Fall 2022 Class Schedule

 *Starred courses required of all majors 

 Fall quarter 2022 course descriptions.

ANTHRO  101-6-21: First-Year Seminar: Law and Disorder

Anthropologists are committed to understanding other cultures in their own terms. One way of developing such an understanding is to read works that they have written or recited. This class will focus on two such works from cultures as different from each other as they are from ourselves. Njal's Saga is a medieval Icelandic story of a series of revenge killings that spins further and further out of control. Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee is a fictional account of how a real 8th century magistrate solves three mysterious Through each of these books, we will explore the different ways in which cultures understand and implement law and lawlessness, justice and injustice, loyalty and treachery.

ANTHRO  101-6-22: First-Year Seminar: Biological Thought and Action

Science is a process by which people make sense of the world. Scientists examine evidence from the past, work to understand the present, and make predictions about the future. Integral to this process are the methods they use to collect and analyze data, as well as the ways in which scientists work together as a community to interpret evidence and draw conclusions. In this class, we will take a multidisciplinary approach to examining biological thought and action and their social ramifications. We will seek to understand science as a social pursuit: the work of human beings with individual, disciplinary, and cultural differences, and requiring tremendous investments in training and equipment. Does it matter that participation in science is more accessible to some than to others? How do biases, assumptions, uncertainty, and error manifest in scientific work? What is the history of scientific values such as objectivity and reproducibility? The course will conclude by investigating current topics of public debate

ANTHRO  101-6-24: First-Year Seminar: Why Cities?: An archaeology of cities throughout human history

 In 2005, leaders from around the globe met to discuss how, for the first time in human history, over half of the world’s population lives in cities (Crane and Kinzig 2005). In this class, we will explore what it is that cities offer their residents, from their origins over 6,000 years ago, to some of their historic and contemporary formulations. We will pay particular attention to recent claims, (see United Nations 2019 World Urbanization Prospectus) that if cities are to be successful over the long-term, they must be safe, inclusive, and equitable. Here, we will take up an archaeological and historical perspective on cities to assess what exactly draws diverse groups of people to settle and stay in the same place. For example, the covid-19 pandemic has taught us that cities are not the bastions of inclusivity we may want them to be, and that inequalities can be dramatically intensified during periods of societal stress, yet urban populations continue to grow. Students will read an interdisciplinary collection (Anthropology; Archaeology; Geography; History; International Studies) of scholarship that considers the relationships between people and urban environments and how they vary cross-culturally. Together, we will examine how residents of cities throughout human history have negotiated urban life and the conditions that encourage or discourage urbanism over the long-term. By the end of the term, students will develop critical thinking skills, learn how to investigate urbanism from multiple scales, and communicate their insights via written and oral homework assignments.

ANTHRO  214-0-1: Archaeology: Unearthing History

This course is an introduction to the anthropological subfield of archaeology, its theories and methods, and the political and social issues that arise when we study human pasts. In this course, we look at the history of the discipline and its theoretical underpinnings, as well as methodological topics including how archaeologists create research designs, discover and excavate sites, and analyze artifacts and features. We will also explore how archaeology confronts and deals with contemporary issues critical to the archaeological project and the communities that archaeologists engage with: e.g. heritage preservation and Indigenous/community rights, Black lives and Black histories, environmental degradation and sustainability, feminist archaeology and gender equality. Throughout the course, students will learn about archaeological case studies from around the globe and from a variety of historical periods.

ANTHRO  215-0-20: The Study of Culture through Language

This course offers an introduction to the foundational relationship between language and culture by examining anthropological approaches to how language reflects and transforms our ideas about the world and the people living in it. Language enables us to establish relationships with institutions, ideologies, and other human beings. We will discuss general processes of linguistic interaction in first few weeks, then turn to topics in linguistic anthropology to see if we can detect the operation of these processes in action. Case studies will illustrate how language is put to work in specific contexts students might experience on a daily basis, including listening to music, tweeting, and attending class.

ANTHRO  309-0-20: Human Osteology 

Knowledge of human osteology forms the basis of physical and forensic anthropology, bio-archaeology, paleoanthropology and clinical anatomy. This course will provide an intensive introduction to the human skeleton; particularly the identification of complete and fragmentary skeletal remains. Through this course, you will be exposed to techniques for identification and classification of human skeletal anatomy through hands-on, dry laboratory sessions. Additional time outside of class is available and may be required to review practical materials.

ANTHRO  316-0-20: Forensic Anthropology 

This course provides a broad overview of forensic anthropology - an applied sub-field of biological anthropology. Forensic anthropology focuses traditional skeletal biology on problems of medicolegal significance, primarily in determining personal identity and assisting in the cause of death assessment from human remains. In this course we will discuss the full range of issues associated with human skeletal identification from trauma analysis to the identification of individuals in mass disasters. These problems will serve as a model for understanding the broader aspects of applied anthropology.

ANTHRO  322-0-20: Introduction to Archaeology Research Design and Methods 

This class is fundamentally about how we do archaeology: how to design an archaeological research project.  We will examine the main methods in every archaeologists’ took kit: archaeological survey, excavation, and materials analysis.  Over the course of the quarter, we will take what interests you about archaeology and turn that in to a design for an archaeological research project.  We will learn how to frame archaeological questions in terms of intellectual merit (the potential to advance knowledge) and broader impacts (the potential to benefit society).  The main goal of the course is to design an archaeological research project.  We will achieve this goal across the quarter through writing a proposal to conduct an archaeological research project designed by the student.  We will review successful proposals by archaeologists to decipher how researchers link theory, data, methods, and analysis in their archaeological research design and use these as templates for our own project designs. Upon completion of the course students should be comfortable with designing archaeological research and writing research proposals to get funding for their project, important skills to know whether you plan to continue in archaeology and academia, or not.

ANTHRO 328-0-20:  The Maya

What do we know today about the ancient Maya who inhabited the Yucatan Peninsula in Central America before the 16th century? In this course you will get a general understanding of ancient Maya civilization and the ways archaeologists, linguists, historians, and indigenous communities have examined the Maya past. Through weekly readings and discussions, we will focus on material remains -including temples, carved monuments, exotic items, and farmers’ houses and tools- to learn about ancient Maya lives. Major themes will include ancient Maya cosmology, literature, cities, resilience, and sustainability. This course is an introductory-level seminar and requires no prior knowledge about the Maya history, archaeology, or the Yucatan Peninsula. By the end of the course, you will be familiar with the major developments, key players, and ongoing issues in Maya archaeology.

ANTHRO  339-0-20: Material Culture 

How do objects mediate social relationships? Can inanimate objects have a form of agency on their own? In the past few decades, archaeologists, anthropologists, art historians, philosophers, Indigenous intellectuals, among other academics, have been exploring answers to these and other questions in an emerging field known as material culture studies. In this course, we will read and discuss some of the foundational works in the interdisciplinary endeavor to study materiality. We will learn about indigenous perspectives on materiality. This course will offer you an understanding of material culture that is more receptive to multiple voices. Some of the themes we will discuss in this course include “things” as objects and subjects, gifts and commodities, art and artifacts, and object biographies.

ANTHRO  382-0-20: Topics In Anthropology: Political Ecology

This class is an introduction to Political Ecology, a multidisciplinary body of theory and research that analyzes the environmental articulations of political, economic, and social difference and inequality. The key concepts, debates, and approaches in this field address two main questions: (1) How do humans' interactions with the environment shape power and politics? (2) How do power and politics shape humans' interactions with the environment? These questions are critical to understanding and addressing the current issues of climate change, the Anthropocene, and environmental justice. Topics discussed in this class will include environmental scarcity and degradation, sustainability and conservation, and environmental justice. Readings will come from the disciplines of geography, anthropology and archaeology. Case studies will range from the historical to the present-day. No prior background in the environmental sciences is needed to appreciate and engage in this course.

ANTHRO  384-0-2: Traveling While Muslim: Islam, Mobility and Security after 9/11

Particularly after the 9/11 attacks and during the war on terror that has ensued shortly thereafter, Muslim on the move—ranging from international students, pilgrims to scientists, athletes and artists—have continued to face increasingly scrutiny and surveillance in both global travel economies and national immigration regimes. These regimes gained even more significance under the rule of authoritarian leaders in power across the globe from the US to India. What often united Modi's India and Trump's United States is Islamophobia—albeit in different guises—as racialization of Islam and Muslims continues to punctuate our current era. What are the stakes of traveling while Muslim in that post 9/11 era of racing Islam? How do we come to understand such mobility? What assumptions underpin the attendant construction of Islam in such understandings, as various state and non-state actors enlist themselves to manage the movements of Muslims, specifically and exceptionally? In probing these questions, amongst others, in this seminar we examine the interlocked relationship between Islam, mobility and security. We have three aims in front us: (1) becoming exposed to studies of Islam and Islamophobia in the US and across the globe, (2) gaining a better understanding of Islam as a historical tenet in a deeply uneven and racialized regime of ‘global' mobility, and lastly, (3) critically analyzing global and local designs of security that underpin and manage those differential regimes of mobility.

ANTHRO  390-0-21: Topics In Anthropology: South Asian American Cultures 
(ASAM 303)

South Asian American cultures will introduce students to the social and linguistic lives of migrants from the Indian subcontinent to the US. Focusing on post-1965 communities, we will examine what it means to be South Asian American from the perspective of race, caste, class, religion, gender, and nationality. Areas of focus include: politics of space and place; cultural production and appropriation; language use and expressive culture; politics and the War on Terror; and solidarities against marginalization and oppression.

ANTHRO  390-0-22: Topics In Anthropology: Biocultural Perspectives on Water Insecurity

The first objective of this course is to introduce students to the many ways that water impacts humans around the world. We will discuss what the international recommendations for safely managed water are and the health and social consequences of water insecurity. The second objective is to explore why there is such variety in water insecurity worldwide. Influences on access to water will be broadly considered; we will draw on literature in global health, ethnography, the life sciences, and public policy. These discussions will be guided by the socio-ecological framework, in which dimensions ranging from the individual to the geopolitical are considered. The third objective is to develop critical thinking and writing abilities to reflect on the multi-dimensional causes and consequences of water insecurity and the appropriateness of potential solutions. This will be accomplished through readings and documentaries that we have lovingly selected, writing weekly reflection pieces, preparing a short in-class presentation on recent media, and writing an OpEd.

ANTHRO  390-0-23: Topics In Anthropology: Omics Methods in Anthropology

As research becomes more interdisciplinary, anthropologists are increasingly using ‘omics techniques in their studies. This course will provide hands-on practice with laboratory and data analysis techniques common to ‘omics-based studies in anthropology. Students will be evaluated on participation and the completion of a final report detailing their use of one of the methods highlighted in class.

ANTHRO  390-0-26: Topics In Anthropology: Witches, Bots, and Trolls: Misinformation in Society (also GNDR_ST 390-0-20)

This course surveys the social scientific study of misinformation in society. We will query the past to learn about how misinformation has evolved over time as a sociocultural feature of human societies. We will interrogate the present to examine how misinformation figures in the defining political, social, and economic problems of our time. And we will imagine the implications of misinformation for the future and explore our agency in shaping that future. We will draw on case studies, documentaries, and anthropological and social scientific literature on rumor and gossip, conspiracy theories, post-truth politics, deradicalization, and social media to explore topics and concepts such as "fake news," digital populism, algorithmic bias, weaponized disinformation, the "infodemic," deep fakes, and more. Case studies may include COVID-19 and climate change denialism, political conspiracy theories from the French Revolution to the Red Scare to Pizzagate, troll farms and other tactics of information warfare, and the role of misinformation in current controversies over "gender ideology," trans rights, and critical race theory.

ANTHRO 401-2-1: Logic of Inquiry in Anthropology (Archy) 

In this course students will examine the logic of inquiry in archaeology: the theories, methods, major epistemologies, and philosophies of archaeology. We will address two fundamental questions: Why is important to study the past? What is the role of the past in the present? Understanding our history and our heritage is crucial for the world today and key to understanding past ways of life. The course frames archaeology within anthropology and the humanities and sciences more broadly and examines the role of anthropology, humanities, and science within the discipline of archaeology. It addresses contemporary archaeological research and its promise for the future.
Archaeology is the study of the human past through its material remains. A central focus of the course is on materiality as an archaeological method and a method that can be applied broadly within anthropology. Archaeology is a team-based, participatory discipline, a methodology of practice that has important implications for how archaeologists can work in partnership with local communities and address contemporary issues. Ethical, contemporary, and practice-based discussions will interweave across the course. In this course students will develop an original research project that applies archaeological approaches to material culture in their own research.

ANTHRO  470-0-20: History of Anthropological Theory 

This course will attempt the impossible--to survey the development of anthropological theory in a single quarter. Needless to say, it will not and cannot be exhaustive. Instead, it will focus on the careful scrutiny of a few primary sources by prominent individuals who have contributed to the development of the discipline, but who will also be taken as "representative" of various historical trends. The first part of the course will rapidly outline the prehistory of the discipline and focus more extensively on the notion of evolution central to 19th century social theory. The second part of the course will deal with the individual contributions of three "founding fathers": Marx, Durkheim and Weber. The final part of the course will cover a few of the numerous trends of 20th century cultural anthropology.

ANTHRO  484-0-20: Seminar in Linguistic Anthropology: Languare and Media 

This course explores the relationship between linguistic and semiotic communication and forms of media. While all communication is mediated, this course will focus in particular on how this occurs through broadcast media (radio, television, print), film, social media, and digital communication. Topics include advertising and branding; critical discourse analysis; digitally mediated communication; indigenous language media; genre and intertextuality; media ideologies; message and reception theory; style and stylization; and subtitling and dubbing. Assignments include presentations, response papers, a seminar paper prospectus, and a seminar paper.

ANTHRO  486-0-20: Evolution and Biological Anthropology

This graduate-level seminar is designed for students interested in the historical development of evolutionary theory and current debates within the field. We will begin with a brief survey of the intellectual precursors to Darwin, the legacy of Darwin and Wallace, and the intellectual threads that coalesced in the Modern Synthesis. We will then trace subsequent controversies within evolutionary biology, with a prominent focus on the role of developmental biology, plasticity and behavior as forces of evolutionary change. Controversies in the study of human evolution and the origins of modern human diversity will be used as lenses to explore these evolutionary themes. This will be a reading intensive course.

 ANTHRO 496-0-20 Bridging Seminar 

 The bridging seminar is designed as a forum to generate conversation across anthropology's four subfields. Intended for first year anthropology PhD students, the bridging seminar covers material across the subfields that relates to a specific theme or set of themes that rotates every year. Students are expected to complete readings, attend department colloquium talks, and be an active discussant. This year, we will focus on a mix of external speakers and readings on the hottest topics in linguistic, sociocultural, biological, and archaeological anthropology, including the impact of COVID-19 on anthropological research.