Contacts | Program of Study | Program Requirements | Summary of Requirements | Grades | Honors | Courses
Department Website: http://anthropology.uchicago.edu
Program of Study
Anthropology encompasses a variety of historical and comparative approaches to human cultural and physical variety, ranging from the study of human evolution and prehistory to the study of cultures as systems of meaningful symbols. Anthropology involves, at one extreme, natural science such as anatomy, ecology, genetics, and geology; at the other, various social sciences and humanities ranging from psychology, sociology, and linguistics to philosophy, history, and comparative religion. Anthropology can lead (through graduate study) to careers in research and teaching in university and museum settings. More often it provides a background for further work in other disciplines of the social sciences, humanities, and biological sciences, as well as for professional careers in government, business, law, medicine, social services, and other fields.
For more information, see the department website.
Program Requirements
Students should confer with the Director of Undergraduate Studies before declaring a major in anthropology and must obtain the endorsement of the Director of Undergraduate Studies on the Student Program Form before graduating with a major in anthropology. The BA program in anthropology consists of thirteen courses, of which at least eleven are typically chosen from those listed or cross-listed as Department of Anthropology courses. A minimum of three must be chosen from the introductory group (ANTH 211xx, 212xx, 213xx, 214xx, 216xx), plus eight others. The additional two related courses may be courses offered by other departments. Approval must be obtained from the Director of Undergraduate Studies in Anthropology (preferably before the end of the second week of the quarter in which the student is enrolled in the nondepartmental course), by providing a completed General Petition Form and syllabus for the course(s).
Students are encouraged to construct individual programs; and, in so doing, they should consult periodically with the Preceptor and the Director of Undergraduate Studies. We strongly urge students who are majoring in anthropology to complete several introductory courses before enrolling in upper-level courses. For a broad view of the human career and condition, one should include courses in archaeological, linguistic, physical, and sociocultural anthropology.
Courses numbered ANTH 211xx through 216xx do not presume any previous study of anthropology and may be taken in any order. However, students are strongly urged to take one of the following social sciences general education sequences before taking more advanced courses in sociocultural anthropology:
One of the following sequences: | 300 | |
Power, Identity, and Resistance I-II-III | ||
Self, Culture, and Society I-II-III |
ANTH 211xx, 212xx, 213xx, 214xx, and 216xx are introductions to some of the substantive, methodological, and theoretical issues of sociocultural, archaeological, linguistic, and physical anthropology. Particularly recommended for a firm foundation in the discipline are at least one Reading Ethnographies (ANTH 216xx) course and ANTH 21420 The Practice of Anthropology: Ethnographic Methods. Students with a program of study that emphasizes sociocultural anthropology also are encouraged to take one or more of the non-Western civilization sequences: African, South Asian, and Latin American. These sequences typically feature anthropological approaches and content. With prior approval, other civilization sequences can be taken for anthropology credit (up to the two-course limit for nondepartmental courses) in accordance with the individual student's needs or interests.
The Director of Undergraduate Studies may refer students who wish to emphasize archaeological, linguistic, sociocultural, or physical anthropology to faculty in these fields for assistance in the development of their individual programs.
When desirable for a student's individual anthropology program and with the approval of the Director of Undergraduate Studies, preferably in advance, a student may also obtain course credit for supervised individual reading or research (ANTH 29700 Readings in Anthropology), as well as by attending field schools or courses offered by other universities (up to the two-course limit for nondepartmental courses). A maximum of two research credits (ANTH 29700 Readings in Anthropology, ANTH 29900 Preparation of Bachelor's Essay) will count as additional anthropology courses beyond the required three introductory courses.
Summary of Requirements
3 courses from: ANTH 211xx, 212xx, 213xx, 214xx, 216xx | 300 | |
8 additional anthropology courses (or courses cross-listed with anthropology) | 800 | |
2 anthropology courses or related courses (with approval of the Director of Undergraduate Studies) | 200 | |
Total Units | 1300 |
Grades
Courses counted toward the thirteen required for the major must be taken for quality grades.
Honors
Students who wish to be considered for honors must apply to the Director of Undergraduate Studies before the end of their third year. Eligible candidates must have a GPA of 3.6 or higher in courses in the major and typically a GPA of 3.25 overall. To receive honors, students must develop an extended piece of research via a bachelor's essay under the approved supervision of a faculty member. Registration in ANTH 29900 Preparation of Bachelor's Essay may be devoted to the preparation of the senior honors essay. For award of honors, the essay must receive a grade of A or A- from the faculty supervisor and from the second reader who were approved by the Director of Undergraduate Studies. Students being recommended for honors must submit two copies of the completed paper to the Program Administrator no later than fifth week of the quarter of graduation. The faculty supervisor must be chosen from among anthropology faculty listed below. The second reader may be any credentialed scholar/scientist approved by the Director of Undergraduate Studies.
This program may accept a BA paper or project used to satisfy the same requirement in another major if certain conditions are met. Approval from both program chairs is required. Students should consult with the chairs by the earliest BA proposal deadline (or by the end of their third year, if neither program publishes a deadline). A consent form, to be signed by both chairs, is available from the College adviser. It must be completed and returned to the College adviser by the end of Autumn Quarter of the student's year of graduation.
Anthropology Courses
ANTH 20100. The Inka and Aztec States. 100 Units.
This course is an intensive examination of the origins, structure, and meaning of two native states of the ancient Americas: the Inka and the Aztec. Lectures are framed around an examination of theories of state genesis, function, and transformation, with special reference to the economic, institutional, and symbolic bases of indigenous state development. This course is broadly comparative in perspective and considers the structural significance of institutional features that are either common to or unique expressions of these two Native American states.
Instructor(s): A. Kolata Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 40100,LACS 20100,LACS 40305
ANTH 20405. Anthropology of Disability. 100 Units.
This seminar undertakes to explore "disability" from an anthropological perspective that recognizes it as a socially constructed concept with implications for our understanding of fundamental issues about culture, society, and individual differences. We explore a wide range of theoretical, legal, ethical, and policy issues as they relate to the experiences of persons with disabilities, their families, and advocates. The final project is a presentation on the fieldwork.
Instructor(s): M. Fred Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Third- or fourth-year standing
Equivalent Course(s): MAPS 36900,ANTH 30405,CHDV 30405,HMRT 25210,HMRT 35210,SOSC 36900
ANTH 20535. The Social Life of Clean Energy. 100 Units.
This course in political and environmental anthropology focuses on how renewable energy forms (like solar, wind, biofuel, and geothermal) have become increasingly important sites of political activity, commercial opportunity and social imagination across the world. Against the backdrop of an enduring geopolitics and geoeconomics of petroleum, coal, and nuclear power, of transnational activist and governmental discourse on sustainability, and of local concerns about resource entitlement and cultural sovereignty, we examine how clean energy forms are being imagined, developed, institutionalized, and contested in a variety of places across the world. In each case, we explore the unique social life of an emergent technology and source of power.
Instructor(s): C. Howe Terms Offered: Summer
ANTH 20701-20702. Introduction to African Civilization I-II.
Completion of the general education requirement in social sciences recommended. Taking these courses in sequence is recommended but not required. This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. African Civilization introduces students to African history and cultures in a two-quarter sequence.
ANTH 20701. Introduction to African Civilization I. 100 Units.
Part one considers literary, oral, and archeological sources to investigate African societies and states from the early Iron Age through the emergence of the Atlantic world. Case studies include the empires of Ghana, Mali, and Great Zimbabwe. The course also treats the diffusion of Islam, the origins and effects of European contact, and the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Instructor(s): E. Osborn Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 10101,CRES 20701
ANTH 20702. Introduction to African Civilization II. 100 Units.
Part two takes a more anthropological focus, concentrating on Eastern and Southern Africa, including Madagascar. We explore various aspects of colonial and postcolonial society. Topics covered include the institution of colonial rule, ethnicity and interethnic violence, ritual and the body, love, marriage, money, youth and popular culture.
Instructor(s): J. Cole Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 10102,CHDV 21401,CRES 20802
ANTH 21015. Media, Culture, and Society. 100 Units.
This course is a theoretical and ethnographic overview of past, current, and future directions of anthropological research on the mass media. We study issues as diverse as projects of media representation and cultural conservation among indigenous peoples, the relationship of mass media to nationalism across the world, the social life of journalism and news making in an era of new technologies and ownership consolidation, and current debates over the role of mass media.
Instructor(s): D. Boyer Terms Offered: Summer
ANTH 21102. Classical Readings in Anthropology: History and Theory of Human Evolution. 100 Units.
This course is a seminar on racial, sexual, and class bias in the classic theoretic writings, autobiographies, and biographies of Darwin, Huxley, Haeckel, Keith, Osborn, Jones, Gregory, Morton, Broom, Black, Dart, Weidenreich, Robinson, Leakey, LeGros-Clark, Schultz, Straus, Hooton, Washburn, Coon, Dobzhansky, Simpson, and Gould.
Instructor(s): R. Tuttle Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 38400,EVOL 38400,HIPS 23600
ANTH 21107. Classical Readings in Anthropology: Anthropological Theory. 100 Units.
Since its inception as an academically institutionalized discipline, anthropology has always addressed the relation between a self-consciously modernizing West and its various and changing others. Yet it has not always done so with sufficient critical attention to its own concepts and categories—a fact that has led, since at least the 1980s, to considerable debate about the nature of the anthropological enterprise and its epistemological foundations. This course provides a brief critical introduction to the history of anthropological thought over the course of the discipline's long twentieth century, form the 1880s to the present. Although we focus on the North American and British traditions, we review important strains of French and, to a lesser extent, German social theory in chronicling the emergence and transformation of modern anthropology as an empirically based, but theoretically informed, practice of knowledge production about human sociality and culture.
Instructor(s): Staff Terms Offered: TBA
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 30000
ANTH 21201. Intensive Study of a Culture: Chicago Blues. 100 Units.
This course is an anthropological and historical exploration of one of the most original and influential American musical genres in its social and cultural context. We examine transformations in the cultural meaning of the blues and its place within broader American cultural currents, the social and economic situation of blues musicians, and the political economy of blues within the wider music industry.
Instructor(s): M. Dietler Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CRES 21201
ANTH 21217. Intensive Study of a Culture: The Luo of Kenya. 100 Units.
This course is an overview of the history and contemporary culture of the Luo, a Nilotic-speaking people living on the shores of Lake Victoria. We examine the migration of the Luo into the region, the history of their encounter with British colonialism, and their evolving situation within the postcolonial Kenyan state. We also use the wide variety of studies of the Luo to illuminate transformations in the nature of ethnographic research and representations.
Instructor(s): M. Dietler Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): AFAM 21217
ANTH 21225. Intensive Study of a Culture: Louisiana. 100 Units.
Louisiana is home to Cajun music, Creole food, and the Yat dialect, as well as some of the most impressive prehistoric mound sites in North America. This course offers an archaeological, historical, and ethnographic introduction to Louisiana's complex culture. We focus on the ways in which race, ethnicity, and identity are constructed within and about Louisiana.
Instructor(s): S. Dawdy Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
ANTH 21230. Intensive Study of a Culture: Lowland Maya History and Ethnography. 100 Units.
The survey encompasses the dynamics of first contact; long-term cultural accommodations achieved during colonial rule; disruptions introduced by state and market forces during the early postcolonial period; the status of indigenous communities in the twentieth century; and new social, economic, and political challenges being faced by the contemporary peoples of the area. We stress a variety of traditional theoretical concerns of the broader Mesoamerican region stressed (e.g., the validity of reconstructive ethnography; theories of agrarian community structure; religious revitalization movements; the constitution of such identity categories as indigenous, Mayan, and Yucatecan). In this respect, the course can serve as a general introduction to the anthropology of the region. The relevance of these area patterns for general anthropological debates about the nature of culture, history, identity, and social change are considered.
Instructor(s): J. Lucy Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): This Course will not be offered 2014-15
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 20400,ANTH 30705,CHDV 20400,CHDV 30401,CRES 20400,LACS 30401
ANTH 21251. Intensive Study of a Culture: Modern China. 100 Units.
Contemporary China is often spoken of as undergoing deep and rapid social change. Certainly globalizing forces have been especially evident in all parts of China over the last couple of decades. At the same time, like the rest of East Asia and the Pacific Rim, China has developed distinctive social, cultural, and political forms, many of which circulate nationally and transnationally. This course comes to terms with both the processes of change that have characterized the last few decades and with a few recent social and cultural phenomena of interest. Because the scholarly literature lags behind the pace of transformation in China, we draw on a wide variety of materials: ethnography, memoir, fiction, films, essays, historical studies, short stories, websites. Emphasis in class discussions is on grasping how contemporary Chinese realities are experienced from viewpoints within China—this is the sense in which the course is intensive study of a "culture." Readings and materials are divided into several major units concerned with historical memory, rural China, urban life, labor migration, and popular culture. Students undertake, as a term project, their own investigation of some aspect of contemporary cultural change in China.
Instructor(s): J. Farquhar Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 32200
ANTH 21254. Intensive Study of a Culture: Pirates. 100 Units.
Many questions regarding pirates, smugglers, and privateers go to the heart of major anthropological problems (e.g., the nature of informal economies, the relationship between criminality and the state, transnationalism, the evolution of capitalism, intellectual property and globalization, political revolutions, counter-culture, and the cultural role of heroic [or anti-heroic] narratives). Each week we tackle one of these topics, paring a classic anthropological work with specific examples from the historical, archaeological, and/or ethnographic literature. We compare pirate practices in the early modern Caribbean to examples spanning from ancient ship raiders in the Mediterranean to contemporary software "piracy."
Instructor(s): S. Dawdy Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 21254
ANTH 21255. Intensive Study of a Culture: The Senegambia. 100 Units.
This course is an overview of history, culture, and society in the Senegambia, a territory situated between the Senegal and Gambia Rivers, and roughly corresponding to the political boundaries of modern-day Senegal. We examine the region in broad historical perspective. We begin with oral accounts of migration and state formation. We then track the gradual entanglement of local societies with global political economic forces during the Atlantic era. We also discuss the legitimate trade, French colonialism, and road to political independence. The focus of the last portion of the course is on cultural, artistic, and political experiences in the postcolonial state of Senegal.
Instructor(s): F. Richard Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): AFAM 21255
ANTH 21264. Intensive Study of a Culture: Political Struggles of Highland Asia. 100 Units.
As Edmund Leach noted in a later edition of The Political Systems of Highland Burma, massive changes largely occasioned by outside forces reshaped political relations in the later twentieth century. And not just in Highland Burma. This course compares political trajectories of societies across the arc of the Himalayan Highlands, from Burma to Afghanistan. From World War II, through decolonization and the cold war, and via many and disparate counterinsurgency campaigns, conflict and violence has marked the region, big states and small, old states and new. This course compares the recent political regimes, struggles and fortunes of Burma, Northeast India, Nepal, Tibet, and Afghanistan.
Instructor(s): J. Kelly Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): CRES 21264
ANTH 21265. Intensive Study of a Culture, Celts: Ancient, Modern, and Postmodern. 100 Units.
Celts and things Celtic have long occupied a prominent and protean place in the popular imagination, and "the Celts" has been an amazingly versatile concept in the politics of identity and collective memory in recent history. This course is an anthropological exploration of this phenomenon that examines: (1) the use of the ancient past in the construction of modern nationalist mythologies of Celtic identity (e.g., in France and Ireland) and regional movements of resistance to nationalist and colonialist project (e.g., in Brittany, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Gallicia, Asturias); (2) the construction of transnational ethno-nostalgic forms of Celtic identity in modern diasporic communities (Irish, Scottish, etc.); and (3) various recent spiritualist visions of Celticity that decouple the concept from ethnic understandings (e.g., in the New Age and Neo-Pagan movements). All of these are treated in the context of what is known archaeologically about the ancient peoples of Europe who serve as a symbolic reservoir for modern Celtic identities. The course explores these competing Celtic imaginaries in the spaces and media where they are constructed and performed, ranging from museums and monuments, to neo-druid organizations, Celtic cyberspace, Celtic festivals, Celtic theme parks, Celtic music, Celtic commodities, etc.
Instructor(s): M. Dietler Terms Offered: Winter
ANTH 21303. Making the Natural World: Foundations of Human Ecology. 100 Units.
This course considers the conceptual underpinnings of contemporary Western notions of ecology, environment, and balance, but it also examines several specific historical trajectories of anthropogenic landscape change. We approach these issues from the vantage of several different disciplinary traditions, including environmental history, philosophy, ecological anthropology, and paleoecology.
Instructor(s): M. Lycett Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): ENST 21201 and 21301 are required of students who are majoring in Environmental Studies and may be taken in any order.
Equivalent Course(s): ENST 21301
ANTH 21305. Modern Readings in Anthropology: Explorations in Oral Narrative (The Folktale) 100 Units.
This course studies the role of storytelling and narrativity in society and culture. Among these are a comparison of folktale traditions, the shift from oral to literate traditions and the impact of writing, the principal schools of analysis of narrative structure and function, and the place of narrative in the disciplines (i.e., law, psychoanalysis, politics, history, philosophy, anthropology).
Instructor(s): J. Fernandez Terms Offered: Spring (Tentative)
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 45300,HCUL 45300
ANTH 21322. Modern Readings in Anthropology: Archaeology and History of Food. 100 Units.
Instructor(s): K. Morrison Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 46510
ANTH 21401. The Practice of Anthropology: Logic and Practice of Archaeology. 100 Units.
This course offers an overview of the concepts and practice of anthropological archaeology. We discuss the varied goals of archaeological research and consider the range of ways in which archaeologists build inferences about the past from the material record. Throughout the quarter, the more general discussion of research logic and practice is situated in the context of detailed consideration of current archaeological projects from different parts of the world.
Instructor(s): M. Lycett Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
ANTH 21406. The Practice of Anthropology: Celebrity and Science in Paleoanthropology. 100 Units.
This seminar explores the balance among research, "showbiz" big business, and politics in the careers of Louis, Mary, and Richard Leakey; Alan Walker; Donald Johanson; Jane Goodall; Dian Fossey; and Biruté Galdikas. Information is gathered from films, taped interviews, autobiographies, biographies, pop publications, instructor's anecdotes, and samples of scientific writings.
Instructor(s): R. Tuttle Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 38300,HIPS 21100
ANTH 21420. The Practice of Anthropology: Ethnographic Methods. 100 Units.
This course introduces theory and practice, as well as situates ethnography within social science research more generally. Students are exposed to a wide range of investigative and analytical techniques used in ethnographic research and to multiple forms of interpretation and representation of ethnographic data. Students are required to apply the methods discussed in class through field assignments and through a final ethnographic project that is developed in consultation with the instructor. This course is particularly useful for students who intend to write a senior thesis the following year. Field trips to sites in Chicago required.
Instructor(s): Staff Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Preference given to third-year anthropology majors, others by consent only
ANTH 21610. Linguistic Ethnographies. 100 Units.
Instructor(s): S. Gal Terms Offered: Winter
ANTH 21725. Mass Mediated Society and Japan. 100 Units.
This course explores the emergence of mass mediated society in twentieth century industrial modernity through the sociocultural lens of Japan. Specifically, we will be looking at the evolution of new social forms, identities, subjectivities, and experience engendered through mass mediating technologies. At the same time, we will consider the various forms of discourse that arise in relation to these phenomena. Although our attention will be on the experience and effects of mass mediated society in Japan, readings will not be Japan exclusive. They will draw from a wide range of disciplines, combining critical theory with ethnographic, and historical texts. We will also consider examples from popular culture. No previous knowledge of Japan or Japanese language is required.
Instructor(s): M. Fisch Terms Offered: TBD
ANTH 22000. The Anthropology of Development. 100 Units.
This course applies anthropological understanding to development programs in "underdeveloped" and "developing" societies. Topics include the history of development; different perspectives on development within the world system; the role of principal development agencies and their use of anthropological knowledge; the problems of ethnographic field inquiry in the context of development programs; the social organization and politics of underdevelopment; the culture construction of "well-being;" economic, social, and political critiques of development; population, consumption, and the environment; and the future of development.
Instructor(s): A. Kolata Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 35500,ENST 22000
ANTH 22105. The Anthropology of Science. 100 Units.
Reading key works in the philosophy of science, as well as ethnographic studies of scientific practices and objects, this course introduces contemporary science studies. We interrogate how technoscientific "facts" are produced, discussing the transformations in social order produced by new scientific knowledge. Possible topics include the human genome project, biodiversity, and the digital revolution.
Instructor(s): J. Masco Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 32300,HIPS 21301
ANTH 22123. Science Studies III: Information Age. 100 Units.
This seminar explores the sociocultural effects of the digital revolution in information technologies. Interrogating the technoscientific as well as sociocultural logics behind new virtual media, we discuss how new forms of subjectivity (collective and individualized), new forms of governmentality, and new political commitments are being produced via information technologies and supercomputing.
Instructor(s): J. Masco Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
ANTH 22125. Introduction to Science Studies. 100 Units.
Science is a dense site of practices, norms, and values that shapes what it means to be human in the contemporary era. Interwoven with the character of scientific knowledge is the character of the ideas that can be thought and not thought, the diseases that will be treated and not treated, the lives that can be lived and not lived. Yet, science, objectivity, and knowledge have proved resistant to critical analysis. This course is an introduction to thinkers who have withstood this resistance and explores questions about the nature, culture, and politics of scientific knowledge and its production.
Instructor(s): K. Sunder Rajan Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
ANTH 22130. Anthropology of the Machine. 100 Units.
This course examines the machine as a social problematic, asking what is the machine and what is its relationship with technology, science, nature, bodies, and culture. Moving between the tangible and the abstract, we explore the machine as material instantiation, historical paradigm, metaphor, limit, method, and ideal. The course will follow a lecture/seminar format, and students will develop an anthropology of the machine as part of the course requirements.
Instructor(s): M. Fisch Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
ANTH 22150. Mediating the Social. 100 Units.
Instructor(s): M. Fisch Terms Offered: Spring
ANTH 22205. Slavery and Unfree Labor. 100 Units.
This course offers a concise overview of institutions of dependency, servitude, and coerced labor in Europe and Africa, from Roman times to the onset of the Atlantic slave trade, and compares their further development (or decline) in the context of the emergence of New World plantation economies based on racial slavery. We discuss the role of several forms of unfreedom and coerced labor in the making of the "modern world" and reflect on the manner in which ideologies and practices associated with the idea of a free labor market supersede, or merely mask, relations of exploitation and restricted choice.
Instructor(s): S. Palmié Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 31700,CRES 22205,LACS 22205,LACS 31700
ANTH 22400. Big Science and the Birth of the National Security State. 100 Units.
This course examines the mutual creation of big science and the American national security state during the Manhattan Project. It presents the atomic bomb project as the center of a new orchestration of scientific, industrial, military, and political institutions in everyday American life. Exploring the linkages between military technoscience, nation-building, and concepts of security and international order, we interrogate one of the foundation structures of the modern world system.
Instructor(s): J. Masco Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 34900,HIPS 21200
ANTH 22530. Ethnographic Film. 100 Units.
This seminar explores ethnographic film as a genre for representing "reality," anthropological knowledge, and cultural lives. We examine how ethnographic film emerged in a particular intellectual and political economic context, as well as how subsequent conceptual and formal innovations have shaped the genre. We also consider social responses to ethnographic film in terms of (1) the contexts for producing and circulating these works, (2) the ethical and political concerns raised by cross-cultural representation, and (3) the development of indigenous media and other practices in conversation with ethnographic film. Throughout the course, we situate ethnographic film within the larger project for representing "culture," addressing the status of ethnographic film in relation to other documentary practices (e.g., written ethnography, museum exhibitions, documentary film).
Instructor(s): J. Chu Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 32530
ANTH 22535. Engaging Media: Thinking about Media and Their Audiences. 100 Units.
In the first part of the course we look at how post–World War II mass communications and “classical” film theory theorized communication and spectatorship; in particular, we trace the dialogue between these liberatory models and the totalitarianism and propaganda (i.e., top-down models of control) of the times. We then look at theories of mass media reception and spectatorship that put ideology at the center of their analysis, interrogating theories of the “receiver” of media messages as cultural dope (Frankfurt school Marxism), psychoanalytic and (post-)Marxist theories of spectatorship (“Screen” theory), feminist critiques of film spectatorship, and reactions to the above in cognitivist film studies. We then turn to British Cultural Studies’ theories of media, focusing on how such work attempts to reconcile models of reception as ideologically unproblematic and as determined by the ideological structures of production and reception. Particular focus is given to the theoretical arguments regarding ideology and media, the notion of “code,” and the differences and similarities in the model of communication with the sociology of mass communication. In the second half of the course we look at anthropological approaches to media and how anthropologists have taken up the issue of media reception. Why have anthropologists largely ignored media and reception studies until recently? What kinds of contributions can anthropology make to the theorization and methodological approach to reception? By critically looking at ethnographies of reception, we problematize the concept of reception proper, looking at more holistic ways of dealing with the issue of the mediation of social life. In the final part of the course we re-evaluate what we mean by “mass media” and “reception.” First we look media (con)texts that blur the duality of production/reception. We then consider new forms of media and to what extent “reception” as a category even makes sense in attempting to understand how engagement with such new media functions.
Instructor(s): C. Nakassis Terms Offered: TBD
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 32535
ANTH 22606. Indigeneities. 100 Units.
Depending on how you look at it, questions of indigeneity—the who, how, what, and why of peoples that either identify, or are identified, as “native”—are questions that at once transcend, entail, and/or are produced by Euro-American scholarly, political, and legal inquiry. Whether assailed as the product of colonial orientalism or celebrated as the ur-subjectivity of those who resist it (or something in between), the claims of, to, and about indigeneity continue to excite and demand attention scholarly and political. Indeed some argue that politics of indigeneity have gained unique traction in recent decades, as indigenous actors, scholars, and their advocates have pressed for changes to legal, political, and cultural/scientific regimes that have indigenous affairs as their chief objects of inquiry. One need only consider the 2007 passage of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the legal decisions acknowledging the force of native title in the Supreme Courts of Australia and Canada, and even the changes in various regimes of research concerning the social scientific study of native peoples and/or the representation of their material culture, all of which happened less than 20 years ago. Despite these long-standing interests and recent social, politica,l and economic gains, indigenous communities remain among the most vulnerable in the world. These trenchant inequalities beg the question, how does the condition of indigeneity relate to the various social forces shaping the world today and to the lived experiences of those who claim to be, or get named as, indigenous. It is towards an exploration of this question that this course is dedicated. Among the lines of inquiry that we will pursue in the course are: (1) tracing the genealogies of indigeneity as a notion, both in Euro-American human sciences and in other epistemological traditions; (2) considering the role that notions of indigeneity play in contemporary national and international political regimes; (3) exploring how indigeneity is claimed or disclaimed, by different peoples around the world, and why; and (4) considering the ways in which notions of indigeneity are being figured in new regimes of possession and commodification, including intellectual property, genetics and genome mapping, and the role of indigenous knowledge in resource extraction and bioprospecting. In pursuing these questions this course will endeavor to tease out the manifold relationships that the rising politics of indigeneity at the dawn of the 21st century has to other global political economic phenomena. Simultaneously, the course will also attend to the ways in which different peoples, caught up in different sociopolitical milieu, orient to the notion of indigeneity as it articulates with their lived experiences with matters of autochthony (the state of being “from here”), allochthony (being “from elsewhere”), and the consequences of those distinctions to their everyday lives.
Instructor(s): J. Richland Terms Offered: TBD
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 33106
ANTH 22609. Indigenous Methodologies. 100 Units.
The 1969 publication of Vine Deloria Jr.’s Custer Died for your Sins forever changed the landscape for academic research with indigenous communities in North America, if not the world. Declaring, “Indians have been cursed above all other peoples in history. Indians have anthropologists.”(Deloria 1988[1969]: 78), Deloria’s broadside was aimed at a social science academy whose research methods, ethics, and findings he felt offered little concrete benefit to the indigenous peoples whose lives they studied. Whether accurate or not, the critique sent ripples not only through the academy, but through policy circles and the native communities themselves, inaugurating a period of remarkable refiguring of the legal, scholarly, and interpersonal landscapes against which social science research on indigenous peoples is constituted. This refiguring has emerged in a variety of modes and with different effects and outcomes. In this course, students will be introduced to the evolving ethics, methods, policies, and epistemologies shaping social science research with indigenous communities in North America. In addition, in the second half of the quarter, students will get firsthand experience working on issues of relevance to social science research with indigenous communities under the supervision of Prof. Richland and leadership at two institutions in Chicago—the Title VII American Indian Education Program and the North American Anthropology Division of the Field Museum. In this part of the course, students will be paired up and work on independent projects that are designed to address the needs and interests of these organizations and the indigenous peoples with which they work, and then to initiate their own academic inquiry alongside those projects. These projects will provide you with an opportunity to understand and implement the theories, ethics, and methods learned in class, revealing the rewards and challenges of conducting research programs that engage leading theories and debates in the academy while also making real contributions to the indigenous communities with which students are working.
Instructor(s): J. Richland Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 33107
ANTH 22710. Signs and the State. 100 Units.
Relations of communication, as well as coercion, are central though less visible in Weber's famous definition of the state as monopoly of legitimate violence. This course reconsiders the history of the state in connection to the history of signs. Thematic topics (and specific things and sites discussed) include changing semiotic technologies; means; forces and relations of communication (writing, archives, monasteries, books, "the" internet); and specific states (in early historic India and China, early colonial/revolutionary Europe, especially France, Britain, and Atlantic colonies, and selected postcolonial "new nations").
Instructor(s): J. Kelly Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 41810
ANTH 22715. Weber, Bakhtin, Benjamin. 100 Units.
Ideal types? The iron cage? Captured speech? No alibis? Dialectical Images? Charismatic authority? Heteroglossia? Modes of Domination? Seizing the flash? Finished, monological utterances? Conditions of possibility? Strait gates through time? Weber, Bakhtin, and Benjamin provide insights and analytical tools of unsurpassed power. Scholars who use them best have faced and made key decisions about social ontology and social science epistemology, decisions that follow from specific, radical propositions about society and social science made by these theorists and others they engage, starting at least from Immanuel Kant. This course is designed for any student who wants to more clearly understand the arguments of Weber, Bakhtin, and Benjamin, and to understand more broadly the remarkable trajectories of German social theory after Kant. It is designed especially for anyone hoping to use some of their conceptions well in new research. (Yes, Bakhtin is Russian, and cultural theory in Russia and the U.S. too will come up.) Fair warning: this course focuses on four roads out of Kant’s liberal apriorism (including culture theory from Herder to Boas and Benedict, as well as Benjamin and the dialectical tradition, Bakhtin’s dialogism, and Weber’s historical realism). We will spend less time on good examples of current use of Weber’s, Bakhtin’s, and Benjamin’s ideas than on the writings of Weber, Bakhtin, and Benjamin themselves, and their predecessors and interlocutors (including Herder, Hegel, Clausewitz, Marx, Ihering, and Simmel). The premise of the course is that you will do more in your own research with a roadmap than with templates.
Instructor(s): J. Kelly Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 43720
ANTH 22910. Performance and Politics in India. 100 Units.
This seminar considers and pushes beyond such recent instances as the alleged complicity between the televised "Ramayana" and the rise of a violently intolerant Hindu nationalism. We consider the potentials and entailments of various forms of mediation and performance for political action on the subcontinent, from "classical" textual sources, through "folk" traditions and "progressive" dramatic practice, to contemporary skirmishes over "obscenity" in commercial films.
Instructor(s): W. T. S. Mazzarella Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 22900
ANTH 23101-23102-23103. Introduction to Latin American Civilization I-II-III.
Taking these courses in sequence is not required. This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. This sequence is offered every year. This course introduces the history and cultures of Latin America (e.g., Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean Islands).
ANTH 23101. Introduction to Latin American Civilization I. 100 Units.
Autumn Quarter examines the origins of civilizations in Latin America with a focus on the political, social, and cultural features of the major pre-Columbian civilizations of the Maya, Inca, and Aztec. The quarter concludes with an analysis of the Spanish and Portuguese conquest, and the construction of colonial societies in Latin America.
Instructor(s): R. Granados-Salinas, R. Gutiérrez Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 16100,CRES 16101,HIST 16101,HIST 36101,LACS 34600,SOSC 26100
ANTH 23102. Introduction to Latin American Civilization II. 100 Units.
Winter Quarter addresses the evolution of colonial societies, the wars of independence, and the emergence of Latin American nation-states in the changing international context of the nineteenth century.
Instructor(s): M. Tenorio Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 16200,CRES 16102,HIST 16102,HIST 36102,LACS 34700,SOSC 26200
ANTH 23103. Introduction to Latin American Civilization III. 100 Units.
Spring Quarter focuses on the twentieth century, with special emphasis on the challenges of economic, political, and social development in the region.
Instructor(s): D. Borges Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 16300,CRES 16103,HIST 16103,HIST 36103,LACS 34800,SOSC 26300
ANTH 23600. Medicine and Society in Twentieth-Century China. 100 Units.
This course is a survey of historical and anthropological approaches to medical knowledge and practice in twentieth-century China. Materials cover early modernizing debates, medicine and the state, Maoist public health, traditional Chinese medicine, and health and medicine in popular culture.
Instructor(s): J. Farquhar Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 33610,HIPS 22601
ANTH 23620. Medicine and Anthropology. 100 Units.
The rise of modern biological medicine into global dominance dates from the 18th century, with the field developing in tandem with technological industrialization, scientific objectivism, and secular modernism in writing and social theory. The things we now have before us in the medical field—doctors, patients, drugs, symptoms, diseases, pacemakers, antiseptic wipes, psychologies, therapeutic protocols, health insurance, white coats, immunizations, folk remedies, and much more—are many of the things that ground all of our ethics and our politics in contemporary North America. In order to better understand how medicine affects wider worlds of experience and action, this course gathers a number of historical and ethnographic studies of medical knowledge and practice for careful study. In a series of readings and discussions we will consider the social and political economic shaping of illness and suffering and the “culture-bound” character of diseases; we will examine medical and healing systems—well beyond biomedicine—as social institutions and as sources of epistemological authority; and we will read about the knowledge politics of medical experts and their clients and patients. Topics covered will also include the problem of belief; local theories of disease causation and healing efficacy; the placebo effect and contextual healing; theories of embodiment; medicalization; modernity and the distribution of risk; the meanings and effects of medical technologies; and the relatively recent global health movement.
Instructor(s): J. Farquhar Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 33620,CHDV 23620,CHDV 33620
ANTH 23630. China Theorizes the World. 100 Units.
Instructor(s): J. Chu Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 43105
ANTH 23715. Self-Determination: Theory and Reality. 100 Units.
From the Versailles Conference (1919) through the Bandung Conference (1955) and beyond, global politics has been reorganized by efforts to implement and sustain political sovereignty on the basis of national self-determination. This course examines the theories informing this American-led plan and its real consequences, with attention to India, Algeria, Indo-China, New Zealand, Fiji, and Hawaii. Dilemmas in decolonization, partitions, the consequences of the cold war, and the theory and practice of counterinsurgency are discussed together with unintended consequences of the plan in practice, especially the rise of political armies, NGOs, and diaspora.
Instructor(s): J. Kelly Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 43715
ANTH 23805. Nature/Culture. 100 Units.
Exploring the critical intersection between science studies and political ecology, this course interrogates the contemporary politics of "nature." Focusing on recent ethnographies that complicated our understandings of the environment, the seminar examines how conceptual boundaries (e.g., nature, science, culture, global/local) are established or transgressed within specific ecological orders).
Instructor(s): J. Masco Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 43805,CHSS 32805,HIPS 26203
ANTH 24001-24002-24003. Colonizations I-II-III.
This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. This three-quarter sequence approaches the concept of civilization from an emphasis on cross-cultural/societal connection and exchange. We explore the dynamics of conquest, slavery, colonialism, and their reciprocal relationships with concepts such as resistance, freedom, and independence, with an eye toward understanding their interlocking role in the making of the modern world.
ANTH 24001. Colonizations I. 100 Units.
Themes of slavery, colonization, and the making of the Atlantic world are covered in the first quarter.
Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. This course is offered every year. These courses can be taken in any sequence.
Equivalent Course(s): CRES 24001,HIST 18301,SOSC 24001
ANTH 24002. Colonizations II. 100 Units.
Modern European and Japanese colonialism in Asia and the Pacific is the theme of the second quarter.
Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. These courses can be taken in any sequence.
Equivalent Course(s): CRES 24002,HIST 18302,SOSC 24002
ANTH 24003. Colonizations III. 100 Units.
The third quarter considers the processes and consequences of decolonization both in the newly independent nations and the former colonial powers.
Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. These courses can be taken in any sequence.
Equivalent Course(s): CRES 24003,HIST 18303,SALC 20702,SOSC 24003
ANTH 24101-24102. Introduction to the Civilizations of South Asia I-II.
This sequence introduces core themes in the formation of culture and society in South Asia from the early modern period until the present. This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. These courses must be taken in sequence.
ANTH 24101. Introduction to the Civilizations of South Asia I. 100 Units.
The first quarter focuses on Islam in South Asia, Hindu-Muslim interaction, Mughal political and literary traditions, and South Asia’s early encounters with Europe.
Instructor(s): M. Alam Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 20100,HIST 10800,SASC 20000,SOSC 23000
ANTH 24102. Introduction to the Civilizations of South Asia II. 100 Units.
The second quarter analyzes the colonial period (i.e., reform movements, the rise of nationalism, communalism, caste, and other identity movements) up to the independence and partition of India.
Instructor(s): D. Chakrabarty Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 20200,HIST 10900,SASC 20100,SOSC 23100
ANTH 24315. Culture, Mental Health, and Psychiatry. 100 Units.
This course examines mental health and illness as a set of subjective experience, social processes and objects of knowledge and intervention. On a conceptual level, the course will invite students to think through the complex relationships between categories of knowledge and clinical technologies (in this case, mainly psychiatric ones) and the subjectivities of persons living with mental illness. Put in slightly different terms, we will look at the multiple links between psychiatrists' professional accounts of mental illness and patients' experiences of it. Readings will be drawn primarily from medical and psychological anthropology, cultural psychiatry, and science studies, but will include some "primary texts" from the memoiristic and psychiatric literatures.
Instructor(s): E. Raikhel Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CHDV 23301,ANTH 35115,CHDV 33301,HIPS 27302
ANTH 24320. Cultural Psychology. 100 Units.
There is a substantial portion of the psychological nature of human beings that is neither homogeneous nor fixed across time and space. At the heart of the discipline of cultural psychology is the tenet of psychological pluralism, which states that the study of "normal" psychology is the study of multiple psychologies and not just the study of a single or uniform fundamental psychology for all peoples of the world. Research findings in cultural psychology thus raise provocative questions about the integrity and value of alternative forms of subjectivity across cultural groups. In this course we analyze the concept of "culture" and examine ethnic and cross-cultural variations in mental functioning with special attention to the cultural psychology of emotions, self, moral judgment, categorization, and reasoning.
Instructor(s): R. Shweder Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Third- or fourth-year standing. Instructor consent required.
Equivalent Course(s): CHDV 21000,AMER 33000,ANTH 35110,CHDV 31000,GNSE 21001,GNSE 31000,PSYC 23000,PSYC 33000
ANTH 24511-24512. Anthropology of Museums I-II.
This sequence examines museums from a variety of perspectives. We consider the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the image and imagination of African American culture as presented in local museums, and museums as memorials, as exemplified by Holocaust exhibitions. Several visits to area museums required.
ANTH 24511. Anthropology of Museums I. 100 Units.
Instructor(s): M. Fred Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Advanced standing and consent of instructor
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 34502,CHDV 38101,CRES 34501,MAPS 34500,SOSC 34500
ANTH 24512. Anthropology of Museums II. 100 Units.
Instructor(s): M. Fred Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Advanced standing or consent of instructor
Equivalent Course(s): CRES 34502,SOSC 34600
ANTH 24705. Jurisdiction: Language and the Law. 100 Units.
Instructor(s): J. Richland Terms Offered: TBD
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 34705
ANTH 24800. Uncanny Modernities. 100 Units.
This seminar examines the concept of the "uncanny" as an ethnographic topic. Pursuing the linkages between perception, trauma, and historical memory, this course asks if the modern state form necessarily produces the uncanny as a social effect. We explore this theme through works of Freud, Lacan, Derrida, Benjamin, and Foucault, as well as recent ethnographies that privilege the uncanny in their social analysis.
Instructor(s): J. Masco Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 54800
ANTH 25103. The Body in Medicine and the Performing Arts. 100 Units.
The Body in Medicine and the Performing Arts is a multidisciplinary course designed to explore the human body through the unique combination of medical science and the performing arts. Drawing broadly from medicine, anthropology, and the performing arts, this course seeks to understand the human body by comparing and contrasting the medicalized body with the animated or performing body. With an emphasis on experiential learning, the primary pedagogy will be interactive activities that allow students to learn about the human body through interactions with other bodies as well as their own. The medical sequence of the course will examine how medicine uses the body as an educational tool, views the body through radiographic imaging, utilizes the dead body to make diagnoses, and endeavors to prolong life. Activities associated with this sequence will include exploration of the dissected cadaver in the anatomy lab, viewing of radiographic images, use of the ultrasound on oneself, a visit to the morgue, and interactions with individuals who received organ transplants. The performing arts sequence will explore the mind and body as a continuous system through somatic pedagogies at the intersection of theater, dance, physical and psychotherapy. Students will use their own bodies as instruments of inquiry into somatic pedagogies such as Feldenkreis technique in physical and occupational therapies, methodologies drawn from Biomechanics in the theater, from Contact Improvisation in dance, and Bioenergetics in psychotherapy. These two distinct sequences will be explored within the larger cultural context of the human body and more specifically through the deliberate tension created by interactions with the dead/inanimate body and the living/animated body. Taken as a whole, The Body in Medicine and the Performing Arts will provide students with the unique opportunity to explore the human body through an engaging multi-disciplinary experience.
Instructor(s): B. Callender, C. Sullivan Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Maximum enrollment of 20 students. Mixed enrollment limited to third- and fourth-year undergraduate students and graduate students or consent of instructors.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 24113,ANTH 35103,ARTV 34113
ANTH 25116. Magic Matters. 100 Units.
The course explores the lively presence of magic in the contemporary, presumably disenchanted world. It approaches the problem of magic historically—examining how magic became an object of social scientific inquiry—and anthropologically, attending to the magic in practice on the margins of the industrial, rational, cosmopolitan, and technological societies and economies. Furthermore, this course reads classic and contemporary ethnographies of magic together with studies of science and technology to critically examine questions of agency, practice, experience, experiment, and efficacy. The course reads widely across sites, disciplines, and theories, attending to eventful objects and alien agents, stepping into post-socialist, post-colonial, and post-secular magic markets and medical clinics, and reading for the political energies of the emergent communities that effectively mix science, magic, and technology.
Instructor(s): L. Jasarevic Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CHDV 25116,INST 27701
ANTH 25117. About Nature: From Science to Sense. 100 Units.
“Consider mushrooms,” Anna Tsing (2012) suggests to those who are curious about human nature and she points to the relational and biological diversity found at the unruly edges of the global empire—the governmentalized, politicized, commoditized culturenature of capitalism. This class follows the suit, tracking the scent of what evidently remains, thrives, withdraws, overwhelms, and inspires wonder in the guises of the natural, wild, organic, or awesome. About Nature starts with critiques of the essentialized Nature in the modernist, theological, and scientific discourses but it directs attention elsewhere: to the zones of writing and practice, academic and activist, professional and popular, where the natural figures through theoretical insights, empirical observations, or in practical problems; where it materializes in sensuous encounters, knowledgeable collecting, or ecstatic experiences; and where it rallies communities of inquiry and interest. We will be interested in popular commitments to natural living and eating, from North American wild fermentation movement to Russian dacha summer gardens and will read about some local traditions and revivals of medicinal, artisanal, and homemade foods. We will ask how are the process of foraging, preparing, consuming, and sharing playing up and reworking locally contingent intimacies between vegetal, animal, and otherwise non-human worlds. The class readings jump scales from “hyperobjects” (Morton 2013) to microbes (Paxson 2013, Money 2011). The reading list mixes ethnographies with literary, philosophical, and “mystical” texts and pairs anthropological discussions with practical manuals (on bee-keeping, mushroom collecting, and live-culture foods) and popular science books (on mushrooms, insects, and herbs). Our aim in reading so widely is to grasp the capacity with which the natural assembles and animates varied phenomena, collective feelings, and usable facts as well as to catalogue the excesses and mysteries where the luxuriant, charming, formidable value of the natural lingers, lurks, or “huddles defensively” (Tsing 2012; Shiva 1993, 1997). Moreover, the class will look obliquely to the natural sciences—botany, environmental sciences, and entomology—presuming neither their thorough disenchantment nor a merely performative and populist value of scientific “wonder” and curiosity, but rather listening to how the empirical requirements and experiential contacts, proofs and feelings spell out the range of relations with the natural objects, forms, and worlds across genres. Throughout, our class discussions and a few field visits will be most attentive to the fungal and feral, insective and instinctive, weedy and herbal, as we interrogate, with Anna Tsing and others, relations that compose the natural-cultural forms, lives, and collectives at the seams of global capital.
Instructor(s): L. Jasarevic Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): INST 27702
ANTH 25200. Approaches to Gender in Anthropology. 100 Units.
This course examines gender as a cultural category in anthropological theory, as well as in everyday life. After reviewing the historical sources of the current concern with women, gender, and sexuality in anthropology and the other social sciences, we critically explore some key controversies (e.g., the relationship between production and reproduction in different sociocultural orders; the links between "public" and "private" in current theories of politics; and the construction of sexualities, nationalities, and citizenship in a globalizing world).
Instructor(s): S. Gal Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 43800,GNDR 25201,GNDR 43800
ANTH 25305. Anthropology of Food and Cuisine. 100 Units.
Contemporary human foodways are not only highly differentiated in cultural and social terms, but often have long and complicated histories. Anthropologists have long given attention to food. But, until quite recently, they did so in an unsystematic, haphazard fashion. This course explores several related themes with a view towards both the micro- and macro-politics of food by examining a range of ethnographic and historical case studies and theoretical texts. It takes the format of a seminar augmented by lectures (during the first few weeks), scheduled video screenings, and individual student presentations during the rest of the course.
Instructor(s): J. Farquhar Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 35305
ANTH 25310. Drinking Alcohol: Social Problems or Normal Cultural Practice? 100 Units.
Alcohol is the most widely used psychoactive agent in the world, and, as archaeologists have recently demonstrated, it has a very long history dating back at least 9,000 years. This course will explore the issue of alcohol and drinking from a trans-disciplinary perspective. It will be co-taught by an anthropologist/archaeologist with experience in alcohol research and a neurobiologist who has experience with addiction research. Students will be confronted with literature on alcohol research from anthropology, sociology, history, biology, medicine, psychology, and public health and asked to think through the conflicts and contradictions. Selected case studies will be used to focus the discussion of broader theoretical concepts and competing perspectives introduced in the first part of the course. Topics for lectures and discussion include: What is alcohol? chemical definition, cultural forms, production processes, biological effects; The early history of alcohol: archaeological studies; Histories of drinking in ancient, medieval, and modern times; Alcohol and the political economy: trade, politics, regulation, resistance; Alcohol as a cultural artifact: the social roles of drinking; Styles of drinking and intoxication; Alcohol, addiction, and social problems: the interplay of biology, culture, and society; Alcohol and religion: integration vs. prohibition; Alcohol and health benefits: ancient beliefs and modern scientific research; Comparative case studies of drinking: ethnographic examples, historical examples, contemporary America (including student drinking).
Instructor(s): M. Dietler, W. Green Terms Offered: Not offered in 2014-2015; will be offered in 2015-16.
Prerequisite(s): Third- or fourth-year standing. This course does not meet requirements for the biological sciences major.
Equivalent Course(s): BPRO 22800,BIOS 02280
ANTH 25325. History and Culture of Baseball. 100 Units.
Study of the history and culture of baseball can raise in a new light a wide range of basic questions in social theory. The world of sports is one of the paradoxical parts of cultural history, intensely intellectually scrutinized and elaborately “covered” by media, yet largely absent from scholarly curricula. Perhaps more than any other sport, baseball has even drawn a wide range of scholars to publish popular books about it, yet has produced few professional scholars whose careers are shaped by study of it. In this course, we will examine studies that connect the cultural history of baseball to race, nation, and decolonization, to commodity fetishism and the development of capitalist institutions, to globalization and production of locality. We will compare studies of baseball from a range of disciplinary perspectives (economics, evolutionary biology, political science, history, and anthropology) and will give special attention to the culture and history of baseball in Chicago. We hope and expect that this course will be a meeting ground for people who know a lot about baseball and want to learn more about cultural anthropology, and people who are well read in anthropology or social theory who want to know more about baseball. The course will draw heavily on the rich library of books and articles about baseball, scholarly and otherwise, and will also invite students to pursue their own research topics in baseball culture and history.
Instructor(s): J. Kelly Terms Offered: TBD
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 35325
ANTH 25401. Consumption. 100 Units.
The modern period was associated with industrial production, class society, rationalization, disenchantment, the welfare state, and the belief in salvation by society. Current societies are characterized by a culture of consumption; consumption is central to lifestyles and identity, it is instantiated in our technological reality and the complex of advertising media, structures of wanting and shopping. Starting from the question “why do we want things” we will discuss theories and empirical studies that focus on consumption and identity formation; on shopping and the consumption of symbolic signs; on consumption as linked to the re-enchantment of modernity; as a process of distinction and of the globalization of frames; and as related to time and information. The course is built around approaches that complement the “productionist” focus of the social sciences. Students interested in economic sociology and anthropology can supplement this course by one on Markets and Money.
Instructor(s): K. Knorr Cetina Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20150,ANTH 35401,SOCI 30150
ANTH 25410. Anthropology of Everyday Life. 100 Units.
In an effort to clarify the field of everyday life ethnography and stimulate critical reflection on the everyday lives we all lead, this course draws on three bodies of literature: (1) classic anthropological approaches to studying social life (e.g., behaviorism and utilitarianism, the sacred/profane distinction, phenomenology, habitus and practice); (2) twentieth-century cultural Marxist critical theory; and (3) recent studies of popular culture. This course includes a workshop component to accommodate student projects.
Instructor(s): J. Farquhar Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
ANTH 25500. Cultural Politics of Contemporary India. 100 Units.
Structured as a close-reading seminar, this class offers an anthropological immersion in the cultural politics of urban India today. A guiding thread in the readings is the question of the ideologies and somatics of shifting "middle class" formations; and their articulation through violence, gender, consumerism, religion, and technoscience.
Instructor(s): W. Mazzarella Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 42600,SALC 20900,SALC 30900
ANTH 25510. Afterlives of Gandhi. 100 Units.
This course deals with transnational textual, political, and theoretical transmissions of the Gandhi idea in the first half of the twentieth century.
Instructor(s): L. Gandhi, W. Mazzarella Terms Offered: Not offered 2012–13; will be offered 2013–14
Prerequisite(s): undefined
Note(s): undefined
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 24308
ANTH 25900. South Asian Archaeology. 100 Units.
South Asia has a rich historical record, from the very beginnings of our species to the present, and yet the earlier part of this record is surprisingly little-known outside specialist circles. This course provides a broad overview of South Asian archaeology and early history, from the beginnings of agricultural production to the expansion of states and empires in the early days of textual records. We cover critical anthropological processes such as the origins and expansion of agriculture, the development of one of the world's first urban societies—the Harappan or Indus civilization—the growth and institutionalization of social inequalities, and changing contexts of social and religious life. While the course actually extends a bit beyond the time of the Buddha, its major focus is on the periods up to and including the Early Historic. No prior experience of either South Asia or archaeology is assumed; Indeed, we will think quite a bit about the nature of evidence and about how we know about the more distant past.
Instructor(s): K. Morrison Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s):
ANTH 25905. Introduction to the Musical Folklore of Central Asia. 100 Units.
This course explores the musical traditions of the peoples of Central Asia, both in terms of historical development and cultural significance. Topics include the music of the epic tradition, the use of music for healing, instrumental genres, and Central Asian folk and classical traditions. Basic field methods for ethnomusicology are also covered. Extensive use is made of recordings of musical performances and of live performances in the area.
Instructor(s): K. Arik Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Knowledge of Arabic and/or Islamic studies helpful but not required
Equivalent Course(s): NEHC 30765,EEUR 23400,EEUR 33400,MUSI 23503,MUSI 33503,NEHC 20765
ANTH 26020. Archaeology of Modernity. 100 Units.
This course covers the development, themes, practices, and problems of the archaeology of the modern era (post 1450 AD), or what in North America is better known as the subfield of "historical archaeology." Texts and discussions address topics such as the archaeology of colonialism, capitalism, industrialization, and mass consumption. Case studies from plantation archaeology, urban archaeology, and international contexts anchor the discussion, as does a consideration of interdisciplinary methods using texts, artifacts, and oral history. Our goal is to understand the historical trajectory of this peculiar archaeological practice, as well as its contemporary horizon. The overarching question framing the course is: what is modernity and what can archaeology contribute to our understanding of it?
Instructor(s): S. Dawdy Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 46020
ANTH 26315. Turning South: The Politics and Practice of Latin American Historical Archaeology. 100 Units.
How has the study of past material cultures contributed to our comprehension of the Iberian colonial experience in the New World? How has an archaeology of the recent past been presented to the public and made socially relevant in contemporary Latin American nations? This course invites students to address these questions in the light of current Latin American thought, and to gain innovative perspectives on the different processes through which archaeological knowledge participates in the formation and transformation of cultural, social, and racial identities in present-day Latin America. Exploring a wide array of scholarly literature, principally produced in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, this course will provide a detailed insight into the achievements, limitations, possibilities, and future challenges of Latin American historical archaeology. During the semester, students will be familiarized with some of the main topics that have been approached in Latin America through a strategic interplay of material data and written texts. These topics range from the study of cultural contact in early colonial settlements to the development of forensic archaeology as a therapeutic instrument facilitating the remembrance of a traumatic past. Class discussions will also delve into rich archaeological evidence testifying to the development of specific social spaces and categories, such as maroons, colonial borderlands, or gentrified households in republican urban centers. The careful analysis of each one of these highly varied topics, as described in local archaeological literature, shall eventually contribute to a better understanding of the way in which the politics of cultural heritage can be played out in different areas of Latin America.
Instructor(s): F. Gaitan-Ammann
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 36315,LACS 26315,LACS 36315
ANTH 26320. Artifacts of the Spanish Colonies. 100 Units.
German stoneware bottles, Venetian glass beads, Chinese porcelain, Chilean redwares . . . all these are examples of traveling artifacts that, as early as the 16th century, took an active part in the Spanish colonization of the New World. On Spanish colonial sites, these evidences of long-distance exchange often merged with local material cultures, entering processes of hybridization and creolization that can be observed in the archaeological record. This course proposes an archaeologically based approach to typical assemblages of Spanish colonial artifacts in the Americas and the Caribbean, and describes the main issues related to their identification, interpretation, conservation, and display.
Instructor(s): F. Gaitan-Ammann Terms Offered: TBD
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 36320,LACS 26320,LACS 36320
ANTH 26325. Archaeologies of Slavery in the New World. 100 Units.
In the last few decades, the archaeology of slavery has passed from being a virtually non-existing field of inquiry to being recognized as one of the most dynamic and fastest growing areas in archaeological research. In particular, at least since the late 1960s, the study of enslaved African American communities in what came to be the United States has become one of the most visible and socially relevant avenues of research in contemporary historical archaeology. Following this essentially North American impulse, archaeologies of slavery in modern times have started to emerge throughout the Atlantic world and Latin America, inspiring richly textured narratives through which many Afro-descendant communities have had the possibility to build intimate and empowering connections with their own past. This course will look into both classic and current literature on the anthropology of slavery in order to set the basis for a critical understanding of the development of the archaeology of slavery in the New World. Students are invited to discover a wide array of case studies describing different aspects of social life in slave societies, from an initial focus on the living conditions on plantation sites to later interests in the processes of consolidation of Afro-descendant identities in Latin America. Moving beyond stereotypical discussions of dominance and resistance, this course will motivate students to read between the lines of archaeological praxis, identifying both the achievements and the current challenges faced by those investigating the problem of slavery in the recent past. Ultimately, the goal of this course is to highlight the role of archaeology as a potent instrument of remembrance of traumatic pasts: How, by whom, and for whom is the painful experience of enslavement remembered in the present?
Instructor(s): F. Gaitan-Ammann Terms Offered: TBD
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 36325,CRES 26325,LACS 26325,LACS 36325
ANTH 26505. Non-Industrial Agriculture. 100 Units.
Agriculture is, fundamentally, a human manipulation of the environment, a deliberately maintained successional state designed to serve human needs and desires. In this course, we use the history of non-industrial agriculture to think through some contemporary concerns about environmental change and the sources of our food—including topics such as genetically modified plants, fertilizers, sustainability, and invasive species. Beginning with the origins of agriculture in the early Holocene, we examine several forms of so-called "traditional" agriculture in the tropics and elsewhere, from swidden to intensive cropping. While the course is framed in terms of contemporary concerns, our focus is primarily historical and ethnographic, focusing on the experiences of agriculturalists over the last ten thousand years, including non-industrial farmers today. Students will be expected to produce and present a research paper.
Instructor(s): K. Morrison Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 46505,ENST 26505
ANTH 26710-26711. Ancient Landscapes I-II.
The landscape of the Near East contains a detailed and subtle record of environmental, social, and economic processes that have obtained over thousands of years. Landscape analysis is therefore proving to be fundamental to an understanding of the processes that underpinned the development of ancient Near Eastern society. This class provides an overview of the ancient cultural landscapes of this heartland of early civilization from the early stages of complex societies in the fifth and sixth millennia B.C. to the close of the Early Islamic period around the tenth century A.D.
ANTH 26710. Ancient Landscapes I. 100 Units.
Instructor(s): S. Branting Terms Offered: Autumn
ANTH 26711. Ancient Landscapes II. 100 Units.
Instructor(s): S. Branting Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): NEAA 20061
Equivalent Course(s): NEAA 20062,GEOG 25800
ANTH 26715. The Rise of the State in the Near East. 100 Units.
This course introduces the background and development of the first urbanized civilizations in the Near East in the period from 9000 to 2200 BC. In the first half of this course, we examine the archaeological evidence for the first domestication of plants and animals and the earliest village communities in the "fertile crescent" (i.e., the Levant, Anatolia, Mesopotamia). The second half of this course focuses on the economic and social transformations that took place during the development from simple, village-based communities to the emergence of the urbanized civilizations of the Sumerians and their neighbors in the fourth and third millennia BC.
Instructor(s): G. Stein
Prerequisite(s): Any course in archaeology or permission of instructor
Equivalent Course(s): NEAA 20030
ANTH 26830. Archaeology of Religious Experience. 100 Units.
This seminar provides a critical exploration of archaeological approaches to past religious life. Drawing on a variety of case studies spanning a broad temporal and geographic spectrum, we examine/interrogate how object worlds can help to expand our understanding of religion in prehistoric and historic societies. Firmly grounded in contemporary anthropological thinking, this course explores theoretical and methodological possibilities, challenges, and limitations arising from archaeological studies of religious experience.
Instructor(s): F. Richard Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
ANTH 26900. Archaeological Data Sets. 100 Units.
This course focuses on the methodological basis of archaeological data analysis. Its goals are twofold: (1) to provide students with an opportunity to examine research questions through the study of archaeological data; and (2) to allow students to evaluate evidential claims in light of analytical results. We consider data collection, sampling and statistical populations, exploratory data analysis, and statistical inference. Built around computer applications, the course also introduces computer analysis, data encoding, and database structure.
Instructor(s): A. Yao Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Prerequisite(s): Advanced standing and consent of instructor
ANTH 27130. America: Society, Polity, and Speech Community. 100 Units.
We explore the place of languages and of discourses about languages in the history and present condition of how American mass society stands in relation to the political structures of the North American (nation-) states and to American speech communities. We address plurilingualisms of several different origins (i.e., indigenous, immigrant) that have been incorporated into the contemporary American speech community, the social stratification of English in a regime of standardization that draws speakers up into a system of linguistic "register," and how language itself has become an issue-focus of American political struggles in the past and contemporaneously.
Instructor(s): M. Silverstein Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): LING 27130
ANTH 27135. Theories and Practices of Communicating Politically. 100 Units.
A linguistic anthropological consideration of how communication mediates political processes, with the ultimate goal of focusing reflexively on those of mass participatory democracies. Readings will range over primary materials as well as theorists of the so-called public sphere (Habermas, Warner, Fraser); ethnographic accounts of the texture of political processes (Brenneis, Caton); and rhetorical, literary, and pragmatic analyses of Western, especially Anglo-American, moments of political communication (Gustfson, Looby, Campbell and Jamieson). Of two class meetings per week, generally one will be devoted to the instructor’s exposition, the second to student presentations and discussion in seminar format. Among other things, a course research paper will be required.
Instructor(s): M. Silverstein Terms Offered: Autumn
ANTH 27300. Language Voice and Gender. 100 Units.
This course explores how we “voice” ourselves as “gendered” persons by, in essence, performing gender in discursive interaction, that is, in language-mediated and semiosis-saturated interpersonal events. The several analytic orders and interacting semiotic planes of framing gender will be emphasized, as also the inherently “dialectic” character of social categories of identity such as gender, which exist emergently as “culture” between essential[ized] individual “nature” and interested intuitions we have and formulate about the micro- and macrosocial orders in which we participate. No prior linguistics or sociocultural anthropology is presupposed, but serious attention to conceptual and theoretical issues in the sociocultural analysis of language in relation to identity will be nurtured in the course of the discussion. We start with a review of some key ideas that have shaped the recent study of language and gender, then cycle back to consider several problematic areas, and finally look at some discursively rich ethnographic treatments of gendering.
Instructor(s): M. Silverstein Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
ANTH 27305. Pornography and Language. 100 Units.
The course explores the place and role of language in pornographic films. Why does language occur in filmed pornography at all? What kind of language occurs? What role does it play? How is it gendered? How does it frame the narrative or drive it forward? How does language subvert or undermine the visual representation of sex? What does any of this tell us about gender, sexuality and erotics in non-pornographic contexts? Course readings focus on theories of pornographic representation, theories of language, gender and erotics, and methods of transcribing and analyzing dialogue. The course requires students to watch a wide range of pornography, including different varieties of straight, gay and trans porn, so anyone enrolling in the course must be interested in pornography as a social and cultural phenomenon and must also have experience watching porn and thinking about it.
Instructor(s): D. Kulick Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Upper-level undergrad course.
Note(s): Not offered 2014-15
Equivalent Course(s): LING 29405,CHDV 20405
ANTH 27400. Language/Power/Identity in South East Europe. 100 Units.
This course familiarizes students with the linguistic histories and structures that have served as bases for the formation of modern Balkan ethnic identities and that are being manipulated to shape current and future events. The course is informed by the instructor’s thirty years of linguistic research in the Balkans as well as his experience as an adviser for the United Nations Protection Forces in Former Yugoslavia and as a consultant to the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Crisis Group, and other organizations. Course content may vary in response to ongoing current events.
Instructor(s): V. Friedman Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): SLAV 23000,ANTH 37400,HUMA 27400,LING 27200,LING 37200,SLAV 33000
ANTH 27505. Professional Persuasions: The Rhetoric of Expertise in Modern Life. 100 Units.
This course dissects the linguistic forms and semiotics processes by which experts (often called professionals) persuade their clients, competitors, and the public to trust them and rely on their forms of knowledge. We consider the discursive aspects of professional training (e.g., lawyers, economists, accountants) and take a close look at how professions (e.g., social work, psychology, medicine) stage interactions with clients. We examine a central feature of modern life—the reliance on experts—by analyzing the rhetoric and linguistic form of expert knowledge.
Instructor(s): S. Gal Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): LING 27220
ANTH 27510. Language and Temporality: Ethnographies of Time. 100 Units.
How does language create our sense of time, and our conviction that there is/are pasts, presents, and futures? How are quite different forms of time (in conjunction with space) constructed by language ideologies and enacted in familiar and exotic interactional events? National time and memory, narrative time, historical time, romantic time, diagetic time, diasporic time, global time, institutional time, and many others—have all been proposed and discussed in recent ethnographies. They all require mediation by linguistic or broadly semiotic form and action. The class will start with some theoretical discussion of semiotic tools for analyzing temporality and then read a series of recent ethnographies that take up these issues in depth.
Instructor(s): S. Gal Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
ANTH 27605. Language, Culture, and Thought. 100 Units.
Survey of research on the interrelation of language, culture, and thought from the evolutionary, developmental, historical, and culture-comparative perspectives with special emphasis on the mediating methodological implications for the social sciences.
Instructor(s): J. Lucy Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Not offered 2014-15
Equivalent Course(s): CHDV 21901,ANTH 37605,CHDV 31901,PSYC 21950,PSYC 31900,LING 27700,LING 37700
ANTH 27700. Romani Language and Linguistics. 100 Units.
This is a beginning course on the language of the Roms (Gypsies) that is based on the Arli dialect currently in official use in the Republic of Macedonia, with attention also given to dialects of Europe and the United States. An introduction to Romani linguistic history is followed by an outline of Romani grammar based on Macedonian Arli, which serves as the basis of comparison with other dialects. We then read authentic texts and discuss questions of grammar, standardization, and Romani language in society.
Instructor(s): V. Friedman Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): LGLN 27800,ANTH 47900,EEUR 21000,EEUR 31000,LGLN 37800
ANTH 27705. Language and Globalization. 100 Units.
Globalization has been a buzz word in our lives over the past few decades. It is also one of those terms whose varying meanings have become more and more challenging to characterize in a uniform way. The phenomena it names have been associated with important transformations in our cultures, including the languages we speak. Distinguishing myths from facts, this course articulates the different meanings of globalization, anchors them in a long history of socioeconomic colonization, and highlights the specific ways in which the phenomena it names have affected the structures and vitalities of languages around the world. We learn about the dynamics of population contact in class and their impact on the evolution of languages.
Instructor(s): Salikoko Mufwene Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): LING 27500,ANTH 47905,CRES 27500,CRES 37500,LING 37500
ANTH 28010. Introduction to Biological Anthropology. 100 Units.
This course provides a general evolutionary framework for the 360 living and 470 fossil primate species. Applications of chromosomal studies (karyology) and biomolecular comparisons (molecular phylogenetics) are also covered. Other topics include principles of classification, principles of phylogenetic reconstruction, scaling effects of body size, primates in the context of mammal evolution, diets and dentitions, locomotor morphology and behavior, morphology and function of sense organs, evolutionary aspects of the brain, reproductive biology, and social organization. Each lecture concludes with implications for human evolution.
Instructor(s): R. Martin Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): BIOS 10110 or 10130
Equivalent Course(s): BIOS 13330
ANTH 28100. Evolution of the Hominoidea. 200 Units.
This course is a detailed consideration of the fossil record and the phylogeny of Hominidae and collateral taxa of the Hominidea that is based upon studies of casts and comparative primate osteology.
Instructor(s): R. Tuttle Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Third- or fourth-year standing and consent of instructor
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 38100,EVOL 38100,HIPS 24000
ANTH 28200. Naturalizing Disaster: Nature, Vulnerability, and Social History. 100 Units.
The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction defines disaster in three crucial terms: hazards, vulnerability, and capacity. While only the first of these can be "natural’"in the way that that term is commonly understood, catastrophic events and processes are frequently represented as exogenous, autonomous, and unpredictable elements of a bio-physical world. Beginning from the theorization of disaster as a property of nature, this seminar examines the political ecology of drought, flood, earthquake, and famine in their historical, economic, and cultural contexts, focusing on community vulnerability and capacity as outcomes of socio-natural histories and relations. Drawing on historical and contemporary case studies, we will consider a number of dimensions of the dynamic between nature, dislocation, and communities in an increasingly vulnerable world.
Instructor(s): M. Lycett and P. Drake Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 38220,ENST 26201
ANTH 28210. Colonial Ecologies. 100 Units.
This seminar explores the historical ecology of European colonial expansion in a comparative framework, concentrating on the production of periphery and the transformation of incorporated societies and environments. In the first half of the quarter, we consider the theoretical frameworks, sources of evidence, and analytical strategies employed by researchers to address the conjunction of environmental and human history in colonial contexts. During the second half of the course, we explore the uses of these varied approaches and lines of evidence in relation to specific cases and trajectories of transformation since the sixteenth century.
Instructor(s): M. Lycett, K. Morrison Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 48210,ENST 28210
ANTH 28300. Comparative Primate Morphology. 200 Units.
This course covers functional morphology of locomotor, alimentary, and reproductive systems in primates. Dissections are performed on monkeys and apes.
Instructor(s): R. Tuttle Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 38200,EVOL 38200,HIPS 23500
ANTH 28400. Bioarchaeology and the Human Skeleton. 100 Units.
This course is intended to provide students in archaeology with a thorough understanding of bioanthropological and osteological methods used in the interpretation of prehistoric societies by introducing bioanthropological methods and theory. In particular, lab instruction stresses hands-on experience in analyzing the human skeleton, whereas seminar classes integrate bioanthropological theory and application to specific cases throughout the world. Lab and seminar-format class meet weekly.
Instructor(s): M. C. Lozada Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 38800,BIOS 23247
ANTH 28420. Death, the Body, and the Ends of Life. 100 Units.
Is death a universal and natural condition? Is life necessarily its opposite? Anthropologists have sought to problematize the biological and psychological ‘reality’ of death by drawing out the conditional ways death is constructed and experienced across different cultural contexts. These range from ‘normal’ deaths to the unconventional (e.g. sorcery killings and human sacrifice) and even virtual deaths. How might these culturally specific accounts be open to comparison and influence new conceptualizations? This course will explore this wide-ranging literature to foreground how death puts self, personhood, and the social into question while engaging the body or corpse as a site of this cultural (re)production. A focus of the course is to seek out a possible productive tension between death as a form of cultural representation to those that analyze the making and allowing of life and death. Tracing classic to recent ethnographic, archaeological, psychological writings, this course will explore themes such as grief and mourning, the undead, immortality, disposals and funerals, and the materiality of dying.
Instructor(s): A. Yao Terms Offered: TBD
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 48710
ANTH 28510. Anthropology of Space/Place/Landscape. 100 Units.
Materiality has emerged as a fertile interest in anthropology and other social sciences. Within this broad conceptual umbrella, space, place, and landscape have become critical lenses for analyzing and interpreting people’s engagement with their physical surroundings. Once an inert backdrop to social life, a mere epiphenomenon, the material world is now acknowledged as a generative medium and terrain of cultural production: at once socially produced and framing sociality, shaping and constraining human possibilities, both by and against design. This course concerns itself with these articulations: (1) the spatial production of social worlds, (2) its expressions in different cultural and historical settings, and (3) its trails of ambiguous effects. Drawing on several fields, anthropology and geography chiefly, but also art history, architecture, philosophy, and social theory, we will explore how the triad of space/place/landscape works on, in, and through different social worlds and its role in the making of social experience, perception, and imagination. We will also reflect on how spatial formations frequently elude the very social projects that have birthed them. The objective of the course is to provide you with a foundation in contemporary spatial thought, which can be creatively applied to questions of spatiality in your own research setting.
Instructor(s): F. Richard Terms Offered: Spring (tentative)
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 58510
ANTH 28600. Apes and Human Evolution. 100 Units.
This course is a critical examination of the ways in which data on the behavior, morphology, and genetics of apes have been used to elucidate human evolution. We emphasize bipedalism, hunting, meat eating, tool behavior, food sharing, cognitive ability, language, self-awareness, and sociability. Visits to local zoos and museums, film screenings, and demonstrations with casts of fossils and skeletons required.
Instructor(s): R. Tuttle Terms Offered: Autumn, Spring
Note(s): BIOS 23241 recommended. Autumn course at University of Chicago Center in Paris; Spring course on campus.
Equivalent Course(s): BIOS 23253
ANTH 28702. Archaeologies of Political Life. 100 Units.
This seminar examines how archaeologists have approached political life in the past forty years. Its aim is to question the categories through which political worlds are often studied (beginning with such unwieldy terms as 'states,’ 'chiefdoms,’ ‘complexity,’ etc.) and complicate analyses of politics in the past. Rather than relying on concepts that already predetermine the outcome of political functioning, we will read key texts in anthropology and political theory (on sovereignty, domination, legitimacy, political economy, governance, ideology, hegemony, subjectivity, anarchy) to dissect the foundations and operations of power, expose its cultural logics, and explore the processes behind the categories. Some of the questions that will guide our discussions include: How do politics work in both past and present? Through what channels and modalities? With what effects (anticipated or not)? And what role does the material world play in mediating these relations? Each week will pair theoretical readings with case-studies drawn from different parts of the world and from different moments in history. Through this seminar, students will gain familiarity with classic archaeological thinking on power and critical perspectives steering contemporary studies of past politics.
Instructor(s): F. Richard Terms Offered: TBD
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 58702
ANTH 29105. Pollen Analysis. 100 Units.
Although this course is concerned with Holocene vegetation history and the impact of humans on that vegetation, concepts and lab skills presented can be applied to a variety of disciplines. Initial lab exercises prepare students for the primary focus of the course: the collection, processing, analysis, and interpretation of a pollen core from a local wetland. We take one weekend field trip to collect the core and observe local vegetation. Students then analyze and interpret pollen from the core, culminating in an in-class research symposium.
Instructor(s): K. Morrison Terms Offered: Not offered 2014-15; will be offered 2015-16
ANTH 29500. Archaeology Laboratory Practicum. 100 Units.
This hands-on lab practicum course exposes students to various stages of artifact processing on a collection from a recently excavated site (e.g., washing, sorting, flotation, identification, data entry, analysis, report preparation, curation). The primary requirement is that students commit to a minimum of nine hours of lab work per week, with tasks assigned according to immediate project needs.
Instructor(s): F. Richard, S. Dawdy Terms Offered: Various
Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor
Note(s): Undergraduates may take this course only once for credit.
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 59500
ANTH 29700. Readings in Anthropology. 100 Units.
Terms Offered: Autumn, Winter, Spring
Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor and Director of Undergraduate Studies
Note(s): Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form. At the discretion of the instructor, this course is available for either a quality grade or for P/F grading.
ANTH 29900. Preparation of Bachelor's Essay. 100 Units.
Reading and Research form required.
Terms Offered: Autumn, Winter, Spring
Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor and Director of Undergraduate Studies
Note(s): Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form. At the discretion of the instructor, this course is available for either a quality grade or for P/F grading. For honors requirements, see Honors section under Program Requirements.
ANTH 29910. Bachelor's Essay Seminar. 100 Units.
Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor and Director of Undergraduate Studies
Note(s): Open only to students currently writing BA honors papers.