printer friendly pageANTHRO 106: Incas and their Ancestors: Peruvian Archaeology (ANTHRO 206A, ARCHLGY 102B)
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.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-SI
ANTHRO 108B: Gender in the Arab and Middle Eastern City (FEMGEN 108B, URBANST 108B)
What are the components of gendered experience in the city, and how are these shaped by history and culture? How do meanings attributed to Islam and the Middle East obscure the specificity of women¿s and men¿s lives in Muslim-majority cities? This course explores gender norms and gendered experience in the major cities of Arab-majority countries, Iran and Turkey. Assigned historical and sociological readings contextualize feminism in these countries. Established and recent anthropological publications address modernity, mobility, reproduction, consumption, and social movements within urban contexts. Students will engage with some of the key figures shaping debates about gender, class, and Islam in countries of the region typically referenced as North Africa and the Middle East (MENA). They will also evaluate regional media addressing concerns about gender in light of the historical content of the course and related political concepts.
Last offered: Winter 2018
ANTHRO 109A: Archaeology of the Modern World (ANTHRO 209A, ARCHLGY 109A)
Historical archaeology, also called the archaeology of the modern world, investigates the material culture and spatial history of the past five centures. As a discipline, historical archaeology has been characterized by (1) a methodological conjunction between history and archaeology; (2) a topical focus on the ¿three Cs¿: colonization, captivity, and capitalism ¿ forces which arguably are constitutive of the modern world; and (3) an epistemological priority to recovering the perspectives of ¿people without history.¿ Each of these three trends is widely debated yet they continue to profoundly shape the field. This seminar provides an in-depth examination of the emergence and development of this historical archaeology, with a focus on current issues in theory and method. For undergraduates, the prerequisite is
Anthro 3 or consent of instructor.
Last offered: Autumn 2017
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
ANTHRO 110: Environmental Archaeology (ANTHRO 210, ARCHLGY 110)
This course investigates the field of environmental archaeology. Its goals are twofold: 1) to critically consider the intellectual histories of environmental archaeology, and, 2) to survey the various techniques and methods by which archaeologists assess historical environmental conditions through material proxies. The course will include lab activities.
Last offered: Winter 2022
ANTHRO 110B: Examining Ethnographies (ANTHRO 210B)
Eight or nine important ethnographies, including their construction, their impact, and their faults and virtues.
Last offered: Autumn 2021
ANTHRO 111: Archaeology of Gender and Sexuality (ARCHLGY 129, FEMGEN 119)
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.
Last offered: Autumn 2019
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
ANTHRO 111C: Muwekma: Landscape Archaeology and the Narratives of California Natives (ARCHLGY 111B, NATIVEAM 111B)
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.
Last offered: Spring 2022
ANTHRO 112A: Archaeology of Human Rights (URBANST 147)
This introductory seminar provides a critical vantage point about human rights discourse from an archaeological perspective. The seminar is organized around four main questions: (1) Is cultural heritage a human right? (2) What are archaeologists learning about how the material and temporal dimensions of power and resistance? (3) How is archaeological evidence being used in investigations of human rights violations? (4) Can research about the past shape the politics of the present? Topics to be discussed include archaeological research on mass internment, colonialism, enslavement and coerced labor, ethnic cleansing, homelessness, gender discrimination, indigenous rights, and environmental justice.
Last offered: Spring 2018
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 5 units total)
ANTHRO 113: Culture and Epigenetics: Towards A Non-Darwinian Synthesis (ANTHRO 213, ARCHLGY 113)
The course examines the impact of new research in epigenetics on our understanding of long-term cultural change. The course examines the various attempts that have been made over recent decades to find a synthesis between cultural and biological evolution. These approaches, often termed neo-Darwinian, include memes, dual inheritance theory, theories of cultural selection and transmission, niche construction theory and macro-evolutionary approaches. Research in all these areas will be examined, with particular reference to explanations for the origins of agriculture, but also including other transformations, and critiqued. New research in epigenetics offers an alternative non-Darwinian evolutionary perspective that avoids many of the problems and pitfalls in the neo-Darwinian approaches. Cultural evolution comes to be viewed as cumulative, directional and Lamarckian, since heritable epigenetic variation can underlie evolutionary change. Epigenetics opens the way for human cultural entanglements to become the drivers for evolutionary change, thus allowing the full range of social processes studied in the social and cultural sciences to take their place in the study and analysis of long-term change.
Last offered: Autumn 2018
ANTHRO 114: Rights and Ethics in Heritage (ANTHRO 214, ARCHLGY 114)
Heritage is a human thing: made by people and mobilized for their own purposes, it has a range of effects on communities. This course focuses on the human dimension of heritage with special attention to questions of rights and ethics. Where can we locate the intersections of heritage and rights? How do communities and governing structures negotiate control over and participation in heritage, and with what impacts on people? Which ethical challenges arise and how have archaeologists, heritage managers, museums, legislators, community leaders, and others approached these issues?The first half of this seminar course focuses on the theoretical and contextual basis for these discussions. We will address topics such as cultural ownership and participation as well as the global and governing contexts within which heritage is mobilized. Building on this, the second half examines cases in which different rights, needs, and goals come into conflict: museum practice, public memory, upheaval stemming from violence or disaster, and the ethics of the material world itself. Throughout, we will highlight heritage in relation to communities, rights, and responsibilities, all while thinking through ethical modes of heritage research and practice.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
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