ANTH 1010         Introduction to Anthropology [Starr]

MoWe 10:00AM - 10:50AM | This course introduces students to the methods, perspectives, and motivations used by anthropologists to study the range and significance of human existence. Students are challenged to follow the way anthropologists approach a research topic, design a question, collect data, and ultimately discuss results via publication. The course surveys the four sub-fields of anthropology (linguistic anthropology, socio-cultural anthropology, biological anthropology, and archaeology) through a combination of texts, multimedia, and guest lectures. The goal of this course is to equip students with an analytical framework which allows the objective appreciation of non-Western languages, social structures, histories and belief systems. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 1050         Anthropology of Globalization [Bashkow]

TuTh 2:00PM - 2:50PM | The Anthropology of Globalization introduces the social and cultural aspects of global integration. While human communities have always been connected to one another in important ways, recent history has seen a quickening of transportation and communication, increasing the circulation of people, objects, and ideas across significant distances. In this course, we will explore the human side of this circulation: how does it shape people's experiences, and how is it shaped in turn by people's understandings of what is possible, desirable, or inevitable. We will read ethnographic studies of people who are engaged in or responding to global forces and processes. How are global connections contributing to the complexity and interdependence of diverse human cultures? What new forms of social, political, economic, and religious networks are emerging? What kinds of disconnection, exclusion, and inequality? Topics addressed in the course will include the early history of global commodities in imperialism, the cultural specificity of economic markets and trade, the cultural roles of big business and NGOs, the experience of workers in global supply chains, the tension between the local and the cosmopolitan in emerging forms of consumer culture and middle class affluence, illegal and informal economies, neoliberalism and financialization, bor migration, totourism and voluntourism, approaches to lessening poverty and marketing to the "bottom of the pyramid," and the global circulation of music, arts, and performed cultural heritage. We will consider how ideas about globalization themselves circulate and how they are diversely framed from different political, economic, and cultural viewpoints. How are ideas of the "global" and "globalization" used to describe the world as well as to change it? How do global processes look when viewed from above and when viewed from below? (3.0 Units)

ANTH 2120         The Concept of Culture [Bashkow]

TuTh 9:30AM - 10:45AM | Culture is the central concept that anthropologists use to understand the striking differences among human societies and how people organize the meaningful parts of their lives. In this course we explore this diversity, examine its basis in the innate developmental flexibility of the human brain and neural systems (neuroplasticity), and consider its implications for human nature, cognition, creativity, and identity. By examining illustrations from varied cultures, history, and our own lives, we will seek a new understanding of humanity and who we are ourselves. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 2280         Medical Anthropology [Douglass]

TuTh 11:00AM - 12:15PM | Medical Anthropology is a growing and important new subfield within general anthropology. Medical Anthropology compares different cultures' ideas about illness and curing. Although disease is a concept referring to a pathological condition of the body in which functioning is disturbed, illness is a cultural concept: a condition marked by deviation from what is considered a normal, healthy state. Treatment of illness in Western industrial societies focuses on curing specific diseased organs or controlling a specific virus. In many so-called "traditional" societies greater emphasis is placed on the social and psychological dimensions of illness. In this course we will learn that different cultures, even in the United States (i.e., Hispanic, Asian, American Indian, African American, etc.), have different ways to talk about illness, and that the American medical community is at times as "culture bound" as anywhere. “Science" does not stand outside culture. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 2360         Don Juan and Castaneda [Wagner]

TuTh 9:30AM - 10:45AM | Castaneda and Don Juan: “Cracking the Castaneda Code,” a hard “second look” at the supposedly “subjective” vistas of the Meso-American power-quest. Objectivity comes to the rescue of what was once thought to be America’s worse drug scandal. Nine books; three papers, no final exam. Class attendance mandatory. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 2365         Anthropology of Art [Douglass]

TuTh 3:30PM - 4:45PM | The course will emphasize art in small-scale (contemporary) societies (sometimes called ethnic art or “primitive art”). It will include a survey of aesthetic productions of major areas throughout the world (Australia, Africa, Oceania, Native America, Meso-America). We will also read about and discuss such issues as art (and architecture) and cultural identity, tourist arts, anonymity, authenticity, the question of universal aesthetic cannons, exhibiting cultures, the difference between the bellas artes and arte popular, and the impact of globalization on these arts. The class will visit the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection, the Inuit Study Gallery, the Fralin Museum storage facility on Millmont, and the Object Study Gallery at the UVA Art Museum. (The student should also try and travel to Washington D.C. to visit the National Museum of the American Indian and the National Museum of African Art [extra credit possible]. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 2420         Language and Gender [Contini-Morava]

MoWe 10:00AM - 10:50AM | In many societies, features of pronunciation, vocabulary choice, and/or communicative style are used as social markers of gender identity and differentiation.  We will take a cross-cultural perspective, comparing language use within the U.S. and in other parts of the world, especially non-Western societies. Questions to be addressed include: How does language use reflect or construct a person’s sex, gender, or sexual orientation? How do language differences, where they exist, contribute to the social construction of gender identity and difference in our and other cultures? How do these differences, or the belief in differences,  affect people’s lives/social identities? What social factors besides gender relate to language differentiation, and how do they interact with gender? Is language itself sexist?  If so, what can or should be done about it? Course requirements: a group project recording and analyzing a segment of natural conversation; an individual paper; reading checks; participation in discussion; a take-home final exam. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 2590-01    Disaster [Weston] 

MoWe 2:00PM - 3:15PM | The sociocultural approach to the study of disaster highlighted in this course includes analysis of the manufacture of disaster, debates on societal collapse, disaster management discourse, apocalyptic thought, representations of disaster in film, the ways that disasters mobilize affect, and disaster as political allegory. Students will learn to apply analytic frameworks to a series of case studies from different societies of various "natural," industrial, and chronic disasters, as well as predictions of future disasters. Cases range from nineteenth-century famines to Hurricane Katrina, the Bhopal gas disaster, the nuclear meltdowns at Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, climate change catastrophism, computer modeling of specific disaster scenarios, and doomsday preparation. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 2590-02    Development & Humanitarianism [Scherz] 

TuTh 9:30AM - 10:45AM | In the second-half of the 20th century development and humanitarianism largely came to replace colonialism and mission as the dominant forms of international engagement. In this course we will explore the production and representation of development and humanitarianism’s objects and the politics and anti-politics of intervention to explore the historical context and contemporary practice of these distinct, but related, modes of “world saving.” While much of the course will be spent attending to the critiques of development and humanitarianism raised by anthropologists, we will also consider writings by applied anthropologists and contemporary champions of the humanitarian project. In so doing we will create an opportunity for informed reflection about the practical and ethico-moral alternatives available in a world still shaped by suffering and injustice. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 2660         The Internet is Another Country [Alvarado]

TuTh 11:00AM - 12:15PM | This course explores the concepts of community, nationalism, the public sphere, and social action in the context of the Internet and social media. It begins with a cultural history of the Internet and virtual community and then explores several ethnographic case studies of communities and social movements from around the world, including current events. It concludes with a consideration of the Internet as a political economic system. Students blog and conduct collaborative research in an active learning environment. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 2810         Human Origins [Hantman]

MoWe 3:30PM - 4:45PM | The course provides 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 distinctly human ancestors (ca 4.5 million years ago) to the period just prior to the rise of plant and animal domestication and early village life (ca 10,000 B.C.). The course is divided into three topical components: 1) a review of evolutionary theory, and the ever-growing American controversy surrounding that theory; 2) an in-depth survey of the data used to support current models of the complex ancestral tree of human evolution, and 3) a study of the origins of uniquely modern human behaviors of the relatively recent past, such as complex language, ritual, religion and art, as well as the question over how, when and where 'modern' humans evolved. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 3020         Using Anthropology [Hantman]

TuTh 3:30PM - 4:45PM | The theoretical, methodological and ethical practice of an engaged anthropology is the subject of this course. We begin with a history of applied anthropology. We then examine case studies that demonstrate the unique practices and challenges of sociocultural, linguistic, archaeological and bioanthropological anthropology in the areas of contemporary policy and community and civic engagement. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 3240         Anthropology of Food [Khare]

Th 3:30PM - 6:00PM | TBA (3.0 Units)

ANTH 3340         Ecology and Society [Damon]

MoWe 10:00AM - 10:50AM | Forges a synthesis between culture theory and historical ecology to provide new insights on how human cultures fashion, and are fashioned by, their environment. Prerequisite: At least one Anthropology course, significant/relevant exposure to courses in EVSC, BIOL, CHEM, or HIST (which tie in to concerns of this course), or instructor permission. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 3370         Power and the Body [Mentore]

MoWe 2:00PM - 3:15PM | "This course is designed for those students interested in how and why anthropology arrives at its own peculiar paradigms of identity about the Other from its own deeply embedded western cultural understandings of body and Self." (3.0 Units)

ANTH 3395         Mythodology [Wagner]

TuTh 12:30PM - 1:45PM | Mythodology: A participatory crash-course in the obviation skill set: how to “solve” a myth or story as if it were a topological mind-puzzle. All the student is required to do is furnish a myth or story of their own choosing, analyze it in class presentation, and prepare a final paper on the subject. Class attendance mandatory. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 3450         Native American Languages [Danziger]

MoWe 3:30PM - 4:45PM | This course in an introduction to the native languages of the Americas. It serves as a way into knowledge of languages very different from English and the frequently studied European languages. The course covers the major grammatical structures found in the different language families of the Americas, and considers the sociolinguistic situation of Native American speakers in the U.S. and elsewhere. Students will become familiar with the structure of Mopan Maya, an indigenous language of Eastern Central America which is related to the Classic Mayan languages of antiquity, and belongs to a large family of modern Mayan languages spoken today by thousands of people in Belize, Mexico, and Guatemala. The methods of analysis should enable students to make intelligent use of linguistic materials on other languages, including those found in other parts of the world as well. Pre-requisite: LGS 325, LGS 701 or ANTH 740. This course fulfills the Language Structure requirement for Linguistics majors and for Linguistics graduate students. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 3490         Language and Thought [Danziger]

WeFr 11:00AM - 11:50AM | There is almost always more than one way to think about any problem. But could speaking a particular language make some strategies and solutions seem more natural than others to individuals? Can we learn about alternative ways of approaching the external world by studying other languages? The classic proposal of linguistic relativity as enunciated by Benjamin Lee Whorf is examined in the light of recent cross-cultural psycholinguistic research. This class fulfills the Linguistics requirement for Anthropology and for Cognitive Science majors. It fulfills the Theory requirement for Linguistics majors. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 3590-01    Modern Families, Global World [McKinnon] 

TuTh 11:00AM - 12:15PM | In “modern” societies, relations of family, kinship, and marriage are generally thought of as domestic matters limited to home and hearth, a haven from the rough and tumble affairs of politics and economics. This class challenges the idea that kinship is relegated to the domestic domain in so-called “modern” societies and has been separated from the workings of politics and economics.  We will consider the many ways in which kinship and marriage remain integral to the definition of the nation and citizenship as well as to local and global economic structures and processes.  How do gendered ideas of procreation and descent delimit citizenship?  How do different forms of kinship and marriage articulate the political and economic ideals of a nation?  What difference does it make if a nation is conceptualized in terms of relations between individuals, or families, or tribes?   How are claims to national belonging configured differently through birth and through racial and class dimensions of transnational migration, adoption, and marriage? What is the relationship between kinship and corporations and how do family firms operate in the global economic order?  How do ideas about kinship and exchange challenge principles of the neoliberal economic order? How have relations of procreation become the basis for a massive new biotechnology industry?  And how does the new biotechnology—IVF, surrogacy, organ and blood donation, etc.—transform ideas about what kinship is all about and articulate a system of global stratification of reproduction?  This course will require a major research paper. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 3590-02    Controversies of Care in Contemporary Africa [Scherz] 

TuTh 2:00PM - 3:15PM | In this course we will draw on a series of classic and contemporary works in history and anthropology to come to a better understanding of current debates concerning questions of care in contemporary Africa. Moving out from a set of conversations on slavery and patronage that emerged in the 1970s this course will examine the ways in which care and power cut across discussions three sets of themes: (1) corruption and witchcraft, (2) kinship, marriage, and sexuality, and (3) medicine and health. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 3590-03    Capitalism: Cultural Perspectives [Weston] 

MoWe 3:30PM - 4:45PM | Capitalism is a mode of production that has assumed different forms in different cultural and historical settings.  This course examines the relationship of capitalism to culture and power by drawing upon material from various parts of the world.  Topics may include field studies of work and industrialization; ethnographies of money and "informal economies"; culture and the corporation; financialization; speculation and economic crisis; the relationship of commodification to inequality; the part played by slavery in capital formation; the debate over whether capitalism is compatible with environmental sustainability; and alternatives such as cooperatives and "slow money." (3.0 Units)

ANTH 3590-04    Food & Meaning in Africa [Shutt] 

MoWe 2:00PM - 3:15PM | This course investigates the traditions and symbolics of food and eating in Africa and throughout the African Diaspora -- wherever people of African descent have migrated or have been forced to move. This course will help students to investigate the way the foods people eat—or don’t eat—hold meaning for people within a variety of cultural contexts.Topics will include symbol, taboo, sexuality, bodies, ritual, kinship & beauty, among others. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 3705         Cultures of the Middle East [Wattenmaker]

TuTh 4:00PM - 5:15PM | Anthropological readings, films and literature provide insight into the diversity of peoples and cultures of the modern Middle East. The focus will be on the everyday lived experiences of peoples in this part of the world. We will begin by examining the ways that the “Orient” has been portrayed by the Western world and consider how this has changed through time. As we explore the rich diversity of cultures in the Middle East, key topics to be examined include tribalism, gender and politics, Islam, religion and secularism, colonialism, nationalism, and economic inequalities. A series of ethnographies (and films) will highlight both the heterogeneous nature of Middle Eastern societies and the anthropological issues confronted by these works. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 3885         Archaeology of Europe [Laviolette]

TuTh 11:00AM - 12:15PM | This course surveys topics in the archaeology of Europe that cross-cut time periods, regions, and major transformations. We begin with the peopling of Europe and the ‘Neanderthal debate’; then move through interpretations of cave art and other early modern cultural achievements; emergence of settled village life and food production; megalithic monuments and motivations and technologies for building them; development of metal technology and the impact of metals on society; emergence of Bronze Age societies and urban centers; societies of Iron Age Europe; Roman relations with Barbarian Europe; and the Vikings. Emphasis will be on cultural and social transformations, and archaeological debates surrounding the construction of narratives about the deep past. This is a lecture class in which I encourage discussion throughout. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 4591-01    Social Inequalities & Diaster [Khare]

Th 3:30PM - 6:00PM | Amid highly unequal forces of globalization, the seminar explores how such ubiquitous markers of social inequalities as class, caste, race and gender are currently readapting, with distinctly changing socioeconomic forces, cultural politics and meanings. With a comparative cultural focus on such challenges (including those found between America and India), we will discuss (a) structures, values and politics in class, caste and gender issues; (b) the inequalities coping new middle class; (c) work ethics and “the working American”; and (d) gender, race and ethnic differentials in health, food and housing issues. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 4591-02    Archaeology of Colonialism [Laviolette]

TuTh 3:30PM - 4:45PM | Colonialism is a historical process in which a polity or nation exerts control over other people, ranging from settlement and the taking of resources, to warfare and conquest, and often intended to transform indigenous peoples and societies encountered. Traditional studies of colonialism are historical and have focused on the relatively recent expansion of Western European nations into the Americas, Africa, South Asia and Australia since the emergence of competitive mercantile economies that fueled the power of the colonizers. Anthropological archaeologists have made great contributions to understanding the phenomenon, both in ancient cases and in more recent ones. This senior seminar thus examines ancient colonialism(s) and more modern versions from a comparative perspective as studied through archaeology. The core of the class will be the critical reading and discussion of archaeological theory related to colonialism and to case studies. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 4591-03    Philosophical Anthropology [Mentore]

MoWeFr 11:00AM - 11:50AM | "Brings to the awareness of students the not often considered view that the theories used by anthropologists come directly from deeply embedded western philosophical knowledge.  It will not only introduce some of these knowledge forms to students, but also demonstrate how they have been applied in the anthropological project and, indeed, how they frequently end-up hindering the project of understanding cultural others." (3.0 Units)

ANTH 4840         Quantitative Analysis in Anthropology [Neiman]

Th 5:00PM - 7:30PM | This course offers an introduction to quantitative data analysis in archaeology and related fields. Topics include statistical graphics, fundamentals of probability and probability distributions, regression and related linear models, correlation, measures of distance and diversity, and ordination techniques like principal components analysis. The course emphasizes practical, hands-on analysis and interpretation of real archaeological and anthropological data using R (http://www.r-project.org). It aims to empower students with the skills required to use data to evaluate empirical expectations from theoretical models, to discover unanticipated patterning and decipher its meaning, and to make the data analysis process open, transparent, and reproducible. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 5220         Economic Anthropology [Damon]

Mo 7:00PM - 9:30PM | Considers Western economic theories and their relevance to non-Western societies. Overviews include introductory readings for Marxism, World-System Analysis, Exchange Theory and Historical Ecology and Materiality. The course is designed for first and second year graduate students but is appropriate for mature 3rd and 4th year undergraduates, especially Anthropology and History Majors. For undergraduates permission from instructor is encouraged. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 5360         World Mental Health [Merkel]

We 6:30PM - 9:00PM | This course will examine mental health issues from the perspectives of biomedicine and anthropology, emphasizing local traditions of illness and healing as well as evidence from epidemiology and neurobiology. Included topics will be psychosis, depression, PTSD, Culture Bound Syndromes, and suicide. We will also examine the role of pharmaceutical companies in the spread of western based mental health care and culturally sensitive treatment. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 5401         Linguistic Field Methods [Dobrin]

Mo 4:00PM - 6:30PM | In this course we will work with a native speaker of an "exotic" language (i.e., a language that is not commonly taught in the U.S., hence likely not to be familiar to any of the students in the class). We try to figure out the phonological and grammatical structure of the language based on data collected from the native speaker consultant in class. Attendance is therefore mandatory. Assignments include one paper on phonology, one on morphology, and one on syntax (the nature of the assignment may vary depending on the particular language being studied). (3.0 Units)

ANTH 5410         Phonology [Dobrin]

Tu 5:00PM - 7:30PM | Phonology is concerned with the way speech sounds are organized as systems. Which sounds occur in a given language? What are the rules for their combination? How are they realized in different positions of a word or phrase? In order to answer these kinds of questions, we look not only at the patterning of segments, but also at the way that patterning is explained in terms of more basic properties, features. We look at higher level prosodic structures like syllables that group sounds into larger units. We also study aspects of the speech signal that are in principle independent of the segment, like stress, tone, and rhythm. In this course students gain experience analyzing phonological systems in a theoretically informed way. They learn to appreciate what kinds of problems the field of phonology aims to account for, to argue for solutions to such problems, and to understand the significance of their analyses in terms of the broader concerns of phonological theory. Coursework involves reading, class discussion, and solving homework problems. Prerequisite: LNGS 3250 or permission of instructor. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 5541         Topics in Linguistics [Contini-Morava]

Th 12:30PM - 1:45PM | Nouns as a grammatical category are often described as a linguistic universal, but what does it mean to claim this?   Of course it is possible to name things and to describe who is doing what in any language, but is that the same thing as having “noun” as a grammatical category?  This seminar will explore the criteria for answering this question, and for languages that appear to have the category “noun”, we will also look at other categories often associated with nouns, like number, gender/noun class, case, determiners, and relative clauses, and at the grammatical phenomenon of nominalization.  Each student will choose a particular language to focus on for the course, reporting on that language for a series of assignments. Prerequisite:  a course in linguistics.  This course will count toward the Theory requirement for the linguistics major and MA program. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 5590-01    Feminist and Queer Anthropology [Igoe]

Th 4:00PM - 4:50PM | This seminar engages gender and sexuality from anthropological, and thus cross-cultural perspectives. We will draw from diverse conversations in and across feminist and queer theory, broadly construed, particularly (though not exclusively) the works of anthropologists. Issues, questions and topics include (but are not limited to): positionality, intersectionality, post-colonialism, feminist and queer archeology, contact zones, feminist and queer critiques of socio-biology and nature, performativity, practice theory, and ethnography of self. In addition to these theoretical explorations, we also consider strategies for teaching and learning about gender and sexuality in classrooms that are also often complex contact zones (spaces in which people from diverse backgrounds are brought together in conversation). Advanced undergraduates and students from disciplines other than anthropology are welcome to enroll. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 5590-02    Anthropology of Spirituality [Turner]

Th 7:00PM - 9:30PM | The seminar will explore the cross-cultural commonalities of spirituality and the variations in spiritual practice. To better understand these, we will experimentally try out viewpoints from the cultures concerned. While including the First Americans' religions in the "Great Religions," we will eschew theologies and use ethnographies--accounts of human action--for our material. We will use primary sources (where non-philosophical) from active seers and spiritual leaders, examining the relevant history and context for their spiritual activity, including spiritual contexts as well, such as the presence of spirits. The work of anthropologists who have been involved in crossing such boundaries will be available, those by Steven Friedson, Ter Ellingson, Duncan Earle, Suchitra Samantha, and others. We will invite religious activists in for dialogue and will practice empathy, and we will respectfully enact rituals. Class members will conduct local field research to engage in spirituality in milieus suggested in the class, while recognizing that the phenomenon transcends psychological and sociological limits of discussion. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 5590-03    Black Diaspora [Fraser]

Th 7:00PM - 9:30PM | This course examines the black diaspora as a grounding geographical and cultural idea in the Anthropology of African Americans in the New World. For the first half of the course, we will discuss canonical theoretical, ethnographic and topical themes and will include archeological frameworks and studies. We  will then take an ethnographic turn and focus on recent work on black diaspora culture and society. Though the disciplinary focusis anthropology, the course will draw on multi-disciplinary studies and scholars allowing students to to compare and contrast perspectives and draw their own critical understanding of the field. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 5870         Archaeozoology [Wattenmaker]

We 3:30PM - 6:00PM | This laboratory course provides students with the background and skills needed to analyze animal bones from archaeological sites. Emphasis will be placed on the potential of faunal analysis for contributing to anthropological issues, such as the domestication of animals, political economy, the origins of the state, and the organization of urban economies. Class sessions will include lectures and laboratory work. Lectures will include a critical survey of the methodological approaches and techniques used to address anthropological questions through the analysis of faunal remains. Topics such as research design, strategies of field collection of faunal remains, and data analysis and interpretation will be covered. In the laboratory, students will learn to identify faunal remains to species, to determine age and sex of species, to distinguish between wild and domestic animals, to recognize bone pathologies, and to observe cultural modification of bones, such as butchering marks. The course requirements include a series of short papers based on laboratory analysis of archaeological faunal remains, and a final paper. The final paper will involve the analysis of a small archaeological collection of faunal remains from the ancient city of Kazane (Turkey), focusing on a particular time period (e.g. prehistoric, early historic) and part of the site (e.g. house, palace). Each student will share his or her findings with the rest of the class. We will compare and contrast results, and discuss implications of findings. Cooperation and discussion between students is strongly encouraged.

This course is intended for advanced undergraduate Anthropology or Archaeology majors, advanced undergraduate students in related fields such as Zoology and Classics, and graduate students in Anthropology (or related fields such as Architecture/Historical Archaeology) with a specialization in archaeology. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 5220         Economic Anthropology [Damon]

Mo 7:00PM - 9:30PM | Considers Western economic theories and their relevance to non-Western societies. Overviews include introductory readings for Marxism, World-System Analysis, Exchange Theory and Historical Ecology and Materiality. The course is designed for first and second year graduate students but is appropriate for mature 3rd and 4th year undergraduates, especially Anthropology and History Majors. For undergraduates permission from instructor is encouraged. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 5360         World Mental Health [Merkel]

We 6:30PM - 9:00PM | This course will examine mental health issues from the perspectives of biomedicine and anthropology, emphasizing local traditions of illness and healing as well as evidence from epidemiology and neurobiology. Included topics will be psychosis, depression, PTSD, Culture Bound Syndromes, and suicide. We will also examine the role of pharmaceutical companies in the spread of western based mental health care and culturally sensitive treatment. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 5401         Linguistic Field Methods [Dobrin]

Mo 4:00PM - 6:30PM | In this course we will work with a native speaker of an "exotic" language (i.e., a language that is not commonly taught in the U.S., hence likely not to be familiar to any of the students in the class). We try to figure out the phonological and grammatical structure of the language based on data collected from the native speaker consultant in class. Attendance is therefore mandatory. Assignments include one paper on phonology, one on morphology, and one on syntax (the nature of the assignment may vary depending on the particular language being studied). (3.0 Units)

ANTH 5410         Phonology [Dobrin]

Tu 5:00PM - 7:30PM | Phonology is concerned with the way speech sounds are organized as systems. Which sounds occur in a given language? What are the rules for their combination? How are they realized in different positions of a word or phrase? In order to answer these kinds of questions, we look not only at the patterning of segments, but also at the way that patterning is explained in terms of more basic properties, features. We look at higher level prosodic structures like syllables that group sounds into larger units. We also study aspects of the speech signal that are in principle independent of the segment, like stress, tone, and rhythm. In this course students gain experience analyzing phonological systems in a theoretically informed way. They learn to appreciate what kinds of problems the field of phonology aims to account for, to argue for solutions to such problems, and to understand the significance of their analyses in terms of the broader concerns of phonological theory. Coursework involves reading, class discussion, and solving homework problems. Prerequisite: LNGS 3250 or permission of instructor. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 5541         Topics in Linguistics [Contini-Morava]

Th 12:30PM - 1:45PM | Nouns as a grammatical category are often described as a linguistic universal, but what does it mean to claim this?   Of course it is possible to name things and to describe who is doing what in any language, but is that the same thing as having “noun” as a grammatical category?  This seminar will explore the criteria for answering this question, and for languages that appear to have the category “noun”, we will also look at other categories often associated with nouns, like number, gender/noun class, case, determiners, and relative clauses, and at the grammatical phenomenon of nominalization.  Each student will choose a particular language to focus on for the course, reporting on that language for a series of assignments. Prerequisite:  a course in linguistics.  This course will count toward the Theory requirement for the linguistics major and MA program. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 5590-01    Feminist and Queer Anthropology [Igoe]

Th 4:00PM - 4:50PM | This seminar engages gender and sexuality from anthropological, and thus cross-cultural perspectives. We will draw from diverse conversations in and across feminist and queer theory, broadly construed, particularly (though not exclusively) the works of anthropologists. Issues, questions and topics include (but are not limited to): positionality, intersectionality, post-colonialism, feminist and queer archeology, contact zones, feminist and queer critiques of socio-biology and nature, performativity, practice theory, and ethnography of self. In addition to these theoretical explorations, we also consider strategies for teaching and learning about gender and sexuality in classrooms that are also often complex contact zones (spaces in which people from diverse backgrounds are brought together in conversation). Advanced undergraduates and students from disciplines other than anthropology are welcome to enroll. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 5590-02    Anthropology of Spirituality [Turner]

Th 7:00PM - 9:30PM | The seminar will explore the cross-cultural commonalities of spirituality and the variations in spiritual practice. To better understand these, we will experimentally try out viewpoints from the cultures concerned. While including the First Americans' religions in the "Great Religions," we will eschew theologies and use ethnographies--accounts of human action--for our material. We will use primary sources (where non-philosophical) from active seers and spiritual leaders, examining the relevant history and context for their spiritual activity, including spiritual contexts as well, such as the presence of spirits. The work of anthropologists who have been involved in crossing such boundaries will be available, those by Steven Friedson, Ter Ellingson, Duncan Earle, Suchitra Samantha, and others. We will invite religious activists in for dialogue and will practice empathy, and we will respectfully enact rituals. Class members will conduct local field research to engage in spirituality in milieus suggested in the class, while recognizing that the phenomenon transcends psychological and sociological limits of discussion. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 5590-03    Black Diaspora [Fraser]

Th 7:00PM - 9:30PM | This course examines the black diaspora as a grounding geographical and cultural idea in the Anthropology of African Americans in the New World. For the first half of the course, we will discuss canonical theoretical, ethnographic and topical themes and will include archeological frameworks and studies. We  will then take an ethnographic turn and focus on recent work on black diaspora culture and society. Though the disciplinary focusis anthropology, the course will draw on multi-disciplinary studies and scholars allowing students to to compare and contrast perspectives and draw their own critical understanding of the field. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 5870         Archaeozoology [Wattenmaker]

We 3:30PM - 6:00PM | This laboratory course provides students with the background and skills needed to analyze animal bones from archaeological sites. Emphasis will be placed on the potential of faunal analysis for contributing to anthropological issues, such as the domestication of animals, political economy, the origins of the state, and the organization of urban economies. Class sessions will include lectures and laboratory work. Lectures will include a critical survey of the methodological approaches and techniques used to address anthropological questions through the analysis of faunal remains. Topics such as research design, strategies of field collection of faunal remains, and data analysis and interpretation will be covered. In the laboratory, students will learn to identify faunal remains to species, to determine age and sex of species, to distinguish between wild and domestic animals, to recognize bone pathologies, and to observe cultural modification of bones, such as butchering marks. The course requirements include a series of short papers based on laboratory analysis of archaeological faunal remains, and a final paper. The final paper will involve the analysis of a small archaeological collection of faunal remains from the ancient city of Kazane (Turkey), focusing on a particular time period (e.g. prehistoric, early historic) and part of the site (e.g. house, palace). Each student will share his or her findings with the rest of the class. We will compare and contrast results, and discuss implications of findings. Cooperation and discussion between students is strongly encouraged.

This course is intended for advanced undergraduate Anthropology or Archaeology majors, advanced undergraduate students in related fields such as Zoology and Classics, and graduate students in Anthropology (or related fields such as Architecture/Historical Archaeology) with a specialization in archaeology. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 7020         History of Anthropological Theory II [Igoe]

Th 4:00PM - 6:30PM | Analyzes the main schools of anthropological thought since World War II, a half century during which separate English, French, and American traditions have influenced each other to produce a broad and subtle international discipline. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 7370         Power and the Body [Mentore]

MoWe 2:00PM - 3:15PM | "This course is designed for those students interested in how and why anthropology arrives at its own peculiar paradigms of identity about the Other from its own deeply embedded western cultural understandings of body and Self." (3.0 Units)

ANTH 7395         Mythodology [Wagner]

TuTh 12:30PM - 1:45PM | Mythodology: A participatory crash-course in the obviation skill set: how to “solve” a myth or story as if it were a topological mind-puzzle. All the student is required to do is furnish a myth or story of their own choosing, analyze it in class presentation, and prepare a final paper on the subject. Class attendance mandatory. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 7450         Native American Language [Danziger]

MoWe 3:30PM - 4:45PM | This course in an introduction to the native languages of the Americas. It serves as a way into knowledge of languages very different from English and the frequently studied European languages. The course covers the major grammatical structures found in the different language families of the Americas, and considers the sociolinguistic situation of Native American speakers in the U.S. and elsewhere. Students will become familiar with the structure of Mopan Maya, an indigenous language of Eastern Central America which is related to the Classic Mayan languages of antiquity, and belongs to a large family of modern Mayan languages spoken today by thousands of people in Belize, Mexico, and Guatemala. The methods of analysis should enable students to make intelligent use of linguistic materials on other languages, including those found in other parts of the world as well. Pre-requisite: LGS 325, LGS 701 or ANTH 740. This course fulfills the Language Structure requirement for Linguistics majors and for Linguistics graduate students. (3.0 Units)

ANTH 7541         Linguistic Anthropology: Linguistic Analysis [Lefkowitz]

Th 2:00PM - 4:30PM | TBA (3.0 Units)

ANTH 7840         Quantitative Analysis in Anthropology [Neiman]

Th 5:00PM - 7:30PM | This course offers an introduction to quantitative data analysis in archaeology and related fields. Topics include statistical graphics, fundamentals of probability and probability distributions, regression and related linear models, correlation, measures of distance and diversity, and ordination techniques like principal components analysis. The course emphasizes practical, hands-on analysis and interpretation of real archaeological and anthropological data using R (http://www.r-project.org). It aims to empower students with the skills required to use data to evaluate empirical expectations from theoretical models, to discover unanticipated patterning and decipher its meaning, and to make the data analysis process open, transparent, and reproducible. (3.0 Units)