Undergraduate Courses (Meet Major Area Requirements)
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ANTH 212 Anthropology of Colonialism [Lim]
TuTh 14:00PM - 15:15 PM | In this course we will be looking at 19th and 20th century European colonialisms, with particular attention placed on colonial practices and the production of colonial knowledge. We will be less interested in constructing grand sweeping theories about what colonialism is (or was) than exploring how colonialism operated and how it was understood by both colonizers and colonized. We will look at colonialism's intersection with anthropology, medicine, population science and the development of the modern state. A large part of the course will be dedicated to the end of colonial empires and decolonizations. Of interest to us will be the transformations brought on by decolonization, not simply for the formerly colonized, but also for the former colonial powers. Our study will take us into the present by examining the emergence of the notion of "development" as well as contemporary issues of immigration and citizenship. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 225 Nationalism, Racism, Multiculturalism [Handler]
MoWe 14:00PM - 15:15 PM | Introductory course in which the concepts of culture, multiculturalism, race, racism, and nationalism are critically examined in terms of how they are used and structure social relations in American society and, by comparison, how they are defined in other cultures throughout the world. Students may enroll in one of the optional discussion sections in 225D. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 232 Anthropology of Religion [TBA]
MoWe 16:00PM - 16:50PM | This course is an introduction to the anthropology of religion. Drawing from a broad sample of ethnographic texts on religious forms ranging from "world religions" to those of small-scale, non-literate societies, we will ask fundamental questions about religion and society, about ritual, about religious symbolism, and examine how far we have come to answering them in a century of theorizing. Students must enroll in one of the obligatory discussion sections in 232D. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 236 Castaneda & Don Juan [Wagner]
TuTh 9:30AM - 10:45AM | The six books of Carlos Castaneda represent what is perhaps an anthropological ideal--a world in which the native's concepts of power, sorcery, and transformation are "real" rather than the social systems, adaptations, and symbolic processes generally used to explain them. They are not ethnography; in his latest preface Castaneda prefers to treat them as "autobiography." Yet they can be used very effectively to illustrate a wide range of concept in anthropology and traditional religions, which is what this course is all about. It will not teach you to fly--it may teach you to write--but it will hopefully help you to understand how anthropologists think. The course will be given in an open seminar format, with discussion encouraged. Grades will be based on three papers. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 240 Language & Culture [TBA]
MoWeFr 12:00PM - 12:50PM | A survey of topics having to do with the relationship between language, culture, and society. We will consider both how language is described and analyzed by linguists and how linguistic data can shed light on a variety of social, cultural, and cognitive phenomena. Topics include: nature of language, origins of language, how languages change, use of linguistic evidence to make inferences about prehistory, the effects of linguistic categories on thought and behavior, regional and social variation in language, and cultural rules for communications. Satisfies the non-western perspectives requirement in the College. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 261 Asian America: The Promised Land? [Malik]
MoWeFr 10:00AM - 10:50AM | This course examines Asian migration to the Americas from the 19th century to the present--focusing primarily on South Asian migration but also encompassing the diverse experiences of at least two other Asian communities in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean. Topics we will explore include race and racial policy in the U.S., issues of identity, youth and popular culture, transnational networks, marriage and kinship. Ethnographic case studies and films will highlight the myriad kinds of Asian migrants i.e., refugees, indentured and agricultural laborers, entrepreneurs, illegal migrants and those that have migrated for the purposes of marriage. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 267 How Others See Us [Bashkow]
TuTh 11:00AM - 11:50AM | This course examines how America, the West, and the white racial mainstream are viewed by "others" in different parts of the world and introduces anthropological perspectives on culture, race, and discourses of otherness. Many of our readings and films deal with controversial or troubling topics such as Islamist extremists' views of the U.S., indigenous peoples' conceptions of whites and western modernity, the portrayal of America in foreign advertising, and minority perspectives on whiteness in the U.S. We will ask what others' views can (and can't) teach us about the anthropology of our own lives, as well as about the pitfalls and possibilities of cross-cultural understanding in general. Coursework will consist of intensive reading assignments, an interview-based field research project, short papers, and exams. Students must enroll in one of the discussion sections in 267D. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 281 Human Origins [Hantman]
MoWeFr 11:00AM - 11:50AM | The course is intended to provide an overview and assessment of the theory, methods, and data used by anthropologists to reconstruct human physical and cultural evolution. Chronologically, the course spans the time from the initial appearance of hominids (ca. 4.5 million years ago) to the period prior to the rise of urbanism and early state formation (ca. 10,000 B.C.). The course is divided into three topical components: 1) a review of evolutionary theory, and the controversy surrounding that theory; 2) an in-depth survey of the data used to support current models of the pattern of human evolution; and 3) a study of the origins of modern human adaptations in the relatively recent past, with respect to uniquely human behaviors such as complex language, ritual, religion and art. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 290 The Culture and Politics of American Family Values [McKinnon]
MoWeFr 10:00AM - 10:50AM | This course provides a broad survey of the range of cultural ideas that shape both dominant and alternative forms of family and marriage in the United States. The course is divided in three parts. The first examines the tension between the cultural values of biology and choice as they configure dominant understandings of what counts as family. We will then trace the ways in which these are refracted through and transformed by divorce, adoption, the new reproductive technologies, and gay and lesbian kinship. The second explores the cultural ideas that inform legal and political constraints on the possible forms of sexuality, marriage, reproduction, and family in the US. Here, we will focus on legal controversies relating to sexuality, birth control, abortion and gay marriage. The third investigates the economic policies and structures that affect family and class relations in America. In this section, we will focus on debates relating to low-wage work, welfare, and homelessness. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 301 Theory & History of Anthropology [Abse]
TuTh 11:00AM - 12:15PM | This course provides a historical survey and critical review of major theoretical developments and debates in anthropology, from the beginnings of the discipline in the late 19th century to the present. We will explore a diverse range of schools of thought and applied conceptual approaches to the anthropological understanding of other societies/cultures, including: 19th century evolutionism, Boasian cultural anthropology, the Durkheimian Année Sociologique, British structural-functionalism, French structuralism, American cultural materialism and neo-evolutionism and later American interpretive and symbolic anthropology, dialectical anthropology, structural historical anthropology. We will also review more recent feminist, postmodern and postcolonialist critiques and contributions, and the contemporary turn toward theorizing globalization, "modernity," transnationalism, emergent ethnic identities, and cultural hybridity. We will trace the genealogy of certain key ideas and lines of inquiry or contention that undergo variant transformations as they are honed and reconfigured both in the course of on-going debates and in application to the changing shape of the world(s) they are designed to interpret. Throughout, we will be concerned to understand these approaches not only as theoretical perspectives on other cultures, but also as historically situated and culturally conditioned productions in themselves. The course emphasizes the close reading, written analysis, and classroom discussion of primary texts. This a required course for anthropology majors. Students must also enroll in a 301D course discussion section. (4.0 Units)
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ANTH 315 Work and Witchcraft [Terni]
TuTh 11:00AM - 12:15PM | Anthropologists working in southern Africa and other areas have long noted the connections between involvement in the global capitalist system and local configurations of witchcraft. In this course we will survey the ethnographic literature on these connections, with an eye towards rethinking standard disciplinary models of work experience and experiences of the supernatural. Our readings will draw primarily on ethnographic material from southern and east Africa, with brief forays into Malaysia and Bolivia. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 341 Sociolinguistics [Danziger]
MoWe 11:00AM - 11:50AM | Sociolinguistics is the study of the way language is used to express social relationships. Topics to be covered include language as an index of socio-economic class, Black English, male-female language, pidgin and Creole languages, the analysis of everyday conversation, and political, legal, and social issues affecting language use in multilingual societies, including ours. Midterm and final; field project involving observation of language use in the speech community. Students must enroll in one of the discussion sections in 341D. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 353 Eastern European Societies [Makarova]
We 15:30PM - 18:00PM | This course explores Eastern European societies through an examination of the practices of everyday social life. Topics include the changing cultural meanings of work and consumption, the nature of property rights and relations, family and gender, ethnicity and nationalism, memory and identity. The course fulfills the second writing requirement. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 359 Ethnophotography [Sapir]
Mo 19:30PM - 22:00PM | This course will be composed of two parts: academic and workshop. The academic part of the course will examine specific photographic works that can be thought of as "ethnographic" in some way. The material will be drawn from documentary photography and photojournalism. Particular attention will be given to the "photo essay" as exemplified in LIFE Magazine. Students will give oral reports, to be written up, on selected photographers and topics. The workshop will be an ethnophotography project. Students will find an appropriate field subject to photograph. One that is out of the student's "comfort zone." Successful projects in the past included: a muffler shop, a tea room, a tattoo parlor, a cross dressing club, a fast food shop at night, a black smith's shop, a magic shop, the senior center, etc. The work will be displayed in a "photo essay" form and presented to a jury. Digital photography will not be used. Given the decline of darkroom facilities at the University we are fortunate that John Bunch of the Curry School will let course students use the School's well equipped darkroom. Prerequisites: permission of the instructor and knowledge of darkroom techniques. Open to nine undergraduates, and one graduate student under ANTH 759. This course will not be given again in the Anthropology Department. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 370 Anthropology of Contemporary India [Khare]
Mo 14:00PM - 16:30PM | The course discuses selected major socio-cultural, religious, political aspects of and issues in India since independence, with a focus on the changing position and reach of Indian modernity and its conflicting social values and forces. An examination of the sizeable Indian middle class will be juxtaposed to the rising caste-class-religious conflicts on one side, and to a globalizing, "rising India" on the other, with an expanding role for the Indian mass media, television and films. Completes Second Writing Requirement. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 371 Cities in History [Upton]
TuTh 17:30PM - 18:45PM | This lecture examines the history of cities around the world, from the beginnings of cities to the present, locating urban forms in their social, cultural, political, and symbolic contexts. Throughout the semester, we will consider the origins and changing nature of cities through time and across cultures; the nature of urban life and culture; the relationships between the physical city and urban life and between formal plans and policies and three-dimensional urban artifacts; the contrast between cities that are the results of a single overarching plan and those that are the results of many people's efforts; and concepts of urban citizenship and responsibility and their effects on urban forms. Cross-listed with ARH 331. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 374 Turkey: Orientalism, Nationalism & Modernity [McCarty]
TuTh 15:30PM - 16:45PM | Many people-Turkish citizens, Orientalists, writers, scholars and others-have reflected on the idea of Turkey as a flexible zone between an imagined "East" and "West," with all of the stereotypes that those categories imply. This class challenges those categories by exploring various themes in Turkish life from the end of the Ottoman Empire to the present. As its name implies, the class is divided into three sections. It begins in the late Ottoman period with the writings of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Evliya Celebi and their impact on European Orientalists, as well as readings from Edward Said's Orientalism. The second part of the class explores the dramatic changes that took place in everyday Turkish life as a result of the reforms introduced by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Turkish Republic. The final part of the class explores the long-term impact of these changes and the way they shape the experience and practice of Turkish modernity. Using novels by Turkish authors, films and academic texts, we explore themes including the contemporary urban-rural divide, issues of class and gender, urban squatter settlements, and Turkey's current effort to join the European Union. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 388 Archaeology of Africa [Laviolette]
TuTh 9:30AM - 10:45AM | This course surveys the archaeological knowledge currently available about the African continent. The emphasis will be on the Late Stone Age, when fully modern humans dominate the cultural landscape, and the subsequent Iron Age, but will also briefly cover pre-modern humans and the archaeology of the colonial period. We will discuss the great social, economic, and cultural transformations in African history known primarily through archaeology, and the most important archaeological sites and discoveries on the continent. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 398 Archaeology of the Andes [Arkush]
TuTh 12:30PM - 13:45PM | This course is an introduction to the archaeology of Andean South America (modern-day Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador), from the first human settlement through the Spanish conquest of the Incas in 1532. We will focus in particular on the lifeways of the first human settlers in the region, the origin of agriculture, cities and monumental construction, the relationship between Andean environments and cultural developments, the economic and ideological underpinnings of Andean states, and their collapse. In the process we will draw on ethnohistoric information collected in the contact period, and explore the rich artistic achievements of Andeans in architecture, pottery, textiles, and metalwork. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 401A Senior Seminar: Japan - People, Society, Culture [Moskowitz]
Tu 14:00PM - 16:30PM | Our field site is Japan. In this seminar, we will attempt to put into practice what anthropologists do-understanding a place by exploring the culture embedded in institutions, practices, ideas of self, views of the world, etc. In the course of this endeavor we will be thinking about some classic anthropological questions: Where is culture located? How do institutions or practices reproduce a place? How do our own discourses "imagine" certain realities of that place? We will spend individual sessions looking at issues relevant to the anthropological study of Japan such as education, gender, and self, but we will do so while (re-)visiting some anthropological perspectives on gender and personhood. We will also look at Japanese film, literature, language, and pop culture as part of our anthropological inquiry. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 401B Senior Seminar: Politics of the Past [Wattenmaker]
Tu 18:30PM - 21:00PM | This course explores Claude Lévi-Strauss' maxim that "animals are good to think." It asks how people in different times and places have understood what animals are, and how they participate in the same world as we inhabit. It explores the proposition that religions are not about the supernatural after all, but the natural. Course Satisfies Second Writing Requirement. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 401C Senior Seminar: Contemporary African Societies [Laviolette]
TuTh 12:30PM - 13:45PM | This course engages the human landscape of modern Africa, through the close reading of a selection of monographs and African feature films from diverse cultural and geographical areas. The main texts are drawn from fiction, ethnography, and social history, and are taught against a backdrop of economic strategies, forms of social organization, and challenges facing modern African women and men. We will discuss urban dwellers and rural farmers, both the elite and poor, and the forces that draw them together; transnational migration; and belief systems. How relationships between men and women are contextualized and negotiated is a theme found throughout the readings and films, as well as the struggle of people in different circumstances to build new relationships with older beliefs and practices, and with new forms of government. Meets second writing requirement. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 528 Topics in Race Theory: White Supremacy [Marshall]
Th 19:00PM - 21:30PM | What is "White Supremacy"? Who is 'white"? How does an emphasis on race (i.e. "racism" and "race relations") obscure the relationship between white power and class oppression? What is to be gained by discourses that pathologize "blacks" and render "white" behavior normative? With attention to both discourse and practice the course will explore the meaning and power of whiteness. Satisfies second writing requirement. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 529A The Subalterns and Postcolonialism [Khare]
We 14:00PM - 16:30PM | A comparative discussion of selected colonial and postcolonial encounters, experiences and controversies surrounding the "Subalterns" (or the ethnically, economically and politically marginalized communities). The seminar will have roughly four segments: (a) selected readings on the Subaltern studies and postcolonial approaches, (b) a discussion of field studies, encounters and issues, (c) a review of distinct ethnographic conceptual, interpretive and ethical challenges, and (d) a critical discussion of some recent field generated controversies. Meets second writing requirement. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 529C Analyzing Global Change: Ecological and Anthropological Synergisms [Shugart & Damon]
Tu 19:00PM - 21:30PM | This experimental seminar addresses two problems: How do natural and social sciences interact with one another to the benefit of their individual and joint interests? And how do they, jointly and separately, organize the understanding of large regions, defined temporally and spatially, to define focused, appropriate research questions? Although we encourage students of other areas to join us, the focus of this seminar will be the Indo-Pacific over the last 12-10,000 years. Topics to be considered because they engage human society/environment relations include the organization of floral and faunal systems across this region, and through time; geological and climatological conditions and transformations; currents of human use and expansion; and comparative calendrical and horticultural systems; and relationships between indigenous systems and those created from the arrival of the West to the present. Students are expected to participate in weekly readings and discussion as they move towards an analysis of a time and place concerning their own primary interests. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 529D Applied Anthropology: Community Organizing [Marshall]
Mo 13:00PM - 15:30PM | Taught in conjunction with the Virginia Organizing Project and the Quality Community Council (QCC), students enrolled in the course will lay the ground work for a community organizing campaign to improve mental health and substance abuse services in Charlottesville. Students will explore how theories and methods in socio-cultural anthropology lend themselves to social justice and community organizing work. The course requires a high level of commitment and willingness to engage with community members outside of the comfort zone of the University. Admission to the course is by instructor permission only for graduate and upper level undergraduate students, and the course will meet off grounds at the offices of QCC. Satisfies second writing requirement. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 529E Cultural Inventories [Wagner]
TuTh 12:30PM - 13:45PM | This course offers experience in using and understanding a very simple format for the analysis of a myth or story (any myth or story), called obviation. Following an introductory explanation, students will each select one or more myths or stories, and present and explain its obviation in class. Grading will be based on the students' expertise in doing so in a final paper plus class participation. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 541 Phonology [Dobrin]
We 15:30PM - 18:00PM | An introduction to the theory and analysis of linguistic sound systems. Covers the essential units of speech sound that lexical and grammatical elements are composed of, how those units are organized at multiple levels of representation, and the principles governing the relation between levels. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 542 Theories of Language [Contini-Morava]
MoWe 14:00PM - 15:30PM | We will survey a number of modern schools of linguistics, both American and European, trying to understand each approach in terms of its historical context, the goals it sets itself, the assumptions it makes about the nature of language, and the relation between theory and methodology. Grades will depend on: about five short written homework assignments that ask you to make a critical response to a reading assignment or look at some linguistic data from a particular theoretical perspective; reading responses/participation in class discussion; a take-home, open book final exam. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 549A Speech Play and Verbal Art [Lefkowitz]
Tu 19:00PM - 21:30PM | This seminar examines the linguistics and politics of poetics. We will explore cross-cultural and cross-linguistic diversity in ideas about what can be considered poetic in language, and we will link such formal analyses to ideas about what can be considered rhetorically effective and politically (or ideologically) powerful in language. Requirements will include seminar presentations and a research. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 572A Communitas and Humanism [Turner]
Th 19:00PM - 21:30PM | Where humanism is an abstract quality, communitas is an actual social phenomenon occurring sporadically throughout human society: simply, a group's pleasure in sharing common experiences with one's fellows, creating an essential and generic human bond. The class will do local field research to explore communitas, especially in its prime location, rites of passage, also in special musical occasions and in times of stress, even in disaster. We will follow Victor Turner's connection between liminal periods within the processes of society and the consciousness, in those moments, of communitas and antistructure, using his article on "Betwixt and Between," and following this with a consideration of Buber and Bakhtin, the early Marx, Quakers and the religions, and environmentalism. The characteristics of communitas show it to be well-nigh beyond strict definition, with great variations, often appearing unexpectedly. When it does it consciously overrides psychological and sociological constructs. The special circumstances of liminality may give communitas a time frame, but its provenance appears as the whole universe, because communitas knows no boundaries. Anthropological humanism is a looser concept but concerns the central question of anthropology: "What it is to be human." It treats with respect the intricate and contradictory processes of life in other cultures, in their life histories, daily work, poetics, artistic expression, and science. Humanism is ready to nurture both delight and disasters, and faces the problem of violence, present in the human condition in all its messiness, glory, and misery. Humanism is implied in the awareness and fostering of human rights. The course will explore where humanism is strong in anthropology and will help the class achieve cross-cultural understanding. This class meets in the instructor's home. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 589B Spatial Data Analysis in Archaeology [Neiman]
Mo 16:30PM - 19:00PM | This course covers statistical tools required to discern and interpret effectively spatial patterns in archaeological data at the intra-site and inter-site scales. Specific analytical techniques include spatial autocorrelation, variograms, interpolation (kriging), Mantel matrix regression, spatial smoothing (local regression and empirical Bayesian methods), unconstrained clustering, and correspondence analysis. We will also consider the design of effective sampling strategies to collect spatial data and the links between spatial techniques and the wider orbit of archaeological theory. The course emphasizes the analysis of real archaeological data. Students are encouraged to work on spatial datasets in which they have a special interest. Software applications include SAS and ArcGIS Geostatistical Analyst. Prerequisite: an introductory statistics course. (3.0 Units)
Course Number Index
Courses that meet Major Area Requirements:
Prin. of Social AnalysisEthnographyArchaeologyLinguistics
212, 225, 232, 236, 267, 290,336, 528, 529A, 529D, 529E, 572A
261, 315, 353, 359, 370, 374, 529B
281, 371, 388, 398, 589B
240, 341, 541, 542, 529D, 549A
Second Writing Requirement
336, 353, 370, 401B, 401C, 529A,529B, 549A, 528, 529D,572A
Beyond the West
(for the major: note that some of these courses do not meet the College's Nonwestern requirement)
315, 370, 374, 529A, 529B
Senior Seminars
401A, 401B, 401C
Graduate Courses
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ANTH 528 Topics in Race Theory: White Supremacy [Marshall]
Th 19:00PM - 21:30PM | What is "White Supremacy"? Who is 'white"? How does an emphasis on race (i.e. "racism" and "race relations") obscure the relationship between white power and class oppression? What is to be gained by discourses that pathologize "blacks" and render "white" behavior normative? With attention to both discourse and practice the course will explore the meaning and power of whiteness. Satisfies second writing requirement. (3.0 Units)
Expand content
ANTH 529A The Subalterns and Postcolonialism [Khare]
We 14:00PM - 16:30PM | A comparative discussion of selected colonial and postcolonial encounters, experiences and controversies surrounding the "Subalterns" (or the ethnically, economically and politically marginalized communities). The seminar will have roughly four segments: (a) selected readings on the Subaltern studies and postcolonial approaches, (b) a discussion of field studies, encounters and issues, (c) a review of distinct ethnographic conceptual, interpretive and ethical challenges, and (d) a critical discussion of some recent field generated controversies. Meets second writing requirement. (3.0 Units)
Expand content
ANTH 529C Analyzing Global Change: Ecological and Anthropological Synergisms [Shugart & Damon]
Tu 19:00PM - 21:30PM | This experimental seminar addresses two problems: How do natural and social sciences interact with one another to the benefit of their individual and joint interests? And how do they, jointly and separately, organize the understanding of large regions, defined temporally and spatially, to define focused, appropriate research questions? Although we encourage students of other areas to join us, the focus of this seminar will be the Indo-Pacific over the last 12-10,000 years. Topics to be considered because they engage human society/environment relations include the organization of floral and faunal systems across this region, and through time; geological and climatological conditions and transformations; currents of human use and expansion; and comparative calendrical and horticultural systems; and relationships between indigenous systems and those created from the arrival of the West to the present. Students are expected to participate in weekly readings and discussion as they move towards an analysis of a time and place concerning their own primary interests. (3.0 Units)
Expand content
ANTH 529D Applied Anthropology: Community Organizing [Marshall]
Mo 13:00PM - 15:30PM | Taught in conjunction with the Virginia Organizing Project and the Quality Community Council (QCC), students enrolled in the course will lay the ground work for a community organizing campaign to improve mental health and substance abuse services in Charlottesville. Students will explore how theories and methods in socio-cultural anthropology lend themselves to social justice and community organizing work. The course requires a high level of commitment and willingness to engage with community members outside of the comfort zone of the University. Admission to the course is by instructor permission only for graduate and upper level undergraduate students, and the course will meet off grounds at the offices of QCC. Satisfies second writing requirement. (3.0 Units)
Expand content
ANTH 529E Cultural Inventories [Wagner]
TuTh 12:30PM - 13:45PM | This course offers experience in using and understanding a very simple format for the analysis of a myth or story (any myth or story), called obviation. Following an introductory explanation, students will each select one or more myths or stories, and present and explain its obviation in class. Grading will be based on the students' expertise in doing so in a final paper plus class participation. (3.0 Units)
Expand content
ANTH 541 Phonology [Dobrin]
We 15:30PM - 18:00PM | An introduction to the theory and analysis of linguistic sound systems. Covers the essential units of speech sound that lexical and grammatical elements are composed of, how those units are organized at multiple levels of representation, and the principles governing the relation between levels. (3.0 Units)
Expand content
ANTH 542 Theories of Language [Contini-Morava]
MoWe 14:00PM - 15:30PM | We will survey a number of modern schools of linguistics, both American and European, trying to understand each approach in terms of its historical context, the goals it sets itself, the assumptions it makes about the nature of language, and the relation between theory and methodology. Grades will depend on: about five short written homework assignments that ask you to make a critical response to a reading assignment or look at some linguistic data from a particular theoretical perspective; reading responses/participation in class discussion; a take-home, open book final exam. (3.0 Units)
Expand content
ANTH 549A Speech Play and Verbal Art [Lefkowitz]
Tu 19:00PM - 21:30PM | This seminar examines the linguistics and politics of poetics. We will explore cross-cultural and cross-linguistic diversity in ideas about what can be considered poetic in language, and we will link such formal analyses to ideas about what can be considered rhetorically effective and politically (or ideologically) powerful in language. Requirements will include seminar presentations and a research. (3.0 Units)
Expand content
ANTH 572A Communitas and Humanism [Turner]
Th 19:00PM - 21:30PM | Where humanism is an abstract quality, communitas is an actual social phenomenon occurring sporadically throughout human society: simply, a group's pleasure in sharing common experiences with one's fellows, creating an essential and generic human bond. The class will do local field research to explore communitas, especially in its prime location, rites of passage, also in special musical occasions and in times of stress, even in disaster. We will follow Victor Turner's connection between liminal periods within the processes of society and the consciousness, in those moments, of communitas and antistructure, using his article on "Betwixt and Between," and following this with a consideration of Buber and Bakhtin, the early Marx, Quakers and the religions, and environmentalism. The characteristics of communitas show it to be well-nigh beyond strict definition, with great variations, often appearing unexpectedly. When it does it consciously overrides psychological and sociological constructs. The special circumstances of liminality may give communitas a time frame, but its provenance appears as the whole universe, because communitas knows no boundaries. Anthropological humanism is a looser concept but concerns the central question of anthropology: "What it is to be human." It treats with respect the intricate and contradictory processes of life in other cultures, in their life histories, daily work, poetics, artistic expression, and science. Humanism is ready to nurture both delight and disasters, and faces the problem of violence, present in the human condition in all its messiness, glory, and misery. Humanism is implied in the awareness and fostering of human rights. The course will explore where humanism is strong in anthropology and will help the class achieve cross-cultural understanding. This class meets in the instructor's home. (3.0 Units)
Expand content
ANTH 589B Spatial Data Analysis in Archaeology [Neiman]
Mo 16:30PM - 19:00PM | This course covers statistical tools required to discern and interpret effectively spatial patterns in archaeological data at the intra-site and inter-site scales. Specific analytical techniques include spatial autocorrelation, variograms, interpolation (kriging), Mantel matrix regression, spatial smoothing (local regression and empirical Bayesian methods), unconstrained clustering, and correspondence analysis. We will also consider the design of effective sampling strategies to collect spatial data and the links between spatial techniques and the wider orbit of archaeological theory. The course emphasizes the analysis of real archaeological data. Students are encouraged to work on spatial datasets in which they have a special interest. Software applications include SAS and ArcGIS Geostatistical Analyst. Prerequisite: an introductory statistics course. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 702 Current Theory [Bashkow]
Th 14:00PM - 16:30PM | The course continues the agenda of ANTH 701, exploring the history of anthropological theory up to our own times. We will read works by authors such as Victor Turner, David Schneider, Clifford Geertz, Marshall Sahlins, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Nancy Munn, Marilyn Strathern, Eric Wolf, James Clifford, George Marcus, Michel Rolph-Trouillot, Lila Abu-Lughod, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Sherry Ortner, and James Ferguson. The course is restricted to Anthropology graduate students in their first year, for whom it is a requirement. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 706 Grant Writing / Research Design [Bashkow]
Th 15:30PM - 18:00PM | This workshop for anthropology graduate students actively involved in writing grant applications and research proposals. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 711 Second Year Exercise [McKinnon]
We 18:30PM - 21:00PM | This workshop is designed for second-year anthropology graduate students as they prepare the MA-qualifying Second Year Exercise. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 740 Principles of Linguistic Anthropology [Danziger]
Tu 14:00PM - 16:30PM | This is an advanced introduction to the study of language from an anthropological point of view. No prior coursework in linguistics is expected, but the course is aimed at graduate students who will use what they learn in their own anthropologically oriented research. Topics include an introduction to such basic concepts in linguistic anthropology as language in world-view, the nature of symbolic meaning, universals and particulars in language, language in history and prehistory, the ethnography of speaking, the nature of everyday conversation, and the study of poetic language. Through readings and discussion, the implications of each of these topics for the general conduct of anthropology will be addressed. Evaluation is based on take-home essays and problem-sets which are assigned throughout the semester. The course is required for all Anthropology graduate students. It also counts toward the "Theory" requirement for the M.A. in Linguistics. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 740 Principles of Linguistic Anthropology [Danziger]
Tu 14:00PM - 16:30PM | This is an advanced introduction to the study of language from an anthropological point of view. No prior coursework in linguistics is expected, but the course is aimed at graduate students who will use what they learn in their own anthropologically oriented research. Topics include an introduction to such basic concepts in linguistic anthropology as language in world-view, the nature of symbolic meaning, universals and particulars in language, language in history and prehistory, the ethnography of speaking, the nature of everyday conversation, and the study of poetic language. Through readings and discussion, the implications of each of these topics for the general conduct of anthropology will be addressed. Evaluation is based on take-home essays and problem-sets which are assigned throughout the semester. The course is required for all Anthropology graduate students. It also counts toward the "Theory" requirement for the M.A. in Linguistics. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 753 Eastern European Societies [Makarova]
We 15:30PM - 18:00PM | This course explores Eastern European societies through an examination of the practices of everyday social life. Topics include the changing cultural meanings of work and consumption, the nature of property rights and relations, family and gender, ethnicity and nationalism, memory and identity. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 759 Ethnophotography [Sapir]
Mo 19:30PM - 22:00PM | This course will be composed of two parts - academic and workshop. The academic part of the course will exam specific photographic works that can be thought of as "ethnographic" in some way. The materials will be drawn from documentary photography and photojournalism. Particular attention will be given to the "photo essay" as exemplified in "LIFE" Magazine. Students will give oral reports, to be written up, on selected photographers and topics. The workshop will be an ethnophotography project. Students will find an appropriate field subject to photograph. The work will be displayed in a "photo essay" form and presented to a jury. Digital photography will not be used. Prerequisite: permission of the instructor and knowledge of darkroom techniques. Open to one graduate student only. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 771 Cities in History [Upton]
TuTh 17:00PM - 18:15PM | This lecture examines the history of cities around the world, from the beginnings of cities to the present, locating urban forms in their social, cultural, political, and symbolic contexts. Throughout the semester, we will consider the origins and changing nature of cities through time and across cultures; the nature of urban life and culture; the relationships between the physical city and urban life and between formal plans and policies and three-dimensional urban artifacts; the contrast between cities that are the results of a single overarching plan and those that are the results of many people's efforts; and concepts of urban citizenship and responsibility and their effects on urban forms. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 788 Archaeology of Africa [Laviolette]
TuTh 9:30AM - 10:45PM | This course surveys the archaeological knowledge currently available about the African continent. The emphasis will be on the Late Stone Age, when fully modern humans dominate the cultural landscape, and the subsequent Iron Age, but will also briefly cover pre-modern humans and the archaeology of the colonial period. We will discuss the great social, economic, and cultural transformations in African history known primarily through archaeology, and the most important archaeological sites and discoveries on the continent. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 795 Archaeology of Identity [Hantman]
Th 14:00PM - 16:30PM | Culture, polity, regional system, house society, lineage, household, race, religion, gender, and class (elite, non-elite), among many other possibilities, have all been read at the individual and collective level by archaeologists trying to describe social identities in the archaeological record. Archaeology offers an opportunity to study long-term change in identity, multiple identities and hybrid identities. This graduate seminar looks at and evaluates archaeological models of identity as inferred from material culture at various spatial scales and using different theoretical constructs of identity. The course will require active weekly participation in readings and discussion, and one seminar paper on a topic of your choosing. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 798 Archaeology of the Andes [Arkush]
TuTh 12:30PM - 13:45PM | This course is an introduction to the archaeology of Andean South America (modern-day Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador), from the first human settlement through the Spanish conquest of the Incas in 1532. We will focus in particular on the lifeways of the first human settlers in the region, the origin of agriculture, cities and monumental construction, the relationship between Andean environments and cultural developments, the economic and ideological underpinnings of Andean states, and their collapse. In the process we will draw on ethnohistoric information collected in the contact period, and explore the rich artistic achievements of Andeans in architecture, pottery, textiles, and metalwork. (3.0 Units)