printer friendly pageANTHRO 114B: Landscape Archaeology and Global Information Systematics (ANTHRO 214B)
This course is meant to lay groundwork for analysis of archaeological landscapes using the methods of GIS. Throughout, we consider the various understandings of landscape, from the biographical to the biological. The course explores the history of various typologies of landscape, incorporating the cultural, the topographical, the ecological, and the topological; reviews different types of landscape data and analysis, including aerial imagery, stratigraphic excavations, and specialized analyses; addresses how to integrate different sorts of data sets and carry out analytical assessment of interrelated "layers" as dynamic constituents of landscape; considers implications of landscape studies in modern policy and management. Students will create interpretive frameworks for a public audience as a component of the final project.
ANTHRO 115A: The Aegean in the Neolithic and Bronze Age (ANTHRO 215A, ARCHLGY 139, ARCHLGY 239)
This course provides a survey of Aegean prehistory (7th-2nd millennium BC), focusing on traditions that were picked up or renegotiated, instead of taking a standpoint that evaluates phenomena as steps leading up to a `state-like¿ `palatial¿ society. It will draw on the region¿s wealth of data, and will be set within a theoretically informed, problem-oriented framework, aiming to introduce students to current interpretations and debates, mainly through discussion of specific case-studies.
ANTHRO 115B: Peoples and Cultures of Ancient Mesoamerica (ANTHRO 215B)
This course engages with the world of ancient Mesoamerica, focusing on the Mixtec, Aztec, Maya, Zapotec, Chichimec, Olmec, and Teotihuacan peoples. We address how questions about the past are framed through ethnographic and ethnohistoric accounts of daily life, how diverse scientific methods and theoretical perspectives are used to address these questions, how interpretations of daily life in the ancient Mesoamerican world are formulated, and how these interpretations are marshaled in contemporary politics and policies. We explore different scales of Mesoamerican communities, and compare the diverse material culture and lifeways represented in Mesoamerica at different time periods. Students will create interpretive frameworks for a public audience as a component of the final project.
ANTHRO 117: Thinking Through Animals (ANTHRO 217)
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. 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 recognised as a viable mechanism for understanding our cultural and economic past. The module presents an overview covering a broad timespan from the Pleistocene to the modern day. It will piece together the breadth of human-animal relationships using a wide geographic range of case studies.
ANTHRO 118A: Digital Heritage: Bringing the Past Online with the Chinese American Historical Museum (ASNAMST 118A, CSRE 118A)
Interpreting the past is no longer just for people like historians and archaeologists, and it¿s no longer confined to the pages of books. More and more, community-based organizations are gathering stories and perspectives from everyday people, and they¿re putting them out for the world to see online. With these big changes, what will be the future of thinking about the past? In this course, students will work through the dynamics of digital heritage through readings, discussion, and original research. The course centers around artifacts unearthed at the Market Street Chinatown in San Jose. Each student will analyze and gather stories relating to a single artifact in order to contribute to a multimedia exhibit for the Chinese American Historical Museum in San Jose. Class time will be devoted both to discussion and to work on artifact-based projects, and will also include a fieldtrip to the museum and collaboration time with members of the Chinese Historical and Cultural Project.
ANTHRO 119A: Spirits, Selves, and the Social: Histories of Thinking about Religion (RELIGST 119X)
Why do humans worship gods, spirits, and ancestors? What roles do religion, witchcraft, and magic play in everyday life? How does religious action become meaningful in a particular context? In what sense can we know about the religious experiences of others? Focus is on approaches to religion throughout anthropology¿s history. Each student will carry out a mini-ethnography on a religious community of their choice. Students will not be required to have any previous knowledge in anthropology or the study of religion.
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)
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-GlobalCom
ANTHRO 121A: Hip Hop, Youth Identities, and the Politics of Language (AFRICAAM 121X, AMSTUD 121X, CSRE 121X, EDUC 121X, LINGUIST 155)
Focus is on issues of language, identity, and globalization, with a focus on Hip Hop cultures and the verbal virtuosity within the Hip Hop nation. Beginning with the U.S., a broad, comparative perspective in exploring youth identities and the politics of language in what is now a global Hip Hop movement. Readings draw from the interdisciplinary literature on Hip Hop cultures with a focus on sociolinguistics and youth culture.
ANTHRO 123: Readings in Linguistic Anthropology (ANTHRO 223)
One or two major related works on language in its cultural context. Works for 2007-08 involve attempts to correlate linguistic and non-linguistic data for analysis of prehistoric human contact and migrations. May be repeated for credit.
| Repeatable
for credit
ANTHRO 124: Maya Mythology and the Popol Vuh
The mythology and folklore of the ancient Maya, emphasizing the relationship between the 16th-century Quiché Maya mythological epic
Popol Vuh (Book of the Council) and classic lowland Maya art, architecture, religion, and politics. General Mesoamerican mythology. Anthropological and other theories of mythology. Class participates in the creation of a web project on the
Popol Vuh.
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