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This seminar will explore how race is understood, lived, and deployed in modern societies around the world. The objective of the course is for students to understand that race is a historical, culturally constructed system of categorization with real structural and everyday political, social, and economic impacts, shaped by and mediated through both global and local processes. The course will begin by establishing race as a social and colonial construct from the complex and contested colonial project of 'race-making' while also foregrounding race as an analytic ripe for contemporary sociocultural analysis. Set up with this historical and conceptual background, students will explore the cultural dimensions of race in particular contexts around the world as they grapple with scholarly and public debates and discussions. While each week¿s readings are clustered around a common theme, students will be encouraged to apply concepts across case studies as they learn different approaches to studying race anthropologically. Course materials include ethnographies of race and readings, films, and podcasts on the histories and theories of race, colonialism, and empire.

In recent decades, there has been a surge in archaeological research related to the African diaspora. What initially began as plantation archaeology and household archaeology to answer questions of African retention and identity, has now developed into an expansive sub-field that draws from collaborations with biological and cultural anthropologists. Similarly, methodological approaches have expanded to incorporate geospatial analysis, statistical analysis, and, more recently, maritime archaeological practices. The growth of African diaspora archaeology has thus pushed new methodological and theoretical considerations within the field of archaeology, and, inversely, added new insights in the field of Africana Studies. This course covers the thematic and methodological approaches associated with the historical archaeology of Africa and the African diaspora. Students interested in Africa and African diaspora studies, archaeology, slavery, and race should find this course useful. In addition to an overview of the development of African diaspora archaeology, students will be introduced to the major debates within the sub-field as well as its articulation with biological and socio-cultural anthropology. The course covers archaeological research throughout the wide geographical breadth of the African diaspora in Latin America, North America, the Caribbean, East, and West Africa, and the Indian Ocean. The themes covered include gender, race, identity, religion, and ethics in relation to the material record. Lectures will be supplemented with documentary films and other multimedia sources.

The course discusses the politics and practices of exhumation of individual and mass graves. The problem of exhumations will be considered as a distinct socio-political phenomenon characteristic of contemporary times and related to transitional justice. The course will offer analysis of case studies of political exhumations of victims of the Dirty War in Argentina, ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia, the Holocaust, communist violence in Poland, the Rwandan genocide, the Spanish Civil War, and the war in Ukraine. The course will make use of new interpretations of genocide studies, research of mass graves, such as environmental and forensic approaches.

In this course, we will explore the ways archaeology and disability relate to each other, including both the ways archaeologists interpret disability in the past and how ableism shapes the practice of archaeology in the present. We will examine a variety of theoretical frames drawn from Disability Studies and other disciplines and consider how they can be usefully applied to archaeology. Case studies from a variety of geographic and temporal contexts will provide the basis for imagining an anti-ableist archaeology. By the end of the quarter, students will be able to: 1. Articulate several major ideas from disability studies and apply them to archaeological case studies; 2. Explain how disability studies and disabled self-advocates are reshaping the practice of archaeology; 3. Demonstrate improvement in the research and writing skills that they have chosen to develop through the flexible assignment structure of the course.

One of the most generative regions for medical anthropology inquiry in recent years has been Asia. This seminar is designed to introduce upper division undergraduates and graduate students to the methodological hurdles, representational challenges, and intellectual rewards of investigating the intersections of health, politics, and culture in contemporary China.

Over the centuries, the progressing urbanization has led to humans' gradual displacement from nature, especially from the parts conventionally considered unpredictable and dangerous - such as wildlife. When the distance between wildlife habitats and human development shrinks, their contradictory needs collide, and conflict becomes inevitable. This course explores how human-wildlife conflicts (HWC) have shaped human-animal relationships in the past and present, and how ongoing climate change exacerbates them. In this class, we will investigate the underlying social, cultural, and ecological differences fueling disagreements between stakeholder groups entangled with wildlife in their daily routines. The course reviews the literature on the most common types of HWC through global case studies, first in the past and then in modern times. The discussed conflicts include the introduction of invasive species, wildlife diseases, habitat loss, species extinction, predatory species' adaptations to human-dominated landscapes, ecotourism development, the impact of human conflicts on wildlife populations, and others. Interactions with animals encompass many aspects of human lives and a myriad of academic disciplines, and this class emphasizes that social factors cannot be ignored in attempts to solve HWC. This class intersects anthropology, animal studies, political ecology, wildlife management, and archaeology. It will combine lectures, reading discussions, guest lectures, and interactive exercises. The course can be taken for 3, 4, or 5 units.

This seminar focuses on the intersection between politics and popular culture in contemporary Japan. It will survey a range of social and political implications of practices of popular culture. Topics include J-pop, manga, anime, and other popular visual cultures, as well as social media. Students will be introduced to theories of popular culture in general, and a variety of contemporary anthropological studies on Japanese popular culture in particular. Prior knowledge of cultural anthropology is required.

Anthropology and the academy more generally have long valued text, language, and cognition more highly than the image, visuality, and the imagination. Yet, contemporary political movements and strategies for social justice and transformation vividly demonstrate why effective social research needs to study both.Pre-requisite by instructor consent.

If you wish to enroll, please use the linked form to request instructor consent: https://tinyurl.com/AncientMaterials - This course examines how concepts and methods from materials science are applied to the analysis of archaeological artifacts, with a focus on artifacts made from inorganic materials (ceramics and metals). Coverage includes chemical analysis, microscopy, and testing of physical properties, as well as various research applications within anthropological archaeology. Students will learn how to navigate the wide range of available analytical techniques in order to choose methods that are appropriate to the types of artifacts being examined and that are capable of answering the archaeological questions being asked. ----- If you wish to enroll, please use the linked form to request instructor consent: https://tinyurl.com/AncientMaterials For full consideration, this form must be submitted by Monday, September 4th.