Courses of Study 2013-2014 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Course Descriptions
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ANTHR—Anthropology |
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ANTHR 3428 - [Conflict, Dispute Resolution, and Law in Cultural Context]
(SBA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015.
V. Santiago-Irizarry.
Rule-making and dispute resolution are integral aspects of social reality in any culture. The ways in which conflict is treated and interpreted – to be then deflected or resolved – articulate with other cultural domains such as religion, politics, and economics as part of the material and symbolic processes that enable sociocultural interaction. At issue then are the formal and processual means that the treatment of conflict takes in different societies. These means constitute frames for the definition of social experience that are used by social actors in the interpretation of events within the terms of an overriding sociocultural logic that is in turn refigured by these interpretive frames.
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ANTHR 3438 - Jewish Ethnography (crosslisted)
(also JWST 3938 , NES 3938 )(GB) (CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
Co-meets with ANTHR 6438 /JWST 6938 /NES 6938 .
J. Boyarin.
The anthropology of Jews, Jewishness and Judaism is a wonderful laboratory for studying vital issues in the study of culture and society: textuality and orality; gender, reproduction and the cycle of generations; tradition, modernity and postmodernity; diaspora and the state; genetics and the politics of identity; forms of difference in the metropole and in colonialism. Until recent decades, there were almost no serious ethnographies of Jewish communities. Today there is a rich new literature in this field. We will read widely to become familiar with this new literature, exploring the politics of ethnography; memoir as an ethnographic source; reflexive and auto-Jewish ethnographies; traditionalist and modernist communities; and communities spread widely through Europe, North America, North Africa and the Middle East.
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ANTHR 3445 - Gender, Liberalism, and Postcolonial Theory (crosslisted)
(also FGSS 3445 , GOVT 3765 ) (SBA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
S. Hodžić.
For description, see FGSS 3445 .
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ANTHR 3447 - [Sport]
(GB) (CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2015-2016.
S. Sangren.
Long overlooked by anthropologists, sport and recreation are increasingly recognized as important windows into culture. Sport can be approached from a number of directions – interpreted as a ritual; viewed as a spectacle of ethnic, regional, or national identity; seen as a metaphor for life; understood as a major industry. This course will consider these and other approaches to sport, encouraging students to bring their own involvements in sport to reflect not only upon sport itself, but also upon how such reflection can illuminate cultural, psychological, and political dimensions of social life. Why, for example, do we take sport (and other forms of recreation) so seriously? Why do many of us apparently invest more passion in such pursuits than to life’s allegedly more serious activities? How is sport integrated into people’s identities? Readings will draw from popular literature and media as well as academic writing from a variety of disciplines (psychology, sociology, history) in addition to anthropology.
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ANTHR 3451 - [Global Movements of Cultural Heritage] (crosslisted)
(also ARKEO 3451 , ARTH 3451 )(GB) (CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2015-2016.
M. Fiskesjö.
In this course we explore “cultural heritage” as an idea, and as objects which change hands across continents. Our focus is the global trade of fragments of monuments, statues, tomb furnishings and other antiquities derived from poorer areas of the world, ranging from Benin and Afghanistan to China and Cambodia, transferred to collectors and museums in wealthier countries. We use anthropological perspectives to explore a range of issues such as contested spoils of war, looting and international law, auctions and collecting, value and representation, as well as the role of knowledge, the academy, and world public opinion.
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ANTHR 3461 - [Anthropology of Organizations]
(SBA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015. Co-meets with ANTHR 6461 .
D. Greenwood.
Organizations are at once economic/social/political/cultural entities and organizational studies are found in all these social science fields. Anthropology’s approaches to the study of organizational behavior, cultures, and political economies approaches to organizations are holistic, integrative, multi-method and emphasize ethnographic fieldwork. This course emphasizes both the analysis of organizations and change-oriented strategies to transform organizations. Cases from manufacturing, service organizations, and educational institutions are used.
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ANTHR 3462 - Democratizing Research: Participation, Action, and Research
(SBA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Co-meets with ANTHR 6462 .
D. Greenwood.
This course centers on a family of research approaches variously known as activist research, engaged research, community-based research, public scholarship, and action research. These are both alternatives to and critiques of the common forms of university-centered research that separate “expert” researchers from the subjects of research and claim that the quality of research can be determined only by trained academics. Participants in engaged research view research as a means of social learning. Most importantly, they are guided by democratic ideals and values, in pursuit of public purposes and interests. No course can cover the full range of approaches and so this course brings the different approaches to the attention of the students, shows what the strengths and weaknesses of each are, and exhibits the various strategies and methods that typify them. A subset of the students will be participating in an ongoing community service activity of their own creation. The internships/community projects will be supported and overseen by the course supervisor, a faculty board, and the director of the Cornell University Public Service Center.
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ANTHR 3465 - [Anthropology of the Body] (crosslisted)
(also BSOC 3460 , STS 3460 )(GB) (CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015. Co-meets with ANTHR 6465 /STS 6460 .
S. Langwick.
This course examines a range of texts that treat the body as the subject and object of cultural, technological, political, and ethical processes. Students investigate the cultivation of physical and social bodies through ethnographic and historical materials concerning healing and medicine, discipline and labor, governance and religion, aesthetics and desire. The production and reproduction of bodies and embodied practices have long been central to the way that power works. In this class, we will read and discuss a range of approach to the body. There is much contention over how work, politics, environment, technologies, and violence shape the body and the senses. We will debate how histories of the body are intertwined with histories of gender, race, class, sexuality, (post)coloniality, modernization, science, transnationalism, and the webs of institution, ideas, and capital that comprise these phenomena. Some readings will investigate the complex mediations that account for the body as icon, text, metaphor, commodity, and raw material. Others will contend that serious attention to the production and reproduction of the body across different times and spaces challenge traditional notions of materiality and physicality. Because every examination of the body rests-implicitly or explicitly-in a theoretical and methodological approach to experience, we will also explore the histories of bodily senses, appetites, and capabilities. Ultimately, our inquiry into contests over and reflections on “the body,” as well as specific bodies, aims to open up broader anthropological questions about authority, agency, sovereignties, and material life.
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ANTHR 3479 - [Culture, Language, and Thought]
(CA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015.
V. Santiago-Irizarry.
The relationship among culture, language, and thought has been a core concern in anthropology. Language and culture are commonly defined as processes that are public and shared yet they also operate within and upon subliminal experiential realms. In this course we shall examine how anthropologists have explored this relationship, which is engendered in the interaction between culture and language as parallel mediating devices for the constitution, interpretation, and expression of human experience.
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ANTHR 3514 - [Learning in Japan]
(SBA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015.
H. Miyazaki.
This course approaches contemporary Japanese society through the lens of ongoing debates about learning, education and educational institutions. In recent years, education has emerged as one of the most urgent and contested social issues in Japan. We will cover a wide range of topics from the debate about history textbooks to the competition for admittance to preschools and primary schools, the reorganization of universities and other research institutions and the notion of Japanese workers as experts in knowledge creation through learning. The goal of the course is to reevaluate the celebrated Japanese commitment to learning and to understand the changing significance of education in Japan.
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ANTHR 3516 - [Power, Society, and Culture in Southeast Asia]
(GB) (CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2015-2016.
M. Welker.
Southeast Asia is a region where anthropologists have played great attention to the symbolic within cultural and social processes. While this intellectual orientation has produced contextually rich accounts of cultural uniqueness, there has been a tendency within “interpretive” ethnographies to downplay the role of power and domination within culture and society. This course aims to utilize the traditional strengths of symbolic anthropology by examining the roles of ritual, art, religion, and “traditional” values within contemporary Southeast Asian societies. In doing so, however, we examine how these practices and ideas can also structure ethnic, class, and gender inequalities. Understanding how “traditional” cultural practices and ideologies fit within contemporary nation-states requires that we also examine the effects of colonialism, war, and nationalism throughout the region. In addition to providing a broad and comparative ethnographic survey of Southeast Asia, this course also investigates how culturally-specific forms of power and domination are reflected in national politics, and in local and regional responses to the economic and cultural forces of globalization.
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ANTHR 3520 - [Kings and States in Ancient Asia] (crosslisted)
(also ARKEO 3520 , ASIAN 3362 )(GHB) (SBA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
Recommented prerequisites: some foundation in either Asian anthropology, archaeology, or history. Next offered 2015-2016.
M. Fiskesjö.
This course investigates non-Western systems of political power and their creation in history. We will study the formative processes of Asia’s kingdoms and empires, with special attention to both ideological conceptions and material foundations. Among areas to be studied will be the archaic Chinese states and early empires; the Cambodian Angkor empire; as well as state-making in early Burma, Japan, and other parts of Asia. General theory and concepts of state formation and political power, as well as processes of secondary state formation and center-periphery mimesis and domination in other world areas, will also be introduced and compared. By surveying and re-examining the fast-expanding archaeology and history of Asian state-making, the course will offer a background for understanding the politics of state power in both historical and contemporary Asia.
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ANTHR 3545 - People and Cultures of the Himalayas
(GB) (CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Co-meets with ANTHR 7545 .
K. March.
A comprehensive exploration of the peoples and cultures of the Himalayas. Ethnographic materials draw on the lifeways of populations living in the Himalayan regions of Bhutan, India, Nepal, and Tibet. Some of the cultural issues to be examined through these sources include images of the Himalayas in the West, forms of social life, ethnic diversity, political and economic history, and religious complexity.
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ANTHR 3546 - [Asian Minorities] (crosslisted)
(also ASIAN 3345 )(GB) (CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015.
M. Fiskesjö.
This course will survey the situation of ethnic minorities in several Asian countries. We will learn about their culture and history, their recognition, identity and political status, as well as various forms of discrimination. We will adopt a comparative perspective that enables us to understand minorities in different Asian countries such as China, Japan, Burma, Thailand and others, and also compare with the United States and elsewhere, as well as enabling a discussion of identity production, race, power, and ethnicity on the global arena. We’ll use a relational approach that includes understanding the majorities against whom the minorities are defined, as well as the political and historical background that will help explain the sometimes very different current situation for ethnic minorities in Asian countries.
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ANTHR 3554 - [Male and Female in Chinese Culture and Society] (crosslisted)
(also ASIAN 3364 , FGSS 3440 )(GB) (SBA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015.
S. Sangren.
This course explores the culture of gender, sex roles, and domestic relations in late traditional and modern Chinese society. Readings and lectures range from ethnographic descriptions of the dynamics of Chinese family life, kin relations, and socialization to representations of male and female in mythologies and ritual activities. The course also considers developments subsequent to political changes in China. Although the course’s analytical focus is anthropological, readings will draw from the writings of historians and political scientists as well. A premise of the course is that understanding sex and gender in China is essential to understanding Chinese culture and its most fundamental values. The course also aims to introduce students interested in Chinese to techniques of anthropological analysis.
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ANTHR 3620 - A Global Controversy: How to Study a Human Rights Violation (crosslisted)
(also ASRC 3620 , BSOC 3620 , FGSS 3621 ) (SBA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
S. Hodžić.
How did female genital cutting become an emblematic women’s rights violation? This course uses female genital cutting as a lens for understanding the making of gendered human rights crises and efforts to resolve them. How did much of the world agree that cutting should be ended? How have African and international NGOs, feminist activists, and development and global health organizations try to do so? To answer these questions, we will examine the many meanings and forms of cutting, the intersections of global health and human rights, the histories of conceptions of Africa as the continent in need of saving and a site of violence, the effects of asylum and criminal laws, and both African and international campaigns.
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ANTHR 3703 - [Asians in the Americas: A Comparative Perspective] (crosslisted)
(also AAS 3030 )(HB) (CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015.
V. Munasinghe.
The common perception of ethnicity is that it is a “natural” and an inevitable consequence of cultural difference. “Asians” overseas, in particular, have won repute as a people who cling tenaciously to their culture and refuse to assimilate into their host societies and cultures. But, who are the “Asians?” On what basis can we label “Asians” an ethnic group? Although there is a significant Asian presence in the Caribbean, the category “Asian” itself does not exist in the Caribbean. What does this say about the nature of categories that label and demarcate groups of people on the basis of alleged cultural and phenotypical characteristics? This course will examine the dynamics behind group identity, namely ethnicity, by comparing and contrasting the multicultural experience of Asian populations in the Caribbean and the United States. Ethnographic case studies will focus on the East Indian and Chinese experiences in the Caribbean and the Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Filipino, and Indian experiences in the United States.
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ANTHR 3734 - Brazil: Many Cultures, One Nation (crosslisted)
(also LATA 3734 )(GB) (CA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
J. Fajans.
From the streets of Rio to the shores of the Amazon, anthropology studies the lives, communities, beliefs, practices, and politics of the diverse region known as Brazil. This course will look at issues of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, ritual, environment, development, and human rights across Brazil. We will examine rural and urban cultures, discuss African and European Influences, and explore the relations between indigenous and national cultures. In this context, we will look at the roles that religion, food, dress, soccer, samba, and carnival all play in producing this vibrant culture.
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ANTHR 3762 - Law, Latin@s, Illegality (crosslisted)
(also AMST 3762 , LSP 3762 ) (CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
V. Santiago-Irizarry.
The Latino experience in the United States may be impinged upon by state regulation and governmentality to a greater extent than for non-Latin@s. Drawing from a theoretical and methodological toolkit developed within the anthropology of law, this course considers how the condition of “illegality” and their constitution as a population “in need” (Flores and Yúdice 1993) shapes individual and collective life among Latin@s and their communities. Although immigration is salient among the issues we will examine, the stress will be on how it articulates with multiple domains to suffuse and inform other processes.
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ANTHR 3777 - [The United States] (crosslisted)
(also AMST 3777 , LSP 3777 ) (CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015.
V. Santiago-Irizarry.
The anthropological inquiry into one’s own culture is never a neutral exercise. This course will explore issues in the cultural construction of the United States as a “pluralistic” society. We will look at the ideological context for the production of a cultural profile predicted upon ideas that are intrinsic to American images of identity such as individualism, freedom, and equality and the way these are applied in practice. The course readings will include historic documents and accounts, popular writing, and recent ethnographies on the United States.
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ANTHR 4000 - Development of Anthropological Thought
(SBA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Prerequisite: two prior anthropology courses or permission of instructor. Enrollment is limited to: undergraduate students. Co-meets with ANTHR 7000 .
H. Miyazaki.
Examination of the history and development of anthropological theory and practice. Focuses on the differences and continuities among the various national and historical approaches that have come to be regarded as the schools of anthropology.
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ANTHR 4011 - [Ceramic Analysis for Archaeology] (crosslisted)
(also ARKEO 4011 , NES 4544 )(GHB) (PBS Supplementary List)
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015.
L. Khatchadourian.
For description, see NES 4544 .
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ANTHR 4015 - Principal Methods in Human Osteology and Biological Anthropology (crosslisted)
(also ARKEO 4015 )
Spring. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
M. Machicek.
This course will cover a selection of topics related to the scientific analysis of human skeletal remains. The practical components of this course will provide students with the opportunity to become familiar with basic human skeletal anatomy and osteological methods used for establishing such criteria as individual age-at-death, sex, stature estimation as well as skeletal trauma and pathological conditions used for identification purposes in the fields of Forensic and Biological Anthropology. During the semester we will also explore a selection of topics in Bioarchaeology such as diet and nutrition in ancient populations, human mobility and migration and the assessment of social rank and community organization from mortuary assemblages.
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ANTHR 4030 - [The Caucasus: Captives, Cultures, Crossroads] (crosslisted)
(also NES 4530 )(HB) (CA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015.
L. Khatchadourian.
For description, see NES 4530 .
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ANTHR 4071 - Through the Prison Threshold (crosslisted)
(also GOVT 4867 , SOC 4860 , SHUM 4871 )
Fall. 4 credits.
Limited to 15 students.
C. Garces.
For description, see SHUM 4871 .
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ANTHR 4120 - [Archaeology of Orientalism] (crosslisted)
(also ARKEO 4120 , CLASS 4760 , NES 4620 )(GHB) (HA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015.
L. Khatchadourian.
For description, see NES 4620 .
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ANTHR 4150 - Archaeology of Greek Religion: Theory, Methods, and Practice (crosslisted)
(also CLASS 4750 , ARKEO 4150 , RELST 4750 )(HB) (CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
Prerequisite: some background in Classics, archaeology, or related disciplines is recommended, but not required.
C. Barrett.
For description, see CLASS 4750 .
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ANTHR 4165 - [Anthropology of Humanitarianism]
(GB) (CA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2015-2016.
C. Garces.
It is commonplace to hear that we live in a humanitarian age, but to what extent is humanitarianism coextensive with global and cultural politics today? This seminar will explore how institutions and governments identify “states of emergency” in order to safeguard populations and political alliances. Our readings will problematize gift exchange and the logic of sacrifice across charitable, philanthropic, and peacekeeping efforts. Key topics include the gendered dynamics of aid distribution; the impact of philanthropy on private-public balances of power; the role of displaced populations as biopolitical communities; and the democratic applications of charity to mask imperial resemblances. We will together challenge the ethical knot of using “voluntary actions” as the basis of normative political systems, highlighting contingencies and exploring paradoxes in humanitarian endeavors.
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ANTHR 4209 - [Approaches to Archaeology] (crosslisted)
(also ARKEO 4209 )(HB) (SBA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2015-2016.
K. Jordan.
An exploration of the concepts that have shaped modern archaeology. The course briefly examines the history of theoretical orientations in archaeology, then considers the variety of perspectives and interpretive frameworks that guide present-day investigations. Case studies illustrate the implications of the nature of the archaeological record for reconstructing subsistence and economic systems, trade, social and political organization, demography, and ideology. An undergraduate seminar especially recommended for undergraduate majors and graduate archaeologists but open to anyone with a serious interest in archaeology.
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ANTHR 4216 - [Maya History] (crosslisted)
(also ARKEO 4216 , LATA 4215 )(GHB) (HA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2015-2016. Co-meets with ANTHR 6256 /ARKEO 6256 /LATA 6256 .
J. Henderson.
This course is an exploration of Maya understandings of their own history as it is reflected in ancient texts. We will begin by looking at episodes in Colonial and recent history to illustrate some of the ways Maya thinking about history may differ from more familiar genres. We will then review basic aspects of precolumbian Maya writing, but we will focus mainly on analyzing texts from one or more Classic period Maya cities.
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ANTHR 4220 - [Inkas and their Empire] (crosslisted)
(also ARKEO 4220 )(GHB) (HA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2015-2016. Co-meets with ANTHR 7220 , ARKEO 7220 .
J. Henderson.
In little more than a century the Inkas created an empire stretching thousands of kilometers along the Andean spine from Ecuador to Chile. This course focuses on the political and economic structure of the empire and on its roots in earlier Andean prehistory. Archaeological remains, along with documents produced in the aftermath of the Spanish invasion, will be used to trace the history of Inka territorial organization, statecraft, and economic relationships and the Colonial transformation of Andean societies.
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ANTHR 4230 - History of Archaeological Thought (crosslisted)
(also ARKEO 4230 )(HB) (HA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
Co-meets with ANTHR 7230 /ARKEO 7230 .
A. T. Smith.
This course examines the history of archaeological interpretation and representation. Through an immersion in various genres of thought and writing, we will chart the historical development of archaeology as it has been transformed from inception to today. The course is organized into two concurrent parts. The first provides an intensive overview of the dominant positions and problems in modern archaeological theory. In this section of the course, we will explore the major historical movements in archaeological interpretation since the formalization of the discipline in the 19th century through the contemporary constellation of thematic concerns. It is in these discussions that we will strive to bring forward the subtle logics that underlie archaeological analysis. The second section of the course centers on an exploration of archaeological representation and overlapping issues raised in the sister field of historiography. In this section of the course we will discuss general issues in the philosophy of history as they bear upon the production of landmark archaeological studies, engaging with a series of pivotal research projects. By the end of the course, students should have a thorough understanding of the theoretical frameworks that underlie contemporary archaeological research and the unique problems that follow efforts to interpret and represent the archaeological record.
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ANTHR 4256 - [Books of Fate, Books of the Ancestors: Astrology and History in Ancient Mesoamerica] (crosslisted)
(also ARKEO 4256 , LATA 4250 )(GHB) (CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015.
J. Henderson.
An introduction to belief systems in ancient Mexico and Central America, emphasizing the blending of religion, astrology, myth, history, and prophecy. Interpreting text and image in pre-Columbian books and inscriptions is a major focus.
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ANTHR 4258 - [Archaeological Analysis] (crosslisted)
(also ARKEO 4258 ) (SBA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Prerequisite: archaeology course or permission of instructor. Next offered 2014-2015. Co-meets with ANTHR 6258 /ARKEO 6258 . Enrollment limited to: 15 students.
J. Henderson.
An introduction to methods of recording, processing, and analyzing archaeological data. Topics include recording of excavation and survey data in the field; processing artifacts in the laboratory, storing and retrieving data; and basic methods of describing, tabulating, analyzing, and interpreting artifacts (mainly ceramic vessels), stratigraphy, and spatial distributions. Intended for those with some understanding of the uses to which archaeological data are put in regional synthesis and interpretation; previous field experience is helpful.
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ANTHR 4260 - [Field and Analytical Methods in Archaeology] (crosslisted)
(also ARKEO 4260 , AIS 4600 )(HB) (SBA-AS)
Spring. 4 or 6 credits, variable.
Next offered 2015-2016.
K. Jordan.
This course provides a hands-on introduction to field, laboratory, and analytical methods in archaeology, focusing on historic-period American Indian sites in the Finger Lakes region. Students collectively will generate new archaeological data, beginning the semester with study of an under-considered archaeological museum collection, and moving to survey and excavation at an archaeological site as the weather permits. Students will have an opportunity to formulate and test their own research designs in laboratory and field settings. Readings will provide an in-depth immersion into field and laboratory methodology, research design, and the culture history and material culture typologies appropriate to the site and era. In addition to laboratory and field work, students will write a 15-page term paper based on original data which can draw on museum collections, field data, documentary sources, or a combination of these sources. Most class time will be spent off-campus; transportation will be arranged by the instructor. Permission of the Instructor is required; please contact the instructor for specific information about the sites and collections that will form the basis of the semester’s work.
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ANTHR 4262 - [Catalhoyuk and Archaeological Practice] (crosslisted)
(also ARKEO 4262 ) (HA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2016-2017. Co-meets with ANTHR 7262 /ARKEO 7262 .
N. Russell.
Çatalhöyük is a famous and extraordinary Neolithic site in Anatolia. It has intrinsic interest as one of the largest sites in the world at this time, for its spectacular wall paintings and other art, and for many claims of myths of origin that have been made about it (first city, first cattle domestication, first drum, first town plan, etc.). In addition to the many fascinating aspects of the site itself, it is also the nexus of many key issues in current archaeology. The current excavations not only employ a wide range of the latest scientific methods, but they aim to forge a new humanistic approach to fieldwork, putting postprocessual archaeology into practice. The site has been adopted as a sacred place by the goddess movement, and plays a role in local, national, and international politics as well as the construction of national identity. Thus it exemplifies the intersection of politics and archaeology. Both the earlier and the current project have made explicit efforts to communicate with non-archaeologists, thus engaging the issues of public archaeology. It is a key site, in the context of other work in the region, for the understanding of animal domestication, Neolithic ritual and religion, gender relations in the prehistoric Near East, and the effects of aggregated settlement. In this course, we will use the site as a focus to examine these and other issues in archaeological practice in general and the Neolithic of the Near East in particular.
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ANTHR 4263 - Zooarchaeological Method (crosslisted)
(also ARKEO 4263 ) (PBS Supplementary List)
Fall. 5 credits.
N. Russell.
This is a hands-on laboratory course in zooarchaeological method: the study of animal bones from archaeological sites. It is designed to provide students with a basic grounding in identification of body part and taxon, aging and sexing, pathologies, taphonomy, and human modification. We will deal only with mammals larger than squirrels. While we will work on animal bones from prehistoric Europe, most of these skills are easily transferable to the fauna of other areas, especially North America. This is an intensive course that emphasizes laboratory skills in a realistic setting. You will analyze an assemblage of actual archaeological bones. It is highly recommended that students also take the course in Zooarchaeological Interpretation (ANTHR 4264 /ARKEO 4264 ) offered in the spring.
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ANTHR 4264 - Zooarchaeological Interpretation (crosslisted)
(also ARKEO 4264 ) (PBS Supplementary List)
Spring. 4 credits.
Prerequisite: ANTHR 4263 /ARKEO 4263 or permission of instructor.
N. Russell.
This course follows from last semester’s Zooarchaeological Method. We will shift our emphasis here from basic skills to interpretation, although you will continue to work with archaeological bones. We will begin by examining topics surrounding the basic interpretation of raw faunal data: sampling, quantification, taphonomy, seasonality. We will then explore how to use faunal data to reconstruct subsistence patterns, social structure, and human/animal relations.
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ANTHR 4267 - [Origins of Agriculture] (crosslisted)
(also ARKEO 4267 )(HB) (HA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2016-2017.
N. Russell.
This course will examine the origins of plant and animal domestication and the profound social transformations that accompanied this innovation in several areas of the world. While we will consider the evidence for domestication, the focus will be on critical analysis of the models offered to explain the origins of agriculture. A comparative perspective will help us to evaluate whether there is a single universal explanation for agricultural origins.
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ANTHR 4268 - Aztecs and Their Empire: Myth, History, and Politics (crosslisted)
(also ARKEO 4268 )(GHB) (HA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Co-meets with ANTHR 7268 /ARKEO 7268 .
J. Henderson.
Examines the structure and history of the largest polity in ancient Mexico, the “empire” of the Aztecs, using descriptions left by Spanish invaders, accounts written by Aztecs under Colonial rule, and archaeological evidence. Explores Aztec visions of the past, emphasizing the roles of myth, religion, and identity in Aztec statecraft and the construction of history.
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ANTHR 4270 - [Political Economy in Archaeology] (crosslisted)
(also ARKEO 4270 )(HB) (SBA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2015-2016. Co-meets with ANTHR 7270 /ARKEO 7270 .
K. Jordan.
Political economy is a theoretical approach that emphasizes power relations, social tensions and contradictions, and how they mediate access to wealth and basic resources. This seminar explores applications of political-economic theory in archaeological analysis. The course begins with some key approaches to political economy within sociocultural anthropology to assess how these works can (and cannot) assist the interpretation of archaeological evidence. Particular attention will be paid to questions of methodology: do certain field or analytical techniques facilitate or hinder political-economic interpretations? Case studies apply political-economic approaches to past societies at a variety of analytic and social scales, illustrating the intersection between archaeological political economy and issues of culture change, domination and resistance, ideology, gender, and agency.
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ANTHR 4272 - [Historical Archaeology of Indigenous Peoples] (crosslisted)
(also AIS 4720 , AMST 4272 , ARKEO 4272 )(HB) (HA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2015-2016. Co-meets with AIS 7720 /AMST 6272 /ANTHR 7272 /ARKEO 7272 .
K. Jordan.
This seminar uses archaeology to examine the responses of nonstate indigenous peoples across the world to European expansion and colonialism over the past 500 years. Archaeology provides a perspective on indigenous lives that both supplements and challenges document-based histories. We will assess the strengths and weaknesses of various theories of culture contact, and explore a series of archaeological case studies, using examples primarily from North America with lesser emphasis on Africa and the Pacific. The seminar provides a comparative perspective on indigenous-colonial relationships, in particular exploring the hard-fought spaces of relative autonomy created and sustained by indigenous peoples.
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ANTHR 4294 - Seminar in Archaeology: The Archaeology of Human Origins (crosslisted)
(also ARKEO 4294 ) (HA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
T. Volman.
An exploration of the archaeological record associated with early modern and near-modern humans as well as their nonmodern contemporaries, such as the Neanderthals. Major issues include what behaviors and capabilities are indicated for various populations, and how and why did these change over the course of the later Pleistocene? To what extent does the archaeological record support the “Out-of-Africa” hypothesis of a recent, African origin for all modern humans?
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ANTHR 4311 - From Surgery to Simulation (crosslisted)
(also BSOC 4311 , STS 4311 ) (SBA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
R. Prentice.
For description, see STS 4311 .
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ANTHR 4390 - Topics in Biological Anthropology
Spring. 4 credits.
Prerequisite: ANTHR 1300 , ANTHR 3390 , or permission of instructor.
M. Small.
Current topics in biological anthropology are explored. Topics change each semester. The topic for Spring 2014 is Anthropology and the Media. For further information, contact the professor or department office.
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ANTHR 4402 - Anthropology of Education (crosslisted)
(also EDUC 4402 ) (CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Co-meets with ANTHR 7402 /EDUC 7402 .
S. Villenas.
This seminar examines public schools and other educational spaces as sites where knowledge, learning/learner, and identities are produced and contested. It explores how power and cultural norms work in educational settings, and the unintended teaching and learning that happens outside the purported curriculum. Topics include issues of multiculturalism and pluralism in schools and society, the school achievement of racial/ethnic minorities, youth cultures and identities, and literacy in adult learning spaces. This course is for students interested in the advanced study of multicultural schooling and education.
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ANTHR 4403 - Ethnographic Field Methods
(SBA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Co-meets with ANTHR 6403 .
V. Santiago-Irizarry.
This course will provide students with practical understanding about what anthropologists actually do in the field. We will examine problems that emerge in conducting fieldwork that raise ethical, methodological, theoretical, and practical issues in the observation, participation in, recording, and representation of culture(s). Students will be expected to develop a semester-long, local research project that will allow them to experience fieldwork situations.
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ANTHR 4405 - [The Anthropology of Conversion: Colonialism, Modernity and the Body] (crosslisted)
(also RELST 4402 )
Spring. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
Next offered 2015-2016. Co-meets with ANTHR 7405 .
L. Ramberg.
Working between postcolonial theory, queer theory and religious studies, this seminar will consider religious and sexual conversion among other projects of self and other transformation, such as reform and rehabilitation in settler and non-settler (post) colonies. Recent ethnographic accounts of religious conversion have focused on modern subject formation, colonialism and its legacies. Inaddition to this work, we will consider studies of sexual conversion projects and therapies, especially where they converge with religious conversion, asthey often do. Throughout, we will attend to the ways forms of modernpower has saturated both ‘religion’ and ‘sexuality.’ Especially, we will consider the ways that conversion projects are not only ideological and political but also corporeal. They remake the body, its ethical comportment, its capacities, and its sensibilities.
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ANTHR 4406 - [The Culture of Lives] (crosslisted)
(also FGSS 4060 ) (CA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2015-2016.
K. March.
This seminar will look at persons, lives, cultures, and methods in anthropological life history materials. Throughout the seminar we will attend to the evolution of interest in, forms of, and uses for life history materials in anthropology, with special attention to differences in men’s and women’s lives and life (re)presentations.
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ANTHR 4410 - [Indigenous Peoples, Ecological Sciences, and Environmentalism]
(CA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2015-2016. Co-meets with ANTHR 7410 .
P. Nadasdy.
This course examines the long, complex, and ambivalent relationship among indigenous peoples (with an emphasis on the North American context), scientific ecology, and environmentalism. It begins by looking at the key role played by images of the “ecologically noble savage” in the historical development of the ecological sciences and the environmental movement. It then turns to an in-depth examination of several historical and ethnographic case studies in an effort to understand how the entanglement of indigenous peoples, environmental activists, and ecological scientists have shaped-and continue to shape-environmental politics and struggles over indigenous rights.
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ANTHR 4412 - [The Sacred, Magical Power, and Society]
(GB) (CA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
Next offered 2014-2015. Co-meets with ANTHR 7412 .
D. Holmberg.
An intensive engagement with classical and contemporary theories of the sacred and magical power and their relation to society.
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ANTHR 4415 - [Creolization, Syncretism, and Hybridity]
(CA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2015-2016.
V. Munasinghe.
The concepts of Creolization, Syncretism, and Hybridity all convey a state of “mixture” that assumes a diasporic situation. This course explores theories and empirical case studies of processes of racial, cultural, and religious mixture from an interdisciplinary perspective. The course explores the interconnections among concepts denoting “mixture” that have diverse originary points. The overarching line of inquiry is to explore the geneaologies of the three concepts as a necessary precursor to understanding how these terminologies may, in concert, illuminate different aspects of the dynamics structuring processes of mixture in different historical and ethnographic settings.
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ANTHR 4418 - Writing Ethnography: Theory, Genre and Practice
Spring. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
Co-meets with ANTHR 7418 .
L. Ramberg.
What are the poetics and politics of ethnographic writing? How is this genre, what many would call the signature of cultural anthropology, distinct from other modes of scholarly writing? What are its possibilities, limits and effects? In this course we will read classic and experimental ethnographies and undertake exercises in ethnographic writing as a means to investigate ethnography as epistemology, genre and craft.
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ANTHR 4419 - [Anthropology of Corporations]
(SBA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2015-2016. Co-meets with ANTHR 7419 .
M. Welker.
This course develops an anthropological approach to corporations with a focus on large, profit-oriented, publicly-traded corporations. To denaturalize the corporation, we will consider competing cultural logics internal to corporations as well as the contingent historical processes and debates that shaped the corporate form over the past two centuries. The course will examine processes through which various social groups have sought to alter and restrain corporations as well as reciprocal corporate attempts to reshape the social environment in which they operate.
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ANTHR 4423 - [Inter-war Anthropologies]
(CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2015-2016. Co-meets with ANTHR 7423 .
C. Garces.
Anthropologists and continental theorists have looked in recent years to turn-of-the-century American ethnology and comparative sociology for unconventional insight into political sovereignty or non-state modalities of traditional body politics. However, the wartime and inter-war era’s multiple dislocations and forms of exile also produced a variety of anthropological work speaking directly to the anxieties of today’s “global state” of perpetual armed conflict, economic insecurity, and rising xenophobic nationalism. This seminar will gather together and interrogate several key French, British, and U.S. anthropological texts, either researched or written during 1914-45, and consider them from the vantage point of their enduring critical stance towards modern political and economic belligerence.
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ANTHR 4425 - [Hope as a Method]
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015.
H. Miyazaki.
In this course, we will seek to carve out a space for a new kind of anthropological engagement with philosophy and theology. Following an examination of ways in which anthropologists have engaged with philosophy and theology, we will examine a full range of philosophical and theological reflections on hope. Texts will be drawn from the following traditions: Kantian philosophy, Marxist philosophy, existentialism, pragmatism, political theology, education theory, feminism, and queer theory. The goal of this course is to confront the character of hope in the production of academic knowledge through an investigation of academics’ reflection on hope itself.
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ANTHR 4426 - Ideology and Social Production
(GB) (SBA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Co-meets with ANTHR 7426 .
S. Sangren.
This course is premised on the notion that understanding social life requires understanding how social institutions are produced and sustained through time-that is to say, one must understand “society” as a process of production. By the same token, all cultures produce ideas or “representation” (e.g., about reality, nature, society, gender, authority) that serve to legitimize or validate each society’s particular social arrangements. These ideologies play an important role in social production, on the one hand, and are also products of social processes, on the other. This course focuses on the linkages between ideology and social production in readings drawn from social theory and ethnographic case studies. We discuss strongly diverging views (psychoanalytic, postmodernist, poststructuralist, practice-theory, neo-Marxist) on how best to conceive social processes. An integrating theme is that understanding ideology and its alienating operations is essential in developing a coherent understanding of what culture, in the last analysis, is.
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ANTHR 4427 - Gender Theory (crosslisted)
(also FGSS 4427 )(GB) (CA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Co-meets with ANTHR 7427 /FGSS 7427 .
K. March.
This seminar reads pivotal theoretical works in feminist anthropology critically. We will follow the development of anthropological theory with specific reference to sex, sexuality and gender, beginning with Margaret Mead and building toward the most recent efforts to theorize how gender constructs the sexed worlds of women and men around the world and how global changes are affecting those worlds.
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ANTHR 4429 - Anthropology and Psychoanalysis
(GB) (SBA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Co-meets with ANTHR 7429 .
S. Sangren.
Psychoanalysis holds that desire emerges from the clash between individuals’ predisposition and the need to accommodate to others in society. Yes anthropology has been resistant to the role that psychoanalytic theory might play in linking individual desire to culture. Does psychoanalysis have anything to offer cultural anthropology? Can understanding of collective institutions be advanced with reference to theories of individual motivation and desire? Conversely, can collective life be understood without reference to individual motivation and desire? Is desire best understood as sexual in nature, or is it better understood in more abstract and existential terms? With such questions in mind, this course surveys anthropology’s engagements with psychoanalysis. We read theoretical works as well as ethnographically grounded case studies on topics ranging from religious experience, mythic narratives, the cultural construction of gender and desire, and modern popular culture.
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ANTHR 4432 - [Queer Theory and Kinship Studies] (crosslisted)
(also FGSS 4432 ) (SBA-AS)
4 credits.
Next offered 2015-2016. Co-meets with ANTHR 7432 /FGSS 7432 .
L. Ramberg.
For description, see FGSS 4432 .
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ANTHR 4435 - [Postcolonial Science] (crosslisted)
(also BSOC 4351 , STS 4351 )(GB) (CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015. Co-meets with ANTHR 7435 .
S. Langwick.
This course examines science and technology in so-called “non-Western” countries as well as the ways that science and technology are shaping new “transnational” or “global” relations. We will explore the post-colonial as a dynamic space that both plays off of and refigures the complicated dynamics of colonialism. The postcolonial challenges the dichotomies through which colonial power moved: western/indigenous, white/black, modern/traditional, global/local, developed/underdeveloped, and science/non-science. At the same time, it confronts the ways in which colonial histories are still embodied in institutions, identities, environments, and landscapes. Techno-scientific knowledge and practice have both enacted colonial divisions and been called on in post-colonial struggles. How them might we understand the work of scientific knowledge and practice in the kinds of hegemonies and struggles that shape our world today? We will explore this question by examining the way that technoscience is performed-by scientists, development workers, activists, government officials, and others. The class will pay particular attention to the located processes through which claims to the universal or global emerge. In addition by considering controversies over the environment, medicine, and indigenous knowledge, we will consider the effects of such claims.
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ANTHR 4437 - [Anthropology of Development]
(GB) (CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2015-2016. Co-meets with ANTHR 7437 .
M. Welker.
This course provides an anthropological perspective on international development. After reading orthodox theories of development and considering them in historical context, we will examine ethnographic accounts of postcolonial development that draw on political economy and poststructuralist traditions. The final portion of the course looks critically at the emergence of discourses such as participation, empowerment, social capital, civil society, and sustainability in mainstream development.
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ANTHR 4439 - [Sovereignty and Biopolitics]
(GHB) (CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015.
M. Fiskesjö.
This seminar course’s starting point is Agamben’s widely discussed ideas about “bare life” in relation to modern state sovereignty and to continuities with earlier forms of sovereignty. The course unfolds as a political-legal anthropology of sovereignty and citizenship, the exclusion of undesirables, and modern biopolitical control mechanisms. Readings will draw on classics from the anthropology and other literature on sovereignty and kingship, as well as case studies dealing with the modern Chinese state, the US, the Soviet Union, etc.
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ANTHR 4444 - [God(s) and the Market]
(GB) (CA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015. Co-meets with ANTHR 7444 .
H. Miyazaki.
One of the oldest and most powerful insights of anthropology is that different domains of society such as religion and economy shape and condition each other. We will discuss a variety of old and new anthropological explorations into the intersections of religion and economy, from Max Weber’s classical study of the relationship between Protestantism and the rise of capitalism to recent studies of the work of faith in financial markets. This seminar is intended to bring together students interested in religion and students interested in business and economy.
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ANTHR 4453 - [Political Anthropology]
(GHB) (SBA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015. Co-meets with ANTHR 7453 .
A. T. Smith.
This course is an exploration of major theoretical approaches to the study of political institutions, structures, and processes in different societies, with special reference to the nature of power, the role of symbolism and ideology in politics, the problem of sovereignty, and representations of the state. We will explore the constitution of political authority in reference to both ethnographic and archaeological investigations that will take us from the problems of early state origins to the transformations of the post-colonial. Throughout, our discussions will attempt to bring forward problems of structure and process, history and practice that animate anthropological approaches to political life.
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ANTHR 4467 - Self and Subjectivity
(CA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Co-meets with ANTHR 7467 .
A. Willford.
This course examines theories of subjectivity and self-formation from a comparative, ethnographic perspective. We begin by examining classic and contemporary phenomenological, psychodynamic, semiotic, structuralist, and post-structuralist theories of self and/or subject formation. Moving into the ethnographic literature, we assess the utility of these models for understanding the selves of others, particularly in critical juxtaposition to multiple and alternate theories of the self and/or person as understood in different cultures. By examining debates in the anthropology of emotion, cognition, healing, and mental health we bring into sharper focus the particular theoretical and empirical contributions (and/or limits and failures) of anthropologists towards developing a cross-cultural psychology.
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ANTHR 4478 - [Taboo and Pollution]
(GHB) (CA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015.
M. Fiskesjö.
This course introduces students to the anthropology of taboo, dirt, cleanliness and purification. We’ll examine the latest attempts to re-think and understand these classic topics through a range of cases, including sexual and blood taboos; ideas of racial or ethnic purity and purification; taboos governing food choices or religious practices; “primitive” fear and avoidance; as well as contemporary conceptions of filth and waste and their treatment in Western societies. We’ll survey a wealth of writings on these topics, from anthropology (Douglas, Valeri, and others) as well as from psychology and literary studies (Freud, Kristeva, etc.).
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ANTHR 4479 - [Ethnicity and Identity Politics: An Anthropological Perspective] (crosslisted)
(also AAS 4790 ) (SBA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015. Co-meets with AAS 7479 /ANTHR 7479 .
V. Munasinghe.
The most baffling aspect of ethnicity is that while ethnic sentiments and movements gain ground rapidly within the international arena, the claim that ethnicity does not exist in any objective sense is also receiving increasing credence within the academic community. How can something thought “not to exist” have such profound consequences in the real world? In lay understandings, ethnicity is believed to be a “natural” disposition of humanity. If so, why does ethnicity mean different “things” in different places? Anthropology has much to contribute to a greater understanding of this perplexing phenomenon. After all, the defining criterion for ethnic groups is that of cultural distinctiveness. Through ethnographic case studies, this course will examine some of the key anthropological approaches to ethnicity. We will explore the relationship of ethnicity to culture, ethnicity to nation, and ethnicity to state to better understand the role ethnicity plays in the identity politics of today.
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ANTHR 4480 - [Anthropology and Globalization]
(CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2015-2016. Co-meets with ANTHR 6480 .
A. Willford.
This course examines anthropological perspectives on globalization and assesses the cultural, political, and social implications of contemporary global processes. In exploring the factors that are contributing to the production of diasporic consciousness, the intensity and variety of transnational flows of culture, commodities, corporations, and people are considered in order to assess challenges these processes pose to the modern nation-state. Has culture been liberated from the control of the nation-state through the emergence of new cultural networks created by immigration, electronic media, tourism, and multinational corporations and organization? Or, has the acceleration of global processes within the modern world system created new tools of domination within an increasingly stratified global economy? This course addresses these and related questions utilizing both anthropological theories of and ethnographic studies on globalization, ethnicity, diaspora, and nationalism.
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ANTHR 4488 - [Prison Worlds]
(GB) (CA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits. Letter grades only.
Next offered 2014-2015. Co-meets with ANTHR 7488 .
C. Garces.
This course will illuminate the rise of mass incarceration and punitive containment strategies around the globe. Probing recent ethnography, history, prison memoirs and documentary journalism (including film), we will explore cultures of confinement and systematically critique the prison as a normalized space of exception. Emphasis will be given to works that shed light on ‘prison climates’ of governance, survival, and transition. Among other topics to be elaborated will include: prisoner’s rights; political imprisonment; everyday life in custody; gendered, ethnoracial, and/or religious difference and inmate hierarchies; the abolitionist movement; the steady growth and impunity of organized crime networks; prison management by wards of the state; the prison as a site of precariousness and claims to radical potentiality; the worldwide proliferation of ‘supermax facilities’ and ‘black sites’; and the political economy of the prison-industrial complex and today’s security state.
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ANTHR 4490 - [The Sexual Politics of Religion] (crosslisted)
(also FGSS 4290 , RELST 4240 ) (SBA-AS)
4 credits. Letter grades only.
Next offered 2015-2016. Not open to first-year students. Co-meets with ANTHR 7490 /FGSS 6290 .
L. Ramberg.
For description, see FGSS 4290 .
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ANTHR 4513 - [Religion and Politics in Southeast Asia] (crosslisted)
(also ASIAN 4413 )(GB) (CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015.
A. Willford.
This course explores how religious beliefs and practices in Southeast Asia have been transformed by the combined forces of colonialism, nationalism, and globalization. By examining both diversity and resurgence in one of the world’s most rapidly modernizing regions, we aim to understand the common economic, social, and political conditions that are contributing to the popularity of contemporary religious movements. At the same time, we also consider the unique ideological, theological, and cultural understandings behind different religions and movements. Through this process we also rethink conceptions of modernity.
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ANTHR 4523 - Making History on the Margins: The China - SE Asia Borderlands
(GHB) (HA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Co-meets with ANTHR 7523 .
M. Fiskesjö.
This seminar course is a new in-depth look at classical issues regarding the making of history, revisiting the mountain borderlands in between China and Southeast Asia made famous by anthropologists (Leach, Lévi-Strauss, Kirch, and Friedman) attempting to understand structure, history, and center-periphery transformations. Are the peoples of this region (Kachin, Wa, Naga, etc predetermined by fateful forces and processes beyond their control, as prisoners of geography and circumstance, or what role do they have in the making of their own history? The course addresses themes from regional ethnography as well as theoretical issues, and forms an introduction to field research in this fertile region.
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ANTHR 4542 - [Violence, Symbolic Violence, Terror, and Trauma in South Asia and the Himalayas]
(GB) (CA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2015-2016. Co-meets with ANTHR 6542 .
D. Holmberg.
This working seminar will focus on violent conflict in South Asia. Key texts on social, ethnic, religious, and political violence in Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, and Pakistan as well as theoretical literature on violence, trauma, and human rights will provide the basis for general reassessment of the anthropological study of violence.
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ANTHR 4543 - [Religion and Ritual in China]
(GB) (CA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2015-2016. Co-meets with ANTHR 7543 .
S. Sangren.
This course explores topics in the anthropological study of Chinese religion, including aspects of cosmology, ritual, and mythology as they relate to Chinese society. A premise of the course is that religion embodies values basic to Chinese culture. Consequently, study of Chinese religion provides important insights into Chinese society. By the same token, Chinese religion must be understood in the context of Chinese social institutions (family, community, state).
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ANTHR 4673 - Body/Politics/Africa (crosslisted)
(also ASRC 4673 )(GB) (CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Co-meets with ANTHR 7673 /ASRC 7673 .
S. Langwick.
This course examines a range of texts that treat the body as the subject and object of social, cultural, and historical processes in Africa. Students investigate the cultivation of physical and social bodies through ethnographic and historical materials concerning healing and medicine, discipline and labor, and governance and religion. The production and reproduction of bodies and embodied practices have long been central to the way that power works in and beyond Africa. Our inquiry into contests over and reflections on African bodies opens up important questions about authority, resistance, agency and autonomy.
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ANTHR 4682 - [Healing and Medicine in Africa] (crosslisted)
(also ASRC 4682 ) (CA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015.
S. Langwick.
Therapeutic knowledge and practice in Africa have changed dynamically over the past century. Accounts of healing and medicine throughout the continent reveal struggles over how to define social and physical worlds, identify dangers, determine ethical practice, and prioritize some ways of living and of dying. Contemporary therapies embody the tensions and inequalities, the novelties and potentialities, that inhere in broad historical shifts propelled by colonialism, nationalism, civil war, environmental change and globalization. Our readings and discussions will explore the ways in which healing and medicine are simultaneously intimate and political, biological and cultural. During the semester, we will examine conceptions of body and well-being; “traditional medicine” and intersections of Islamic, Chinese, and biomedical ways of healing; humanitarianism and the health “crisis” in Africa; colonial and postcolonial forms of governance through medicine and new possibilities of citizenship through therapeutic identities. We will look at Africa not only as a site of epidemics, but also as a site of innovation and as central to the biopolitics of an emerging global order.
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ANTHR 4710 - Cuisine, Production, and Biodiversity in Peru: From Local to Global, Part 1 (crosslisted)
(also IARD 4710 , LATA 4710 )
Fall. 2 credits.
B. J. Isbell.
This six week course focuses in part on the current efforts by Peruvian chefs to train Andean young people in the culinary arts and restaurant management at the Pachacutec cooking school as a form of economic development and a pathway to social justice. The course also examines the economic and political assumptions of development efforts and how those assumptions and practices have changed over 50 years. The course will use the historic Cornell-Peru Project initiated in 1952 in the community of Vicos, Peru as a case study in Anthropology and Development. Vicos is located in the Callejón de Huaylas, Peru in the center of the UNESCO Huascarán World Heritage site and State Park. Peru is recognized as one of the twelve mega-diverse regions of the world where agriculture and domestication originated. Communities are active in preserving this diversity and students will be introduced to the complexity of the cultural and the environmental interactions in this mountain habitat in the fall semester. The community of Vicos is located at the base of Huascarán, the largest tropical glacier in the world, a major source of water. One of the issues to be examined is the rapid disappearance of Peru’s Glaciers due to global warming.
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ANTHR 4712 - Cuisine, Production, and Biodiversity (crosslisted)
(also IARD 4712 , LATA 4712 )
Spring. 2 credits.
There are no prerequisites and the class is limited to 15 students. For more information (and course syllabus), please contact the instructor, bji1@cornell.edu.
B. J. Isbell.
This 6 week course is a seminar that requires active participation of students. It meets on Wed. evenings for two hours beginning March and ending April. The class will also meet one Saturday to visit local food producers. There is one required text: Stuffed and Starved by Patel who addresses one question: Why is half of the world’s population starving while the other half is over-weight. To answer this question he examines the history of the global food system and raises contemporary issues that the class will further investigate. Other readings will be posted on Blackboard. Students will be required to keep a food diary and research what is in the food that you consume.
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ANTHR 4725 - [American Indian Lands and Sovereignties]
(CA-AS)
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015. Co-meets with ANTHR 7725 .
P. Nadasdy.
The relationship between North American Indian peoples and the states of Canada and the US is in many ways unique, the product of centuries of trade compacts, treaties, legislation, warfare, land claim negotiations, and Supreme Court (both US and Canadian) decisions. Those trying to make sense of the cross-cultural terrain of Indian-State relations find that apparently straightforward political and legal concepts such as “land,” “property,” “sovereignty,” and “identity” often seem inadequate, based as they are on European cultural assumptions. These terms tend to take on new - and often ambiguous - meanings in the realm of Indian-State relations. In the first part of this course, we will explore some of these ambiguous meanings, paying attention to the cultural realities they reflect and the social relationships they help shape. In the second part of the course, we will get a sense of the complex interplay of legal, political, and cultural forces discussed earlier in the semester by taking an in-depth look at several selected case studies.
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ANTHR 4730 - [Latin American Forms of Colonial Possession] (crosslisted)
(also LATA 4730 )(GHB) (HA-AS)
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2015-2016.
C. Garces.
The persistence of colonial relationships in Latin America will be interrogated in this course using methods drawn from ethnography, psychoanalysis, historiography, political theory, and experimental literature. Key to this line of inquiry is the anthropological problematization of metaphors and practices of possession. Our course readings will explore the psychological internalization of colonial domination; the political ceremonies of territorial sovereignty; the everyday rituals of personal enchantment and disenchantment; the occult applications of magic, witchcraft, and sorcery; and the historical processes of de- and re-colonization that mark notions of “possession” with such longstanding and fraught cross-cultural implications. This class will demonstrate how commonplace understandings of race, class, ethnicity, labor, gender, sexuality, subjectivity, personhood, religion, and the state gain shape and meaning through discourses of possession.
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ANTHR 4900 - Field Research Abroad
Fall, spring. 1-4 credits, variable. (May be repeated for credit)
Enrollment limited to: undergraduate students.
Staff.
Field research abroad as part of the Cornell-Nepal Studies Program, the Cornell-Honduras Program, or other departmentally approved programs. Topics are selected and project proposals prepared by student in consultation with faculty. Fieldwork typically involves extended research (usually 4-6 weeks) in a foreign setting with faculty supervision, culminating in a major paper or report.
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ANTHR 4910 - Independent Study: Undergrad I
Fall, spring. 1-4 credits, variable.
Enrollment limited to: undergraduate students.
Staff.
Independent reading course in topics not covered in regularly scheduled courses. Students select a topic in consultation with the faculty member who has agreed to supervise the course work.
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ANTHR 4920 - Independent Study: Undergrad II
Fall, spring. 1-4 credits, variable.
Enrollment limited to: undergraduate students.
Staff.
Independent reading course in topics not covered in regularly scheduled courses. Students select a topic in consultation with the faculty member who has agreed to supervise the course work.
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ANTHR 4983 - Honors Thesis Research
Fall. 3 credits.
Permission of Honors Committee required.
Staff.
Research work supervised by the thesis advisor, concentrating on determination of the major issues to be addressed by the thesis, preparation of literature reviews, analysis of data, and the like. The thesis advisor will assign the grade for this course.
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ANTHR 4984 - Honors Thesis Write-Up
Spring. 2 credits.
Permission of Honors Committee required.
Staff.
Final write-up of the thesis under the direct supervision of the thesis advisor, who will assign the grade for this course.
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ANTHR 4991 - Honors Workshop I
Fall. 1 credit.
Permission of Honors Committee required.
Staff.
Course will consist of several mandatory meetings of all thesis writers with the honors chair. These sessions will inform students about the standard thesis production timetable, format and content expectations, and deadlines; expose students to standard reference sources; and introduce students to each other’s projects. The chair of the Honors Committee will assign the grade for this course.
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ANTHR 4992 - Honors Workshop II
Spring. 2 credits.
Permission of Honors Committee required.
Staff.
Course will consist of weekly, seminar-style meetings of all thesis writers until mid-semester, under the direction of the honors chair. This second semester concentrates on preparation of a full draft of the thesis by mid-semester, with ample time left for revisions prior to submission. Group meetings will concentrate on collective reviewing of the work of other students, presentation of research, and the like.
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ANTHR 6000 - Proseminar: Culture and Symbol
Fall. 6 credits.
S. Sangren.
Focuses on an appreciation of symbolic, expressive, and representational forms and processes both as producers and products of social activities. Through the study of symbolic anthropology, structuralism, exchange, myth and ritual, religion, gender, personhood, linguistics, semiology, etc., the course investigates how identity and meaning are linked to the practical exigencies of social life. While emphasizing aspects of the discipline generally associated with cultural anthropology, the course endeavors to set the stage for a dialectical understanding of social, political, economic, and symbolic activities as interrelated phenomena. The works of de Saussure, Levi-Strauss, Dumont, Geertz, Victor Turner, Sahlins, among others, as well as contemporary theories are given careful attention.
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ANTHR 6010 - Proseminar: Social Organization
Spring. 6 credits.
P. Nadasdy.
Focuses on linkages between culture and social institutions, representations, and practices. The nature of these linkages is debated from strongly contesting points of view in social theory (structuralist, poststructuralist, utilitarian, hermeneutic, Marxist). Unlike debates in critical theory where the form of contestation has been mainly philosophical, in anthropology these issues have developed in ethnographic analyses. The course briefly surveys kinship theory and economic anthropology with a focus on implications for general issues in social theory. Discussion of attempts to develop dialectical syntheses around the motion of “practice” follows. The issues addressed in this section carry over into the next, colonialism and post-colonialism, in which poststructuralist readings of history are counterposed to Marxist ones. Finally, Lacanian and Marxist visions of ideology as they relate to anthropological theory and ethnographic analysis are examined with particular emphasis on the cultural and social production of persons.
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ANTHR 6205 - From Excavation to Exhibit: The Trajectories of Objects Between Site and Public (crosslisted)
(also ARKEO 6205 )
Fall. 4 credits.
Permission of instructor required.
A. T. Smith, E. Avril.
This course examines the paths that objects take in their journey from recovery at archaeological sites to their appearance within museum exhibits. From trenches, to analytical laboratories, to government and private institutions, artifacts traverse settings that alter their character in pivotal ways. Moreover, these settings are themselves reshaped by the objects that flow through them. This course, a collaboration between the Cornell Institute of Archaeology and Material Studies (CIAMS) and the Johnson Museum, focuses on the links that articulate archaeological and museological practice and the controversies that divide them. The course will address the pragmatics of archaeological recovery techniques and exhibit development, including the pressing ethical issues that surround issues of looting, heritage preservation, and the politics of the past.
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ANTHR 6210 - [Historical Archaeology] (crosslisted)
(also AMST 6210 , ARKEO 6210 )
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2014-2015. Co-meets with AMST 3200 /ANTHR 3210 /ARKEO 3210 .
K. Jordan.
Historical archaeology attempts to bring textual and archaeological data to bear on questions of the past. In practice this can mean many different approaches, including some that are not traditionally termed “historical archaeology”. This course explores the range of such efforts, asking questions like, What kinds of sites/contexts/data are amenable? What are the implications of the term “historical archaeology” itself? What has been and can be learned using these approaches?
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ANTHR 6230 - [Humans and Animals] (crosslisted)
(also ARKEO 6230 )
Spring. 4 credits.
Next offered 2015-2016. Co-meets with ANTHR 3230 /ARKEO 3230 .
N. Russell.
Human-animal relationships are often seen in utilitarian, especially nutritional terms. This is especially true of the analysis of animal remains from archaeological sites. It is clear, however, that animals and meat have significance far beyond their economic value. This course focuses on these non-dietary roles of animals in human societies, past and present. We will explore a broad range of issues to gain a fuller view of human relations to animals. Domestication involves not only the technical process of controlling animal movements and breeding but more crucially requires a fundamental shift in the human perception of animals and their relationship to them. Are pets domestic animals in the same sense as animals that are eaten, or does their owners’ relationship with them more closely resemble that of hunters with their prey? Do wild animals mean the same thing to hunter-gatherers and farmers who hunt? We will also consider the importance of animals as wealth, as objects of sacrifice, as totems (metaphors for humans), and as symbols in art. Meat has undeniable dietary value, but the social aspect of consumption is also important. Meat can be used in the context of such behaviors as feasting and meat sharing to create, cement, and manipulate social relationships. In this seminar, we will examine these issues primarily (but not exclusively) in the context of the ethnography and archaeology of the Old World with which the instructor is most familiar, but students are encouraged to offer examples from their own areas of expertise. This course is open to students of archaeology, cultural anthropology, and other disciplines with an interest in human-animal relations.
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ANTHR 6232 - [Politics of the Past] (crosslisted)
(also ARKEO 6232 )
Fall. 4 credits.
Next offered 2015-2016. Co-meets with ANTHR 3232 , ARKEO 3232 .
N. Russell.
Archaeology has never operated in a vacuum. This course examines the political context of the study of the past, and the uses to which accounts of the past have been put in the present. Archaeology is often implicated in nationalist claims to territory, or claims of ethnic, racial, or religious superiority. Museum exhibits and other presentations to the public always have an agenda, consciously or otherwise. Archaeologists are increasingly required to interact with descendent communities, often in the context of postcolonial tensions. The antiquities trade and the protection of archaeological sites connects archaeologists to commercial and law enforcement sectors. We will also consider the internal politics of the practice of archaeology in various settings, including the implications of the funding sources that support archaeological work. This course is open to students of archaeology, socio-cultural anthropology, history, and other disciplines with an interest in the past.
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ANTHR 6248 - Iroquois Archaeology (crosslisted)
(also AIS 6248 , AMST 6248 , ARKEO 6248 )
Fall. 4 credits.
Co-meets with AIS 3248 /AMST 3248 /ANTHR 3248 /ARKEO 3248 .
K. Jordan.
This course surveys the long-term development of Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) culture from an archaeological perspective. Issues examined will include the geographic origins of the Iroquois; material culture, settlement, and subsistence; the founding of the Iroquois Confederacy; Iroquois responses to European-borne diseases, the fur trade, and territorial encroachment; the practicalities of doing Indian archaeology in New York State; and contemporary Haudenosaunee perspectives on archaeology. The Six Nations Iroquois will be emphasized, with some material drawn from surrounding Northern Iroquoian groups. Visits to local archaeological sites and museum collections will supplement classroom instruction.
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