281 - 290 of 335 results for: ANTHRO

This seminar explores topics including environmental movements and countercultures, human agency and geoengineering ecotourism, and indigenous perspectives of changing climates to query how humans view `nature¿ in terms of stability, instability, risk and disaster in the 21st century. Case studies draw upon a broad range of geographical regions including the Arctic, Iceland, Australia, and the Americas. Discussions will draw upon film portrayals and interviews with researchers in addition to readings.

Upper division/graduate seminar on recent approaches to the study of cultural evolution and coevolution. Critical evaluation of Darwinian and non-Darwinian theories, with special attention to the interplay of culture, genes, environment and society. Students will undertake projects of their own design to review, test, or improve current theoretical formulations. Prerequisite: a university-level course in evolution, ecology, or human behavioral biology.

Models and examples of the social evolution of stratification and political centralization in prehistoric human societies. Inferences from the archaeological record concerning the forces and mechanisms behind the rise and fall of complex societies, particularly in S. America. (HEF II; DA-B)

The contribution of research in the Galapagos Islands to our current understanding of evolution and conservation. Writings from Darwin to Dawkins, as they reveal patterns and processes of evolution including selection, adaptation, speciation, and coevolution. Current conservation strategies in the archipelago, and urgent measures needed today before unique species and adaptations are lost.

This course has three related goals pertinent to medicine and healing in South Asia. The first is to understand the experiences of illness, and therapy in ordinary South Asian communities. How do social and economic inequality, religious commitments, available healing traditions, and community and family contexts shape the experience of illness and healing? The second goal is to think about South Asian medical systems using a broad historical perspective. How had biomedicine been used during the colonial period to manage the health of native populations? What is the legacy of this colonial history on current practices? What happens when South Asian medical traditions (such as Ayurveda) become global? Third, we will explore crucial health problems in South Asia from the perspective of medical anthropology. Possible topics for the third portion of the course include: child birth and maternal health, sex-selection technologies, malnutrition, metabolic diseases, the selling of organs, medical tourism, tuberculosis, HIV, suicide, and schizophrenia.

This course examines the neglect and management of socially marginalized persons including the mentally ill, youth runaways, child wards of the state, drug addicts and prisoners. In this course, we will approach the concept of marginality by investigating the spaces and institutions of decay, neglect and rehabilitation to which unwanted and indigent individuals are relegated. Readings are focused on qualitative research conducted within institutions of health, welfare, and reform. There will be two comparative public mental health sections in this course: one focused on South Asia and the second on Africa. This course is relevant for students interested in medical anthropology, applied anthropology, public health policy, or clinical careers in medicine, psychology, or social work.

Human ecology, human environments, adaptation and plasticity, and their relationship to health and well-being. Comparative context. Topics include human population history, subsistence ecology, demography, reproductive decision making, migration, infectious disease, risk management, and social inequalities. Particular attention will be paid to small-scale subsistence populations. Small-scale societies demonstrate an enormous range of variation in both environmental challenges faced and adaptations thereto. The process of human adaptation cannot be understood in the absence of a grounding in this range of challenge and adaptation.

In this course we will examine the place of Africa in global health discourses while reading in-depth histories and ethnographies of the varied causes and consequences of some of the most difficult problems facing African countries today. We will study the effects of colonialism and conflict on health, explore the military and humanitarian connections in the fight against HIV/AIDS, weigh the risks and benefits of population genetic studies on African populations, examine biomedical interventions on, and erasures of, local health problems, and query the role of violence, memory, insecurity, and power in daily life on the continent.

This is a course on digital technologies in archaeology used for documentation, visualization, and analysis of archaeological spaces and objects. Emphasizes hands-on approaches to image manipulation, virtual reality, GIS, CAD, and photogrammetry modeling methods.