ANTHRO 119: Zooarchaeology: An Introduction to Faunal Remains (ANTHRO 219, ARCHLGY 119)
As regularly noted, whether historic or pre-historic, animal bones are often the most commonly occurring artefacts on archaeological sites. As bioarchaeological samples, they offer the archaeologist an insight into food culture, provisioning, trade and the social aspects of human-animal interactions. The course will be taught through both practical and lecture sessions: the hands-on component is an essential complement to the lectures. The lectures will offer grounding in the main methodological approaches developed, as well as provide case-studies to illustrate where and how the methods have been applied. The practical session will walk students through the skeletal anatomy of a range of species. It will guide students on the identification of different parts of the animal, how to age / sex individuals, as well as recognize taphonomic indicators and what these mean to reconstructing post-depositional modifications.
Last offered: Autumn 2018
ANTHRO 119B: Tech Ethics and Ethnography: the human in human-computer interaction
Do machines have culture? How do engineers write themselves into their products? Can we better anticipate the unexpected and unwanted consequences of technologies?nnTaking as its point of departure the discipline of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), which examines the design and use of computer technology, this course shifts the focus to the humans creating and utilizing the technology. It invites us to think about computer science and social science together and learn how ethnographic methods can be utilized for ethical thinking and design in technology. This course will combine rigorous theoretical thinking with hands-on in-the-field research. Students will devise and engage in their own ethnographic research projects. This course will be of interest to students from a wide range of disciplines, including: computer science, engineering, medicine, anthropology, sociology, and the humanities. Our aim is to have a truly interdisciplinary and open-ended discussion about one of the most pressing social issues of our time, while giving students skills-based training in qualitative methods.
Last offered: Spring 2019
ANTHRO 120: Bioethics and Ancient DNA (ANTHRO 220, ARCHLGY 120A)
The first ancient human genome was sequenced just 10 years ago. From a single genome in 2010 to what has been hailed as a `scientific revolution¿ today, the field of paleogenomics has expanded rapidly. 10 years on we will explore how the field is grappling with emerging issues related to ethical and responsible research, including sampling practices, collaborative community partnerships, and accessibility of research findings to the broader public. How have researchers successfully leveraged multiple voices, perspectives, and priorities engaged with ancient DNA to explore the human past? What are the possibilities of engagement beyond the practical and project-based level? How do these new alliances formed around paleogenomics inform the ethics of sampling, participation, and interpretation? In this course, we will thoughtfully and critically engage with aDNA research in the present to envision possible futures for the field.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
Instructors:
Moots, H. (PI)
ANTHRO 122A: Decolonizing Archaeology (ANTHRO 222A, ARCHLGY 122A, ARCHLGY 222A)
What does it mean to say that archaeology is a colonial discipline? Anthropology and archaeology are rooted historically in projects of domination and extermination by colonial powers. Today many scholars, practitioners, and colonized peoples are exploring ways to recast the archaeological project--to de-colonize it. There are many approaches to such attempts and this course will explore three of them: Indigenous archaeology, community-based participatory research, and activist archaeology. There are no recipes to produce de-colonized archaeology and no clear answers to the questions that arise in the process. As a class we will explore possibilities and chart futures for a practice of archaeology that breaks from divides between researcher and subject, past and present, and scholarship and social justice. From this course you will gain an understanding of foundational critiques of archaeology from inside and outside the discipline and from Indigenous, Black, and people of color who have historically been the subject of archaeology¿s colonial practices. You will also gain an understanding of attempts to move beyond colonial frameworks and your own position within them through a series of archaeological case studies. You will not leave this course with answers, but you will leave this course with a deeper understanding of the ongoing project of decolonization.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
Instructors:
Danis, A. (PI)
ANTHRO 123: Ethical Life with Strangers: Sociality and Civility (ANTHRO 223)
How do we deal with strangers in different parts of the world. What is a stranger? And to whom? Many theorists suggest that dealing with anonymous strangers is central to norms of sociality and civility. For the thinker Georg Simmel, the stranger is less concerned with norms of civility, and more with the promise of urban life, a category ripe for marginalization but also an illustration of the possibilities of ambiguous and multi-faceted life with others that reckons not only with our connections with others but our secrets. Others suggest that questions of empathy and ethics are concerned with how ¿others¿ are imagined and interacted with. However, is social life an encounter with strangers in a simple sense? Surely what it is to be a friend, enemy or a stranger is socially and historically produced? Who are the same and who are the others? Is anybody an ¿other¿ by virtue of not being oneself? What is the public and what is the private in different places, in different interactions? What is the difference between distant others, and those who are others to each other whose histories are intertwined? This class examines these questions and the complex issues around how heterogenous individuals and communities live together, by emphasizing the historical stratifications of race, class, caste, gender that comprise the stakes in any-one meeting in any space, but especially in certain spaces. We will read ethnographies and histories that teach us the ways in which structures of power, colonialism and often as a corollary exclusion and fear structure how and who meets each other, AND, also emphasize the ways in which social life can be exhilarating, complex, violent, contingent and transformative.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
Instructors:
Thiranagama, S. (PI)
ANTHRO 123B: Government of Water and Crisis: Corporations, States and the Environment
As the Flint, Michigan water situation began to attract attention and condemnation, Michigan State Representative, Sheldon Neeley, describing the 200 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 the first Congressional hearing, the Chairman of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee, Jason Chaffetz, said, ¿This is the United States of America ¿ this isn't supposed to happen here. We are not some Third World country.¿nnWhat is a `third world problem¿? And is the `water problem¿ the same across the world? This course examines how water is governed in a time that is increasingly seen as one of crisis. We will examine how crises are imagined, constructed, sought to be averted, and the governance regimes they give rise to. And how does water, whether as natural resource, public good, a human right, or commodity, determine the contours of such regimes? We will focus mostly on ethnographies, but also examine texts produced by government bodies and aid and environmental organizations, as well as case law. The course will show what anthropology can contribute to the conversation on state and corporate bureaucracies, and their relation with water.
Last offered: Spring 2019
ANTHRO 123C: "Third World Problems?" Environmental Justice Around the World (CSRE 123C)
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."nnWhat 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.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-ER
Instructors:
Hayat, M. (PI)
ANTHRO 125A: Critical Mapping Methods in Archaeology (ANTHRO 225A, ARCHLGY 125A, ARCHLGY 225A)
Another title for this course could be "mapping and its discontents" because this is a critical methods course. You will learn, through hands-on lab assignments, how to create and use maps in archaeological analysis using open-source Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software QGIS and other free online tools. At the same time, you will come to understand the history of mapping as a technology of rule and resistance, how GIS is used to answer archaeological questions, and creative strategies used by scholars and non-scholars alike that challenge conventional practices. This class focuses weekly readings on these topics around assignments that put your critical and spatial thinking to work. By the end of term you will be able to find spatial data from reputable sources, create a GIS using that data, and analyze anthropological questions using that GIS. The course brings together scholarship and resources from anthropology, geography, environmental design and planning, and art to tackle the question "What do maps do?"
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
Instructors:
Danis, A. (PI)
ANTHRO 126: Urban Culture in Global Perspective (URBANST 114)
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.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
ANTHRO 127B: Millennial Pop Culture: The Making of a Millennial
This course investigates American popular culture since the year 2000. Our goals will be to establish a working definition of the term "millennials" and to determine how pop culture influences the formation of that identity the 21st century. Through texts that frame issues including race, gender, sexuality, patriotism, and the use of technology, we will develop a discussion that cultivates 21st century engagement skills, reflecting critically on songs, television shows, images, videos, films, written texts, and blogs.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 3
Instructors:
Colon, E. (PI)
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