printer friendly pageANTHRO 113: Culture and Epigenetics: Towards A Non-Darwinian Synthesis (ANTHRO 213)
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.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
Instructors:
Hodder, I. (PI)
ANTHRO 113B: Religious Practices in Archaeological Cultures (ANTHRO 213B, ARCHLGY 113B)
According to Hawkes (1954), religion or ideology is the most difficult part of social life to access archaeologically. Luckily, not all scholars agree; according to Fogelin (2008) 'religion is not something people think about, but something people do¿. Thus, archaeology, an inherently multidisciplinary subject that studies material culture, is well suited to delve into religion and its underpinnings.nThis course will explore religious practices, as they can be defined and interpreted from archaeological contexts spanning the Paleolithic to historic periods. Definitions of religion differ from author to author but they mostly agree that religion is a fully integrated and thus integral part of human social life. Politics, economics, identity and social class influence religion, and religion influences how these forces play out in society. Thus, the course will also examine the significance of ritual and religion in a variety of social contexts.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ANTHRO 114A: Introduction to South Asian Archaeolgy (ANTHRO 214A, ARCHLGY 114A)
This seminar will survey the archaeology of South Asia, beginning with animal and plant domestication in the early Holocene and ending with the late Medieval Period. Given its chronological breadth and spatial scope, the class will interrogate a variety of social and historical contexts that contribute to a broad range of anthropological research concerns¿including the intersections of authority, ritual, alterity and landscape¿and at the same time critically consider the epistemological bases for their analyses through archaeological remains.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
Instructors:
Bauer, A. (PI)
ANTHRO 116B: Anthropology of the Environment (ANTHRO 216B)
This seminar interrogates the history of anthropology's approach to the environment, beginning with early functionalist, structuralist, and Marxist accounts of human-environment relationships. It builds towards more recent developments in the field, focusing on nonhuman and relational ontologies as well as current projects on the intersections of nature, capital, politics, and landscape histories. At the end of this class, students will be familiar with the intellectual histories of environmental anthropology and contemporary debates and tensions around questions of ethics, agency, environment, and historical causality.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
Instructors:
Bauer, A. (PI)
ANTHRO 116C: Native Americans in the 21st Century: Encounters, Identity, and Sovereignty in Contemporary America (ANTHRO 16, ARCHLGY 16, 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.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
Instructors:
Wilcox, M. (PI)
ANTHRO 117B: Monuments and Landscapes: An Archaeological Perspective (ANTHRO 217B, ARCHLGY 117B)
The landscape is a result of the action and interaction of human and natural factors. Communities have altered their landscapes for a variety of reasons, including the subsistence practices; as a consequence of economic growth; to express a social ideology, and as a consequence of political and religious drivers. Accordingly, landscapes enable physical and provide psychological sustenance to people, and the human need to relate to our surroundings is part of the way in which identities are created and disputed. Within the humanities, landscape is being conceptualized as a process, a practice and as performance, and monuments within a given landscape have an equally important role, not to mention history. They are often the most durable and well-known evidence of the ancient civilizations, and should be observed jointly with the landscape. How did the landscape predefine the monument and how did the monument complement, emphasize or devalue the landscape? What philosophy channeled the construction of the monuments within the landscapes? Whether ephemeral or permanent, the human agency left traces in the landscape; thus, both monuments and landscapes are the key indicators for understanding the ideology of a particular culture. Archaeology, through its interdisciplinary nature, provides a unique perspective, as well as tools, for examining the formation processes of all man-made elements, within both natural and cultural landscapes. nnThe course will address the multifaceted issues of the ways that people have consciously and unconsciously shaped the land around them through time. It will look into diverse, geographically and periodically influenced concepts of a monument and landscape. The course will be divided into two parts, with the first one covering the theory and methodological approaches and the second part the conceptual characteristics, modifications and changeability in various archaeological and historical periods and cultural frameworks.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
Instructors:
Caval, S. (PI)
ANTHRO 121: Language and Prehistory (ANTHRO 221)
Language classification and its implications for human prehistory. The role of linguistic data in analyzing prehistoric populations, cultures, contact, and migrations. Comparison of linguistic and biological classifications. Reconstruction, proto-vocabularies, and culture. Archaeological decipherment and the origins and evolution of writing. Archaeological and genetic evidence for human migrations. (DA-A; HEF II,III)
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom
Instructors:
Fox, J. (PI)
ANTHRO 125: Language and the Environment (ANTHRO 225)
Lecture course on vocabulary and grammar as keys to peoples¿ understanding and use of the environment. Ethnobotany, ethnobiology, and ethnosemantics in the analysis of the language of place, plants and animals, the earth, the body, and disease. Terminological gaps and gluts and what they imply. Language as a strategic resource in environmental management. Language contact and conflict in the modern global environment, with particular attention to the vocabularies of capitalism and property. Language extinction and its environmental implications. Anthropology concentration: CS, EE. No prerequisites.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
Instructors:
Fox, J. (PI)
ANTHRO 126: Urban Culture in Global Perspective (URBANST 114)
Core course for Urban Studies majors. We will study urban space both historically and cross-culturally. Urban Studies, by definition, is an interdisciplinary field, where the methodological approaches draw upon a diverse set of analytic tools. Disciplines that occupy a prominent place in this class are geography, cultural anthropology, sociology, history, media studies, and literature. In this context, we will discuss the importance of cities around the world to the economic, cultural, and political well-being of modern societies and examine how forces such as industrialization, decentralization, and globalization affect the structure and function of cities.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
ANTHRO 128A: The Boundaries of Humanity: Humans, Animals and Machines in the Age of Biotechnology
Advances in research and technology are blurring the boundaries between humans, animals, and machines, challenging conventional notions of human nature. Seminar explores the question of what it now means to be human and the personal, social, and ethical implications of our advancing technologies through the lens of various disciplines, including anthropology, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, genetics, evolutionary biology, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence. Includes guest speakers from fields and industries where important questions are being raised.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-4
Instructors:
Durham, W. (PI)
;
Hurlbut, W. (PI)
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