Course Catalog for ANTHROPOLOGY
ANTH 101
Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
Anthropology as a field asks what it means to be human: how do we know what is universal to human existence? What is natural and what is cultural? How can the strange become familiar and the familiar strange? This course introduces the theory and method of cultural anthropology as applied to case studies from different geographic and ethnographic areas. Topics to be considered include family and kinship, inequality and hierarchy, race and ethnicity, ritual and symbol systems, gender and sexuality, reciprocity and exchange, globalization and social change. (GLB5)
1.00 units, Lecture
ANTH 200
Western Occultism
This course offers an introduction to Western occultism and esotericism. We will cover topics such as magic, mediation, astrology, and alchemy. Students will examine the connections between esotericism and science and explore how the esoteric sciences have been inspired by trends in Jewish Mysticism, transcendentalism, and romanticism. This course will also document the histories, rites, and practices of several important occult practices including Hermeticism, New Age spiritualities, Neo-Paganism, Wicca, and Satanism. In so doing, students will begin to unravel the occult's hidden role in the formation of the Western world and beyond - especially as it relates to issues of class, race, and gender. (GLB5)
1.00 units, Lecture
ANTH 204
Religions of the Black Atlantic
Through the lens of diaspora and critical-race theory, this course explores the ways in which global trends in religious practice have affected, inspired, and forever changed the Black Atlantic world. Students will explore a variety of Afro-Caribbean religions such as Haitian Vodou, Brazilian Candomblé, Cuban Lukumi, and U.S.-based conjure/hoodoo. In so doing, students will develop an appreciation for religious diversity and an understanding of the ways in which race, capitalism, colonialism, nationality, and emerging trends in global tourism continue to affect the ways Caribbean peoples experience religion from across the region. (HUIP)
1.00 units, Lecture
ANTH 205
Religions of Africa
This course is an exploration of the ways in which Africans make sense of their worlds through religion. By reading a wide range of ethnographic and historical texts, students will consider the challenges that post-colonial politics present to understanding religion in Africa and in the diaspora Students will examine a variety of African religious traditions ranging from indigenous practices to the ways in which Christianity and Islam have developed uniquely African beliefs. In so doing, students will frame African religions as global phenomena while considering the historical and contemporary salience of the many canonical themes found in African religion such as spirit possession, divination, healing, magic, witchcraft, sorcery, and animal sacrifice. (GLB2)
1.00 units, Seminar
ANTH 206
Queer Religion
Queer people from around the world have been both celebrated and harmed by religion. LGBTQ+ people have used religion to affirm their rights to exist and as a symbol for their oppression. In this course, students will explore the ways in which LGBTQ+ people engage with queer-affirming and queerphobic religious practices while considering how religion has shaped the queer experience. Through queer-centered ethnography, students will identify the religious strategies that have been mobilized by LGBTQ+ people in ways that give their lives meaning. We will also consider how colonialism, white supremacy, and the global dominance of Christianity has affected the ways that we've come to understand the queer experience from around the world. (HUGI)
1.00 units, Seminar
ANTH 207
Anthropological Perspectives on Women and Gender
Using texts and films, this course will explore the nature of women’s lives in both the contemporary United States and a number of radically different societies around the world, including, for example, the !Kung San people of the Kalahari and the Mundurucù of Amazonian Brazil. As they examine the place of women in these societies, students will also be introduced to theoretical perspectives that help explain both variations in women’s status from society to society and "universal" aspects of their status. (GLB5)
1.00 units, Lecture
ANTH 210
Star Wars: An Anthropological Journey
Students will travel to a "galaxy far, far away" to explore the Star Wars universe and its relation to our own. In this course, students will examine the politics, philosophies, and histories that gave birth to Star Wars. We will be using the major films in the Star Wars franchise to unpack the many themes present. Core concepts in cultural anthropology will be used to introduce and frame our discussions. Students will consider the role that Buddhism played in the way George Lucas imaged the Jedi; they will contemplate the Empire as an allegory for fascism; and even think about what Star Wars might reveal about the major social issues for our time including racism, white nationalism, colonization, and religious war. (SOC)
1.00 units, Seminar
ANTH 211
Anthropology of Infectious Diseases
COVID-19 is only one example of how infectious diseases can change societies. This course will examine the history, transmission, global reach, and outcomes of a range of infectious diseases including plague, cholera, influenza, measles, and COVID-19. We will learn about reproductive numbers, incidence and prevalence, and risk, but also about superspreaders, antivaxxers, and intervention designers. The anthropology of infectious diseases creates social histories: we will read novels but also ethnographic accounts of human responses to infection. (SOC)
1.00 units, Lecture
ANTH 212
The Global War on Drugs
Moral panics over illicit drug use are a central feature of contemporary life, from salacious accounts of "marijuana-induced psychosis" to legends that drug dealers spike candy with LSD to "hook" kids. In response to drugs' alleged threat, the United States has been at the forefront of waging the "War on Drugs" since the early 20th Century. But what are the origins of this forever war? And who benefits, and who is harmed, in its name? In this class, we will explore the racist, classist, ableist, and sexist underpinnings of global drug control and draw on ethnography to consider its effects on people who use drugs. The final unit of the course will explore possibilities beyond "reforming" the War on Drugs. (GLB5)
1.00 units, Seminar
ANTH 215
Medical Anthropology
This course covers major topics in medical anthropology, including biocultural analyses of health and disease, the social patterning of disease, cultural critiques of biomedicine, and non-Western systems of healing. We will explore the major theoretical schools in medical anthropology, and see how they have been applied to specific pathologies, life processes, and social responses. Finally we will explore and critique how medical anthropology has been applied to health care in the United States and internationally. The course will sensitize students to cultural issues in sickness and health care, and provide some critical analytic concepts and tools. (GLB5)
1.00 units, Lecture
ANTH 222
Voodoo: From Africa to our Imaginations
This course focuses on those religious traditions known collectively as "Voodoo." Students will examine powerful displays of spirit possession, rituals in which the ancestors raise from their graves to dance, and secretive ceremonies of devotion, healing, and resistance. Students will explore how Voodoo is practiced and in what ways racial tropes have contributed to the dehumanization of its devotees. With a focus on Benin (West Africa) and Haiti (Caribbean) we will juxtapose Western imaginations and fantasies of Voodoo to the real-lived experiences of practitioners. By examining historical and ethnographic accounts, students will learn how, despite racial stereotyping and anti-Africa sentiments around the globe, Voodoo has become one of the world's more important religions on the global stage today. (GLB2)
1.00 units, Lecture
ANTH 227
Introduction to Political Ecology
This course covers social science approaches to issues concerning ecology, the environment, and nature. It looks at how social identities and cultural meaning are symbolically tied to the physical environment. Ecology and the environment are affected by larger political, social, and economic forces, so we will also broaden the analysis to include wider spatial and temporal scales. The course will also examine how sociology and geography relate to political ecology. Regional foci will include South and Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America. (SOC)
1.00 units, Lecture
ANTH 228
Anthropology from the Margins of South Asia
This course will examine how the northwestern and northern mountainous regions of South Asia have been constructed in the Western popular imagination, both in literary texts and in academic debates. Starting with the era of the Great Game in the late 19th century and ending with the current "war on terror," the course will explore the transformation and continuation of past social and political conditions, and their representations within the region. This will help illuminate some of the enduring themes in anthropological debates, such as culture contact; empires, territories, and resources; and human agency. (SOC)
1.00 units, Lecture
ANTH 241
Women in the Caribbean
This course explores the diverse lives of women of the Caribbean. We will begin with feminist theories of women and power and trace how those understandings have emerged and changed over time. We will use ethnographies to examine women’s lives in both historical and contemporary Caribbean settings, and explore major theoretical approaches in feminist and Caribbean anthropology. We will analyze how women’s experiences have been shaped by multiple forces, including slavery and emancipation, fertility and constructs of motherhood, gender and violence, race and identity, tourism and sex work, illness and poverty, globalization and labor. (SOC)
1.00 units, Lecture
ANTH 245
Anthropology and Global Health
This course examines the growing collaborative and critical roles of anthropology applied to international health. Anthropologists elicit disease taxonomies, describe help-seeking strategies, critique donor models, and design behavioral interventions. They ask about borders and the differences among conceptions of health and disease as global, international, or domestic topics. These issues will be explored through case studies of specific diseases, practices, therapies, agencies, and policies. (GLB5)
1.00 units, Lecture
ANTH 253
Urban Anthropology
This course will trace the social scientific (especially ethnographic and cultural) study of the modern city from its roots in the Industrial Revolution through the current urban transformations brought about by advanced capitalism and globalization. Why are cities organized as they are? How does their organization shape, and get shaped by, everyday practices of city inhabitants? This course will explore the roles of institutional actors (such as governments and corporations) in urban organization, and the effects of economic change, immigration, and public policy on the social organization and built environment of cities. It will examine social consequences of cities, including economic inequality, racial stratification, community formation, poverty, and urban social movements. Though it will focus on American urbanism, this course will also be international and ethnographic. (SOC)
1.00 units, Lecture
ANTH 254
The Meaning of Work
This course takes a cross-cultural look at the ways in which people define work in daily life. Drawing upon diverse sources, including ethnography, fiction, biography and investigative journalism, it will examine the ways in which people labor to make a living and to sustain their households. Students will consider such key questions as: What makes work meaningful? How are occupational communities formed? How is work gendered? How have global forces reshaped the nature of work? How do people experience the lack of work? Examples will be drawn from different work environments, including mining, fishing, agriculture, industry, service work, domestic work and intellectual work. (SOC)
1.00 units, Lecture
ANTH 259
Beyond Putin and Mladic: Anthropology of Contemporary Russia, Balkans, and Eastern Europe
How have the cultures of the former Soviet Union and contemporary Eastern Europe managed their recent political and economic transformation? This course will use political anthropology to examine this question and thereby consider the region's "double conversion" from Communism and the Cold War to representative democracy and twenty-first century politics. Areas of concentration will include regional politics and how they relate to economics, religion, and human rights. By the end of the course, students will have an understanding of how the contemporary Russian Federation, Balkans, and Eastern Europe are transforming in the early twenty-first century. (SOC)
1.00 units, Lecture
ANTH 261
Anthropological Approaches to Political Violence in Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Timor and Leste
Southeast Asia has been both a subject of anthropological fascination and the location of some of the worst mass political violence of the 20th century. In this class, we will explore, discuss, and critique some of the ways in which this violence has been represented and rendered ethnographically. Students will get a general understanding of anthropological approaches to political violence, and—drawing on a variety of case studies from Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Timor Leste, and elsewhere-- a sense of the particular histories and dynamics of violence in Southeast Asia. Assignments for the class will include regular discussion questions, short response papers, in-class presentations, a midterm essay, and an individual research project. (GLB)
1.00 units, Lecture
ANTH 263
Anthropology of Humor
This course examines humor, satire, and parody across a broad range of cultural and historical settings. Our approach is historical and ethnographic, and rests on the idea that there exist various and diverse traditions of humor, each deeply embedded in its own social and political context. We will be exploring the ways in which specific cultural, historical, and social contexts shape how humor is created, interpreted, and responded to. At the same time, we will look at how humor can travel outside of its intended context in surprising and often-contentious ways, being revived or reinterpreted in places spatially or temporally quite distant from its context of creation. (SOC)
1.00 units, Lecture
ANTH 265
Thinking with Things: Exploring our Material World
Our relationship to and interaction with things is a defining feature of the human experience. To think with things is to use objects as the primary lens of analysis. This course explores a range of object case-studies and the unique questions they present for understanding American history and contemporary society. The course centers on close-looking or building interpretations from direct material observation. Students work hands-on with objects spanning from historical texts to folk art and souvenir material to contemporary art and digital media. Object case-studies draw from diverse representations including cultural heritage debates in museums and portrayals of cultural identity performance in popular media. Students will learn to critically examine and discuss the many materials that make up our world. (SOC)
1.00 units, Lecture
ANTH 271
Decentering and Re-centering History: Anthropology of Museums
From children's movie backdrops to contemporary news headlines, museums continue to capture our public attention as cultural spaces of fantastical object storytelling and contested object ownership. What might the future of the (re)making of museum spaces tell us about the future of our relationships to social institutions and how we remember the past? We will shift between lenses of research and practice to consider issues of community engagement, digitization, and climate resiliency. We will materially trace and analyze the complex, often difficult historical legacies of these cultural institutions from a global case-study perspective. We will explore the diverse ways in which museums are being called on today to re-imagine the work that they do and the stories that they tell. (SOC)
1.00 units, Lecture
ANTH 272
Photographic Ethnography
In this course, we will explore the ways in which photography may both support and complicate the production of anthropological knowledge. We will examine critically the politics of the lens and consider the role of power in ethnographic photography. Through both the anthropological lens and the lens of the camera, students will articulate an anthropological problem and seek to explore that problem by producing a photographic essay. Together we will work through the politics of representation in their work - especially as it relates to religion, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, class, race, and ethnicity. By taking ethnographic photographs of their own communities, and participating in critical discussions, students will endeavor to consider the role of visual representation in anthropological inquiry. (SOC)
1.00 units, Lecture
ANTH 281
Anthropology of Religion
Introduction to the foundations of religion through an examination of religious phenomena prevalent in traditional cultures. Some of the topics covered in this course include a critical examination of the idea of primitivity, the concepts of space and time, myths, symbols, ideas related to God, man, death, and rituals such as rites of passage, magic, sorcery, witchcraft, and divination. (May be counted toward anthropology and international studies/global studies.) (GLB5)
1.00 units, Lecture
ANTH 284
The Anthropology of Violence
This course approaches the study of violence through texts, case studies, and films. Does aggression come from biology, culture or both? How is violence defined cross culturally? What constitutes legitimate violence? How has violence been used throughout history to establish, maintain and subvert power? We will examine forms of violence including state violence, war, interpersonal and domestic violence. We will also explore the consequences of violence on health, community and culture. (SOC)
1.00 units, Lecture
ANTH 301
Ethnographic Methods and Writing
This course will acquaint students with a range of research methods commonly used by anthropologists, and with the types of questions and designs that justify their use. It will describe a subset of methods (individual and group interviewing, and observation) in more detail, and give students practice in their use, analysis, and presentation. Through accompanying readings, the course will expose students to the controversies surrounding the practice of ethnography and the presentation of ethnographic authority. Students will conduct group field research projects during the course, and will develop and write up research proposals for projects they themselves could carry out in a summer or semester. It is recommended that students have already taken an anthropology course. (SOC)
Seats Reserved for Anthropology majors.
1.00 units, Seminar
ANTH 302
History of Anthropological Thought
This course explores the anthropological tradition as it has changed from the late 19th century until the present. Students will read works of the major figures in the development of the discipline, such as Bronislaw Malinowski, Franz Boas, Margaret Mead, and Claude Levi-Strauss. They will learn not only what these anthropologists had to say about reality, but why they said it when they did. In this sense, the course turns an anthropological eye on anthropology itself. Note: Students who are not anthropology majors may request permission to enroll. (SOC)
Seats Reserved for Anthropology majors.
1.00 units, Lecture
ANTH 304
Material Religion
This course explores the ways in which individuals from a variety of religious traditions experience religious belief, enact religious practice, and relate to the so-called “Divine” through material culture. Students will examine themes such as relics, clothing, bodies, blood, architecture, shrines, and charms. By reading ethnographic and theoretical texts, this course helps students to consider the role that material religion plays in enhancing or complicating prayer, ritual, and everyday religious piety. (HUM)
1.00 units, Seminar
ANTH 305
Identities in Britain and Ireland
Using ethnographies, nonfiction, novels and films, this course introduces students to the complex negotiations that go into being "British" or "Irish" in the world today. We will apply anthropological theories of identity as a social process to textual and visual material, challenging conventional notions of ethnicity as primordial or fixed. Discussions will address issues of postcolonialism, borders and boundaries, gender and race, and relations between persons and landscapes. (GLB)
1.00 units, Seminar
ANTH 306
Disruptive Bodies: Disability as Embodied Method
This class will bring disability studies to bear on anthropological conversations about structural violence, processes of disablement, and the social construction of the body. We will explore disability as identity, condition, and position; the kinds of impairments that count as disabilities and according to what social, medical and political forces; the structural relations between race, gender, class, and disability; disability justice; and the politics of injury and illness. We will consider how disability might enable us to do anthropology differently through practice-based exercises, auto-ethnography, and collaborative and experimental research. Through these experiments, students will develop their own projects to construct the methods of a "crip" anthropology. (SOC)
1.00 units, Seminar
ANTH 308
Anthropology of Place
This course explores the increasingly complex ways in which people in industrial and non-industrial societies locate themselves with respect to land and landscape. Contrary to some widespread assumptions regarding the fit between identity and place (i.e., ethnicity and nationalism), we study a range of settings in which people actively construct, contest, and reappropriate the spaces of modern life. Through texts, seminar discussions, films, and a field-based research project as the major exercise, students will explore a number of issues, including cultural persistence and the loss of place; the meaning of the frontier and indigenous land rights struggles; gender and public space; the deterritorialization of culture (i.e., McDonald’s in Hong Kong); and the cultural costs of an increasingly "fast" and high-tech world. (GLB5)
1.00 units, Seminar
ANTH 309
Cultural Neuroscience
Cultural neuroscience is a multidisciplinary field that melds neuroscience with cultural anthropology and cultural psychology. It asks: Is culture embodied in the brain? And what are the neurobiological correlates of cultural variation? This course examines how human evolutionary biology has influenced our tendency to socially aggregate and behave in ways that can be predicted based on affiliation with groups that have proscribed values, beliefs, and practices. It surveys the neurobiological markers of inter-group processes and cultural diversity in genes and behavior (e.g., personality, parenting strategies, lifestyle, religion, social rituals, language and material artifacts). Finally, it explores culturally relative definitions of the mind and considers the importance of biopsychosocial approaches for the study of neurodiversity and global mental health disparities. (NAT)
Prerequisite: C- or better in PSYC 261 or ANTH 101 or permission of instructor.
1.00 units, Seminar
ANTH 310
Anthropology of Development
This seminar will explore international economic and social development from an anthropological perspective. We will critically examine concepts of development, underdevelopment, and progress. We will compare how multilateral lenders and small nongovernmental organizations employ development rhetoric and methods. We will examine specific case studies of development projects in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, asking what has been attained, and what is attainable. (SOC)
1.00 units, Seminar
ANTH 315
Anthropology of Science, Technology and Gender
This course is situated at the intersection of the anthropology of Science and Technology and gender studies. It provides feminist critiques as well as anthropological understandings of science and technology. After briefly introducing the theory and methodology in the fields of Science and Technology Studies (STS) in general, we will use historical and ethnographic cases to explore the technologies of sex and differences. We ask the following questions:1) How do science, technology and culture mutually shape one another? 2) How particularly are our body, our genes and nature sexed/gendered by science and technology? 3) How will feminist critiques and anthropological perspectives contribute knowledge production and technological innovations? The key concepts threading through this course are: Science, knowledge, Technology, Culture, Gender and Power. (GLB)
1.00 units, Seminar
ANTH 316
Curating Cuestiones Caribeñas: Intersections of Contemporary Museum Interpretation and Practice
The course explores the entangled themes of museum interpretation and practice at the intersection of the fields of anthropology and art. Applying diverse methods and models from museum theory and institutional case-studies, students will engage in ongoing debates around exhibiting difficult histories and develop the hands-on experience of curating, designing, and installing a contemporary art exhibition in a university setting. The course culminates in an exhibition entitled, "Cuestiones caribeñas / Caribbean Matters" by Pablo Delano, at the Widener Gallery in Austin Arts Center. The course will also include a one-day visit to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City to review their upcoming group exhibition entitled, "no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria". (HUM)
0.50 units, Seminar
ANTH 317
Anthropology of Magic, Sorcery, and Witchcraft
Anthropologists have explained, documented, and positioned magic, sorcery, and witchcraft as modern strategies designed to empower individuals to cope with and master an ever-globalizing world. Students will explore magic from around the globe and consider the complex relationships that exist between magic, materiality, and other cultural phenomena such as intimacy, family, and capitalism. In so doing, this class will position magic as a meaningful cultural practice that is critical to understanding how people mobilize complex symbolic systems and non-human beings to manage increasing concerns over social inequity, global economic insecurity, and distrust. (GLB2)
1.00 units, Seminar
ANTH 318
Unsettling the White Gaze: Whiteness in Anthropology & Social Theory
White supremacy and racial capitalism structure our world, setting in motion the systems of domination that Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly describes as a "racially hierarchical political economy constituting war and militarism, imperialist accumulation, expropriation by domination, and labor superexploitation." Within this formation, the violence of whiteness is occluded and concealed by treating whiteness and white people as normative, rational, and inevitable. In this class, we will turn our anthropological gaze upon whiteness itself, exposing its insidious modes of self-and-other construction, and destabilizing its ocular power to define others. We will pay special attention to how the white colonial gaze has operated in the liberal discipline of anthropology and explore ethnographic methods for studying whiteness and white supremacy. (SOC)
1.00 units, Seminar
ANTH 319
Beyond Traditional: Contemporary Understandings of Puerto Rican Culture
An island uniquely characterized by a liminal political status and a dominant stateside diaspora, the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico has been the subject of renewed national attention in the wake of the devastating 2017 Hurricane María and the 2019 "Verano Boricua" which saw the ousting of the governor, Ricardo Rosselló. This course interrogates Puerto Rican culture on its own terms - shifting from traditional definitions of identity formation to contemporary critiques centering historically marginalized communities amidst ongoing climate and economic precarity. Students will work hands-on analyzing diverse (im)material cultural productions, originating from the island and stateside diasporas. Students will engage with Puerto Rican cultural workers as they develop new, critical understandings of the island's cultural legacy and its future. (SOGI)
1.00 units, Lecture
ANTH 329
Culture, Health and Medical Practices in Contemporary China
Drawing upon insights from medical anthropology, public health, bioethics and related fields, this course offers an interdisciplinary look at health practices in the context of China’s unprecedented socioeconomic transformations. The overall purpose of the course is to strengthen the students’ knowledge of China’s current health trends, transitions, and policies. With a focus on the socio-cultural dimensions of health and medicine, we will first introduce the key concepts threading through this course such as culture, medicalization, biopower, and the body. In the second section, we will look into the how global health issues like mental health are practiced in Chinese context. In the last section, we will focus on biomedical technologies that remakes life and death in contemporary China. (SOC)
1.00 units, Lecture
ANTH 330
Anthropology of Food
Because food is necessary to sustain biological life, its production and provision occupy humans everywhere. Due to this essential importance, food also operates to create and symbolize collective life. This seminar will examine the social and cultural significance of food. Topics to be discussed include the evolution of human food systems, the social and cultural relationships between food production and human reproduction, the development of women’s association with the domestic sphere, the meaning and experience of eating disorders, the connection between ethnic cuisines, nationalist movements and social classes, and the causes of famine. (SOC)
1.00 units, Seminar
ANTH 353
Global Indigeneity
Indigenous Peoples around the world face similar threats, including cultural and linguistic discrimination, territorial dispossession, and environmental injustice. After introducing the concept of Indigeneity and its multiple dimensions, this class will focus on global issues affecting Indigenous Peoples and how they manifest locally. Students will work together to solve real world case studies. They will apply a comparative perspective to become familiar with Indigenous lifeworlds, understand the threats and difficulties Indigenous Peoples face, and craft possible solutions, while not losing sight of Indigenous Peoples' diversity. (GLB)
1.00 units, Seminar
ANTH 371
Excavating Island Futures: Archaeology of the Caribbean
Moving beyond popular tropes of archaeology as an Indiana Jones adventure and of the Caribbean as a tourist playground, this course explores the material realities of archaeological practice in the study of past island culture and society. Through a multi-site case-study approach, the course considers uncertain future dynamics entangling economic and climate precarity, and questions of colonial debts and sovereignty with methods of cultural management and historical preservation. We will critically trace the historical legacies of archaeological excavation in and theoretical framings about the Caribbean. We will examine how archaeology has and continues to powerfully impact contemporary art. Students will learn to identify and analyze a wide range of Caribbean artifact types and assemblages across diverse temporal and geographic contexts. (SOGI)
1.00 units, Seminar
ANTH 399
Independent Study
Submission of the special registration form, available in the Registrar’s Office, and the approval of the instructor and chair are required for enrollment. (SOC)
0.50 units min / 2.00 units max, Independent Study
ANTH 401
Advanced Seminar in Contemporary Anthropology
Anthropologists are a contentious lot, often challenging the veracity and relevance of each other’s interpretations. In this seminar, students will examine recent manifestations of this vexatiousness. The seminar will consider such questions as: Can culture be regarded as collective and shared? What is the relationship between cultural ideas and practical action? How does one study culture in the postmodern world of "the celluloid, global ethnoscape"? Can the practice of anthropology be fully objective, or does it demand a politics—an understanding that ideas, ours and theirs, are historically situated, politicized realities? Is domination the same everywhere? (WEB)
Seats Reserved for Anthropology majors.
1.00 units, Seminar
ANTH 446
Communities in/of Practice: Public Engaged Scholarship as Method
What is the ethical role of research in our contemporary society? How can research implicate and impact broader publics beyond academic stakeholders through mutually beneficial partnerships? This course critically interrogates the relationship between the researcher and the researched; and explores the broader, more creative possibilities of scholarly practice beyond traditional forms of writing. Students will acquire experience and fluency with a wide variety of digital humanities platforms as they gain new understandings of best practices for developing storytelling of community value and relevance. Students will also engage both with diverse case-studies of public engaged scholarship as well as collaborate directly with current practitioners actively applying their academic research towards timely social issues. (SOIP)
1.00 units, Seminar
ANTH 466
Teaching Assistantship
Submission of the special registration form, available online, and the approval of the instructor are required for enrollment. Guidelines are available in the College Bulletin. (0.5 - 1 course credit)
0.50 units min / 1.00 units max, Independent Study
ANTH 490
Research Assistantship
This course is designed to provide students with the opportunity to undertake substantial research work with a faculty member. Students need to complete a special registration form, available online, and have it signed by the supervising instructor.
0.50 units min / 1.00 units max, Independent Study
ANTH 497
Senior Thesis
Submission of the special registration form, available online, and the approval of the instructor and director are required for enrollment in this single-semester thesis. (1 course credit to be completed in one semester.) (WEB)
1.00 units, Independent Study
ANTH 498
Senior Thesis Part 1
This course is the first part of a two semester, two credit thesis. Submission of the special registration form and the approval of the thesis adviser and the director are required for enrollment. The registration form is required for each semester of this year-long thesis. (WEB)
1.00 units, Independent Study
ANTH 499
Senior Thesis Part 2
This course is the second part of a two semester, two credit thesis. Submission of the special registration form and the approval of the thesis adviser and the director are required for enrollment. The registration form is required for each semester of this year-long thesis. (WEB)
1.00 units, Independent Study