ANTH 0001. Anthropology of Stuff.

Our lives are surrounded by objects we make, gift, sell and buy. What can these objects tell us about who we are as humans? This course will introduce students to material anthropology, exploring what objects can tell us about culture, society and experience. We will talk about gifts, commodities, counterfeits, and copyrights. Students will learn how people make objects, how objects make people, and how the circulation of objects has connected people historically and in the present. Students will also have the opportunity to learn some ethnographic methods to talk about the meaning of objects in the world around them.

ANTH 0066A. Politics of Race and Culture.

Addressing the subjects of race, culture and ethnicity, focusing on minority groups in the U.S. Seeks to clarify the philosophical and theoretical issues in contemporary America using a cross-disciplinary approach.

ANTH 0066B. Mythscapes.

An experimental seminar that will combine classroom discussion with visits to field sites within walking distance of the Brown campus. The aim will be to acquaint students with some fundamentals of symbolic analysis and to apply these fundamentals to interpreting the moral and historical messages suffused in the landscapes around us. Readings will include sources on the anthropological interpretation of myth combined with historical sources on Brown and its neighboring communities and institutions. Students will acquire a deeper sense of the mythic qualities of this place and some analytical tools for understanding mythscapes elsewhere. Enrollment limited to 19 first year students.

ANTH 0066C. Population and Culture.

This seminar for first year students examines the relationship between individuals and population and the impact of culture on population. How do the lives and actions of individuals cumulate to the characteristics of a population? How do the characteristics of a population affect the lives of the people in it? For first year students only.

ANTH 0066D. Who Owns the Past?.

Examines the role of the past in the present. Using examples from the U.S. and other parts of the world, we will look at how archaeological evidence is implicated in contemporary cultural and political issues. Students will learn that the past is not just the focus of archaeologists’ interest and scientific inquiries, but is also a subject romanticized by antiquarians, mobilized in nation-building, marketed for profit, re-enacted as entertainment, consumed by tourists, and glorified in commemoration. Understanding these different and competing valuations, claims, and uses of the archaeological past will provide an introduction to why the past matters in the present and to the future. Enrollment limited to 19 first year students.

ANTH 0066E. Colonial Cities.

This course attempts to understand the nature of colonialism in Africa and India. Comparative methodological approach to the study of colonial cities introduces the students to a multiple and interlocking idea and symbols used by colonial power to create in their images, cities which reflect their own image. For first year students only.

ANTH 0066F. Families and Households.

This course explores the diversity of families and households, both between cultures and within cultures; changes in family forms over time, changing experiences of family over the life course, the diverse meanings, metaphors, and values of "family"; and current controversies about what families are and what they should be. Enrollment limited to 19 first year students. Instructor permission required.

ANTH 0066G. Explorers and Cultural Encounters.

Looks at famous land and sea expeditions, including Marco Polo, Cheng Ho, James Cook, Samuel Hearne, Elisha Kane, Ernest Shackleton and others. Whether the voyage was inspired by a specific intellectual inquiry, mapping, exploration of a new land, establishing a new trade route, friendly alliance, or a colonial expansion, these expeditions changed the views people had about the world, peoples, and places.

ANTH 0066I. Human Trafficking.

We will retrace the development and impact of the 2000 UN Protocal to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Human Trafficking, especially women and children. This set of norms was created as a supplement to the UN Convention against International Organized Crime. This course will deal with the protocol as both a legal as a living document, with a history and ongoing political relevance.

ANTH 0066J. So You Want to Change the World?.

Examines from an anthropological perspective efforts to address global poverty that are typically labeled as "development." The enterprise of development is considered critically, both with regard to the intentions and purposes that underlie the actions of wealthy countries, donor organizations, and expatriate development workers and with regard to the outcomes for the people who are the intended beneficiaries. Privileging the prespectives of ordinary people in developing countries, but also looking carefully at the institutions involved in development, the course relies heavily on ethnographic case studies that will draw students into the complexity of one of the greatest contemporary global problems: social inequality. Enrollment limited to 19 first year students.

ANTH 0066K. International Perspectives of Women's Agency and Society.

This course is designed to address the postcolonial identities and the cross cultural issues of women through anthropology and women's writings. Identifying select cases from Africa and Asia. We will analyze the cross-cultural issues and meaning of gender, the cultural construction of gender, the significant ideology that defines the paradigm through which we come to understand a woman's domain, agency and empowerment, and the modes of behavior in the spheres of everyday life. S/NC only. Reserved for First Year students. Enrollment limited to 19.

ANTH 0066L. Beyond World Music: Singing and Language.

An introduction to music and language in cultural context. Drawing on case studies from around the world, we consider how music and language are intimately connected. Topics covered include cannibals' singing in colonial Brazil, music and electoral politics in Texas, working class culture and country music, singing and society in the Amazon, whistle speech and songwriting in indigenous Mexico, Apache identity and popular music, modernity and classical Indian music, music and mass advertising in the United States, and the politics of Zulu music production in South Africa. Reserved for First Year students. Enrollment limited to 19.

ANTH 0066M. Holy Wars.

No description available.

ANTH 0066N. Peoples and Cultures of Greater Mexico.

This course will focus on the cultural area known as Greater Mexico, incorporating Mexicans resident south of the Rio Grande, as well as the approximately 25 million Mexicans living permanently or for at a time in the United States. Specific topics to be covered in the class include: urban peasants and rural proletarians, recent challenges to gender conventions, national and international migration, nationalism and the changing meanings of the Conquest and colonial periods, land and indigenous rights, everday violence, machismo, popular culture, and protest and rebellion. Limited to first-year students.

ANTH 0066O. How to do Things With Gifts: Charity, Corruption and Friendship Across Cultures.

In all human societies, people exchange goods and services, From Adam Smith onwards, economists have emphasized the central importance of the "free" market, where self-interested individuals strike bargains, and simultaneously expand humanity's "common stock." Yet costly practices-expensive weddings, charitable donations, corporate hospitality-still flourish, which appear designed to build human relationships rather than generate hard profits. And in today's global economy, personal gifts remain an essential part of doing business in places like China, Japan, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia. Where mainstream economistic analysis sees inefficiency or corruption, this course explores classic and contemporary alternative understandings of gift-giving's cultural significance.

ANTH 0066P. Transnational Lives: Anthropology of Migration and Mobilities.

In an era characterized by globalization, by the increasing and rapid flows of ideologies, information, money, goods, and people across national borders, how do individuals, families, and communities grapple with the new forms of existence brought forth by migration? This course will go beyond macro-economic explanations of why migration happens to explore what migration does: the effects of mobility on a range of practices that include parenting, health, gender roles, marriage, politics, and anthropological research itself. Enrollment limited to 19 first year students.

ANTH 0066Q. Crisis of Identities in the Global Order.

The seminar is intended to engage first-year students in discussion and analysis of one of the perplexing questions of the modern age. Why, with globalization and an attendant world-view shaped by the technological revolutions of communication that appeal to commonalities, we find more emphasis on local differences, more conflicts related to identities determined by opposition to "the other"? A concordant question will be: how do different disciplines address the concept of identity? Enrollment limited to 19 first year students.

ANTH 0066R. Child and Youth Cultures.

This first year seminar addresses childhood from two linked but distinctive theoretical perspectives. First, what is childhood? Rather than assuming it is a universal category, we will explore how childhood has been constructed differently through history and across cultures, in opposition to infancy, youth, and adulthood. Second, who are children? In contrast to conventional representations of young people as passive objects of socialization, we will review anthropological conceptions of children and youth as social actors with respect to identity formation, cultural expression, and political economy. Enrollment limited to 19 first year students.

ANTH 0066S. Contemporary Egypt in Revolution.

On January 25, 2011 protestors in Egypt amassed in Tahrir Square in Cairo with basic demands: Bread, Freedom, Social Equality, and Human Dignity. After hundreds of peaceful protestors were killed at the hands of riot police and hired thugs, eighteen days later, President Husni Mubarak resigned. Yet since then, hundreds more have been killed, Egypt's revolution continues, and the basic demands are as crucial today as they were at its inception. We will read contemporary Egypt from the perspectives of anthropologists and social historians, and discuss the value of social theory and analysis for understanding current political turmoil. Enrollment limited to 19 first year students. S/NC

ANTH 0066T. Postcolonial Matters: Material Culture between Colonialism and Globalization.

This course is about things - 'stuff' - as it is about people past and present and their entanglements in and through colonial situations. It explores colonialism past and present through the combined lenses of postcolonial theory and material culture - the emphasis is thus not so much on literary and figurative representations of colonial conflicts and engagements but rather on the material surroundings of people living those colonial worlds. In other words, this course is about what people did and about the things they used to construct their daily lives in colonial situations across the globe and through time. Enrollment limited to 19 first year students.

ANTH 0066U. An Archaeology of Native American Art.

This seminar is an introduction to the art and material culture of the indigenous peoples of North America. The regional coverage includes the continental United States and Canada, focusing on the peoples of Northeast, Midwest, Southwest, Plains, Pacific Northwest, and the Arctic and Subarctic. Topics addressed include art and artifact, function and symbol, innovation and tradition, and museums and representational practices, ethics and repatriation. Special attention will be given to the changing relations between museums and contemporary Native peoples. The seminar will make extensive use of the archaeological and ethnographic collections of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology.

ANTH 0066V. The Anthropology of Children and Childhood.

This first year seminar explores childhood and children from an anthropological perspective. First, we will examine the concept of childhood both historically and cross-culturally. Second, we look at the development pathways that cultural communities provide for the children. These pathways are shaped by cultural ecology and history and by the goals of parents, communities and children themselves. Finally, we will review anthropological conceptions of children as social actors who shape their cultures and lives.

ANTH 0066X. Politics and Symbols.

It is impossible to understand politics without grasping the key role played by symbols, myth, and ritual. This first-year seminar examines how political actors manipulate symbols and how they devise and utilize myths and rituals to win support. Through such symbolic activities, political reality is created, and political groups and identities formed. We look at examples throughout the world and throughout history, but pay special attention to the powerful symbols, myths, and rites employed in U.S. political life, from Make America Great Again to Black Lives Matter.

ANTH 0066Z. Many Faces of Culture, Contemporary Meanings and Uses.

Focusing on a key anthropological understanding, the meaning of culture, we will proceed to critically explore the multifarious uses of this concept throughout the seminar. Examining the indiscriminate uses of the concept of culture across disciplines we will endeavor to concentrate on its multiple meanings exclusive to and beyond anthropological discourse.
In our effort to analyze how the idea and meaning of culture have been appropriated by other disciplines, we will probe issues of gender and identity, philosophy, literature, politics, race, and ethnicity as well as politics and representation. These are a few of the suggested themes /topics that we will attempt to cover during the semester. Our task is to comprehend the changing meaning of culture, a cornerstone of anthropology, within and outside our discipline. How central is the idea of culture today to our discipline?

ANTH 0077N. The Anthropology of Gender and Science.

This seminar examines topics including genetics, reproduction, and evolution, all through the lens of gender/sex systems. The themes of social justice, identity, and difference are central to the course. We will explore: How epidemiology and engendered social justice are often in conflict in the fight against AIDS in Africa; to learn about difference, anthropomorphism, gender, and primatologists’ comparisons between humans, bonobos, and chimpanzees; efforts to scare men in the United States about "Low Testosterone," and how they reflect shifting identities as much as reduced hormone levels; and the relationship between gender, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Western Biomedicine in China.

ANTH 0100. Introduction to Cultural Anthropology.

This course provides an introduction to cultural anthropology, surveying its defining questions, methods, and findings. We will examine the history and utility of anthropology's hallmark method, ethnography, the long-term immersion of the researcher in the culture under study. We will compare cultural anthropology's findings and comportment in other cultures to its conclusions and conduct in our own. No prerequisites.

ANTH 0110. Anthropology and Global Social Problems: Environment, Development, and Governance.

This course offers students an opportunity to examine and analyze a range of contemporary global social problems from an anthropological perspective. We will explore human-environment entanglements with particular attention to intersecting issues of capitalism, international development, and state and non-state governance. Course materials will look at various kinds of work in, on, and with the environment, asking questions about the possibilities of over-working our landscapes, while addressing the potentials for social and environment justice and sustainability.

ANTH 0112. Anthropology for Global Leaders.

This course makes the case that global leaders have much to gain from anthropology, the study of human diversity across geographic and historical contexts. Readings and lectures will introduce students to anthropological thinking about significant global challenges - namely climate change, the internet, and international migration. We will discuss appropriate methods of translating academic knowledge into policy and action. The course will also use anthropological literature to explore what constitutes effective and ethical leadership in a global context. Assignments will encourage students to develop and practice their own leadership skills, including skills of analysis, communication, and group organization.

ANTH 0125. Violence and the State.

This course allows students the opportunity to interrogate the relation between violence and the state. Students will be introduced to a variety of analytical frames through which to understand both the concept of violence and that of the state from an anthropological perspective. Through diverse case studies we will consider topics such as what it means to see and be seen by the state, the rationalization of "exceptional" violence, and domination through symbolic violence. The course has no prerequisites, but a foundational course in the social sciences is recommended.

ANTH 0130. Myths Alive.

Myth is an important part of the architecture that sustains human culture and society. This course begins w/an account of the principal theoretical positions that've shaped anthropological understandings of myth as a living and guiding force in human communities in ancient times and in the present day. We'll examine the expressions of myth in senses of place, social harmony, inequality, conflict, religious experience, and radical social change in a wide variety of historical and ethnographic settings. We'll draw upon objects from Brown's Haffenreffer Museum to recognize them as materialized representations from mythical worlds.

ANTH 0200. Culture and Human Behavior.

The goal is to challenge our beliefs about some taken for granted assumptions about human behavior and psyche by examining cultures with different conceptions of self and cognition. We will examine the issues of the role of nature and nurture in development, the nature of intelligence, coming of age, the association of psychological characteristics with gender and the naturalness of emotions.

ANTH 0205. Racial Politics of Culture: Race and Indigeneity in Anthropology.

Taking its title from Lee D. Baker's Anthropology and the Racial Politics of Culture, this course aims to understand anthropological approaches to race and indigeneity. We'll focus on ethnographic work from a range of ethnographic contexts in order to consider the complexities of race and indigeneity as both analytical concepts and ethnographic facts. We will consider how race and indigeneity are situated in the anthropological project. We will look at such issues as race and science, colonialism, race and culture, structural racism, ethnicity, and whiteness.

ANTH 0249. Re-Learning Native America: Popular Imagination Versus Diverse Realities.

Native American individuals are often consigned to the extinct past, portrayed as existing in peace with nature, or used to promote Halloween trends. But, what do we actually know about the 573 Native communities in the US? This anthropology course uses linguistics, culture, archaeology, and biology to explore myths of Native America in popular culture by comparing fantasy to contemporary experiences. Consisting of Indigenous authors, our syllabus challenges historical representations related to Native America by engaging with subversive literature and radical thinkers. Field trips and guest speakers assist us in understanding how tribes define the meaning of “NDN” in modern America.

ANTH 0250. Gold: The Culture of a “Barbarous Relic”.

An object of obsession for millennia, gold has recently witnessed a polarizing cultural politics. In congressional testimony former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke labeled it a “barbarous relic.” Meanwhile a growing minority clamor for a return to the gold standard. Whether among medieval alchemists or modern financial wizards, whether in the eyes of Egyptian Pharaohs or Indian peasants, gold’s special qualities have shaped cultural practice. This course explores the shiny yellow metal’s cultural history, from its emergence as an object of desire, to the contemporary rejection of its role as the store of wealth resulting in its demotion to just another commodity.

ANTH 0300. Culture and Health.

An introduction to the field of Medical Anthropology. Lecture reading and discussion will examine the social context of health and illness, looking at the diverse ways in which humans use cultural resources to cope with disease and develop medical systems. The course will provide an introduction to the overall theoretical frameworks that guide anthropological approaches to studying human health related behavior. Medical anthropology offers a unique and revealing perspective on the cultural diversity that characterizes human experiences of sexuality, disease, aging, mental illness, disability, inequality and death.

ANTH 0301. Gender and Politics.

This course focuses on ideologies of gender and sexuality cross-culturally and how they influence peoples' involvement in political processes. We begin with a broad working definition of politics-power dynamics and arrangements whereby groups are affected by one another. The course looks at the circumstances under which peoples' gender and sexual identities are mobilized into social movements, and the conditions and social consequences of public visibility. Our broader aim is to understand ways in which gendered inequalities produce--and are produced by--forms of political exclusion, as well as innovative ways in which people transform existing structures of power.

ANTH 0302. Anthropology of Gender and Globalization.

We live in a global world in which the movements of people, goods, and ideas cause productive frictions, transforming the prevailing formations of gender and sexuality. This course examines the intersections of gender and globalization by looking at how globalization shapes cultural constructions and political configurations of gender, and exploring how an ethnographic focus on gender sheds light on various aspects of globalization. Topics covered include anthropological theory of gender and sexuality, gender and global capital, gender and the (colonial) state, and gender and global politics (including gender activism, human rights, and development). Open to undergraduates only.

ANTH 0303. Whiteness in the World (SOC 0300W).

Interested students must register for SOC 0300W.

ANTH 0310. Human Evolution.

Examination of theory and evidence on human evolution in the past, present and future. Topics include evolution and adaptation, biocultural adaptation, fossil evidence, behavioral evolution in primates, human genetic variation and contemporary human biological variation.

ANTH 0315. Intl Migration (SOC 0315).

Interested students must register for SOC 0315.

ANTH 0350. Suffering and Compassion.

One might say that to be human is to suffer, but what is suffering? Is it to be avoided or embraced? To what ends? The answers to these questions are not just personal or psychological. Rather, they are deeply sociocultural and historical. Orientations toward suffering shape major aspects of life, such as religion, politics, humanitarianism, and medicine. This course explores different ways that society and culture create suffering, and ways that suffering shapes society and culture. This happens not just in suffering itself but also in ways that people try to overcome suffering. Therefore, we also consider the relationship of compassion, empathy and sympathy, and other forms of care to suffering, always paying close attention to questions of the unequal distributions of both suffering and compassion to different groups of people.

ANTH 0400. Growing Up Ethnic and Multicultural.

Explores the complex issues of growing up as an ethnic, bicultural, or a multicultural person and how these dual or multiple identities affect or interact with individual behavior, priorities, the sense of self, and how individual identity is formulated and defined. Cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approaches combining anthropology, comparative human development, interethnic communication, life history, and literary works are used. Instructor permission required.

ANTH 0450. Inequality, Sustainability, and Mobility in a Car-Clogged World.

The global car population is predicted to reach two billion by the year 2020. The social, political, health, and environmental consequences are immense. These, as well as the cultural and political economic explanations for the car population explosion, will be explored in this class, as will alternative futures for transit.

ANTH 0500. Past Forward: Discovering Anthropological Archaeology.

This course offers a broad journey through the human past, from material culture crafted by our evolutionary ancestors to the remnants of the recent historic past. To facilitate this journey, the class explores the methods, concepts, and theories that anthropologists employ in the study of past peoples, places, and things. Case studies stretch across the globe. As a hands-on endeavor, archaeology focuses on tangible evidence. In this course, small-group discussion, laboratory, and field exercises will complement lectures, leading to an understanding of how anthropologists study the past and how that knowledge affects the present.

ANTH 0510. Who Owns the Past?.

This class examines the relationship between the Western world and African indigenous cultures, heritage, and ideas of the past. By looking at the history of science in reference to the treatment of Africans and African material culture, we will question who owns the rights to an indigenous past.

ANTH 0515. Pirates! Archaeologies of Piracy in the Atlantic World.

The figure of the pirate is an all-time favorite in Western imagination. It has inspired some of the most popular narratives of the past, solidly grounded in classic literature and contemporary visual culture. Focusing on the mid-17th century, the golden age of piracy in the Atlantic World, this course will use historical and archaeological date to investigate the way in which the image of the pirate has been constructed in the West, as an embodiment of cultural, legal, moral and sexual transgression, and as an object of both fascination and fear which is still current in the contemporary, global world.

ANTH 0530. Archaeology of Psychoactive Substances.

This course examines the varying roles of psychoactive substances and altered states of consciousness in both past and present cultural practice. Together, we will critically engage with current archaeological and anthropological research to gain an understanding of how psychoactive substance production and consumption has operated within a myriad of social, ideational, religious, medical, and recreational contexts. Class discussions will cover a diverse range of topics including the use of psychoactive substances in ritual practices; power relations and control over production, distribution, and use; the practical, quotidian applications of psychoactive plants; medicinal applications; and the use of psychoactive substances in social settings. Class discussions will also draw connections to important current issues and topics including addiction & the opioid crisis, recent medical studies & research findings, prohibition & controlled substance classifications, and global legalization movements.

ANTH 0600. Of Beauty and Violence.

What is the place of beauty in human experience and how does it find articulation in words? Using an interdisciplinary approach, this course explores the unexpected expressions and uses of beauty in a variety of social and ethnographic contexts marked by violence. We trace the potential of beauty to act at times as a counterweight to violence, sociopolitical crises, and marginalization, but also how it may be used to deepen already existing power structures. This is a writing-intensive course aimed at developing students’ ethnographic writing skills. No prerequisites.

ANTH 0680. Anthropology of Food.

An exploration of the human experience of food and nutrition from evolutionary, archaeological, and cross-cultural perspectives. The course will review the various approaches employed by anthropologists and archaeologists to understand diet and subsistence in the past and present. Starting with the evolutionary roots of the human diet in Plio-Pleistocene Africa, we will trace patterns of human subsistence to the present, including the social and health implications of the agricultural revolution. We will then explore modern foodways in cross-cultural perspective, focusing on the interplay of ecology, politics, technology, and cultural beliefs.

ANTH 0700. Introduction to Modern South Asia.

Students will be introduced to the social, political, cultural, and religious lives of people from the region known as ‘South Asia’. Course lectures and materials will draw from a broad range of material covering Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. This course is designed to get students to think broadly about themes related to social inclusion, state formation, discrimination, ethnic and social conflict, identity politics, and a host of other issues that have defined the region. This course will help students think about how themes, conversations, and course material can connect to their own research interests.

ANTH 0800. Sound and Symbols: Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology.

This introduction to the study of language and culture considers how language not only reflects social reality but also creates it. We'll examine specific cases of broad current relevance, in the process learning how an analytical anthropological approach to language use lays bare its often hidden power. We'll consider how language creates and reinforces social inequality and difference, how language promotes and resists globalization, and how language is used creatively in performance, literature, film, advertising, and mass media. We will also consider how language does important social work in specific contexts, such as classrooms, courtrooms, medical settings, and political campaigns.

ANTH 0805. Language and Migration.

This course is part of the Engaged Scholars Program and explores the interconnections between language and migration. We will examine talk about migration – in the form of immigration policy and media representations – as well as talk in contexts of migration including experiences such as border crossing, settlement, and schooling. Given the current context of increasing anti-immigrant rhetoric and an escalation of immigration enforcement, this course raises the timely and important question of how experiences of migration and the politics of mobility are shaped by language. Our investigation will combine engaged anthropological approaches with linguistic anthropological theories and methods.

ANTH 0810. Whiteness and Language.

How has whiteness shaped language—not specific languages or sub-varieties of languages, but the very idea of language itself? This class will not presume either whiteness or language as stable or self-evident categories. Instead, we will explore how both have emerged together in and through projects of (racial, ethnic, gendered, sexual, classed, religious, etc.) colonial modernity. The class will introduce students to a critical interdisciplinary toolkit that they will collaboratively apply to a selection of case studies drawn from global colonial situations, culminating in an original mini-research project.

ANTH 0850. Language, Oppression, and Empowerment.

Language is a site of struggle. What we say, how we say it, and to whom matters. How we hear matters. It can make the difference between life and death.
When you hear the news or a teacher talking, do you feel directly addressed? Do you feel like you are a “they” in your classes and in popular discourse? We feel when we are being talked to, talked with, or talked about, and that makes a difference in how we relate to ourselves and each other.
In this class, we talk together. We make language and we make space. This class is an experiment in empowerment that comes from using reading in linguistic anthropology to analyze linguistic oppression, appropriation, and exploitation.

ANTH 1013. Intersectional Anthropology.

Our lived experiences are complex, and always in the process of becoming. Rather than looking at one particular social dimension of life—like race, gender, class, sexuality, belief system, ability—as additive experiences, we will explore how these always emergent categories are always in relationship with one another in profound and complex ways. This course will focus on anthropological applications of intersectionality [in all four fields] but is necessarily interdisciplinary. “Intersectionality” has become a term often used in critical feminist inquiry, and a powerful tool for feminist social critique and activism. We will explore the history of “Intersectionality” as originally defined, and how the theory has changed to today, and contributions beyond U.S. boarders. Together, we will discuss anthropological works that uses intersectional theory and method, and importantly we will connect theory with practice—understanding how to do intersectional research in anthropology.

ANTH 1020. AIDS in Global Perspective.

Communities around the world are affected in different ways by the HIV-AIDS pandemic. This course is concerned with cross-cultural variation in knowledge, perception, and treatment of AIDS in a global context. Twenty-five years into the global epidemic, how does social and cultural variation influence the continued spread or management of the disease? In addition to reading significant anthropological works related to the meaning of AIDS in cultural context, the course will address major public health initiatives related to the global AIDS pandemic, and offer an anthropological critique of their design, implementation and success. Enrollment limited to 40.

ANTH 1030. Pre-Columbian Art and Architecture: A World That Matters.

Survey of ancient art and building in ancient America, with a focus on Mexico, Central America, and the Andes. Underlying concepts include: meaning and method, cosmos and kingship, narrative and symbol, personality and authorship, empire and royal court.

ANTH 1031. Classic Mayan Civilization.

Examines the history, culture, and society of the Classic Maya, with special emphasis on Preclassic precursors, dynasties, environmental adaptation, imagery, architecture, urban form, and the Maya Collapse.

ANTH 1050. Global Sport: Anthropological Perspectives.

Sport operates within vast networks of political, economic, and social investment. But who controls sport, and how? In this course, we approach sport as a set of labor practices. Modern sport is inseparable from the history of British and European industrialization. With an emphasis on the power of institutions, we analyze why sport has taken certain technical forms and social significances. We investigate the historical and cultural constraints through which the body is disciplined. Students will undertake writing projects about sport and that enable them to experience the challenges and opportunities of transforming athletics into text.

ANTH 1100. Circumpolar Ethnography.

An examination of the traditional and modern lifeways of native peoples across the Arctic and subarctic from European Lapland through Siberia, Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. Topics covered are society; ethnic relations; religion (Shamanism); art; and politics, including issues of land claims and home rule.

ANTH 1110. African Issues in Anthropological Perspective.

In this course we engage with anthropological literature and films on the diverse ethnicities, cultures, and "traditions" of sub-Saharan Africa. We trace the histories and the processes of cultural, social, and political change, beginning with colonialism and ending with the contemporary period. We will deconstruct and debunk dominant Western ideas of Africa that present it as primitive and characterized by poverty, AIDS, famine, and violence. We will learn about how Africans see and represent themselves through reading ethnographies, engaging with African popular culture, and watching documentary films.

ANTH 1111. Anthropology of China.

This course introduces students to contemporary Chinese culture and society, w/a focus on the rapid changes that have taken place during the post-Mao reform era in the People’s Republic of China (1978- present). Emphasis will be placed on the importance of historical and global context in developing an understanding of contemporary Chinese culture. Readings and lectures will draw primarily upon recent ethnographic work conducted in the PRC, but readings from the disciplines of history, political science, public health, and contemporary Chinese literature (in translation) will also be incorporated. Topics: family life, urbanization, housing, migration, gender, health/disease, labor, globalization, and cyberculture.

ANTH 1112. Anthropology of Climate Change.

Contemporary climate change is a profoundly human issue. This course disaggregates “the human” in climate change, employing an anthropological perspective to ask how people experience changing climates in different ways throughout the world. From receding glaciers to rising seas to unpredictable seasons and periods of drought, the ways people understand, respond to, and experience climate change are shaped by diverse cultures and histories. Topics include environmental change, capitalism, energy, climate justice in indigenous communities, green economies, tropical forests, denial and skepticism, and the visibility of climate change. Articles and ethnographies cover the Global North as well as the Global South.

ANTH 1115. Anthropology of the Chinese Diaspora.

The anthropological study of the Chinese diaspora is a growing field against the backdrop of the latest wave of global anti-Chinese racism. This has been fueled by the rise of China and the COVID-19 pandemic. This course will provide an anthropological perspective into understanding the Chinese diaspora worldwide. Instead of treating each geographically distributed overseas Chinese community as an independent unit of analysis, we will investigate diasporic Chinese with their own sets of identities, experiences and practices within a holistic framework that takes into consideration complex historical, economic, socio-political, and cultural contexts. We will reflect on concepts such as what it means to be Chinese and the very idea of being diasporic. The course is aimed at engaging with broader contemporary themes and debates including identity politics, race and ethnicity, gender, nationalism and transnationalism, colonialism, capitalism, and globalization.

ANTH 1119. Andean Anthropology.

The area studies paradigm continues to provide solid information about "culture areas," and the rich ethnography and archaeology of Andean societies is no exception. Particular strengths emerging from this literature include studies of land use, religious syncretism, textiles, and collateral themes: continuities and recognizable features of "Andean culture" (lo andino), gender relations, migration, and politics. Throughout, we will analyze the ways that history, ecology, and the broad notion of reciprocity (ayni) cross-cut each of these. The result will be a close and in-depth study of cultural practices within three Andean countries (Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia), the majority populations of which continue to be indigenous (predominantly Quechua- and Aymara-speaking). These are countries within which recent political and social changes have produced far-reaching transformations. Prerequisite: one course in either Anthropology or Classics.

ANTH 1120. Peoples and the Cultures of the Americas.

Examines the diverse cultures and history of the Americas - especially Brazil, Peru, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Topics include the organization of labor, cultural and artistic practices, changing conventions of gender and family, international migration, national and local identities, indigenous rights, and protest and rebellion.

ANTH 1121. From Coyote to Casinos: Native North American Peoples and Cultures.

An anthropological overview on the history and cultures of Native North American peoples from the prehistoric times to the present. Where did Native North Americans come from? What were their traditional lives like? What was their relationship with newcomers of European extraction, including anthropologists? What challenges do they face today? Indigenous and anthropological insights will be brought to bear on these and other questions.

ANTH 1122. American Indain Art and Artifacts.

Drawing on the rich North American Indian collections of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, the goal of this course is to examine theoretical approaches to the artifacts of indigenous people and analytical strategies for their research and interpretation. Insights from anthropology, art history, American Indian perspectives, and conservation are explored. Meets at the museum.

ANTH 1123. Native North Americans in the Twenty-first Century.

An examination of the process of land alienation of Native Americans through the enactment of federal laws to settle the frontiers and protect the wilderness. Through the use of oral history, ethnographies, film, historical documents, and the public record, the course compares Native American and Euro-American perspectives on the ownership of land and rights to resources.

ANTH 1124. United States Culture.

The United States is often described as "multi-cultural". This course examines dominant cultural values such as equality, choice, privacy, and responsibility. It also investigates aspects of the social structure of the United States such as inequality, power, race/ethnicity, kinship, and gender. Individual lives illustrate the ways that people living in the United States negotiate cultural values and confront social institutions. Enrollment limited to 40. Instructor permission required.

ANTH 1125. Indigenous Archaeologies.

This course is an introduction to Indigenous archaeologies, sometimes defined as archaeology "by, for and with Indigenous peoples." These approaches typically combine the study of the past with contemporary tribal needs. In addition, they seek to contribute to a more accurate understanding of archaeological record by broadening science through a consideration of Indigenous epistemologies. This course covers topics as the history of anthropological archaeology, Indigenous knowledge and science, decolonizing methodologies, representational practices, and NAGPRA.

ANTH 1126. Ethnographies of Heritage: Community and Landscape of the Mediterranean and Beyond.

Archaeologists study objects and (socio-cultural) anthropologists investigate culture is how stereotype and conventions have long had it. As material culture studies have increasingly blurred these boundaries, the distinction is entirely meaningless when it comes to archaeological heritage. Taking its cue from material culture studies, this course explores how local communities experience the material remains from the past and (re)incorporate them into their contemporary lives.

ANTH 1130. Peoples and Cultures of Southeast Asia.

An introduction to the anthropological study of Southeast Asia. Emphasis is placed on understanding the diversity of cultures and societies through both space and time.

ANTH 1131. Indian Issues in Anthropological Perspective.

From its role as an emerging economic power, to characterization of outsourcing global media, political discourses, and worldwide popularity of Bollywood, India is undergoing rapid changes, global imagination, and importantly in how Indians think about themselves in an era of globalization. We cover anthropological issues of contemporary India, including Hinduism and Islam, caste, social structure and forms of social relations using ethnographic texts. We will focus on postcolonial India, particularly two decades since liberalization in 1991. We will consider how history, cultural practices and existing social norms continue to shape and change contemporary Indian society and its relation to the world.

ANTH 1133. Ethnonationalism- The Asian Arena.

Three Asian countries-China, Thailand, and Myanmar-are unique national arenas to examine and compare specific definitions, representations, and contentions among nationalistic discourse, ethnic legitimization, and ethnonationalism as they are played out in response to cultural politics, national ideology, European colonial expansion, religious identity, and ethnic identity. Nationalistic movements, ethnic nationalism, and transnational politics are explored.

ANTH 1140. European Ethnography.

Familiarizes students with the societies and cultures of Europe from an anthropological perspective. Historical material provides for the understanding of current cultural, linguistic, religious, and ethnic variation. Major emphasis on the analysis of a range of contemporary communities from peasant to urban, from East to West, and from North to South.

ANTH 1145. Barbarians and Bandits: Exploring Subaltern Resilience and State Power.

In the imaginations of ancient Greeks and Romans, the urban centers of ‘civilization’ were surrounded by wild lands where barbarians roamed. Even now, mountains, marshes, forests, and deserts are the realms of bandits, primitive tribes, warlords, and terrorists. From ‘shepherd-bandits’ in highland Sardinia and ‘red-faced Gauls’ in Roman France to ‘marginal tribes’ in the Kabyle mountains and the ‘wild people’ of the Ethiopian borderlands, this course explores peripheral lands through time and across the globe. We will critically examine such stereotypical representations, to understand how their inhabitants carved out their own spaces in the interstices of ancient and modern states.

ANTH 1150. Middle East in Anthropological Perspective.

A seminar focusing on anthropological methods of analyzing and interpreting Middle Eastern cultures and societies. Emphasizes the study of kinship, tribal structure, social organization and gender relations, ethnic groups relations, and urban-rural distinctions. Draws upon insights from these topics as a basis for understanding contemporary social, economic, and political dynamics in the region.

ANTH 1151. Ethnographies of the Muslim Middle East.

An introduction to ethnographic studies of Middle East, focus on: religion, language, modernity, gender, and political culture. Students will engage in critical examination which anthropologists sought to capture Middle Eastern life, and problems that have pervaded anthropological representation, methodologically and theoretically. You will learn, through the ways anthropologists approach the peoples, ideas, and cultures of the region in ways that complement and contradict the knowledge production of other disciplines, the processes we come to understand cultural difference, and ways this encounter sheds light on our selves and practices. Previous course in Anthropology/ Middle East studies is suggested. Enrollment limited to 25.

ANTH 1201. Introduction to Geographic Information Systems and Spatial Analysis.

This course offers an introduction to the concepts and techniques of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Through weekly lab assignments and work on independent projects, students develop skills in cartography and coordinate systems, spatial database design, image processing, basic spatial analysis, hydrological modeling, and three-dimensional modeling. Discussions and case material draw primarily from the application of GIS in archaeology, anthropology, and cultural geography, including the study of archival materials and the ethics of geographic representation. Provides foundation for upper division coursework in spatial analysis. Software focuses on ESRI products (ArcMap, ArcScene, ArcCatalog, ArcGIS Pro).

ANTH 1210. Culture and Cognition.

Are there cultural differences in thought and perception? If so, what are these differences and to what are they attributable? Reviews the history of the controversy on "primitive thought," the influence of culture and environment on perception and concept formation, the development of cognitive operations, and differences in logical processes and decision making in other cultural contexts.

ANTH 1211. Cross Cultural Perspectives on Children.

Explores how the behavior and psychological functioning of children are shaped by culture and how different cultures tend to produce children with characteristic personalities, selves, thought patterns and behaviors. Every cultural community provides developmental pathways for children. These pathways are shaped by history and by the goals of parents, communities and children themselves. The course will focus on how human knowledge is transmitted through multiple cultural channels in both informal and formal contexts. This is a service-learning course in which students provide a needed service: Mentoring and tutoring Liberian young people in a literacy program. This will serve as a basis for conducting research on this refugee population and the final paper will be the recording of oral histories from teenagers. Enrollment limited to 30.

ANTH 1212. The Anthropology of Play.

Play enters all fields, from physics to human development, art to scientific experimentation. In all cultures, play figures centrally in rites of passage, child development, learning, and times of celebration. Central to this course is an understanding of the rules of play, its intentions in work, functions throughout human history, and role in formal education.

ANTH 1220. Comparative Sex Roles.

Covers specific cross-cultural issues of gender, cultural roles, the status of women, and their structural position in society. Themes of gender representations in the field of economics, ritual, and politics underline the concerns of the course. Though African and Asian communities are the primary focus, aspects of American society are drawn into consideration when relevant.

ANTH 1221. Anthropology of Masculinity.

Contemporary anthropological and historical study of masculine identities and practices throughout the world, focusing on topics such as the cultural economies of masculinity, cultural regions and images of manhood, male friendship, machismo, embodied masculinity, violence, power, and sexual fault lines.
Prerequisite: Prior course in Social Science or instructor's permission required.

ANTH 1222. Kinships Compared: Relations, Families, and Connections.

In all cultures people see themselves as related more closely to some people than to others and they usually experience that relation in terms of some shared substance such as blood. Beyond these generalizations there is an enormous variety of ways in which people live in, build, and maintain connections with others - in nuclear and extended families, peer groups, friends, ethnic groups, and so on. This course is about kinship as an idea, as an experience, and as an institution.

In the midst of divorce and blended families, new reproductive technologies, and adoption we will investigate kinship and connection in our own lives, in a range of other cultures, and within the discipline of Anthropology.

ANTH 1223. Gender, Nature, the Body.

This course is an interrogation of the ways in which gender difference comes to be conceived of as “natural” in modern science and different cultures. What is the connection between the science of gender difference and the colonial encounter? What are some different ways of imagining gender difference? How are gender inequalities structured and perpetuated by science and political economy? Through careful reading of historical and anthropological texts, we will learn about various ways in which gender systems are constructed and resisted, how science is used to construct gender, and how gender politics influence scientific outcomes and practices.

ANTH 1224. Human Trafficking, Transnationalism, and the Law.

Designed to give students an opportunity to engage in transnational research on social issues through an extended case study of a new generation of international norms that identify and combat "human trafficking." The course format combines seminar discussions, lectures, and small group exercises. Students will learn by doing. As we consider legal instruments, UN and U.S. documentary archives, anti-trafficking media such as films and websites, and the prosecution of criminal networks, we will experiment with alternative methodologies for analyzing them. We will study the relation of texts to the social and political contexts of their production and circulation. Enrollment limited to 30.

ANTH 1225. Gendering Migration and Diasporas.

This course will employ a decolonial and transnational feminist approach to explore gender and sexuality as central lenses in our understanding of different forms of migration and diasporas. We will address the various ways that experiences, processes and consequences linked to different migrations are gendered. The course will introduce a range of geographical contexts and empirical examples/case studies with the aim to challenge the US centrism existent in many academic debates. We will analyze relevant power relations and forms of oppression, as well as resistance strategies by migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. The course will use an intersectional lens to explore the way different power configurations interplay in specific contexts, paying particular attention to patriarchy, heteronormativity, nationalism, racism, Islamophobia and class-based inequalities. We will engage economic, political, social and cultural dimensions, but also the politics of non/belonging, and cultural productions.

ANTH 1227. Science, Activism, and Politics of Gender.

How did much of the world agree that female genital cutting should be ended? This course explores grassroots and international campaigns in Africa and the West, effects of asylum and criminal laws, and international organizations' attempts to create evidence-based, scientific governance to end cutting. We will focus on ethnographies that problematize these interventions by analyzing their histories, cultural politics, contradictory effects on local communities, and global political ramifications. By examining interventions against cutting, this course offers a methodological and conceptual blueprint for researching local-global production of human rights crises and efforts to resolve them. Enrollment limited to 20. Not open to first year students.

ANTH 1229. Democracy and Difference: Political Anthropology, Citizenship and Multiculturalism.

In seemingly endless contexts, the term "democracy" is employed toward a wide range of political and social goals. This course examines the question of cultural citizenship - the right to be different while remaining part of the national community - as observable in places where liberal democracy's focus on the individual citizen clashes with communal wishes for collective representations of difference. By reading case studies from multiple locales, this course examines the attempts of democratic regimes to govern varied populations through the lens of political anthropology.

ANTH 1230. Political Anthropology.

Anthropological perspectives on politics, ranging from political processes in small-scale nonliterate societies to those in industrialized states. Special attention is given to the uses of symbolism and ritual in politics. Topics include: how is political legitimacy established and maintained? how are certain political views of the world created? what is the relationship between political change and the reinterpretation of history?

ANTH 1231. Kings, Courts, and Aristocracy.

Explores the nature and variety of kingship, royal courts, and aristocracy through comparative evidence, with strong emphasis on historical data, architecture, and archaeology. Test cases will be examined in Mesoamerica, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

ANTH 1232. War and Society.

Cross-cultural and historical perspectives on war and its larger social context. Course readings and lectures use political economic, cultural, and feminist approaches to understanding war and its effects on human communities. Case studies will be drawn from several eras and areas of the globe, including wars and post-wars in Guatemala, Sri Lanka, Mozambique, and the current global war on terror.

ANTH 1233. Ethnographies of Global Connection: Politics, Culture and International Relations.

Historically, IR and Anthropology examined interactions within and among bounded objects, whether sovereign states or small-scale societies. Increasingly, through, they explore flows, circulations and exchanges across borders, and their impact on different societies. Through case-studies, the course will analyze evolving understandings of "globalization" and "culture," and explore how effectively different genres of research and representation capture their complex interactions.

ANTH 1234. Anthropology and Utopia.

Utopia: designs for good societies and efforts to create them; and Anthropology: observation and description of societies. A wide-ranging reading and discussion class that will address such questions as: Does Anthropological description contribute to the design of good societies? Have Anthropologists been looking for Utopia? What does Anthropology suggest is wrong with existing societies? Whose job is it to judge societies? How would Utopias be like to live in? How have people tried to build Utopias? Have they failed completely? Is failure inevitable? Is a better world possible? What would it look like? How would we get there?

ANTH 1236. Urban Life: Anthropology in and of the City.

This course examines how anthropologists have worked in the city -- to understand dwelling and lived experience from the center to the margins of society; as well as how anthropologists have contributed to the study of the city -- conceptualizing the city itself in relation to its inhabitants, and working to understand how cities develop, decline, or are sustained. Anchored in key theory, classic texts, and contemporary ethnography, the course traces also the history, present, and possible futures of the discipline. Students learn the methods of urban ethnography, and gain hands-on experience through local field exercises and related writing assignments.

ANTH 1237. The Just City: Installment I, Comparative Perspectives on Juvenile Justice Reform (URBN 1932).

Interested students must register for URBN 1932.

ANTH 1240. Religion and Culture.

Global events in recent years seem to defy the commonsensical idea that religious traditions would decline or disappear in the modern epoch. We examine classic theories and methods in the study of religion to understand the continuing vitality of spiritual contemplation, asceticism, myths, rituals, magic, witchcraft, experiences of healing, and other ways of thinking and acting that are typically associated with (or against) the concept of religion.

ANTH 1241. Science and Culture.

This course is an introduction to methods and topics in the anthropology of science and technology, including: social inequalities in science, race, gender, post-coloniality, and the globalization of bio-technologies. The course will focus on ethnographies and films about science and culture, covering topics such as the social implications of genetic testing, bio-prospecting and the environment, the development of pharmaceuticals, and repercussions of nuclear technologies.

ANTH 1242. Bioethics and Culture.

This course examines bioethics from an ethnographic point of view. Topics include pregnancy, death, suicide, disability, medical research, organ transplantation, and population control. We will distinguish between the moral experiences of people faced with difficult choices, and the ethical ideals to which they aspire. We will then ask: how can these perspectives be reconciled? When trying to reconcile these perspectives, how can we account for powerful dynamics of race, gender, class, religion, and cultural difference? Finally, how can we develop a code of ethics that takes these issues into account and also is fundamentally connected to everyday life?

ANTH 1244. Religion and Secularism: Affinities and Antagonisms.

Global events in recent years seem to defy simple ideas of the confinements of religion to a wholly private, non-modern or otherworldly domain, in ways that compels scholars across a range of disciplines in the social sciences, critical theory and philosophy to rethink the category of secularism, and the relationship between religion and politics. Is secularism a failed ideal? In what ways are ideas of the secular being contested and reformulated in different global contexts? This course seeks to familiarize students with recent debates on secularism, working towards a more nuance understanding of the relationship between religion and politics.

ANTH 1250. Film and Anthropology: Identity and Images of Indian Societies.

The course examines representation of Indian society in film and anthropological literature. We compare how gender, national identity, religious practices, and historical events are portrayed in films and anthropological literature. We will explore the relationship between visual and textual, showing how film reflect and make comprehensible anthropological concepts of Indian culture, and creates different images of the society.

ANTH 1251. Violence and the Media.

The role of media in shaping perceptions of violent conflict. Analysis of constructions of the "violent other", "victims", and "suffering", the use of culture, ethnicity, and psychopathology as tropes for articulating the motivations of violent perpetrators. Multiple subject positions and political interests will be considered. Case studies include the Cold War, conflicts, insurgencies urban riots, the genocide, and terrorism. Pre-requisite: a previous course in Anthropology, or permission of the instructor.

ANTH 1252. Kill Assessment: An Investigation into Death, Genocide and Other Forms of Violence.

Is violence best understood as a set of "random acts" marginal to society? Or, do societies need violence to make culture systematic and functional? We will address two major issues throughout this course. First, we will discuss different types of violence: physical, material, structural and symbolic violence. Second, we will become familiar with ways that social groups turn violence into an aesthetic object and an artistic project.

ANTH 1253. The Visual and the Written in Anthropology: Fruzzetti's Documentary Films and Ethnographic Research.

A seminar that analyses the making of films in the light of ethnographic research in rural India. The course addresses fifty years of research covering the journey of an anthropologist’s work in a rural Bengali town, documenting the voices and narratives of women. The research is immersed in traditional anthropological fieldwork, followed by the publication of books and articles that complement Fruzzetti's films. Documentary films and texts will demonstrate a continuity between visual and written works. Do films inform or deviate from our understanding of written ethnography (and vice versa)? What distinguishes early documentary films from later ethnographic ones? Do films record "reality" or interpret just as written works do? Should ethnographic study come before the making of documentary films? Can anthropological theory develop in relation to or separate from ethnographic films?

ANTH 1255. Anthropology of Disasters.

This course examines disasters from an anthropological perspective. We focus on how disasters have been defined and understood, and work more broadly to see what they tell us about human conditions, vulnerabilities, and capacities for resilience building, survival, and long-term sustainability. Drawing on and comparing case studies from around the world, we also examine the nature of destructive agents; degrees of impact and injury; rescue, relief, and humanitarian responses; and the often slow and uneven process of recovery and resilience building.

ANTH 1260. Indigenous People and Nature: Birds.

An exploration of intersections of indigenous peoples with the natural world; this semester with the avian world. Through a sustained focus on one class of living things, the hope is to gain access to a range of issues concerning the relationship between people and the environment.

ANTH 1300. Anthropology of Addictions and Recovery.

The purpose of this course is to consider the uses and misuses alcohol, tobacco and drugs, and approaches to recovery from addictions. We will read some of the major cross cultural, ethnographic, linguistic, and social-political works on addictions. Students will conduct their own anthropological interviews regarding substance misuse and recovery as well as observe a local 12 step recovery meeting in the community. Students will engage in discussions of recovery with community partners. Enrollment limited to 20.

ANTH 1301. Anthropology of Homelessness.

Homelessness emerged as a public concern in the United States and in other industrialized countries in the late 1970s as people began encountering people living on the streets, a way of life formerly confined to the skid rows of large cities. In this course, through readings, readings, discussion, and hands on experiences with individuals and families experiencing homelessness, we will uncover the causes, conditions, and responses to homelessness. Each student will spend at least two hours per week in a local homeless-serving community partners in order to gain face to face experiences. The field placements will be facilitated by the professor.

ANTH 1305. Medical Humanities: Critical Perspectives on Illness, Healing, and Culture.

Medicine is arguably the most humanistic of the hard sciences, one that strives to ensure the basic dignity of individuals. In our increasingly globalized world, access to medical care is recognized as a fundamental human right. However, there continues to be considerable debate over the "best" ways to provide medical services to economically and culturally diverse communities across the globe, given the complex ways that people prioritize and perpetuate their health. This seminar explores the multifaceted relationships between biomedicine and cultural understandings of illness, both in the US and worldwide. Instructor permission required. Enrollment limit 25 juniors and seniors.

ANTH 1310. Global Health: Anthropological Perspectives.

This course explores the distinctive contribution that a critical approach—primarily that of medical anthropology—can make to the rapidly changing field of global health. The course takes a problem-based approach and focuses on “grand challenges," such as those posed by global pandemics, humanitarian crisis, or the limited reach of child and maternal health programs in “resource-poor” locations. Through ethnographic case studies, we will examine how the concepts and practices associated with global health interventions travel to different parts of the world and interact with local agendas.

ANTH 1311. Language and Medicine in Practice.

This course is part of the Engaged Scholars Program and provides a foundation through which to think about how people’s use of language shapes and is shaped by the medical sphere. Team taught by a linguistic anthropologist (Faudree) and medical anthropologist (Hamdy), this course provides foundations to understanding the scholarly intersections between language, medicine, and society. At the same time, the course offers a strong pragmatic dimension, as students will engage in volunteer and participant-observation work in clinical settings. Throughout the course we will be bringing our insight and observations of clinical practice to bear on anthropological tools of analysis. The course is limited to 20 students who will be admitted to the class via an application process. Priority given to seniors, those in the Engaged Scholars Program, and Anthropology concentrators.

ANTH 1315. Race, Racialization, and Health.

This course is an introduction to conceptualizations of race and racialization in health and anthropological thought on the study of medicine practices, with particular attention to the ways that disease burden and differential access to healthcare are shaped by broader histories of colonialism, imperialism, and development. We begin with a focus on the invention of racial categories in North America as a means of justifying slavery, Indigenous land dispossession, and the accumulation of property by those settlers deemed “white”. From this foundation, we will interrogate the ways that “race as biology” becomes mobilized in scientific and clinical discourses to justify and explain health disparities. In examining health disparities, we will engage with studies of race science, medical racism, medical experimentation, and structural violence in/of health care to understand how intersections of oppressed identities impact peoples’ ability to live and live well.

ANTH 1320. Anthropology and International Development: Ethnographic Perspectives on Poverty and Progress.

Examines international development from an ethnographic perspective, looking critically at issues of poverty and progress from local points of view. Course is organized around the premise that culture is central to understanding processes of development. Broad development themes such as public health, agriculture, democracy, and the environment will be explored through readings representing a wide range of regions and cultures.

ANTH 1321. Impact on Colonialism: Gender and Nationalism in India.

This course is designed to look into colonial and post-colonial identities within the disciplines of history of literary studies. We will adopt an anthropological approach to those subjects, taking the cultural anthropology and construction of gender as the guideline for the analysis. Topics will include: orientalism, and gender; nationalism and religion.

ANTH 1322. Human Rights, Social Justice, and Humanitarian Intervention: The Anthropology of Global Aid.

From child soldiers to starving refugees, Americans are inundated with media images of violent suffering in the developing world. Our politicians frequently present international humanitarian intervention as an unequivocal good, without examining the actual outcomes of aid initiatives. This course uses tools from anthropology to explore the motivations for global aid, along with the concrete--and often unexpected--effects it produces on the ground. Foregrounding an ethnographic approach, we seek to understand the enduring influence of the concept of "rights," the ways that local populations both welcome and resent humanitarian work, and the successes and failures of international charitable organizations. First-year students require an instructor override to register.

ANTH 1323. The Culture and Politics of Colonial Cities: Migration, Markets and the Diaspora.

Two colonial powers (British Empire and Portuguese) form the basis for this comparative approach to unravel and comprehend how colonial policies differed in two regions. Colonial cities have a special mystique, and studying them in the present unravels socio-historical and political connections make the present more meaningful. For post-colonialism, we address migration and Diaspora, the participation of groups under analysis in transnational economy and local and global markets. Focusing on the Diaspora, we seek to tie history and cultural development to the wider issue of Diaspora and the displacement of people, the search for opportunities, migration and the global markets.

ANTH 1324. Money, Work, and Power: Culture and Economics.

Economic activities take place within cultural contexts which define appropriate values and goals, and in societies varying in scale, technology, and organization. Looking cross-culturally, and at economic activities in societies such as the United States, this course examines the production, distribution, and consumption of material goods, analyzing these as essentially social activities - properly understood only when we take account of social relations and cultural values. Consequently, the course also investigates the extent to which the words commonly used to describe economic life, such as "market", "wealth", "price", "profit", "work", and "money", are culturally specific rather than universally applicable. At least one previous course in Anthropology or another social science is strongly recommended.

ANTH 1325. Business and Entrepreneurship in Global Perspective.

In a world of free trade, government downsizing, and the rapid movement of people and ideas, business and entrepreneurialism have become central to many peoples' economic livelihoods and social identities. Anthropologists have most often treated business and entrepreneurship as reflections of culture and social life, rather than sites of production in their own rights. Corporate workplaces, small businesses, and trade encounters are starting points for understanding myriad different social outcomes: novel forms of intercultural communication, new patterns of transnational labor migration, changing class configurations, and forums through which socially marginalized groups participate in society.

ANTH 1326. The New Economic Anthropology.

This course introduces students to the new economic anthropology of capitalism and situates it within the historical development of economic anthropology since the late 19th century. The course begins by introducing students to basic notions of 'economy' as understood in the ancient Mediterranean up through to the present. The course covers early anthropological research into forms of personhood and sociocultural organization that contrasts sharply with the assumed universality of homo economicus. The course focuses on key debates within economic anthropology over the possibility of using 'western' economic categories for analysis and explores some of the alternative frameworks developed by anthropologists.

ANTH 1330. Women in Socialist and Developing Countries.

A seminar, jointly taught by a sociologist and an anthropologist, exploring the changing role of women in the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe and developing countries in Africa and Asia. Includes women's position, ideologies, and choices within these societies, and the transitions that are taking place. Contributes to a better understanding of the role of women in our own society.

ANTH 1400. Race, Culture, and Ethnic Politics.

A seminar addressing the subjects of race, culture, and ethnicity, focusing on minority groups in the U.S. Seeks to clarify the philosophical and theoretical issues in contemporary America using a cross-disciplinary approach.

ANTH 1405. Race, Rights and Rebellion (AFRI 1020D).

Interested students must register for AFRI 1020D.

ANTH 1410. Reconstructing Multiraciality.

An examination of, first, the racial and social history of interracial and interethnic relations in the U.S. and different parts of the world, then, the contemporary American situation and changing trends in these cross-group relationships. Exploratory and interdisciplinary-intended to open a dialogue on multiple issues involved, diachronically as well as synchronically.

ANTH 1411. Nations within States.

Examines the interactions between small-scale indigenous societies (often referred to as Fourth World Nations) and the modern states within which they now exist. The relationship is obviously asymmetrical, yet these ethnic or "racial" minorities have the support of world opinion and international organizations. The sociocultural, economic, and political structure of these nations within states is the focus of the course.

ANTH 1412. Anthropology of State Power and Powerlessness.

How do we conceptualize state power? Is Power primarily a capacity for force and coercion or a source of welfare and social cohesion? States the world over often do not manage to provide adequate welfare or to maintain a monopoly on violence. How then might we understand state power not only as a capacity but also in its incapacities and vulnerabilities? We engage these paradoxes of state power through classic texts of anthropology and political theory including Foucault, Weber, Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, in tandem with lively ethnographic analyses of state power in its capacities and incapacities.

ANTH 1420. Ethnicity, Race, and Gender in the Americas.

The historical and contemporary ethnography of ethnicity, race, and gender in the Americas. Topics include racism, multiculturalism, affirmative action, immigration, nationalism, acculturation, cultural autonomy, slavery, colonialism, and genocide.

ANTH 1421. Ethnic American Folklore: Continuity and the Creative Process.

An investigation of the dynamics of cultural continuity and the creative process involved in ethnic American folklore from oral narratives, life history, to foodways, and the senses of place. How do these cultural forms intersect with ethnicity, gender, group activism, and transnational contacts and exchanges? What are the new cultural forms, communication milieus, and venues negotiated or contested in contemporary America?

ANTH 1422. The American Experience-Southeast Asian Refugees/Americans.

Explores the diaspora of the Cambodian, the Hmong, the Lao, and the Vietnamese American from their initial exodus from their war-torn countries to their strategies for reconstructing new lives. Topics include socioeconomic changes, changing family life, gender roles, life choices, and the growing American generation. Materials used include films, songs, and autobiographies written by the refugees/Americans themselves.

ANTH 1423. Migrants, Political Activism and the Racialization of Labor (POBS 1601M).

Interested students must register for POBS 1601M.

ANTH 1450. Living with Conflict.

Exploration into ways in which cultural groups perceive and approach situations of conflict and how these situations in turn shape cultural practices, beliefs, and norms within the group. Examples are taken from ethnographies of different parts of the world and include a discussion of customs that help mitigate conflict among members of the group as well as conflict between groups.

ANTH 1470. Illustrating and Interpreting the Past: Visual Representation in Archaeology.

Archaeologists investigate culture using material artifacts as evidence about the past, but in order to communicate and compare that evidence, they must turn to technologies of reproduction and representation. This course traces the evolution of archaeological illustration, and its contributions to our knowledge of the past, in the context of technological and intellectual change over time. It explores the most up-to-date methods of archaeological illustration and their current place and future directions in the digital humanities. Working with objects from the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, students will acquire experience in traditional and cutting-edge illustration techniques.

ANTH 1505. Vertical Civilization: South American Archaeology from Monte Verde to the Inkas.

This course offers an introduction to the archaeology of indigenous south American Civilizations, from the peopling of the continent around 13,000 years ago, to the Spanish Invasion of the 16th Century C.E. Throughout, we seek to understand the often unique solutions that South America indigenous peoples developed to deal with risk and to make sense of the world around them. Course lectures and discussions focus on recent research and major debates. Weekly sections draw on viewings of artifacts and manuscripts from the Haffenreffer Museum and the John Carter Brown Library.

ANTH 1510A. Theorizing Reproductive In/Justice.

Reproductive Justice, a theoretical paradigm and activist praxis developed by Black feminist organizers, provides us with an essential means of understanding our world. In this course, students will learn to use the lens of reproductive justice to interrogate how some of our most pressing contemporary crises are rooted in long-standing histories of white supremacy and capitalism and are intimately related to reproduction and constraints against reproductive freedom. By taking up the RJ movement’s primary three principles, 1) the right not to have a child, 2) the right to have a child, and 3) the right to parent children in safe and healthy environments, this course welcomes junior scholars into an interdisciplinary space for thinking through the historical and continued role of the US and Canadian governments in controlling reproduction, and reproduction’s impact and reliance on seemingly disparate aspects of life.

ANTH 1515. Anthropology of Mental Health.

Mental illness and wellbeing have been defined and treated in dramatically different ways across cultures and historical epochs. In this course we engage with religious and secular healing traditions including biomedicine, and the ways in which these shape the experience and understanding of “madness”, of common mental disorders (such as depression and anxiety), and changing perceptions of the normal and the pathological. Drawing on anthropology, psychiatry, philosophy, literature and cinema, we follow the emergence, translation and critique of diagnostic categories across different parts of the contemporary world. Key authors include Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, Kleinman, Good, Veena Das, and others.

ANTH 1520. How to Do Things with Maps:Cartography, Power, and Political Imagination, from Gilgamesh to Google.

Maps do not merely represent reality; they both create and exceed it. This course critically examines the history and future of cartography, devoting particular attention to the role that maps and map making have played in the emergence and persistence of social power and political imagination. Among other topics, we consider how maps have shaped property and class relations; state sovereignty and royal authority; colonialism and imperialism; national and ethnic identities; migration and citizenship; and the relationship between humankind and nature, earth and the cosmos. Classes include visits to historic map collections and experimentation with critical mapping techniques. Creative final project.

ANTH 1530. American Indian Archaeology.

Traces the development of North American Indian cultures through the comparative study of prehistoric archaeological remains. Topics include the origins of Native Americans, Native American hunting-gathering lifeways, and the rise of the Native American agricultural societies. Emphasizes analyses of subsistence modes, settlement patterns, and symbolic systems.

ANTH 1540. Power, Profit, and Pillage: The Rise and Fall of Trading Kingdoms in Asia.

A course survey of the pre- and protohistoric archaeology of the eastern half of Asia. Topics include the origins and evolution of agricultural societies, the emergence of village and urban life, and the rise of states and kingdoms. The early states were often characterized and even reinforced by elaborate symbolic and religious systems expressed through ritual, art, and architecture-topics also covered by the course.

ANTH 1550. Ancient Environments.

This course teaches students how scientists investigate ancient environments and climate change and how these are related to ancient people and culture history. Students will learn about methods ranging from pollen and soil analysis to climate reconstruction and ecology. The class will look at a number of archaeological case studies in which climate or environment are believed to have been integral in past cultural developments. Case studies include the Levant, Mesopotamia, Polynesia, the American Southwest, and the Maya area. Students will be evaluated on class participation, weekly writing assignments, and final research papers. Prerequisite: ANTH 0500 or instructor permission.

ANTH 1551. Techno-Ecologies: Health, Environment and Culture in the Digital Age.

This course examines how people's health and lived experiences are impacted today by global environments in flux—and how these interconnected ecologies are deeply shaped and scrutinized in turn through various networks of technoscience. Topics will include food and nutrition in post-industrial economies; “conservation medicine” and the health of animals; energy and art; the global health implications of climate change; representations of race and indigeneity amid the “politics of nature”; society and microbiome; oil leaks and water wars; chemical exposures and disease; hybridity and nano-technology; and debates surrounding corporate social responsibility in practice.

ANTH 1552. Environmental Change: Ethnographic Perspectives.

What can anthropology's concepts and methods help us understand about the ways people unevenly experience, govern, fuel or contest global environmental changes today? Focusing on sociocultural accounts and ethnographic films, we will examine contemporary realities such as global warming and the anthropology of hydrocarbons; water politics and privatization of nature; pollution and its governance; agricultural change and human health; nuclear disaster; biodiversity and deforestation; the microbiome and society; and the ways environmental science is being produced alongside its emerging markets. Students will learn to put debates about ecological change in dialogue with anthropological thought and tools from the environmental humanities.

ANTH 1554. The Anthropology of Violence.

What does it mean to "do" or to "commit" violence? How do we recognize it when it is so ubiquitous? Be it through war, ethnic cleansing, social conflict, revolution, or various forms of interaction, the topic of violence has figured prominently in anthropological scholarship as well as social thought throughout history. This course will explore major theories of violence through engagement with social theory, ethnography, and media. We will use a range of perspectives including biopolitics, feminist critique, and queer theory, and host of examples ranging from communal violence to warfare to sexual violence to explore violence in-depth.

ANTH 1555. Environmental Anthropology.

Environmental anthropology is the study of how people interact with environments, past and present. This course explores how humans have affected their environments over time and how environment shapes human culture, employing an interdisciplinary anthropological perspective to illuminate these reciprocal interactions. This course uses a variety of approaches to understand how people interact with environments, employing cultural, biological, linguistic, and archaeological methods. This course covers human adaptation to environmental change from earliest prehistory up to the present day, students will have the opportunity to explore the practical and interpretive dilemmas of environmental challenges of the 21st century and beyond.

ANTH 1556. Environmentalism and the Politics of Nature.

This seminar covers fundamental themes and advanced topics in the field of environmental anthropology. Over the course of the semester, we examine the relationship between environmentalism, conservation, and globalization. The geographic focus is the Global South; articles and ethnographies cover cases in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Topics include indigeneity, wilderness, parks and protected areas, politics of space, development, and ideas of native and invasive species.

ANTH 1557. Sex, Gender, and Subversion: An Introduction to Queer Anthropology.

From sex between straight men in fraternities to young girls dedicated to and raised as ‘husbands’ of a goddess, we will explore practices of gender and sexuality that run counter to heterosexual and cisgender norms. Through ethnographies, media, and lively class discussions, this course offers an introduction to issues of gender and sexual subversion globally as well as basic concepts that animate discussions of queer anthropology/theory. Course materials will impart an understanding of how sexuality and gender intersect with questions regarding race, class, caste, dis/ability, religion, neoliberalism, (post)colonialism, power, and other thematic issues. There are no prerequisites to this course.

ANTH 1570. American Indian Archaeology.

This course traces the development of North American Indians and culture through a comparative study of prehistoric archaeological remains. Some of the questions addressed will be: When where and why did people first migrate into North America? Were these people responsible for the mass animal extinction at the end of the last Ice Age? What accounts for the similarities and differences in the politics and adaptations of Native Americans?

ANTH 1580. ISIS, NAGPRA, and the Academy: Archaeology and Global Issues in Cultural Heritage.

These days cultural heritage is all over the news. The wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Libya have led to the destruction of countless sites and museums, and the looting of artifacts on a massive scale. Cultural heritage is a broad term however, and there are people and institutions around the world that have stakes in how it is defined and managed. How then do archaeologists, museum specialists, and others in the academy define, work with, and protect cultural heritage? This course will explore current themes in cultural heritage with an eye to material culture and ethical action.

ANTH 1590. Archaeology of the Ancient Near East.

A survey of archaeological sites in the ancient Near East from the Neolithic period to the early Roman Empire. Archaeology allows us to explore the development of agriculture, cities, and urban-based culture, as well as to make comparisons between cultures and examine issues of trade and commerce. We elvaluate sites in relation to theoretical and methodological issues in anthropological archaeology.

ANTH 1599. Politics of Indigeneity in Brazil (LACA 1503Q).

Interested students must register for LACA 1503Q.

ANTH 1600. Hunter-Gatherer Adaptations.

Addresses the question: to what extent can the concept of the ecosystem, as developed in evolutionary biology, explain variability in human behavior? Examines the literature on contemporary hunting and gathering societies, both human and nonhuman, as well as relevant findings in archaeology and human biology. Background in general biology and anthropology is helpful, but not required.

ANTH 1601. Reimagining Climate Change.

We know what causes climate change and we know what to do about it—yet it seems we only keep making it worse. Our climate stalemate suggests we need to look critically at the dominant responses to climate change so as to identify: why they have become commonsensical yet ineffectual or unrealizable; and why other responses remain silenced or unexplored. Such a lens impels us to reconsider silver-bullet “solutions” while creating space for views marginalized by exploitative, racist, patriarchal, and anthropocentric systems. Toward these ends, this course will prepare students to reconceptualize climate change and reimagine our responses to it.

ANTH 1620. Global Historical Archaeology.

The course examines historical archaeology as a multidisciplinary approach to the study of the historic past. Draws in recent research from different parts of the world, including North America, South Africa, Australia, the Caribbean, and South America, to illustrate historical archaeology's contributions to interpreting peoples' everyday lives and the diversity of their experiences in the post-1500 era.

ANTH 1621. Material Culture Practicum.

The course explores the ways that archaeologists think about and interpret material culture and provides an opportunity to study the artifacts of everyday life found at historical archaeological sites in the Atlantic World firsthand. Focusing on an assemblage from a site that was a place of intercultural trade, conflict, and enslavement, students will learn how material evidence reveals the entanglements of Indigenous, European, and African people.

ANTH 1622. Archaeology of Settler Colonialism.

The course uses settler colonialism as a framework for understanding how European colonists attempted to displace and eliminate Indigenous peoples beginning in the 15th century and its historical implications for structural inequalities of race and gender. We will look at how settler colonialism is different from colonialism, and more importantly, at resistances challenging its ambitions. Case studies from North America mostly, but also Australia, South Africa, and other settler colonial societies will focus on historical archaeology’s contributions to illuminating settler colonialist strategies for establishing and maintaining settler sovereignty in light of concerns for decolonizing archaeological practices. We will give special attention to the insights gained about the experiences of dispossessed, enslaved, and marginalized peoples and their descendants, and the many ways their actions critiqued settler colonialism and imagined different futures.

ANTH 1623. Archaeology of Death.

Examines death, burial, and memorials using comparative archaeological evidence from prehistory and historical periods. The course asks: What insight does burial give us about the human condition? How do human remains illuminate the lives of people in the past? What can mortuary artifacts tell us about personal identities and social relations? What do gravestones and monuments reveal about beliefs and emotions? Current cultural and legal challenges to the excavation and study of the dead are foregrounded.

ANTH 1624. Indians, Colonists, and Africans in New England.

The course explores the colonial and capitalist transformation of New England's social and cultural landscapes following European contact. Using archaeology as critical evidence, we will examine claims about conquest, Indian Extinction, and class, gender and race relations by studying the daily lives and interactions of the area's diverse Native American, African American, and European peoples.

ANTH 1625. Questions of Remembrance: Archaeological Perspectives on Slavery in the New World.

Archaeology of slavery, and particularly that of enslaved African-American communities in what came to be the United States, has been one of the fastest growing areas of archaeological research in the last few decades. This course will look into both classic and current literature on the archaeology of Atlantic slavery in order to understand the development of this archaeological subfield, from an initial focus on the living conditions of slaves on plantation sites to later interests in the processes of consolidation of African-American ethnicities. What are current challenges faced by those investigating the material constitution of African Diaspora through time?

ANTH 1630. The City, the Maroon and the Mass Grave.

How has archaeology contributed to our understanding of the past in the former Spanish colonies? How has this knowledge been presented and made socially relevant in present-day Latin America? This course proposes a critical insight into the achievements and future challenges of historical archaeology in Spanish speaking America, exploring the diverging trajectories that the discipline has had in different countries of the region, and the way in which archaeological knowledge about the colonial, republican, and contemporary periods has been either ignored or assimilated into the development of specific politics of cultural heritage at the local level.

ANTH 1640. Maize Gods and Feathered Serpents: Mexico and Central America in Antiquity.

Mexico and Central America are the cradles of one of the world's most enduring cultural traditions. The modern identity of the region was forged in these ancient traditions and their influence is apparent the world over, particularly in the area of agricultural domesticates (corn, chocolate, and chilies). Their cities (Teotihuacan, Monte Alban, Chichen Itza, etc.) rank among the greatest of the ancient world. This course offers a survey of Pre-Columbian Mexico and Central America, from the early monumental centers of the Olmec to the great Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, and explores how anthropologists and archaeologists investigate Middle America's indigenous past.

ANTH 1650. Ancient Maya Writing.

Nature and content of Mayan hieroglyphic writing, from 100 to 1600 CE. Methods of decipherment, introduction to textual study, and application to interpretations of Mayan language, imagery, world view, and society. Literacy and Mesoamerican background of script.

ANTH 1660. The Ancient Body: Past Ideas about Human Physicality.

Course addresses the burgeoning literature on the human body, especially the meanings attached to it through time and across cultures. Anthropology, history, and archaeology offer the principal sources of evidence for this introduction to past ideas about the body.

ANTH 1670. Global Origins of Plant and Animal Domestication.

A seminar providing the basic information on the prehistory of the Circum Artic of Northern Fenno Scandinavia, Russia, and North America. Not open to first year students.

ANTH 1671. Juveniles for Justice: Youth Civic Engagement and Activism (EDUC 1670)..

Interested students must register for EDUC1670.

ANTH 1681. Treaty Rights and Food Fights: Eating Local in Indian Country (ETHN 1750B).

Interested students must register for ETHN 1750B.

ANTH 1692. Southwestern Archaeology.

This course is an introduction to the archaeology of the native peoples of the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico. It discusses the history of the field and examines how it is currently re-engaging with contemporary native peoples. It emphasizes past and present cultural diversity and traces out long-term continuities in beliefs and practices. Special attention is given to comparing and contrasting three formative cultural systems - Chaco, Hohokam, and Paquimé - that linked the Southwest into a series of broad social, political, and ideological networks. Students will be introduced to the Southwestern collections of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology.

ANTH 1700. Evolutionary Theory and Human Behavior.

An introduction to the field of human behavioral ecology, the course provides an overview of the application of the theory of natural selection to the study of behavior in an ecological setting. Focus is on anthropological topics related to reproduction such as issues of mating and parenting, sex ratios and sex preferences, and timing of life histories events.

ANTH 1710. Biological Issues in Human Origins and Variability.

This course examines the fossil record of human ancestors and evidence for cultural origins in relation to evolutionary theory in biology. We will review studies of living primates as well as modern genetic and DNA research for measures of contemporary human variability. Finally, we will explore forensic applications and case studies.

ANTH 1720. The Human Skeleton.

More than simply a tissue within our bodies, the human skeleton is a gateway into narratives of the past--from the evolution of our species to the biography of individual past lives. Through lecture and hands-on laboratory, students will learn the complete anatomy of the human skeleton, with an emphasis on the human skeleton in functional and evolutionary perspective. We'll also explore forensic and bioarchaeological approaches to the skeleton. By the course conclusion, students will be able to conduct basic skeletal analysis and will be prepared for more advanced studies of the skeleton from medical, forensic, archaeological, and evolutionary perspectives.

ANTH 1725. The Archaeology of College Hill (ARCH 1900).

Interested students must register for ARCH 1900.

ANTH 1740. Paleoethnobotany: Ancient Agriculture to Criminal Investigations.

How can we use botanical evidence to understand the past, from cold cases to VERY cold cases? Which roles did plants play in ancient communities? What happens to plant remains after they become incorporated into the archaeological record, and what are the methods used to study these "ecofacts"? How do paleoethnobotanical interpretations contribute to our understanding of history and structure our public policy? How is botanical forensic evidence used in law enforcement investigations? This course trains students in laboratory methods and interpretations of botanical evidence through hands-on practice. We explore the major classes of plant remains likely to be encountered in forensic cases and archaeological sites; identify botanical residues and organize the data to make interpretable results; and address major issues within the discipline.

ANTH 1750. Bioarchaeology and Forensic Anthropology.

Bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology have common methodological roots (human osteology) but are oriented to answer very different questions. Both are grounded in the anthropological sub-disciplines of biological anthropology and archaeology. The focus in bioarchaeology is advancing our understanding of the human experience in the past. Bioarchaeologists study a range of topics including health, violence, migration, and embodiment. Forensic anthropology is a form of applied anthropology that is employed to document and interpret human remains in medico-legal contexts. The course will survey both fields while instructing in the methodologies and approaches of each. The course complements The Human Skeleton (ANTH 1720).

ANTH 1760. Disability and Culture in the Past and Present.

Like gender and race, disability is a cultural and social formation that identifies particular bodies and minds as different, regularly as undesirable, and rarely as extraordinary. This course introduces the theoretical, cultural, and political models of disability and explores the lived experiences of persons with disabilities across time and within different social contexts. Through a discussion of scholarly readings, literature, film, photography, art, and archaeology, this seminar considers disability in relation to: identity; impairment; stigma; monstrosity; marginalization; discrimination; beauty; power; media representations; activism; intersectionality; and gender and sexuality.

ANTH 1764. Campus Culture.

This course presents and anthropological perspective on American colleges and universities from the past to present. In particular, it will address the emerging relationships between curriculum, governance, funding sources, academic values, and campus life. Readings will include theoretical sources on higher education, historical and ethnographic accounts of particular institutions, and recent essays regarding the purpose, practices and criticism of contemporary colleges and universities.

ANTH 1800. Sociolinguistics, Discourse and Dialogue.

An investigation of the study of language and language behavior. Centers on the study of variation in language as seen in the social and cultural context of language use. This course will feature practice in writing fictional and dramatic dialogue based on real-life discourse. Presupposes some familiarity with basic linguistics (ANTH 0800, CLPS 0030, or equivalent).

ANTH 1810. Language and Power.

This course considers how language and power relate to each other in social life. We first consider theoretical approaches to the politics of language use, such as Foucault on discursive formations, Bourdieu on language as social capital, and Bakhtin on the oppression inherent in standard languages. We then consider specific issues, including joking as linguistic resistance, language death and revitalization, the cochlear implant debate, and racializing discourses. We end with language use in the U.S. "culture wars," covering such topics as the Ebonics controversy, language and electoral politics, hate speech, and English language legislation.

ANTH 1815. Listening and Society.

Politics, power, and even a sense of self are frequently identified with having a voice. Creating such a voice, however, is not solely up to speakers. Listeners also play an important role in determining who is heard and in what ways. The same could be said for personal relationships and care. We seem to pay more attention to how we can speak and what we can say to care for someone than to specific ways we can improve our listening skills. In this class, we will consider different ways that listening shapes our relationships with other people and the broad social effects of different ways of listening. We will consider listening in a wide range of settings, including cities, deaf communities, places of suffering, legal hearings, and prisons.

ANTH 1820. Lost Languages: The Decipherment and Study of Ancient Writing Systems.

Humans make many marks, but it is writing that records, in tangible form, the sounds and meanings of language. Creating scripts is momentous; writing facilitates complex society and is a crucial means of cultural expression. This course addresses the nature of writing in past times. Topics include: the technology of script; its precursors and parallel notations; its emergence, use, and "death"; its change over time, especially in moments of cultural contact and colonialism; writing as a physical object or thing; code-breaking and decipherment, including scripts not yet deciphered; and the nature of non-writing or pseudo- or crypto-scripts.

ANTH 1830. The Pictured Text.

Writing makes language visible, and thus concerns images. Language also delimits the legibility of imagery. Turning words into images and images into words occurs at great speed around us. This course explores the relation of text and image across world traditions—Chinese, Mayan, Egyptian, Islamic, Greco-Roman, and others, extending up to the present. Topics include: calligraphy, context, scribal practice, the form and shape of writing, including typography, hidden or pseudo-writing, graffiti, and contemporary art.

ANTH 1848. Ethnography + Social Critique.

What is ethnography, as a mode of witnessing, a method of research, a form of storytelling? How is it distinct from other ways of producing knowledge about human experience? How do ethnographers understand and engage with the ethics and politics of fieldwork and writing? This seminar raises these and other questions underlying the practice and genre of ethnography. It delves into the issues of participation, power, and perspective; the nature of evidence and its use in social critique; the reliability of representation; the relation between description and interpretation and between narrative and theory; and the role of different viewpoints and of the author’s voice. Throughout the semester, students will read and discuss ethnographic texts (paying particular attention to epistemology, ethics, politics, and poetics) and complete a series of written assignments (ethnographic journaling).

ANTH 1870A. Reproductive Health and Sexuality.

No description available.

ANTH 1871A. Heritage in the Metropolis: Remembering and Preserving the Urban Past (URBN 1871A).

Interested students must register for URBN 1871A.

ANTH 1880. From Magic Mushrooms to Big Pharma: Anthropology of Drugs.

This course considers the social, political, and medical issues associated with illegal and pharmaceutical drugs. Some of the topics we consider are debates over the commercialization and criminalization of hallucinogenic plants such as marijuana, the politics of antiretroviral distribution, the ethics of medical and ethnic tourism, the legacies of colonialism and botanical migrations, "biopiracy" and indigenous knowledge, and critiques of modern food production, including the "locavore movement" and opposition to genetically modified foods. Through it all, we consider how the ways people talk and write about these issues affect concrete realities in daily life. Enrollment limited to 20 juniors and seniors.

ANTH 1900. History of Anthropology: Anthropological Theories.

Looks at the way anthropological methods and theories have interlaced through history to understand the dominant concerns in present-day anthropology. What were the important issues that influenced the discipline's history? Who were the significant, and not so well known, historic personalities who shaped anthropological practice and gave it its identity? Enrollment limited to 20.

ANTH 1901. Anthropology in/of the Museum.

This course provides an introduction to museums from an anthropological perspective. Topics include politics of representation and the construction of the “Other”; objects, identity, and meaning; collecting and cultural property; and collaboration, community engagement, and indigenous self-representation. Assignments involve work with the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology’s exhibitions and collections. The course focuses on museums dedicated to natural and cultural history, but establishes theoretical and practical grounding for thinking about and working in other disciplines and other kinds of display institutions. It is suitable for both undergraduate and graduate students. There are no prerequisites; but familiarity with anthropology is presumed.

ANTH 1910A. Anthropological Approaches to World Issues.

Capstone seminar for Anthropology concentrators that explores how anthropology can challenge conventional or dominant wisdom about global social problems. Original research project required.

ANTH 1910B. Anthropology of Place.

The anthropology of place serves as a unifying theme for the seminar by bridging anthropology’s subdisciplines and articulating with other fields of knowledge. Through readings and discussion, students will explore how place permeates people’s everyday lives and their engagement with the world, and is implicit in the meanings they attach to specific locales, their struggles over them, and the longings they express for them in rapidly changing and reconfigured landscapes. Enrollment limited to 20.

ANTH 1910C. Campus Culture.

Colleges and universities are normative microcosms of the societies they serve. They create, partition, validate and communicate knowledge to rising generations. Their architectures, landscapes, daily routines, yearly cycles, and centennial celebrations are infused with symbolic meanings. Degree awarding ceremonies are among the most attended pilgrimages in our culture. Colleges and universities are gateways to society's essential professions and portals to a succession of alumni/ae bound by tradition. We will look at these institutions, their values, symbols, communities, governance, financial sources, academic structures, tensions, and adaptive strategies through the seeing eye of anthropology. Enrollment limited to 20.

ANTH 1910D. Faces of Culture.

The seminar is designed to allow you as anthropology majors to question to debate and examine some of the assumptions of the discipline, and critically explore the multfacious uses of the concept. We will contextualize the study of culture with the history of anthropology and across other disciplines in the humanities and the social sciences. Limited to 20. Prerequisite: ANTH1900

ANTH 1910E. Media and the Middle East.

Media anthropology is a reinvented field within the discipline, emerging from critical engagements with ethnographic film and the crisis of representation of the 1980s. We'll explore the development of an anthropological approach to mass media studies by focusing on research conducted and theories derived from a particular region: the Middle East. Enrollment limited to 20 senior Anthropology concentrators. Prerequisite: ANTH 1621, 1900, 1940, or 1950.

ANTH 1910F. Social Construction.

No description available. Enrollment limited to 20.

ANTH 1910G. Senior Seminar: Politics and Symbols.

Examination of the key role played by symbols in politics. We examine symbols, myths, and rituals used to win support, create political reality, and form political groups, whether in defense of the status quo or creating movements seeking to overthrow it. The 2016 U.S. presidential, congressional, state, and local political campaigns receive attention. Students, in part working in groups, will engage in original research both on the 2016 American elections and a wide variety of historical and contemporary political developments, from ISIS and the Arab Spring to the American anti-abortion movement. Prerequisites: two previous courses in anthropology.

ANTH 1910H. Anthropological Approaches to World Issues: Locating Migration.

Migration is a main way that not only populations change, but also economies, landscapes, cultures, and identities. Drawing on cases from across the globe and through time, we will examine migration through both the global flows of capital and culture and through migrants’ lives as they build families, fight for belonging, and transform the built environment. This capstone seminar is designed to further concentrators’ engagement with anthropology, its methods, subfields, and its contributions to our knowledge of human experience. Particular emphasis will be on how anthropology aids in understanding the interrelation of global political and economic systems and local experiences.

ANTH 1911. Gender and Sexuality in the Middle East.

The aim of this course is to offer an overview of the key issues in the study of gender and sexuality with reference to the Middle East. It will provide a gendered understanding of prevailing structures, ideologies, social practices and trends for those students interested in Middle East societies, cultures and politics, as well as those interested in women and gender studies. While the course focuses on anthropological approaches, it is interdisciplinary in scope, with readings and theoretical underpinnings ranging from anthropology to history, sociology, political science, to cultural studies.

ANTH 1920. Gastronomic Heritage.

How is gastronomic heritage established and re-established through ties to ancient foodways? Where do archaeology and history contribute to the ossification and legitimation of culinary traditions and practices? There are many stakes tied to such questions—nutritional, religious, ethnic, institutional, governmental, and touristic, among others. In this course, we address relationships between food history and gastronomic heritage, drawing on examples from around the world and across media, including cookbooks, international policy reports, and video game representations. We examine culinary dimensions considered "traditional" by local communities and federal agencies, the archaeological and historical sources of such narratives (if they exist), and impacts of gastronomic heritage on modern practices, identities, and economies.

ANTH 1930. Anthropology Thesis Workshop.

This course is a year long two-semester workshop (offered in the fall and spring semesters) for students who are researching and writing an honors or senior thesis in Anthropology or a closely related field. Supplementing advisor support, the course will introduce students to best practices, shoring up essential skills in research design, methods, data interpretation, and written and oral presentation. Students will also participate in peer review, offering and responding to substantive and supportive feedback on their work in progress. The workshop, which meets every other week, is structured so that students can make substantial progress, following a recommended schedule to ensure the successful and timely completion of the thesis in the spring.

ANTH 1940. Ethnographic Research Methods.

To understand the different theoretical assumptions that shape research efforts; to examine how hypotheses and research questions are formulated; and to appreciate the ethical and scientific dimensions of research by hands-on experience in fieldwork projects. Prerequisite: One Anthropology course.

ANTH 1941. Context Research for Innovation.

This course brings design thinking into conversation with anthropological research methods, examining the elements of a comprehensive perspective of context. It introduces students to design research methods, ethnographic methods, and how they work together. Students will learn how to use these methods to identify and engage in 'deep hanging out' with the problem, gap or inefficiency in question. They will then move on to patient, contextualized opportunity identification for meaningful innovation. By the end of the course, students will have developed a process for effective context analysis. This course is relevant for designers of products, services, organizations, and experiences. Enrollment limited to 40.

ANTH 1950. Archaeological Field Work.

Training in archaeological lab and field techniques for archaeologists. Topics include the nature of field archaeology, tools of the trade, interdisciplinary field techniques, ethics, excavations methodology, survey and GIS, systematic vs. ad hoc excavation, artifact analysis, site and artifact preservation. Students gain experience as practicing archaeologists through the active investigation of local historical and archaeological sites in the College Hill area.

ANTH 1970. Individual Research Project.

Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.

ANTH 1990. Senior Seminar: (Re)Making Anthropology.

This Senior Seminar capstone course is a critical look at the past, present, future of anthropology. The class proceeds from the premise that we must know the history of our field in order to build a stronger discipline. It examines the contributions and missteps of past anthropologists. Among the key questions to address: What are the discipline’s aims and contributions in the 21st century? Has the field successfully integrated diverse voices and perspectives? Are their central theories and methods that have (and continue to) define the field? What does it mean to be an anthropologist?

ANTH 2000. History of Ethnological Theory.

An examination of the intellectual roots and the development of theory and method in anthropology, from the discipline's origins in the nineteenth century to 1940, with an emphasis on sociocultural anthropology.

ANTH 2010. Principles of Cultural Anthropology.

A seminar exploring fundamental theoretical and ethnographic currents in 20th- and 21st-century cultural anthropology.

ANTH 2015. Cosmopolitan Ethnography.

Contributes to anthropological understandings of globalism, political and urban anthropology, with a focus on one particular theoretical orientation that may guide research design and/or analysis. In addition to studying this particular philosophy through which they might understand culture, this course offers a model for the adoption of any given theoretical lens that might be taken up, critiqued, and otherwise put to use in cultural analysis.

ANTH 2020. Methods of Anthropological Research.

A seminar on the methodological problems associated with field research in social and cultural anthropology. Designed to help students prepare for both summer and dissertation research.

ANTH 2025. Research Design and Ethnographic Methods in Anthropology.

The purpose of this seminar is to help graduate students conceptualize ethnographic research, formulate a research problem, develop a research design, consider its ethical implications, design appropriate methodologies and prepared the proposal for IRB approval. The methodologies will be discussed with a view to arriving at a critical understanding of the ethical, political and theoretical issues embedded in them and the way in which they fit into our conception of anthropological practice.

ANTH 2030. Advanced Field Methods.

A seminar for advanced graduate students returning from field research or preparing for dissertation field work. Case studies are used for a critical examination of research design and data analysis.

ANTH 2035. Professional Preparation for Anthropologists.

This course covers research ethics and politics, writing of proposals, theses, and articles, publishing, public speaking, CVs and resumes, and the job search.

ANTH 2040. Advanced Social Theory.

This seminar is for graduate students who have taken ANTH 2000 and ANTH 2010 or equivalent graduate introductory courses in anthropological theory. Topics to be explored in this seminar include contemporary theories of globalization, hybridity, the politics of identity, class, cultural citizenship, democracy, social suffering, structural violence, agency, human rights, militarization, the body, multisited ethnography, and writing culture.

ANTH 2045. Proposal Writing Workshop for Anthropological Fieldwork.

This course is designed for third-year graduate students in any subfield of anthropology or closely related fields who are writing grant proposals for dissertation research. Student grant proposals will be pre-circulated and workshopped. Students will gain familiarity with the format for writing successful proposals, with the strategies needed to operationalize them, and with the everyday academic labor of both offering and responding to substantive feedback.

ANTH 2050. Ethnography.

Each week this class will study classic and contemporary ethnographies - as well as studies from sociology, journalism, and history - that achieve ethnographic results, but will require discussion to determine what they "are". We will carefully examine the methods involved in research for the books and how the ethnographies were written. Ethnographies will be chosen for their importance in anthropology and other fields, and will cover a broad range of topical and geographic contexts.

ANTH 2055. Infrastructure, Inequality and Ignorance.

This seminar provides an introduction to three literatures: those on infrastructure, inequality, and knowledge/ignorance. We will examine the concepts as distinct ones as well as in relation to their overlapping concerns. Cases are drawn from a wide variety of mainly contemporary settings around the world. The emphasis will be on ethnographic and textual approaches to the issues. Appropriate for graduate students from across the social sciences.

ANTH 2060. Anthropology Dissertators' Seminar.

This seminar is for post-field graduate students in residence at Brown who are at any stage of writing their dissertations. It is intended to support dissertators by providing a structured community, providing a setting for sharing goals, and workshopping writing.

ANTH 2100A. Contemporary Ethnography on Latin America and Beyond.

This graduate seminar addresses contentious and creative issues in anthropology by focusing on the science and art of ethnography. Readings feature new transnational ethnographic writers. Topics: alternative research framing, the relation of field research to writing, representing violence and porous borders in practice.

ANTH 2100B. People of the Andes.

No description available.

ANTH 2110. Critical Perspective: Social and Cultural Issues in Africa.

Focuses on debates over significant social and cultural issues in Africa. Historical and cultural continuities are premised as a way of understanding political, economic, and religious complexities in present-day Africa.

ANTH 2120. Critical Locations in the Anthropology of the United States.

This graduate seminar locates and explores the anthropology of the United States. Students first work to understand the social history of anthropology in the U.S., including its theoretical and methodological contributions, and the range of approaches and examples. The course is then organized thematically as students explore key moments along this trajectory, through a close reading of ethnographic work in various settings. The course places a particular emphasis on scholars, topics, and populations that have been historically understudied and sidelined within the larger inquiry, but that are nonetheless critical for the expanded contribution of anthropological work in this field.

ANTH 2130. Biopolitics.

Foucault’s concept of biopolitics transformed how anthropologists understand power, agency, modernity, and, more broadly, life itself. As a theoretical tool, it has informed a range of contemporary social science—from intersectional research on reproductive health to theories of the postcolonial state to ethnographies on consumerism. This course will introduce graduate students to the core components and theoretical lineages of biopolitics, and recent ethnographic and archival work that builds on and challenges Foucault’s seminal texts. We will highlight the work of Black, indigenous, women, and queer scholars who have sharpened our discipline’s apprehension of biopolitics through intersectional, postcolonial, and anti-racist perspectives.

ANTH 2200A. International Health.

This graduate seminar (upper-class undergraduates may seek permission from the instructor) focuses on the social and cultural complexity of health problems in developing nations, exploring anthropological approaches to public health. International health issues will be investigated using historical, ecological, epidemiological, political-economic, and ethnomedical perspectives, and the role of "applied" anthropology will be explored.

ANTH 2210. Anthropology of Kinship.

This course will discuss the analysis of kinship and the construction of the person cross-culturally.

ANTH 2230. Medical Anthropology.

This graduate seminar provides a theoretical, methodological, and ethnographic foundation in medical anthropology. The focus will be on sociocultural approaches to the study of the suffering, illness and the body, though the course will also engage with key issues in biocultural approaches to understanding disease processes. Topics will include: social suffering, religion and medicine, local biologies, gender and the body, biotechnology, bioethics, caregiving and doctoring, and the global burden of disease.

ANTH 2240. Anthropological Approaches to the Body.

This course is an in-depth exploration of theoretical and analytical approaches to the body in socio-cultural anthropology. Topics covered include: the body as site and sign of the social order; theories of embodiment and the cultivation of the self; bodily order and social ritual; the senses; the relationship between bodily epistemology and socio-political structures; the commodification of the body; technological intervention in the body; the visualization of the bodily interior; and state interventions and regulations of bodily processes.

ANTH 2250A. Psychology of Gender.

This course critically examines the role of gender in development and maturation, or the psychological differentiation of males and females, in the context of their socio-cultural environment.

ANTH 2251. Anthropology of Gender and Sexuality.

In this course we will engage with writings from the social sciences on sex, gender, and sexuality. We will look at the categories that anthropologists have created to explain bodies, sexual choices, and subjectivities and historicize and interrogate them. We will do close readings of ethnographies to see how sex, sexuality, and gender are theorized and how these ideas are applied to a variety of cultural contexts and how people live their everyday lives. Enrollment limited to 15.

ANTH 2252. Decolonizing Feminist Anthropology: Theory and Method.

This course will build upon the momentum gained from the work and engagement of critical, and radical scholars of postcolonialism, feminism, race, cultural studies, sexuality studies, and indigeneous studies in revealing multiple blind spots and various forms of violence associated with the privileging of Eurocentric, liberal, secular, enlightenment, and rationalist ways of seeing the world.

ANTH 2253. Transnational Feminist Politics and Knowledge Production.

This interdisciplinary graduate seminar aims to de-center and decolonize discussions about feminism(s) by focusing on transnational feminist politics and knowledge production. Course readings and discussions will engage theoretical and methodological tools associated with transnational feminist politics and decolonizing knowledge. At the same time, the course will provide concrete empirical examples of struggles, strategies and forms of feminist resistances emanating from the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and South Asia. The course will encourage students to ask questions about transnational feminist solidarities and knowledge productions as well as power imbalances, tensions and conflicts within and between feminist groups and initiatives.

ANTH 2255. Gender, Liberalism, and Postcolonial Theory.

What makes the concept of gender useful to think with, both within academia and beyond? How does gender relate to the political projects of feminism and liberalism? What explanatory potential do gender and liberalism hold for addressing (or obfuscating) social inequalities, racism, and other forms of oppression? Drawing on multiple disciplines in the social sciences, this course offers students analytical tools to theorize gender, sexuality, and liberalism in the contemporary world. Building on critical interventions of post-colonial theorists, we will explore anthropological contributions to the study of gender, sexuality and liberalism through ethnographic writings. Open to graduate students and seniors.

ANTH 2260. Politics and Symbolism: At the Interface of Anthropology and History.

An examination of the theoretical roots of the symbolic analysis of politics and the application of these perspectives to both contemporary and historical study of political life.

ANTH 2261. Globalisms: Empires and Social Movements.

This seminar explores globalism in two of its contemporary forms, including empires and global networks of social movements. Focuses on theories of empire and on their implications for anti-war and anti- corporate movements in particular.

ANTH 2262. Social Analysis, Public Goods and Social Movements.

This seminar explores some of the political, ethical, and social issues and dilemmas involved in using social analysis to advance public interests.

ANTH 2263. Colonialism and Neocolonialism.

A seminar addressing the concepts of colonialism, postcolonialism, and nationalism. The nature of colonial "rule of law," the stages of the dissolution and formation of "African" native states, and the notion of "traditional" power are all examined in a comparative context using Francophone and Anglophone case studies in Africa.

ANTH 2264. Ethnicity, Race, and Nationalism.

Study of key issues debated by anthropologists regarding ethnicity, race, and nationalism, with examination of concepts such as identity, cultural citizenship, transnationalism-globalization, gender, home, and acculturation-hybridity.

ANTH 2270. Ethnography and Women's Literature of Non-Western Societies.

Interdisciplinary and cross-cultural exploration of representation in ethnographic and literary texts. Confronts the apparent analytical opposition of objectivity and subjectivity and addresses the challenge in the academy of "writing culture." Encourages connections between women writers in the Third World and American minority discourse to deepen understanding of global politics and the poetics of culture.

ANTH 2271. Fiction / Ethnography (+ the space between).

What is the relationship between fiction and ethnography, story and fact, creativity and objectivity? This course will consider how fiction and ethnography can each inform yet trouble the other, beginning from the premise that both involve a kind of magic. Using the same building blocks – seemingly humble and ostensibly available to all --writers of fiction and ethnography alike create what one contemporary author has called “language-made hallucinations, fabrications that persuade us to believe in them.” Yet these “fabrications” often have different stakes and use different methods for revealing human “truths.” We’ll explore such divergences and alignments by seeing what is provoked when juxtaposing fiction, ethnography, and even other genres of writing (poetry, journalism, creative non-fiction, etc.). Writing assignments for the course, as befits the content, are flexible with respect to genre.

ANTH 2300. Anthropological Demography.

A seminar devoted to the investigation of the interface of anthropology (especially sociocultural anthropology) and demography. A wide variety of demographic topics-fertility, mortality, marriage, migration-are considered, and the links between anthropological and demographic writings on and approaches to these areas are examined.

ANTH 2301. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Population.

Brown University's 10 year of excavations has created a lens through which to examine the complexities of the Nabataeans and their culture. The main information about the Nabataeans comes primarily from their extant monuments. There are also literary and epigraphic sources. This seminar will create a constellation of readable ideas, although we will still be left with many open questions about these people.

ANTH 2302. Field Methods for Anthropological Demography.

Concentrates on methods for collecting or producing data that bear on demographic issues and that are suitable for demographic analyses. Topics include: fertility histories, life histories, genealogies, household surveys, networks, and social units. Particular emphasis on the social contexts of data production, local meanings, and discovering appropriate categories and units of analysis.

ANTH 2303. Anthropology of Fertility and Reproduction.

A seminar examining the social significance and cultural meanings of human fertility and reproduction, including the social and cultural consequences of different fertility levels, the variety of people involved in decisions about reproduction, the allocation of responsibility for parenthood, and the political implications of contemporary debates about the meanings of biological and social reproduction.

ANTH 2304. Issues in Anthropology and Population.

This seminar is intended for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows interested in anthropological approaches to population issues. The overarching theme of the seminar is the contributions that sociocultural anthropology can make to the understanding of population processes.

ANTH 2310A. Law and Violence.

This graduate seminar draws on ethnographic studies and social theory to examine the disturbing, but not paradoxical entanglement between law and violence. Building on Charles Tilly’s comparison between state-making and organized crime and Walter Benjamin’s concepts of law-making and law-preserving violence, we will explore how different modes of violence – from brutal force to more nuanced structural and symbolic forms of oppression – intersect with policies and practices of governance. Anthropological approaches will be used to analyze questions of sovereignty, security, and justice, as we will trace their meanings across disjunctive cultural and legal terrains.

ANTH 2315. Anthropology of State Power and Powerlessness.

How do we conceptualize state power? Is sovereign power primarily a capacity for force and coercion or a source of welfare and social cohesion? States the world over often do not manage to provide adequate welfare or to maintain a monopoly on violence. How then might we understand state power not only as a capacity but also in its incapacities and vulnerabilities? We engage these paradoxes of power through classic texts of anthropology and political theory including Foucault, Deleuze, Weber, Hobbes, and Rousseau, in tandem with lively ethnographic analyses of state power in its capacities and incapacities.

ANTH 2320. Anthropology and Development: Critical Ethnographic Perspectives.

This course examines international development from a comparative ethnographic perspective. The class is organized around the premise that the intertwining of political, economic, and cultural processes is central to explaining the emergence and influence of the very concept of “development,” the extent of popular aspirations for and dissatisfaction with development, and the successes and failures of development programs. The syllabus is structured around a number of broad development themes, such as population, public health, gender, governance, inequality, and humanitarian and refugee issues, with readings selected to represent a wide range of regions and cases. In addition, the anthropological lens is turned back on development institutions, as students will also read ethnographic accounts of Western development agencies.

ANTH 2321. Coming to Terms with India: Anthropology of Colonialism and Nationalism.

This course is designed to look into the impact of colonialism, nationalism and the postcolonial identities of the person in India. In addition to the primacy of the anthropological focus, the seminar will also draw from cultural studies and history. Our engagement will be with topics of nationalism, religion, and caste and class formation during colonial and post colonial rule. Additional topics using the anthropological approach will include orientalism and gender; the location of national minorities within the Indian democracy and the future of fundamentalism; post-colonialism and the emerging new person.

ANTH 2325. The State and the Circulation of Meaning.

This course is designed as a disorientation of the State. Rather than seeing the State as a fixed, absolute entity that exists on a separate plane of existence, this course analyzes the state as an effect-producing abstraction that arises in contested circulations of meaningful signs. Viewing the state as a material abstraction (a complex sign) rather than as an absolute entity, we turn to theories of differentiation in circulation and movement. We attempt to answer the questions: What is movement? What moves? And what does movement create, break down, and change? Thinking about the implications of such questions, we will consider the extent to which differentiations in movement carve out units of governance, how the differences produced in those units might generate change, and how forms of difference might partially escape and alter such movement (or not).

ANTH 2400. Museums and Material Culture.

This seminar discusses anthropological approaches to material culture in museum contexts, by developing themes, selecting objects, and preparing a preliminary script for an exhibition in Manning Hall. This year, "Humans and Nature." (ANTH 2400 is followed by ANTH 2410. Students can enroll in each course independently). Instructor permission required.

ANTH 2402. Empire: Global Perspectives.

Empires — ancient, early modern, and contemporary — have profoundly shaped the distribution of wealth and power in the modern world. However, imperial formations are strikingly diverse, and many of the entities that scholars now call “empires” were not understood as such during their own times. This collaborative humanities graduate seminar explores that diversity and examines how empires rise, fall, and perdure. While taking a global, comparative perspective, we also attend to local processes, analyzing how landscapes, objects, and people were bound up with imperial trajectories in such contexts as the ancient Mediterranean, Persia, China, the Andes, the Early Modern Atlantic, and the contemporary world. We afford particular attention to local peoples' relationships with empires, environmental history, political economy, historiography, and imperial art and material culture.

ANTH 2410. Exhibitions in Museums.

The goal of this seminar is to implement in Manning Hall an exhibition script developed in ANTH 2400, on "Humans and Nature" (see that course). Topics discussed and put into practice include: representation of cultures modern museum displays; thematic development; interpretation, handling, and mounting of objects in contextually rich and engaging museum environments; conservation; audience assessment.

ANTH 2420. Museums in Their Communities.

This seminar examines in detail the internal workings of museums (of anthropology, art, history, science, etc) and their place in their communities. Accessions, collections management, conservations, education, exhibition, marketing, research, and museum management are among the topics discussed.

ANTH 2450. Exchange Scholar Program.

ANTH 2500A. Problems in Archaeology: Archaeology of Colonialism.

Explores the theoretical discourses shaping anthropological approaches and defining archaeological projects on culture contact and colonialism. Attention will be given to examining colonial encounters between Europeans and indigenous peoples as ongoing processes rather than particular historical moments, and to looking at recent efforts at decolonizing archaeological practice.

ANTH 2500B. Problems in Archaeology: The Archaeology of Empires.

Empires have been among the most influential political and social formations in global history. This seminar will explore general literature on imperial genesis, consolidation and decline, as well as considering the specific and unique contributions archaeology and art history can offer to the understanding of empire. A variety of case studies will be explored, with selections depending on student interest.

ANTH 2500C. GIS and Remote Sensing in Archaeology.

This course will train advanced students in the laboratory methods needed for the successful application of GIS and remote sensing technologies in archaeology. We will conduct an exhaustive literature review of spatial research in archaeology to place GIS and remote sensing within a broader conceptual framework. Each student will design their own geodatabase that they will be able to build upon in future research.

ANTH 2501. Principles of Archaeology.

Examines theoretical and methodological issues in anthropological archaeology. Attention is given to past concerns, current debates, and future directions of archaeology in the social sciences.

ANTH 2510. Circumpolar Archaeology.

A specialized course dealing with advanced problems in Arctic archaeology. Although primarily oriented toward the northern specialist, the seminar is designed to present, by example, methodological and analytic problems that are applicable to most archaeological areas and to hunting, fishing, and gathering societies.

ANTH 2515. Material Matters.

In the past decade there has been a growing interest in the study of material culture as an explicitly interdisciplinary endeavor involving the fields of anthropology, archaeology, art history, literary theory, museum studies, and philosophy, among many others. These perspectives exhibit a range of approaches to interrogating how people make things, how things make people, how objects mediate social relationships, and how inanimate objects can be argued as having a form of agency. This graduate seminar is designed to encourage reflection upon material culture and its influence in shaping our lives.

ANTH 2520. Mesoamerican Archaeology and Ethnohistory.

Seminar focusing on current issues in the archaeology and history of Mesoamerica, including Mexico and Northern Central America. Draws on rich resources at Brown, including the John Carter Brown Library.

ANTH 2530. Archaeology of Tribes and States.

Explores concepts of complexity and inequality and how these have been used to study the origins and development of complex society. Categories such as tribes, chiefdoms, the state, etc. are evaluated as conceptual tools for understanding the rise of civilizations and early state formation, as well as transformations in later historical contexts.

ANTH 2540. Historical Archaeology: From Colony to City.

Examines historical archaeology as a complex field of inquiry that engages multiple sources of evidence and incorporates a wide range of theoretical and methodological approaches. The seminar will consider the range of evidence available to historical archaeologists, and draw on examples from colonies and cities around the world to explore how the richness and diversity of the evidence is used.

ANTH 2541. Ethnohistory.

Seminar topic: "Comparative Ethnohistory of the Americas." Examines Indian/European encounters and interactions in North America and Latin America. Explores the conjunction of anthropology and history, combining both theoretical orientations from and methodology of the two disciplines, with particular emphasis on the problems posed by comparative analyses.

ANTH 2550. Archaeological Research Methods, Theory and Practicum.

The seminar is designed to help the student development good research and analytical skills in archaeology. By focusing on research design, analytic techniques, the relationship between theory and methodology, and the development of research proposal and/or reports, we shall examine how both scientific and humanistic theoretical concerns can be sources of meaningful archaeological questions, and how these questions can be transformed into viable research problems.

ANTH 2560. Lived Bodies, Dead Bodies: The Archaeology of Human Remains.

Bioarchaeology is the study of human remains from archaeological contexts. We will survey the "state of the art" in bioarchaeology, while exploring its relevance and application to the archaeology of complex societies. We will survey a range of bioarchaeological methods and applications, including paleopathology, stable isotope analysis, population affinity/ancient DNA, perimortem trauma, and body modification. In turn, we will explore how bioarchaeology can be used to approach a wide range of archaeological problems relative to complext societies, including subsistence, economy, migration, urbanism, social inequality, conflict and warfare, and identity. S/NC.

ANTH 2590. Space, Power, and Politics.

This course critically examines the politics of space and landscape from an interdisciplinary perspective. After reading key texts in political philosophy and cultural geography, we explore themes in recent scholarship including the spatial production of sovereignty, capital, and political subjectivity and the evolving role of digital cartography in public culture and politics. Case studies are drawn from archaeology, art history, ethnography, cultural geography, and history.

ANTH 2800. Linguistic Theory and Practice.

An introduction to theoretical and methodological issues in the study of language and social life. We begin by examining semiotic approaches to language. We turn to classical research on language as a structured system - covering such topics as phonology and grammatical categories - but we focus on the implications of such work for broader social scientific and humanistic research. We then consider areas of active contemporary research, including cognition and linguistic relativity, meaning and semantics, pronouns and deixis, deference and register, speech acts and performativity, interaction, verbal art and poetics, reported speech, performance, and linguistic ideology.

ANTH 2810. Performance Theory.

Explores the concept of performance as used in several social science and humanities disciplines: linguistics, anthropology, folklore, ethnomusicology, and theater. Also addresses practical problems of conducting research on performance forms. Seminar.

ANTH 2900. Teaching Practicum.

No description available.

ANTH 2970. Preliminary Examination Preparation.

For graduate students who have met the tuition requirement and are paying the registration fee to continue active enrollment while preparing for a preliminary examination.

ANTH 2980. Reading and Research.

Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.

ANTH 2990. Thesis Preparation.

For graduate students who have met the residency requirement and are continuing research on a full time basis.