ANTHR 4227 - Embodiment of Inequality: A Bioarchaeological Perspective

(crosslisted) ARKEO 4227, BSOC 4227
(CA-AS, SCD-AS)

Spring. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

Recommended prerequisite: 3000-level course in biological or medical anthropology. Co-meets with ANTHR 7227/ARKEO 7227.

M. Velasco.

Critical approaches to embodiment compel bioarchaeologists to consider how social norms and institutional inequalities are enacted and materialized through the body. This course contributes a deep archaeological perspective on the lived experience of inequality and the historically contingent nature of sexuality, gender, and violence. Drawing upon the study of human skeletons, social theory, and a rich comparative literature in cultural anthropology, we will theorize bones as once-living bodies and explore topics such as body modification and mutilation, masculinity and performative violence, gender and sexual fluidity, and sickness and suffering in past societies. We will not only consider privilege and marginalization in lived experience, but also in death, examining how unequal social relationships are reproduced when the dead body is colonized as an object of study.