considerable freedom to design and undertake their own research projects.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 223

Anthro of Oppression

No Course Description Available.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 225

Indigenous Peoples of Far North

As a region, the Far North holds many lessons about the processes and consequences of globalization. Traditionally marginalized, arctic and sub-arctic peoples of the circumpolar world are now in the vanguard of major global changes, including unprecedented climactic, demographic, ecological, economic, political, and socio-cultural shifts. This course examines key themes in the historical development and contemporary status of indigenous peoples of northern North America, Europe, and Asia, from a transnational perspective. Key themes include: subsistence adaptations, local and regional economies, colonization, military and industrial development, environmental and social change, and contemporary sovereignty and social justice movements.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 226

Culture and the Mind: Psychological Anthropology

How much of culture is in our heads? To what extent does culture affect how we think and act? How do we get beyond the old nature (biology) versus nurture (culture) debate to understand the dynamic interplay of biological and cultural forces in human psychology and development, including perception, cognition, emotion, personality, identity, and behavior? This course addresses these and other key questions through the concepts, methods, and theories of cognitive and psychological anthropology and related disciplines. This is your brain on culture!

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 227

Introduction to Political Ecology

This course covers social science approaches to issues concerning ecology, the environment, and nature. It looks at how social identities and cultural meaning are symbolically tied to the physical environment. Ecology and the environment are affected by larger political, social, and economic forces, so we will also broaden the analysis to include wider spatial and temporal scales. The course will also examine how sociology and geography relate to political ecology. Regional foci will include South and Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 228

Anthropology from the Margins of South Asia

This course will examine how the northwestern and northern mountainous regions of South Asia have been constructed in the Western popular imagination, both in literary texts and in academic debates. Starting with the era of the Great Game in the late 19th century and ending with the current "war on terror," the course will explore the transformation and continuation of past social and political conditions, and their representations within the region. This will help illuminate some of the enduring themes in anthropological debates, such as culture contact; empires, territories, and resources; and human agency.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 230

Visual Anthropology

This course will explore and evaluate various visual genres, including photography, ethnographic film, and museum presentation, as modes of anthropological analysis—as media of communication facilitating cross-cultural understanding. Among the topics to be explored are the ethics of observation, the politics of artifact collection and display, the dilemma of representing non-Western “others” through Western media, and the challenge of interpreting indigenously produced visual depictions of “self” and “other.”

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 232

Native North American Cultures

Original ecologists, vanishing races, cowboy victims, marginalized reservation-dwellers, radical separatists, casino proprietors? These are just some of the dominant stereotypes and conflicting images of Native Americans today. In this course we critically examine these images and introduce the study of Native North Americans from an anthropological perspective. The origins, development, and contemporary variations of Native American groups in the United States and Canada are explored. The course emphasizes key themes in the study of Native Americans today, including culture change, demography, economic development, ethnic identity, sovereignty and self-government, land and resource rights, environmental justice and health, and representations of “Natives” and “Indians” in popular culture.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 238

Economic Anthropology

We often assume that culture and the economy are separate, but all economic transactions contain cultural dimensions, and all cultural institutions exhibit economic features. This course provides an introduction to key debates and contemporary issues in economic anthropology. We will consider differences in the organization of production, distribution, and consumption in both subsistence and market economies and examine ways in which anthropologists have theorized these differences. Topics for discussion will include cultural conceptions of property and ownership, social transitions to market economies, the meanings of shopping, and the commodification of bodies and body parts such as organs and blood. Course materials will draw from ethnographic studies, newspaper articles, and documentary films.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 240

Public Anthropology

Public anthropology engages students in the public policy arena by investigating the cultural foundations of controversial issues. We will read ethnographic accounts and theoretical commentaries on debates that occupy mass media attention, such as intelligent design, reproductive rights, genetic research, human rights, indigenous peoples land claims, and public resource management. Students will look at how anthropologists speak and write about these subjects and will also consider how we might be more effective in communicating our ideas to a public audience.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 244

Borderlands of East & South East Asia

As multinational logging and tourism encroach upon land, and as governments attempt to control borders and restrict cultural practices, borderland peoples of East and Southeast Asia are struggling for their livelihoods and self-determination. This course examines these economic, political and cultural struggles comparatively, over time and across regions. We will investigate government policies of assimilation and modernization, and local responses and resistance. We will discuss such topics as environmental degradation, ethno-tourism, prostitution, HIV infection, and drug smuggling. Readings will include ethnography and memoir, and will be complemented by film and slides.

1.00 units, Seminar

ANTH 245

Anthropology and Global Health

This course examines the growing collaborative and critical roles of anthropology applied to international health. Anthropologists elicit disease taxonomies, describe help-seeking strategies, critique donor models, and design behavioral interventions. They ask about borders and the differences among conceptions of health and disease as global, international, or domestic topics. These issues will be explored through case studies of specific diseases, practices, therapies, agencies, and policies.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 247

China through Film

Film provides a vital medium for understanding changes in Chinese society and culture. Film illustrates shifts in political and economic systems, and reveals changes in the possibilities of individual and collective expression. In China, film has been used both as a tool of the state and as an implement of cultural critique. This course surveys five decades of Chinese film, focusing primarily on mainland films, but also looking at films from Hong Kong and Taiwan. No knowledge of Chinese language is necessary for the course.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 252

Identities in Britain and Ireland

This course takes a close look at social diversity within Britain (England, Scotland, Wales), and Ireland (Northern and Eire). It will examine how class, race, ethnicity, gender, and region affect people’s sense of identity and participation as citizens within their nations and within the European Union. It will also investigate the ways communities are represented or represent themselves through tourism, heritage sites, and museums. Overall, the course engages the question of how a society does or does not transcend "difference."

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 253

Urban Anthropology

This course will trace the social scientific (especially ethnographic and cultural) study of the modern city from its roots in the Industrial Revolution through the current urban transformations brought about by advanced capitalism and globalization. Why are cities organized as they are? How does their organization shape, and get shaped by, everyday practices of city inhabitants? This course will explore the roles of institutional actors (such as governments and corporations) in urban organization, and the effects of economic change,immigration, and public policy on the social organization and built environment of cities. It will examine social consequences of cities, including economic inequality, racial stratification, community formation, poverty, and urban social movements. Though it will focus on American urbanism, this course will also be international and ethnographic.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 262

People/Culture of Caribb

A review of the attempt to develop generalizations about the structure of Caribbean society. Theoretical materials will focus on the historical role of slavery, the nature of plural societies, race, class, ethnicity and specific institutions such as the family, the schools, the church and the political structure.

1.00 units, Lecture

AFAN 270

Peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa

No Course Description Available.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 270

Peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa

This course explores anthropological contributions to the study of sub-Saharan African societies both past and present. It will examine issues of culture, development, and social change through ethnographic readings. There will also be emphasis on analyzing ways in which African societies and peoples have been represented in print and film media. (Also offered under anthropology.)

1.00 units, Seminar

ANTH 281

Anthropology of Religion

Introduction to the foundations of religion through an examination of religious phenomena prevalent in traditional cultures. Some of the topics covered in this course include a critical examination of the idea of primitivity, the concepts of space and time, myths, symbols, ideas related to God, man, death, and rituals such as rites of passage, magic, sorcery, witchcraft, and divination. (May be counted toward anthropology and international studies/comparative development.)

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 282

Women & Soc Change in China

Social, political and economic changes in China have radically altered women’s lives. Women have not been passive amidst these changes, but have actively negotiated and manipulated family systems, state policies and market forces. Through oral history, ethnography, memoir and film, this course investigates women’s experiences from the late 19th century to the present. Our investigation will consider women’s lives within specific historical contexts and examine differences among women based on socioeconomic status, region and ethnicity. Where possible, we will also make comparisons with women’s experiences in the United States. (May be counted toward Women, Gender, and Sexuality.)

1.00 units, Seminar

ANTH 284

The Anthropology of Violence, Memory, and Commemoration

In this class we will take an ethnographic and theoretical approach to the study of political violence and its commemoration, using a variety of texts, case studies (drawn largely but not exclusively from Southeast Asia), and films. Questions we will explore include: what factors shape the ways that acts of political violence are defined, recognized, and remembered? What is the connection between "spectacular" headline acts of violence and the everyday structural and symbolic violence that sustains relationships of inequality? What forms of violence emerged out of European colonialism, and what legacy has this left in our postcolonial, globalized world? Finally, how are responses to, and commemorations of, violence conditioned both by local contexts and by institutions such as truth commissions, NGOs, and human rights organizations?

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 291

Observing the World:Culture,Power,Technology

What does it mean to observe? What is the relationship between seeing and knowing? Participant observation has long been the defining mehtodology of anthropology, yet anthropologists have not fully explored the issued of observation itself. This class will investigate three main issues in observation: the influence of culture and experience on perception, the relationship between observation and power, and the impact of visual technologies on the ways in which we see and interpret the world. Reading materials will be accompanied by visual materials and computer exercises.

1.00 units, Lecture

AHIS 296

Visual Anthropology

This course will explore and evaluate various visual genres, including photography, ethnographic film and museum presentation, as modes of anthropological analysis-as media of communication facilitating cross-cultural understanding. Among the topics to be explored are the ethics of observation, the politics of artifact collection and display, the dilemma of representing non-Western "others" through Western media, and the challenge of interpreting indigenously produced visual depictions of "self" and "other."

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 301

Ethnographic Methods and Writing

This course will acquaint students with a range of research methods commonly used by anthropologists, and with the types of questions and designs that justify their use. It will describe a subset of methods (individual and group interviewing, and observation) in more detail, and give students practice in their use, analysis, and presentation. Through accompanying readings, the course will expose students to the controversies surrounding the practice of ethnography and the presentation of ethnographic authority. Students will conduct group field research projects during the course, and will develop and write up research proposals for projects they themselves could carry out in a summer or semester. It is recommended that students have already taken an anthropology course.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 302

History of Anthropological Thought

This course explores the anthropological tradition as it has changed from the late 19th century until the present. Students will read works of the major figures in the development of the discipline, such as Bronislaw Malinowski, Franz Boas, Margaret Mead, and Claude Levi-Strauss. They will learn not only what these anthropologists had to say about reality, but why they said it when they did. In this sense, the course turns an anthropological eye on anthropology itself.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 305

Women in East Asian Anthropological and Literary Considerations

Crossing national and disciplinary boundaries, this course will examine through the perspectives of anthropology and literature the lives of women in three East Asian countries: China, Japan and Korea. Deeply influenced by Confucianism and Buddhism, these three countries share cultural characteristics yet present striking social differences. Drawing on novels, memoirs, ethnography and film, we will compare women’s experiences in family life, religious practice, the workplace and battlefield. As we consider similarities and differences, we will also scrutinize the common practice of grouping these three countries as a cultural entity, thus complicating our understanding of the idea of East Asia.

1.00 units, Seminar

ANTH 306

Time and Culture

At a fundamental level we take for granted the ways in which time is organized in our lives. Yet there is nothing “natural” about most temporal divisions. This course investigates concepts and practices of time across cultures, paying particular attention to the roles of power, economy and technology. We will consider the relationship between time and economic organization, looking at the impact of industrialization on the development of clocks, watches, schedules and deadlines. We ALSO will examine the cultural politics of calendars and computers, think about ideas of time travel, the “past,” “future,” and “progress,” and question the ways in which these IDEAS shape our views of societies worldwide. Finally, we will think about the ways in which individuals narrate their life times in relation to larger collective events such as rituals and catastrophes.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 308

Anthropology of Place

This course explores the increasingly complex ways in which people in industrial and non-industrial societies locate themselves with respect to land and landscape. Contrary to some widespread assumptions regarding the fit between identity and place (i.e., ethnicity and nationalism), we study a range of settings in which people actively construct, contest, and reappropriate the spaces of modern life. Through texts, seminar discussions, films, and a field-based research project as the major exercise, students will explore a number of issues, including cultural persistence and the loss of place; the meaning of the frontier and indigenous land rights struggles; gender and public space; the deterritorialization of culture (i.e., McDonald’s in Hong Kong); and the cultural costs of an increasingly "fast" and high-tech world.

1.00 units, Seminar

ANTH 309

Culture, Ecology, and Environment

This course introduces the student to the study of human ecology from a global and intercultural perspective. The texts, lectures, films, discussions, and assignments in this course are designed to provide: 1)an overview and understanding of the origins, development, and variation of human ecological knowledge and practices around the world, including foraging, subsistence agriculture, pastoralism, and intensive and industrial agriculture production systems as well as patterns of distribution and consumption; 2) an introduction to the major concepts and theories of human/cultural ecology and environmental anthropology; 3) an understanding of the concept of Traditional Ecological Knowledge and its relationship to modern science, especially in the areas of ecosystem conceptualization and modeling, adaptation, and resource use and management; and 4) a means of evaluating the cultural roots of contemporary environmental problems, the potential for “sustainable development,” and the applicability of indigenous ecological knowledge in today’s global political economy.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 310

Anthropology of Development

This seminar will explore international economic and social development from an anthropological perspective. We will critically examine concepts of development, underdevelopment, and progress. We will compare how multilateral lenders and small nongovernmental organizations employ development rhetoric and methods. We will examine specific case studies of development projects in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, asking what has been attained, and what is attainable.

1.00 units, Seminar

ANTH 311

Cultural Diversities in Western Europe

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 312

Culture and the Mind

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 313

Indigenous Peoples, Ethnic Groups, and States

The conditions and fates of indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities today are intimately linked to the evolution of modern nation-states and the global political economy. Over the past 500 years, small, relatively autonomous indigenous and ethnic groups have increasingly been brought under state control through processes of conquests, genocide, colonialism, development, and globalization. These forces have produced profound changes and profound stresses, resulting, at worst, in the elimination of entire societies, but more commonly in complex interactions that vary from dependency and assimilation to resistance and cultural revitalization. The course uses detailed case studies from around the world to illustrate key themes and cross-cultural patterns in the construction and destruction of indigenous peoples and ethnic groups in state systems.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 320

Commnty-Campus Exchanges

Community-campus partnerships raise important and difficult issues about power, organizational cultures, incentives, needs, and resources. This course will bring students, faculty, and community members together to discuss questions including: What is a community, and in what sense can it be a partner? How can one evaluate the impact and utility of community-campus partnerships? What institutional capacities (e.g., planning, fund-raising, research, training, service) can be developed through collaboration? How? How can qualitative research assess campus and community needs and resources? How do market pressures influence student, faculty, and community interest in collaboration? What models of community-campus exchange exist cross-culturally? Enrollment limited.

1.00 units, Seminar

POLS 326

The Politics of Culture

No Course Description Available.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 330

Anthropology of Food

Because food is necessary to sustain biological life, its production and provision occupy humans everywhere. Due to this essential importance, food also operates to create and symbolize collective life. This seminar will examine the social and cultural significance of food. Topics to be discussed include the evolution of human food systems, the social and cultural relationships between food production and human reproduction, the development of women’s association with the domestic sphere, the meaning and experience of eating disorders, the connection between ethnic cuisines, nationalist movements and social classes, and the causes of famine.

1.00 units, Seminar

AMST 371

Anthro of Contemp US

No Course Description Available.

1.00 units, Lecture

ANTH 399

Independent Study

Submission of the special registration form, available in the Registrar’s Office, and the approval of the instructor and chair are required for enrollment.

1.00 units min / 2.00 units max, Independent Study

ANTH 401

Advanced Seminar in Contemporary Anthropology

Anthropologists are a contentious lot, often challenging the veracity and relevance of each other’s interpretations. In this seminar, students will examine recent manifestations of this vexatiousness. The seminar will consider such questions as: Can culture be regarded as collective and shared? What is the relationship between cultural ideas and practical action? How does one study culture in the postmodern world of "the celluloid, global ethnoscape"? Can the practice of anthropology be fully objective, or does it demand a politics—an understanding that ideas, ours and theirs, are historically situated, politicized realities? Is domination the same everywhere?

1.00 units, Seminar

ANTH 402

Historical Anthropology

No Course Description Available.

1.00 units, Seminar

CDIN 402

Historical Anthropology

No Course Description Available.

1.00 units, Seminar

ANTH 466

Teaching Assistantship

Submission of the special registration form, available in the Registrar’s Office, and the approval of the instructor and director are required for enrollment.

0.50 units min / 1.00 units max, Independent Study

ANTH 497

Senior Thesis

Submission of the special registration form, available in the Registrar’s Office, and the approval of the instructor and director are required for enrollment in this single-semester thesis. (1 course credit to be completed in one semester.)

1.00 units, Independent Study

ANTH 498

Senior Thesis Part 1

Submission of the special registration form, available in the Registrar’s Office, and the approval of the instructor and director are required for each semester of this year long thesis. (2 course credits are considered pending in the first semester; 2 course credits will be awarded for completion in the second semester.)

2.00 units, Independent Study

ANTH 499

Senior Thesis Part 2

Submission of the special registration form, available in the Registrar's Office, and the approval of the instructor and program director are required for each semester of this yearlong thesis. (2 course credits are considered pending in the first semester; 2 course credits will be awarded for completion in the second semester.)

2.00 units, Independent Study