211 - 220 of 337 results for: Anthropology

This course explores the unique history of San Francisco Bay Area tribes with particular attention to Muwekma Ohlone- the descendent community associated with the landscape surrounding and including Stanford University. The story of Muwekma provides a window into the history of California Indians from prehistory to Spanish exploration and colonization, the role of Missionaries and the controversial legacy of Junipero Serra, Indigenous rebellions throughout California, citizenship and land title during the 19th century, the historical role of anthropology and archaeology in shaping policy and recognition of Muwekma, and the fight for acknowledgement of Muwekma as a federally recognized tribe. We will visit local sites associated with this history and participate in field surveys of the landscape of Muwekma.

This seminar interrogates the history of anthropology's approach to the environment, beginning with early functionalist, structuralist, and Marxist accounts of human-environment relationships. It builds towards more recent developments in the field, focusing on nonhuman and relational ontologies as well as current projects on the intersections of nature, capital, politics, and landscape histories. At the end of this class, students will be familiar with the intellectual histories of environmental anthropology and contemporary debates and tensions around questions of ethics, agency, environment, and historical causality.

This seminar explores sartorial practices as a means for examining formations of identities and structural inequalities across space and time. Building off the definition of dress, pulled from Mary Ellen Roach-Higgins and Joanne B. Eicher, this course examines sartorial practices as social-cultural practices, shaped by many intersecting operations of power and oppression including racism, sexism, and classism, that involve modifications of the corporal form (i.e., scarification, body piercings, and hair alteration) as well as all three-dimensional supplements added to the body (i.e., clothing, hair combs, and jewelry). The emphasis on intersecting operations of power and oppression within this definition of dress draws on Kimberlé Crenshaw's conceptualization of intersectionality. Through case studies and examples from various parts of the world, we will explore multiple sources of data - documentary, material, and oral - that have come to shape the study of dress. We examine how dress intersects with facets of identity, including race, age, ethnicity, sexuality, and class.

The pueblo revolt of 1680 is recognized as the most successful indigenous rebellion in the New World. The revolt demonstrates a powerful counter narrative to the official histories of colonial America. In this course, we discuss and interrogate the four pillars of settler colonial "terminal narratives"- disease and demographic collapse, military conquest, missionization and acculturation. We will explore the philosophical and legal justifications for Spanish colonization, the use of and impact of colonial violence against Native Peoples and the ways in which the collective experience of colonial violence helped motivate a powerful social movement among Native Peoples. We discuss the historiography of the southwest, the role of anthropology and archaeology in perpetuating the mythology of conquest and the formation of collective identity and community in New Mexico using primary historical texts and archaeological evidence

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.

Connections among science, technology, society and culture by examining the design of a prehistoric hand axe, Egyptian pyramid, ancient Greek perfume jar, medieval castle, Wedgewood teapot, Edison's electric light bulb, computer mouse, Sony Walkman, supersonic aircraft, and BMW Mini. Interdisciplinary perspectives include archaeology, cultural anthropology, science studies, history and sociology of technology, cognitive science, and evolutionary psychology.

This course will introduce students to the theories and methods that archaeologists use to study ceramic objects. Ceramic materials are ubiquitous at most archaeological sites, making their analysis critical for interpreting the past. This course applies an anthropological lens to consider not just the ceramics themselves, but the people for whom these objects were critical in daily life. As such, we will examine theory alongside method, so that students learn how these areas inform each other and what information can be gleaned through specific research questions and techniques. We will dedicate one day a week to discussing theory, while the other day will focus on methodological applications through hands-on labs. Students will be introduced to the physio-chemical methods for ceramic analysis (e.g., ICP-MS, petrography), with an emphasis on paste analysis using digital and polarized light microscopy. We will also consider the ethics of analysis. For instance, we will weigh the merit of destructive techniques against knowledge gained and conservation concerns. This class is appropriate for anthropology, archaeology, classics, art history, and history majors, or anyone with an interest in material culture analysis.

This is an introductory class for undergraduate students interested in crafting skills and how they shaped ancient East Asian societies. The class presents how crafting activities involve human labor, skills, and knowledge to transform organic and non-organic materials into working objects. Beyond the human-material entanglement, it also discusses how craft products and the organization of labor in the crafting industry significantly shaped ways of human life and political and economic structures in ancient societies. Each week, we will introduce one popular crafting activity in ancient East Asian societies: pottery and ceramics, lithic, bone, wood, metal, textile and leather, as well as food production. Students will have the opportunity to craft with their own hands to experience the ancient skills in weekly lab sessions. The archaeological materials and case studies introduced in this class will primarily cover, but not be limited to, ancient East Asia. Inclusivity and diversity in regions and eras will be explored to show the general pattern of technological development and its effect worldwide. The main sources are the published archaeological studies on different types of craft technology and the research projects conducted by the two instructors. The lab sessions involve modern materials and processing tools for replicating experiments. No prior background in archaeology, anthropology, or craft skills is required. [Warning: Lab session will involve organic materials collected from animals and plants.]