141 - 150 of 337 results for: Anthropology

Required of and restricted to first-year ANTHRO Ph.D. students. Focus is on contemporary ethnography and related cultural and social theories generated by texts. Topics include agency, resistance, and identity formation, and discourse analysis. Prerequisite: consent of instructor. Significant work outside of class time is expected of the student for this course.

Required of Anthropology Ph.D. students. The history of cultural and social anthropology in relation to historical and national contexts and key theoretical and methodological issues as these inform contemporary theory and practices of the discipline. Enrollment limited to 15. Prerequisite: Consent of instructor. Significant work outside of class time is expected of the student for this course.

Modern social theory is based on intellectual horizons emerging in Europe from the 17th to the 19th/20th centuries. This burst of new ideas was intertwined with some of the darkest chapters in Europe's history: the enslavement, subjection and exploitation of vast populations across the globe as Europe's imperial domination expanded and deepened. This course will explore how virtually all the most consequential ideas emerging from now canonical thinkers - on human freedom and autonomy, reason, popular self-determination, property rights, civility, liberal toleration, equality, empirical social sciences and much else - arose as direct answers to the new epistemic, moral and political challenges of empire and colonial conquest. The world of empire indelibly shaped and created the intellectual legacy that informs modern social theory on a global scale - both its internal critiques, its liberal, and emancipatory potentials, as well as its many illiberal, racist and exclusionary strands and impulses. Each section has original texts, commentaries, and background readings that place these texts in their deeper historical setting. Many of these commentaries trace how practical theories of 'lower' or minor selves - the subject people of the colonies, slaves, and other - were integral to the very development of ideas of the modern, autonomous and reasonable self in the western world. Prerequisite: By instructor consent. Significant work outside of class time is expected of the student for this course.

The Anthropocene designates the present geological epoch, in which humans have irreversibly changed planet Earth, with impacts discernible in the atmosphere, biosphere, and more. The term has also become a "charismatic mega-category" in the humanities and social sciences, where some critique the very concept, while others focus on how power dynamics, political economy, racial capitalism, and human/non-human relations manifest--and often accelerate--Anthropocenic transformations. This PhD-level course dives into these debates, drawing on work in a wide range of fields in the humanities, social sciences, arts, and natural science (the latter with works accessible to non-expert audiences). The course involves considerable reading. Written assignments will be varied and often experimental. The format of the final assignment will be flexible, with options that can be adapted to the needs and interests of individual students.

The history of archaeological thought emphasizes recent debates. Evolutionary theories, behavioral archaeology, processual and cognitive archaeology, and approaches termed feminist and post-processual archaeology in the context of wider debate in adjacent disciplines. The application and integration of theory on archaeological problems and issues. Prerequisite: By consent of instructor. Significant work outside of class time is expected of the student for this course.

This course provides students an introduction to archaeological theory, ethics, and practice in the early 21st century. We will consider the wide range of moves beyond post-processualist archaeology; These will include but not limited to materiality, symmetry, the move from identity to intersectionality, the turn to engaging semiotics, anthropologies of infrastructure, religion and secularism, and the debate over practices and prospects of collaborative and community-based research. We will characterize each of these in terms of their philosophical commitments and inspirations, their methodological programs, their modes of writing and polemics, alongside an assessment of their ethical horizons. Prerequisite by consent of instructor. Significant work outside of class time is expected of the student in the course.

Required of ANTHRO Ph.D. students. Other graduate students may enroll. Research methods and modes of evidence building in ethnographic research. Prerequisite: By instructor consent. Significant work outside of class time is expected of the student for this course.

Methodological aspects of field and laboratory practice from traditional archaeological methods to the latest interdisciplinary analytical techniques. The nature of archaeological data and inference; interpretive potential of these techniques. Prerequisite: By consent of instructor. Significant work outside of class time is expected of the student for this course.

Required of second-year Ph.D. students in the culture and society track. The conceptualization of dissertation research problems, the theories behind them, and the methods for exploring them. Participants draft a research prospectus suitable for a dissertation proposal and research grant applications. Limited enrollment. Prerequisite: By consent of instructor. Significant work outside of class time is expected of the student for this course.