Results for ANTHRO

This course introduces basic anthropological concepts and presents the discipline's distinctive perspective on society and culture. The power of this perspective is illustrated by exploring vividly-written ethnographic cases that show how anthropological approaches illuminate contemporary social and political issues in a range of different cultural sites.

Aims, methods, and data in the study of human society's development from early hunters through late prehistoric civilizations. Archaeological sites and remains characteristic of the stages of cultural development for selected geographic areas, emphasizing methods of data collection and analysis appropriate to each.

Modernity. How the concept of art appears timeless and commonsensical in the West, and with what social consequences. Historicizing the emergence of art. Modernist uses of primitive, child art, asylum, and outsider art.

What does it mean to be a Native American in the 21st century? Beyond traditional portrayals of military conquests, cultural collapse, and assimilation, the relationships between Native Americans and American society. Focus is on three themes leading to in-class moot court trials: colonial encounters and colonizing discourses; frontiers and boundaries; and sovereignty of self and nation. Topics include gender in native communities, American Indian law, readings by native authors, and Indians in film and popular culture.

Current discussions of the war on drugs reference Richard Nixon's 1971 declaration as a starting point. This class will encourage students instead to see the war on drugs beyond seemingly self-evident margins and imaginaries. In this course, we will explore the racialized and gendered history of coca and cocaine in the Americas, and follow the war on drugs as it targets different aspects of drug production and consumption within and beyond the borders of the United States. In examining how drugs and drug policies have been used as tools of discrimination and exploitation from colonialism through to present systems of mass incarceration, we will analyze racialization as it is constructed and experienced through time and imposed onto nations and bodies. Readings and discussion will emphasize Black and Latinx feminist theories, critical race theory, and decoloniality, drawing on anthropological and interdisciplinary scholarship while incorporating other forms of writing (prose, fiction, poetry) and media (graphic novels, visual art, film clips, documentaries). Students will learn to interrogate the longstanding racialized and gendered roots of the drug war and explore critical calls towards other futures.

Is the middle class shrinking? How do people who live at the extremes of American society- the super rich, the working poor and those who live on the margins, imagine and experience "the good life"? How do we understand phenomena such as gang cultures, addiction and the realignment of white consciousness? This class uses the methods and modes of ethnographic study in an examination of American culture. Ethnographic materials range from an examination of the new American wealth boom of the last 20 years (Richistan by Robert Frank) to the extreme and deadlynworld of the invisible underclass of homeless addicts on the streets of San Francisco (Righteous Dopefiend by Phillipe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg). The experiences of Hispanic immigrants and the struggle to escape gang life in Los Angeles are highlighted in the story of Homeboy Industries a job creation program initiated by a priest working in LA's most deadly neighborhoods (G-Dog and the Homeboys by Celeste Fremon). Finally in Searching for Whitopia: an improbable journeyninto the heart of White America, Rich Benjamin explores the creation on ethnic enclaves (whitopias) as fear over immigration and the shrinking white majority redefine race consciousnessnin the 21st century. Each of these narratives provides a window into the various ways in which Americans approach the subjects of wealth and the good life, poverty and the underclass, and thenconstruction of class, race, and gender in American society. Students will not be required to have any previous knowledge, just curiosity and an open mind.

The human-animal relationship is dynamic, all encompassing and durable. Without exception, all socio-cultural groups have evidenced complex interactions with the animals around them, both domesticated and wild. However, the individual circumstances of these interactions are hugely complicated, and involve much more than direct human-animal contact, going far beyond this to incorporate social, ecological and spiritual contexts.n This course delves into this complexity, covering the gamut of social roles played by animals, as well as the methods and approaches to studying these, both traditional and scientific. While the notion of `animals as social actors¿ is well acknowledged, their use as proxies for human autecology (the relationship between a species and its environment) is also increasingly recognized as a viable mechanism for understanding our cultural and economic past. It will piece together the breadth of human-animal relationships using a wide geographic range of case studies.

This course examines the life of places as shaped by environmental events and projects aimed towards rural or urban development. Drawing methodological insights from anthropology, cultural geography and environmental studies, we examine the forces that generate place problems for humans and nonhumans. Each encounter with place and displacement sets up a particular issue for us to grapple with: How would we address issues created by natural disasters, the seizure of land through legal means that fall under eminent domain or gentrification projects? Through a critical dialogue with interdisciplinary fields that inform the readings, the seminar aims to bring theoretical and methodological insights to inform our practical suggestions for how to address placeness and displaceness at different scales.

In this course we will examine the meaning, processes, and challenges of urbanization. Through a series of targeted readings across history and geography and through the study of varied means of representation (anthropology, literature, cartography, film, etc), the class will analyze the ways in which urban forms have come into being and created, met, and/or ignored challenges such as disease, water, transport, religious and class conflict, colonialism, labor, and trade. Students will read anthropology in conjunction with other disciplines (literature, urban planning, public health, architecture, and economics) to learn the ways in which ethnographies of immigration, urban poverty, class disparity, economic development and indicators, noise, and transportation substantively augment our understandings of how people live within globalization.

Emphasis is on how health, illness, and healing are understood, experienced, and constructed in social, cultural, and historical contexts. Topics: biopower and body politics, gender and reproductive technologies, illness experiences, medical diversity and social suffering, and the interface between medicine and science.

One of the great gifts of literature is its ability to give us insight into the internal worlds of others. This is particularly true of that state clinicians call "psychosis." But psychosis is a complex concept. It can be terrifying and devastating for patients and families, and yet shares characteristics with other, less pathological states, such as mysticism and creativity. How then can we begin to make sense of it? In this course, we will examine the first-hand experience of psychosis. We will approach it from multiple perspectives, including clinical descriptions, works of art, and texts by writers ranging from Shakespeare, to the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, to patients attempting to describe their experience. This class is not only for students thinking of careers in medicine, psychology or anthropology, but also readers and writers interested exploring extraordinary texts. There are no prerequisites necessary; all that is needed is a love of language and a curiosity about the secrets of other minds.

Preference to Anthropology majors. Anthropological interpretations of other societies contain assumptions about Western societies. How underlying assumptions and implicit categories have influenced the presentation of data in major anthropological monographs. Emphasis is on Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and anthropological analyses of non-Western societies. Priority given to ANTHRO majors.

This course provides a broad introduction to various ways of designing anthropological questions and associated methods for collecting evidence and supporting arguments. We review the inherent links between how a question is framed, the types of evidence that can address the question, and way that data are collected. Research activities such as interviewing, participant observation, quantitative observation, archival investigation, ecological survey, linguistic methodology, tracking extended cases, and demographic methods are reviewed. Various faculty and specialists will be brought in to discuss how they use different types of evidence and methods for supporting arguments in anthropology.

Methodological issues related to the investigation of archaeological sites and objects. Aims and techniques of archaeologists including: location and excavation of sites; dating of places and objects; analysis of artifacts and technology and the study of ancient people, plants, and animals. How these methods are employed to answer the discipline's larger research questions.

Practicum. Students develop independent research projects and write research proposals. How to formulate a research question; how to integrate theory and field site; and step-by-step proposal writing.

Practicum. Students develop independent research projects and write research proposals. How to formulate a research question; how to integrate theory and field site; and step-by-step proposal writing.

For Anthropology majors only; non-majors register for 93B. Preparation for anthropological field research in other societies and the U.S. Data collection techniques include participant observation, interviewing, surveys, sampling procedures, life histories, ethnohistory, and the use of documentary materials. Strategies of successful entry into the community, research ethics, interpersonal dynamics, and the reflexive aspects of fieldwork. Prerequisites: two ANTHRO courses or consent of instructor.

Preparation for anthropological field research in other societies and the U.S. Data collection techniques include participant observation, interviewing, surveys, sampling procedures, life histories, ethnohistory, and the use of documentary materials. Strategies for successful entry into the community, research ethics, interpersonal dynamics, and the reflexive aspects of fieldwork. Service Learning Course (certified by Haas Center).

Goal is to produce an ethnographic report based on original field research gathered during summer fieldwork, emphasizing writing and revising as steps in analysis and composition. Students critique classmates' work and revise their own writing in light of others' comments. Ethical issues in fieldwork and ethnographic writing, setting research write-up concerns within broader contexts.

Independent research conducted under faculty supervision, normally taken junior or senior year in pursuit of a senior paper or an honors project. May be repeated for credit.

Taken in the final quarter before graduation. Independent study and work on senior paper for students admitted to the program. Prerequisite: consent of program adviser and instructor.

Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

Opportunity for students to pursue their specialization in an institutional setting such as a laboratory, clinic, research institute, or government agency. May be repeated for credit. Service Learning Course (certified by Haas Center).

Archaeological analytical techniques appropriate for data recovered during archaeological fieldwork in Chavin de Huantar, Peru. Open to all interested students; fieldwork participants are expected to take the course. Students work on data from the previous field season to produce synthetic written reports, focusing on specific methodological issues.

The development of high civilizations in Andean S. America from hunter-gatherer origins to the powerful, expansive Inca empire. The contrasting ecologies of coast, sierra, and jungle areas of early Peruvian societies from 12,000 to 2,000 B.C.E. The domestication of indigenous plants which provided the economic foundation for monumental cities, ceramics, and textiles. Cultural evolution, and why and how major transformations occurred.

How archaeologists study sex, sexuality, and gender through the material remains left behind by past cultures and communities. Theoretical and methodological issues; case studies from prehistoric and historic archaeology.

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.

Skeletal remains serve a primary function of support and protection for the human body. However, beyond this, they have played a range of social roles once an individual is deceased. The processes associated with excarnation, interment, exhumation and reburial all speak to the place that the body, and its parts, play in our cultural as well as physical landscape.n This course builds on introductory courses in human skeletal anatomy by adding the social dynamics that govern the way humans treat other humans once they have died. It draws on anthropological, biological and archaeological research, with case studies spanning a broad chronological and spatial framework to provide students with an overview of social practice as it relates to the human body.

An introduction to numeric methods in Anthropology and related fields employing the Data Desk statistics package to test hypotheses and to explore data. Examples chosen from the instructor¿s research and other relevant projects. No statistical background is necessary, but a working knowledge of algebra is important. Topics covered include: Frequency Distributions; Measures of Central Tendency, Dispersion, and Variability; Probability and Probability Distributions; Statistical Inference, Comparisons of Sample Means and Standard Deviations; Analysis of Variance; Contingency Tables, Comparisons of Frequencies; Correlation and Regression; Principal Components Analysis; Discriminant Analysis; and Cluster Analysis. Grading based on take-home problem sets.

As the Flint, Michigan water situation began to attract attention and condemnation, Michigan State Representative, Sheldon Neeley, describing the troops on the ground and the Red Cross distributing water bottles, said that the Governor had "turned an American city into a Third World country [...] it's terrible what he's done [...] no fresh water. Then, at a Congressional hearing, the Chairman of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee said, "This is the United States of America - this isn't supposed to happen here. We are not some Third World country."nWhat is a "third world problem?" This introductory environmental anthropology course examines how such imaginaries materialize in development programmes and literature, and bespeak charged geopolitical and racial histories; and invites reflection on what futures for working in common they enable/constrain. We will examine how crises are imagined and constructed, and the governance regimes they give rise to. How does water - as natural resource, public good, human right, need, or commodity - determine the contours of such regimes? We will also study chronic, quieter environmental problems and the responses they (do not) generate. Working through a variety of writing genres - ethnographies, policy literature, and legal and corporate publicity material - will enable students to appreciate what anthropology can contribute to the conversation on environmental justice, and state and corporate bureaucracies and their mandates. The course draws on examples from a wide range of settings. The course is offered as an introduction to environmental anthropology and takes students through key themes - infrastructure, race, class, privatization, justice, violence - by focusing on water. It requires no background in anthropology.

Core course for Urban Studies majors. A majority of the world's population now live in urban areas and most of the rapid urbanization has taken place in mega-cities outside the Western world. This course explores urban cultures, identities, spatial practices and forms of urban power and imagination in Asia, Africa and Latin America.nParticipants will be introduced to a global history of urban development that demonstrates how the legacies of colonialism, modernization theory and global race thinking have shaped urban designs and urban life in most of the world. Students will also be introduced to interpretative and qualitative approaches to urban life that affords an understanding of important, if unquantifiable, vectors of urban life: stereotypes, fear, identity formations, utopia, social segregation and aspirations.

What is sport? Fun? Big money? A tool for freedom... or control?nnThis course will use the work of anthropology and critical studies to probe what exactly sport is, and how it shapes the body. We will begin by looking at various ways in which social theorists have proposed studying sport, and then use these theoretical frameworks to examine contemporary sport, from individual practice to global spectacle. We will probe the social nature of sport- how it molds bodies, makes players, enraptures audiences. We will ask questions like: Is sport good? What do the Olympics Games aim to achieve? Should NCAA players be paid? In doing so we will examine the underlying social and political assumptions that undergird what we have come to think of as sport today.nnAs we think through how contemporary theorists of our time have theorized sport, we too will use their tools to form our own analyses of sport as a social and political powerhouse.nnWe will look also at how sport has historically been used as a technique of both control and resistance across the world. We will read several anthropologists' work on sport across a variety of cultures, particularly as it relates to nineteenth century European colonialism.nnWe will conclude the course with a sustained discussion of the Olympic Games, using the tools we have studied to think through this massive spectacle of global import.nnThis course is ideally suited for anyone interested in how sport can be examined as a form of culture and social exchange and, more broadly, how theory can be used to break open contemporary culture.

The Indian Ocean has formed an enduring connection between three continents, countless small islands and a multitude of cultural and ethnic groups and has become the focus of increasing interest in this geographically vast and culturally diverse region. This course explores a range of topics and issues, from the nature and dynamics of colonization and cultural development as a way of understanding the human experience in this part of the world, to topics such as religion, disease, and heritage The course guides studies in the many ways in which research in the Indian Ocean has a direct impact on our ability to compare developments in the Atlantic and Pacific.

This multidisciplinary course combines different approaches to how GIS and spatial tools can be applied in social science research. We take a collaborative, project oriented approach to bring together technical expertise and substantive applications from several social science disciplines. The course aims to integrate tools, methods, and current debates in social science research and will enable students to engage in critical spatial research and a multidisciplinary dialogue around geographic space.

What role does technology play in society, and vice-versa? This course considers the question from an anthropological perspective, pairing different conceptual models of social-technical relations (Social Constructivism, Actor-Network Theory, Cyborg Anthropology) with real world examples. Through such technologies as factory machines, trains, Bakelite, slot machines, computers, missiles, and PET scanners, students will gain insights both on how the social suffuses the mundane objects around us, and how technologies have radically redefined how we see the world.

This course seeks to divert attention away from bleak fantasies of an impending AI apocalypse that would be unleashed by ¿the blind and irresponsible advent of oppressively dehumanizing technology¿ and instead highlight the oppressive ¿human¿ elements that structure how AI is imagined, researched, designed, produced and utilized. The aim of the course is to analyze how culture at large influences the development of AI and how, or to what extent, AI reproduces political and moral structures of human societies.nnWhat makes us, and even Silicon Valley tycoons, become afraid of science-fictional fantasies of nonhuman villains to wipe the human race, while we easily shrug off rampant racism or sexism that is reproduced and reinforced by ¿algorithms of oppression¿? What kind of political and cultural elements influence the mostly invisible political economy of how AI, machine learning and deep learning is designed, produced and utilized as a commodity by some of the most powerful corporations in contemporary global economy? In short, how does human culture at large configure within the scientific and technological research into and development of non-human intelligence?nnAnthropology has a long history of researching about human-technology interaction and often joins forces with History of Science and Science and Technology Studies. In that spirit, we will cover a wide array of literature on the historical development of academic research on cognitive science, philosophy of mind, consciousness, machine learning, deep learning, cybernetics and robotics. However, the primary aim of the course is to offer a meta-perspective on the ¿cultural aspects¿ of how these topics have been studied and practiced by entrepreneurs, research scientists, engineers, philosophers and futurists, and not the disciplinary knowledge generated by research on these topics.nnApart from ethnographic and historic researches about how AI is studied and produced, we will utilize works by theoretical cultural critics, historians and philosophers, like Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway, Michel Foucault, as well as Gilbert Ryle, Daniel Dennett and David Chalmers. Furthermore, we will heavily rely on cultural images, fantasies and narratives about artificial intelligence in literature, arts and cinema. To that effect, we will watch a wide array of movies and will interactively analyze these cultural works in class, asking to what extent they represent actual research into and development of AI.

What does it mean to want to help, to organize humanitarian aid, in times of crisis? At first glance, the impulse to help issue generis a good one. Helping is surely preferable to indifference and inaction. This does not mean that humanitarian interventions entail no ethical or political stakes or that they are beyond engaged critique. We need to critique precisely that which we value, and to ask some hard questions, among them these: What are the differences among humanitarianism, charity, and philanthropy? What of social obligations and solidarities? How does the neoliberal world order currently create structural inequalities that ensure the reproduction of poverty and violence? How does the current order of things resemble or differ from the colonial world order? This course examines the history of humanitarian sensibilities and the emergence of organized action in the 'cause of humanity'. In the early years of humanitarian intervention, political neutrality was a key principle; it has now come under ever greater analytical and political scrutiny. We will examine the reasons for the politicization and militarization of aid -- be it humanitarian aid in natural disasters or political crises; development programs in the impoverished south ('the Third World'), or peace-keeping. We will end with a critical exploration of the concept of human rights, humanity, and personhood. The overall methodological aim of the course is to demonstrate what insights an ethnographic approach to the politics, ethics, and aesthetics of humanitarianism can offer.

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, and the Spanish Civil War. The course will make use of new interpretations of genocide studies, research of mass graves, such as environmental and forensic approaches.

This course will explore historical as well as current market transformations of medical ethics in different global contexts. We will examine various aspects of the research enterprise, its knowledge-generating and life-saving goals, as well as the societal, cultural, and political influences that make medical research a site of brokering in need of oversight and emergent ethics.nThis seminar will provide students with tools to explore and critically assess the various technical, social, and ethical positions of researchers, as well as the role of the state, the media, and certain publics in shaping scientific research agendas. We will also examine how structural violence, poverty, global standing, and issues of citizenship also influence issues of consent and just science and medicine.

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 1 million acres burned from California wildland fires in 2018, yet conservative estimates suggest that four times as many acres burned annually in California preceding European colonialism. In this course we will explore how climate, land management, urban development, and human social institutions contribute to contrasts in wild and prescribed (intentional anthropogenic) fire patterns worldwide. We will investigate the socio-ecological values and harms associated with different fire and land-use policies and practices, ranging from Indigenous and small-scale contexts, conservation projects, and large-scale fire suppression efforts.

Key texts from art theory, design theory, and recent work in craft theory will be set in conversation with anthropological understandings of cultural production and creative expression in order to explore why art, design, and craft have so long been differently valued. Examines why ¿art¿ is associated with ¿vision¿, intellect, and creative expression, while ¿craft¿ is associated with ¿mere¿ skill, manual labor, and domesticity. Contemporary social and political implications are explored.

This course draws from ethnography, social theory, media and literature to examines the place of the asylum in the constitution of knowledge, politics, and populations. An ancient juridical concept, asylum has been used to describe a fundamental political right, medical and penal institutions, as well as emergent spaces of care and safety. As such, thus course invites students to think of critical issues associated with asylum, including: illness, trauma, violence, immigration, displacement, human rights, sanctuary, and testimony.

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.

Course introduces social theory concepts and paradigms for the understanding of class. It then extends and revises those concepts and paradigms by considering anthropological approaches in different cultural and historical settings that consider the entanglements of class with other social hierarchies, especially race, caste, and ideas of "civilization" and "development".

Seminar. The state, private sector, development agencies, and NGOs in development and conservation of tropical land use. Focus is on the socioeconomic and political drivers of resource extraction and agricultural production. Case studies used to examine the local-to-global context from many disciplines. Are maps and analyses used for gain, visibility, accountability, or contested terrain? How are power dynamics, land use history, state-private sector collusion, and neoliberal policies valued? What are the local and extra-local responses?

This workshop-style seminar introduces students to core theories and concepts in linguistic and semiotic anthropology. Examining current theoretical innovations in this field of study, the course explores the multivalent relationships between language and political authority, discourse and technology, and speech and material infrastructures. Emphasis is placed on how semiotic approaches provide tools for ethnographic analysis, and students will learn how to use semiotic concepts for their own research projects.

Study of the human skeleton (a. k. a. human osteology), as it bears on other disciplines, including medicine, forensics, archaeology, and paleoanthropology (human evolution). Basic bone biology, anatomy, and development, emphasizing hands-on examination and identification of human skeletal parts, their implications for determining an individual¿s age, sex, geographic origin, and health status, and for the evolutionary history of our species. Three hours of lecture and at least three hours of supervised and independent study in the lab each week.

This seminar course will examine medical successes and failures to better understand the politics, economics, and sociality of medicine as a practice and a culture. Examples will be drawn from technical developments such as vaccines; methodological innovations such as randomized control trials; and the study of specific diseases such as yellow fever, cancer, hepatitis, and HIV/AIDS.

The conversion of native peoples to Christianity, especially Evangelical Christianity, is today a global phenomenon. This course looks to understand the reasons for religious conversion and its consequence in the everyday and ritual practices of Amazonians and their traditional practice of shamanism. We then turn to a question seldom addressed in the literature on conversion: the relationship between religion and science. We will explore the way conversion to Christianity produces changes in conceptions of the world and the person similar to those produced by access to scientific knowledge, which occurs primarily through schooling.

A few years ago, health experts began calling out tobacco as engendering a global health crisis, categorizing the cigarette as the world's greatest weapon of mass destruction. A "global health crisis"? What merits that title if not tobacco use? A hundred million people were killed by tobacco in the 20th century, and ten times that number ¿ a billion people ¿ are predicted to die prematurely from exposure to cigarette smoke over the next hundred years. How has tobacconcome to be labeled a global health crisis over the last decade and what has been the political response? From whence does activism and ongoing complacency regarding tobacco arise? How are they created in different cultural contexts?nnThis course aims to provide students conceptual tools to tackle two specific thought projects: (1) to understand how institutional actors compete to define a situation in the world today as a problem of global health, and (2) to understand the sociocultural means by which something highly dangerous to health such as the cigarette is made both politically contentious and inert. On both fronts, special attention will be given to the ways global health activism and complacency unfold in the U.S. and China.

What are the sexual politics of labor and capital? How is the global economy shaped by sex, love, and intimacy? This course will examine intimacy--gender, sexuality, kinship, and care-- as a lense for understanding and interrogating socio-political and economic systems from an anthropological perspective. By refusing the categorical separation of the private or domestic realm from the realm of politics, this course will critically interrogate the naturalization of particular intimate configurations (like the family, romantic couple, and domestic labor) in global contexts of colonialism, (neo)liberalism, and global capitalism. It will explore how domains of seemingly ¿private¿ sentiment and personal relations are connected to liberal and illiberal forms of power, inequality, exploitation and control, as well as to processes of incorporation, citizenship, and care. Finally, through selected ethnographic texts, this course will also look at the intimate as staging ground for social resistance, political refusal, economic ingenuity, and creativity.

Rapidly-evolving technology draws increasing amounts of petroleum from the ground, while wars and friendly agreements move it around the globe, all to occasionally-disastrous result. Pronounced environmental concerns such as fracking, pipelines, plastics, climate change are nearly synonymous with the petroleum industry. And yet, oil is integral to meeting basic human needs like food and water, and integral to meeting modern desires for mobility, energy, and consumer-products on demand. This class approaches the modern world¿s increasingly-reluctant reliance on oil¿from extraction to consumption with problems included¿as a complex cultural practice to be analyzed using anthropology, geography, and environmental studies.

Unusual mental phenomena have existed throughout history and across cultures. Taught by an anthropologist and psychiatrist, this course explores how different societies construct the notions of "madness": What are the boundaries between "normal" and "abnormal", reason and unreason, mind and body, diversity and disease? nnOptional: The course will be taught in conjunction with an optional two-unit discussion section.

This course is designed for juniors (majors, minors, and those seeking Interdisciplinary Honors in CSRE or FGSS) who intend to write a senior thesis in one of the CSRE Family of Programs or FGSS Interdisciplinary Honors. The course offers resources and strategies for putting together a significant and original senior thesis. Topics to be covered include: getting funding; finding an advisor; navigating the institutional review board; formulating an appropriate question; and finding the right data/medium/texts.

Do you know what an anthropological perspective is? Can you describe some of the key assumptions and questions within the discipline? nA major in Anthropology is composed of many specialized courses in different tracks, different emphases and seemingly a never-ending multiplication of perspectives and ethnographies. However, Anthropology is also an ongoing intellectual conversation with foundational questions, some of longstanding and some new. These foundational questions have stimulated different responses and answers and thus have also led to constant renewal of the discipline in the midst of profound disagreement. In this Anthropology Capstone course students across tracks and emphases will address some of the critical debates that have been central to the discipline as it has developed. We will feature three debate questions in the class. Preparation for each debate will be through class discussion of critical readings as well as extra-mural reading and preparation with one¿s debating partners.

Techniques of interpreting data, organizing bibliographic materials, writing, editing and revising. Preparation of papers for conferences and publications in anthropology. Seniors register for 199; master's students register for 299.

This course introduces basic anthropological concepts and presents the discipline's distinctive perspective on society and culture. The power of this perspective is illustrated by exploring vividly-written ethnographic cases that show how anthropological approaches illuminate contemporary social and political issues in a range of different cultural sites.

The development of high civilizations in Andean S. America from hunter-gatherer origins to the powerful, expansive Inca empire. The contrasting ecologies of coast, sierra, and jungle areas of early Peruvian societies from 12,000 to 2,000 B.C.E. The domestication of indigenous plants which provided the economic foundation for monumental cities, ceramics, and textiles. Cultural evolution, and why and how major transformations occurred.

This course will only take place in the first 5 weeks of the quarter.nnAs forensic anthropologists, we are routinely asked to make identifications of unknown human remains and provide courtroom testimony. Latin America has become a nexus for social justice work, as we respond to the humanitarian crisis along the U.S.-México Border. To improve identification methods of the undocumented dead, we must understand the diversity in Latinx people and adopt best scientific practices. This course provides a cross-disciplinary, bio-cultural approach to Latin American variation and training in applied methods of forensic anthropology. Explore how tools of biological and cultural anthropology are used jointly in human rights investigation and social justice advancement. Discover the breadth of Latinx diversity and how historical, geographic, and socio-cultural factors shape this variation. Gain hands-on experience in case analysis, using skeletal, genetic, and recovery context information to estimate key parameters of identity. Use case studies to contextualize this work through an intersectional lens that attends to the living families and the applicable historical, geo-political and socio-cultural conditions.

Skeletal remains serve a primary function of support and protection for the human body. However, beyond this, they have played a range of social roles once an individual is deceased. The processes associated with excarnation, interment, exhumation and reburial all speak to the place that the body, and its parts, play in our cultural as well as physical landscape.n This course builds on introductory courses in human skeletal anatomy by adding the social dynamics that govern the way humans treat other humans once they have died. It draws on anthropological, biological and archaeological research, with case studies spanning a broad chronological and spatial framework to provide students with an overview of social practice as it relates to the human body.

An introduction to numeric methods in Anthropology and related fields employing the Data Desk statistics package to test hypotheses and to explore data. Examples chosen from the instructor¿s research and other relevant projects. No statistical background is necessary, but a working knowledge of algebra is important. Topics covered include: Frequency Distributions; Measures of Central Tendency, Dispersion, and Variability; Probability and Probability Distributions; Statistical Inference, Comparisons of Sample Means and Standard Deviations; Analysis of Variance; Contingency Tables, Comparisons of Frequencies; Correlation and Regression; Principal Components Analysis; Discriminant Analysis; and Cluster Analysis. Grading based on take-home problem sets.

The Indian Ocean has formed an enduring connection between three continents, countless small islands and a multitude of cultural and ethnic groups and has become the focus of increasing interest in this geographically vast and culturally diverse region. This course explores a range of topics and issues, from the nature and dynamics of colonization and cultural development as a way of understanding the human experience in this part of the world, to topics such as religion, disease, and heritage The course guides studies in the many ways in which research in the Indian Ocean has a direct impact on our ability to compare developments in the Atlantic and Pacific.

This multidisciplinary course combines different approaches to how GIS and spatial tools can be applied in social science research. We take a collaborative, project oriented approach to bring together technical expertise and substantive applications from several social science disciplines. The course aims to integrate tools, methods, and current debates in social science research and will enable students to engage in critical spatial research and a multidisciplinary dialogue around geographic space.

What does it mean to want to help, to organize humanitarian aid, in times of crisis? At first glance, the impulse to help issue generis a good one. Helping is surely preferable to indifference and inaction. This does not mean that humanitarian interventions entail no ethical or political stakes or that they are beyond engaged critique. We need to critique precisely that which we value, and to ask some hard questions, among them these: What are the differences among humanitarianism, charity, and philanthropy? What of social obligations and solidarities? How does the neoliberal world order currently create structural inequalities that ensure the reproduction of poverty and violence? How does the current order of things resemble or differ from the colonial world order? This course examines the history of humanitarian sensibilities and the emergence of organized action in the 'cause of humanity'. In the early years of humanitarian intervention, political neutrality was a key principle; it has now come under ever greater analytical and political scrutiny. We will examine the reasons for the politicization and militarization of aid -- be it humanitarian aid in natural disasters or political crises; development programs in the impoverished south ('the Third World'), or peace-keeping. We will end with a critical exploration of the concept of human rights, humanity, and personhood. The overall methodological aim of the course is to demonstrate what insights an ethnographic approach to the politics, ethics, and aesthetics of humanitarianism can offer.

This course will explore historical as well as current market transformations of medical ethics in different global contexts. We will examine various aspects of the research enterprise, its knowledge-generating and life-saving goals, as well as the societal, cultural, and political influences that make medical research a site of brokering in need of oversight and emergent ethics.nThis seminar will provide students with tools to explore and critically assess the various technical, social, and ethical positions of researchers, as well as the role of the state, the media, and certain publics in shaping scientific research agendas. We will also examine how structural violence, poverty, global standing, and issues of citizenship also influence issues of consent and just science and medicine.

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.

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.

Course introduces social theory concepts and paradigms for the understanding of class. It then extends and revises those concepts and paradigms by considering anthropological approaches in different cultural and historical settings that consider the entanglements of class with other social hierarchies, especially race, caste, and ideas of "civilization" and "development".

Seminar. The state, private sector, development agencies, and NGOs in development and conservation of tropical land use. Focus is on the socioeconomic and political drivers of resource extraction and agricultural production. Case studies used to examine the local-to-global context from many disciplines. Are maps and analyses used for gain, visibility, accountability, or contested terrain? How are power dynamics, land use history, state-private sector collusion, and neoliberal policies valued? What are the local and extra-local responses?

This workshop-style seminar introduces students to core theories and concepts in linguistic and semiotic anthropology. Examining current theoretical innovations in this field of study, the course explores the multivalent relationships between language and political authority, discourse and technology, and speech and material infrastructures. Emphasis is placed on how semiotic approaches provide tools for ethnographic analysis, and students will learn how to use semiotic concepts for their own research projects.

Study of the human skeleton (a. k. a. human osteology), as it bears on other disciplines, including medicine, forensics, archaeology, and paleoanthropology (human evolution). Basic bone biology, anatomy, and development, emphasizing hands-on examination and identification of human skeletal parts, their implications for determining an individual¿s age, sex, geographic origin, and health status, and for the evolutionary history of our species. Three hours of lecture and at least three hours of supervised and independent study in the lab each week.

The conversion of native peoples to Christianity, especially Evangelical Christianity, is today a global phenomenon. This course looks to understand the reasons for religious conversion and its consequence in the everyday and ritual practices of Amazonians and their traditional practice of shamanism. We then turn to a question seldom addressed in the literature on conversion: the relationship between religion and science. We will explore the way conversion to Christianity produces changes in conceptions of the world and the person similar to those produced by access to scientific knowledge, which occurs primarily through schooling.

Emphasis is on how health, illness, and healing are understood, experienced, and constructed in social, cultural, and historical contexts. Topics: biopower and body politics, gender and reproductive technologies, illness experiences, medical diversity and social suffering, and the interface between medicine and science.

Unusual mental phenomena have existed throughout history and across cultures. Taught by an anthropologist and psychiatrist, this course explores how different societies construct the notions of "madness": What are the boundaries between "normal" and "abnormal", reason and unreason, mind and body, diversity and disease? nnOptional: The course will be taught in conjunction with an optional two-unit discussion section.

Techniques of interpreting data, organizing bibliographic materials, writing, editing and revising. Preparation of papers for conferences and publications in anthropology. Seniors register for 199; master's students register for 299.

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.

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.

The purpose of this course is to introduce key themes in social theory - the social, the modern subject, reason, autonomy, civility, interests, exchange, morality, life, the senses - through a reading of classic texts from Descartes up to psychoanalysis and phenomenology. nnEach 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.

This graduate readings seminar provides a lively introduction to some of the major themes and issues in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). How do technologies and material assemblages perform power? How are their designs and uses shaped by social, cultural, and political dynamics? How do they shape those dynamics? The course draws on an interdisciplinary body of literature in humanities and social science, mixing theoretical material with more empirically oriented studies, and classics with new scholarship.

The history of archaeological thought emphasizing 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: consent of instructor.

Required of ANTHRO Ph.D. students; open to all graduate students. Research methods and modes of evidence building in ethnographic research. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

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: consent of instructor.

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: consent of instructor.

Required of second-year Ph.D. students in the archaeology 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: consent of instructor.

This seminar examines the diverse skills, methods, and styles required for the development and production of interdisciplinary dissertation and grant proposals. Topical focus centers primarily on proposals with both social science and natural science elements. Proposals may include a diverse suite of methods and analyses. Throughout this course, we critique examples, assess writing styles and presentation, evaluate budgets, assess data management plans, examine tables and figures, and discuss reviews and evaluations of research proposals. Students are expected to be either in the early stages of writing their dissertation proposal or preparing applications for grants and fellowships. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

Themes of materiality and visuality, aesthetic and other forms of cultural production, and the meanings of creativity and convention. Ethnographic and archaeological material and case studies from worldwide cultural contexts. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

Required graduate seminar. The history of anthropological theory and key theoretical and methodological issues of the discipline. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

Required graduate seminar for CS track. The history of anthropological theory and key theoretical and methodological issues in cultural anthropology. Prerequistes: this course is open only to Ph.D. students in anthropology or by permission of the instructor.

An anthropological approach to politics through bringing anthropological ways of thinking and modes of analysis to bear on key presuppositions of modern Western political thought. Ideas of rights, the individual, society, liberty, democracy, equality, and solidarity; ethnographic accounts used to identify the limits of conventional analytical approaches and to document the forms of politics that such approaches either ignore or misunderstand. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

This seminar offers a wide-ranging exploration of the `archive.' Drawing from ethnography, social theory, philosophy, photography and literature, we will examine the archive's diverse material, narratological and structural dimensions, its epistemological, political and representational functions, processes of archivisation and recuperation, and related domains of experience, memory, absence and loss. Prerequisite: consent of instructor

This course presents classic and contemporary work on the anthropology of religion: Durkheim Elementary Forms of the Religious Life; Levy-Bruhl; Primitive Mentality; Douglas Purity and Danger; Evans Pritchard Nuer Religion; and recent ethnographies/scholarly work by Robbins, Keane, Keller, Boyer, Barrett, and others. Prerequisite: consent of instructor

Sport has long been a domain in which everyday people, medical professionals and political authorities have interfaced with the making of institutional definitions and social norms regarding fitness and debility. This course will challenge students to reflect on that interface through consideration of recent research findings within sociocultural anthropology and allied fields.

Heritage is always political, it is typically said. Such a statement might refer to the everyday politics of local stakeholder interests on one end of the spectrum, or the volatile politics of destruction and erasure of heritage during conflict, on the other. If heritage is always political then one might expect that the workings of World Heritage might be especially fraught given the international dimension. In particular, the intergovernmental system of UNESCO World Heritage must navigate the inherent tension between state sovereignty and nationalist interests and the wider concerns of a universal regime. The World Heritage List has over 1000 properties has many such contentious examples, including sites in Iraq, Mali, Syria, Crimea, Palestine and Cambodia. As an organization UNESCO was born of war with an explicit mission to end global conflict and help the world rebuild materially and morally, but has found it¿s own history increasingly entwined with that of international politics and violence.

This advanced graduate seminar explores capitalism as an historically-situated and culturally-mediated articulation of practices rather than as an economic system or social structure governed by an internal logic. It draws on poststructural theories of culture, society and subjectivity to investigate the processes through which diverse capitalist practices are produced. Prerequisite: Graduate standing in Anthropology or permission of the instructor. Previous graduate level coursework in cultural anthropology, social theory or cultural studies is required. No auditing is permitted. Enrollment limited to 12.

In this course we will explore contemporary issues of culture and power rooted in science, medicine, technology and futurist proposals to better the human condition with technological fixes. We will investigate anthropological and ethnographic-based theories and methods to propose alternative ethical solutions. These readings will be rooted in examining global stratification, economic metrics of progress, and the routinization of human degradation ranging from norms around sexual power, labor exploits, privacy infringements, data sharing, and automation.nnThe course will be structured as a writing workshop with frequent, short writing assignments to be shared with others in the course. The workshop format will facilitate the course goal of each student producing at least one publishable op-ed, article or other product of intervention at the end of the quarter.

The still-robust Romantic conception of creativity as the attribute of a specific, ¿gifted¿ individual continues to have extraordinary social and political power as an ideological apparatus that shapes and disciplines conduct, aspirations, and subjectivities. This course is a critical anthropological exploration of the following questions: How and why has a deep, naturalized individualism long been foundational to both ideals and practices of creativity? How is it raced and gendered? How have people been rethinking relational, collaborative creative practice?

Concepts of emancipation have been treated in a wide variety of historical, political, regional and social perspectives. In the US, emancipation and post emancipation societies are primarily understood around histories of enslavement. In the class, while taking inspiration and also covering work on enslavement and emancipation, we will endeavor to discuss theories, ideas and experiences that have been understood as potentially emancipatory from a globally and historically wide-ranging set of ideas. Issues of race, caste, class and gender are axiomatic themes within the class.nEmancipation has frequently been understood as an emancipation from oppression and an impetus towards a form of freedom or new order. While theoretically this is formally understood and discussed, often with historical examples that use experiences to illustrate failures or successes, in this class we will try to understand the texture of practices as the primary means by which ideas about emancipation circulate, imagined, are discussed, are disappointed and so on. We will try and see what an anthropological and historically textured discussion can bring to theoretical discussions of emancipation. We will examine theoretical, historical, sociological and anthropological writings on emancipation, freedom, enslavement and servitude, political mobilization and revolution. Fundamentally this course tries to get students to think globally about multiple and different systems of persisting and enduring oppression and inequality through an emphasis on political thought, political imaginations and concrete political organizations and movements. Prerequisite: consent of instructor

This seminar will focus on the emerging body of literature on the materiality of the production, circulation, and mediation of paperwork as constituitive of modern forms of governance. We will discuss specific genres of paperworks - notes, memos, files, documents, as well as archives and other mnemonic technologies - both as cultural practices and reflexive objects, and examine how they produce modern social epistemologies of accountability, evidence, the fact, and truth in the fields of law, business, and public administration, as well as in civil society generally. Readings will include works by Max Weber, Bruno Latour, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Cornelia Vismann, Ann Stoler, and others. Prerequisite: graduate standing or consent of instructor.

This course explores the social and political organization of time. Anthropology has long been critical of the narratives of progress that are embedded in concepts of modern politics, such as development, citizenship, secularism, and sovereignty. How do social actors respond to the perceived failures of such narratives? How do they re-articulate historical pasts to political futures in the aftermath of modernization? In this course we will read studies that examine lived experiences of the passing of time. How is memory linked to anticipation? How is consciousness of the past structured by expectations of a future to come? We will pay particular attention to the material aspects of these temporal relations, including their social, economic, and infrastructural conditions. Drawing from current debates in anthropology, queer theory, and post-colonial studies, we will critically interrogate theories of ruination, crisis, hope, and utopia.

This course examines a variety of approaches that claim to explore the relationships between humans and things. Some of the approaches include Marx and material culture studies; Heidegger; cognitive and phenomenological; Actor Network Theory. But there is a need also to examine behavioral and ecological and Darwinian approaches. Many of these approaches do not adequately deal with the physicality of things as objects and there is a need to seek a way to incorporate such aspects of things into social theory. Prerequisite: graduate standing or consent of instructor

This graduate seminar will examine the history of vaccine development focusing on technical, political, zoonotic, and ethical issues. Readings will be drawn from history, anthropology, literature, and biology. Prerequisite: consent of instructor

Required of fifth-year Ph.D. students returning from dissertation field research and in the process of writing dissertations and preparing for professional employment. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

Required of second- and third-year Ph.D. students writing the qualifying paper or the qualifying written examination. May be repeat for credit.

Required of second- and third-year Ph.D. students writing the qualifying paper or the qualifying written examination. May be repeated for credit one time.

Supervised experience teaching in Anthropology

Supervised work for terminal and coterminal master's students writing the master's project in the final quarter of the degree program.

Graduate student reading group on a thematic topic of interest.nIntended for first or second-year cohort PhD students.nSections: Liisa Malkki, Sylvia Yanagisako, Thomas Hansen, Paulla Ebron, andnMiyako Inoue

Department Colloquia Lecture Series. Lectures presented on a variety of anthropological topics. Colloquium is intended for the Department of Anthropology's under graduate majors and graduate students. May be repeated for credit.

Current topics and trends in cultural/social anthropology, archaeology, and environmental and ecological anthropology. Enrollment in this noon-time series is restricted to the Department of Anthropology Masters students and First and Second-year PhD students.

Supervised work on a research project with an individual faculty member. May be repeated for credit.

Supervised work for a qualifying paper, examination, or project with an individual faculty member.

Provides graduate students with the opportunity to pursue their area of specialization in an institutional setting such as a laboratory, clinic, research institute, or government agency.