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ANTHRO 152: Ritual, Politics, Power (SOC 156)

Our everyday lives are made up of multiple routines, some consciously staged and imagined and others unconscious and insidious. Anthropologists call these rituals. Rituals shape every aspect of our lives, creating our symbolic universes and governing the most minute of our practices. nnFor early anthropologists and for those interested in religious and symbolic life, rituals and rites were seen as both one of the most universal features of human existence, and, as that which enables us to reflect upon our human existence. A prominent example are that of the ¿rites de passage¿ found in every culture, from puberty initiation rites, weddings or funerals, which socially signal the change from one status to another. While initially for anthropologists, rituals marked the difference between the sacred and the profane, soon scholars began to see the ubiquity of ritual and the symbolic in shaping even the most mundane activity such as the structure of a meal and why one is not meant to eat dessert before the main course. The first half of the class examines these different debates surrounding the meaning and effects of rituals and rites. The second half of the class takes these debates to think about the question of power and politics. We return to the question of how our symbolic universes are staged and imagined by us through ritual forms such as the annual Presidential ¿pardoning the turkey¿ at Thanksgiving. The question of power however pushes us even further to ask why it is that we obey particular kinds of authority, consent to particular actions, and find ourselves doing things we haven¿t consciously decided to do. Many have argued that these kinds of political questions about how we respond and are shaped by power have something to do with our symbolic worlds and ritual, from the most obvious (the monarchy) to the most subtle (listening in a classroom). Throughout the course, these abstract questions will be grounded in cross-cultural examples and analysis.
Last offered: Spring 2017 | UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI

ANTHRO 169: The Ecology of Cuisine: Food, Nutrition, and the Evolution of the Human Diet (ANTHRO 269)

This course is an interdisciplinary approach to understanding human food consumption and nutrition, incorporating biological, evolutionary, ecological and social perspectives. Topics include a broad survey of primate diets and their physiological and behavioral correlates; fossil and archaeological evidence for early human diets; adaptations to dietary shifts since the Neolithic; infant and early child feeding practices and their role in shaping human social arrangements, metabolic syndrome, food security, food taboos; the origins of spices; cultural diversity in the social uses and meanings of food and the sharing of food; gathering, hunting and locavorism as high hipster cuisine. Emphasis is on understanding the diversity of human foodways through time and space: how biology, culture, and ecology interact to shape the food we eat, and how the food we eat shapes us.
Last offered: Autumn 2014 | UG Reqs: WAY-SI, WAY-SMA

ANTHRO 170: Australian Ecosystems: Human Dimensions and Environmental Dynamics (ANTHRO 270, EARTHSYS 172)

This cross-disciplinary course surveys the history and prehistory of human ecological dynamics in Australia, drawing on geology, climatology, archaeology, geography, ecology and anthropology to understand the mutual dynamic relationships between the continent and its inhabitants. Topics include anthropogenic fire and fire ecology, animal extinctions, aridity and climate variability, colonization and spread of Homo sapiens, invasive species interactions, changes in human subsistence and mobility throughout the Pleistocene and Holocene as read through the archaeological record, the totemic geography and social organization of Aboriginal people at the time of European contact, the ecological and geographical aspects of the "Dreamtime", and contemporary issues of policy relative to Aboriginal land tenure and management.
Last offered: Winter 2015 | UG Reqs: WAY-SI

ANTHRO 181A: Gender in the Middle East: Iran, Turkey, and Egypt (FEMGEN 181A)

This course explores the construction of gender in the Middle East. Drawing on the historical, sociological and anthropological research in the region, the course aims to question the stereotypes about the subordination of Muslim women and to offer students a systematic reading and analytical discussion of the political, economic and cultural structures that inform gender relations and practices in the region. The course starts with an examination of early Islam and religious sources with regard to women¿s status, then moves on to nationalist and modernization movements in the 19th and 20th centuries, and finally explores women¿s and men¿s lives in contemporary Egypt, Turkey and Iran. In this framework, we will pay special attention to Islamist mobilizations, family and sexual relations, as well as women's changing livelihoods and labor.
Last offered: Autumn 2014 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-SI

ANTHRO 182: An Anthropology of Annihilation: Tobacco at the Turn of the Millennium

The cigarette as the world's greatest weapon of mass destruction: 100 million dead worldwide from cigarettes during the 20th century, one billion expected to die in the 21st century. How to understand this toll, its production, management, politicization, and depoliticization? What can anthropological and allied perspectives disclose? How does the catastrophe challenge key precepts within anthropology and other branches of the academy?
Last offered: Winter 2011 | UG Reqs: GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI

ANTHRO 182N: Smoke and Mirrors in Global Health

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.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-SI

ANTHRO 186: Culture and Madness: Anthropological and Psychiatric Approaches to Mental Illness (ANTHRO 286, HUMBIO 146, PSYC 286)

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 or engaged learning component.
Terms: Win | Units: 3-5 | UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI

ARCHLGY 1: Introduction to Archaeology (ANTHRO 3)

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.
Terms: Win | Units: 3-5 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI

ARCHLGY 16: Native Americans in the 21st Century: Encounters, Identity, and Sovereignty in Contemporary America (ANTHRO 16, ANTHRO 116C, NATIVEAM 16)

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.
Last offered: Spring 2017 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI

ARCHLGY 100: Archaeology of Technology (ANTHRO 101B, ANTHRO 201B, ARCHLGY 200)

The course is an introduction to the social organization of material production and to the theoretical, ethnographic, and historical frameworks used by archaeologists to link the technologies of the past to salient sociocultural information about the people who employed them. Comparison of metallurgical, ceramic, lithic, and textile industries in different cultural and historical settings will inform critical discussions of how and to what extent analyses of artifacts, workshops, and industrial installations can provide insight into past societies.
Last offered: Winter 2015 | UG Reqs: WAY-SI
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