Department of AnthropologyCourses for Spring 2026
| Title | Instructor | Location | Time | All taxonomy terms | Description | Section Description | Cross Listings | Fulfills | Registration Notes | Syllabus | Syllabus URL | Course Syllabus URL | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ANTH 0002-401 | The City in South Asia | CANCELED | This interdisciplinary social science course examines key topics, themes, and analytic methods in the study of South Asia by focusing on significant South Asian cities. With one-fifth of the worlds population,South Asia and its urban centers are playing an increasingly important role in recent global economic transformations, resulting in fundamental changes within both the subcontinent and the larger world. Drawing primarily on ethnographic studies of South Asia in the context of rapid historical change, the course also incorporates research drawn from urban studies, architecture, political science, and history, as well as fiction and film. Topics include globalization and new economic dynamics in South Asia; the formation of a new urban middle class; consumption and consumer culture; urban political formations, democratic institutions, and practices; criminality & the underworld; population growth, changes in the built environment, and demographic shifts; everyday life in South Asia and ethnic, cultural, and linguistic identities, differences, and violence in South Asia's urban environments. This is an introductory level course appropriate for students with no background in South Asia or for those seeking to better understand South Asia's urban environments in the context of recent globalization and rapid historical changes. | SAST0002401, URBS0002401 | Society sector (all classes) | |||||||||
| ANTH 0030-601 | Human Origins, Evolution and Diversity | Theodore G Schurr | MW 5:15 PM-6:44 PM | How did humans evolve? When did humans start to walk on two legs? How are humans related to non-human primates? This course focuses on the scientific study of human evolution describing the emergence, development, and diversification of our species, Homo sapiens. As a starting point, we discuss the conceptual framework of evolutionary theory as well as basic genetics and heredity as they relate to human morphological, physiological, and genetic variation. We then examine what studies of nonhuman primates (monkeys and apes) can reveal about our own evolutionary past, reviewing the behavioral and ecological diversity seen among living primates. We conclude the course examining the "hard" evidence of human evolution - the fossil and material culture record of human history from our earliest primate ancestors to the emergence of modern Homo sapiens - and also explore the new insights into modern human origins and dispersal provided by genetic studies. We will further examine the nature of human biological variation and discuss the history of scientific racism in physical anthropology. As part of this course, you will have the opportunity, during recitations, to conduct hands-on exercises collecting and analyzing behavioral, morphological, and genetic data on both humans and nonhuman primates and work with the Department of Anthropology's extensive collection of fossil casts. | Living World Sector (all classes) | |||||||||
| ANTH 0040-001 | The Modern World and Its Cultural Background | Kevin M Burke | MW 10:15 AM-11:14 AM | An introduction to the diversity of cultures in the world. This course is divided into two parts. The first briefly examines different models of understanding human diversity: ethnicities, religions, languages, political forms, economic structures, cultures, and "civilizations". Students will learn to think about the world as an interconnected whole, and know the significance of culture on a global scale. The second part is an introduction to area studies, in which we undertake a survey of the different regions of the world. We conduct the survey paying attention to the different aspects of human diversities, which we examine in the first part of this course. Students will acquire a greater appreciation and understanding of cultural differences in the more comprehensive social context. | Hum & Soc Sci Sector (new curriculum only) | |||||||||
| ANTH 0050-001 | Great Transformations | Deborah I Olszewski | TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM | This course explores the history and archaeology of the last 20,000 years from the development of agriculture to the industrial revolution. Why did people across the world abandon foraging for farming? How and why did cities and states develop? Why did societies succeed or fail? How have humans transformed themselves and the natural world, including the landscape and the climate? We will explore the methods that archaeologists use to consider these questions and analyze evidence for social and economic change from the Middle East, the Americas, Asia, Africa, Australia and Europe. In addition, students will have a chance to conduct hands-on exercises with artifacts from the Penn Museum during practicums. | History & Tradition Sector (all classes) | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202610&c=ANTH0050001 | ||||||||
| ANTH 0063-401 | East & West: Commodities and Culture in Global History | Lisa A Mitchell | TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM | Sugar and Spices. Tea and Coffee. Opium and Cocaine. Hop aboard the Indian Ocean dhows, Chinese junks, Dutch schooners, and British and American clipper ships that made possible the rise of global capitalism, new colonial relationships, and the intensified forms of cultural change. How have the desires to possess and consume particular commodities shaped cultures and the course of modern history? This class introduces students to the cultural history of the modern world through an interdisciplinary analysis of connections between East and West, South and North. Following the circulation of commodities and the development of modern capitalism, the course examines the impact of global exchange on interactions and relationships between regions, nations, cultures, and peoples and the influences on cultural practices and meanings. The role of slavery and labor migrations, colonial and imperial relations, and struggles for economic and political independence are also considered. From the role of spices in the formation of European joint stock companies circa 1600 to the contemporary cocaine trade, the course's use of both original primary sources and secondary readings written by historians and anthropologists will enable particular attention to the ways that global trade has impacted social, cultural, and political formations and practices throughout the world. | HIST0863401, SAST0063401 | Hum & Soc Sci Sector (new curriculum only) | ||||||||
| ANTH 0070-301 | Exploring Primate Behavior and Ecology | Caroline E Jones | MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM | This course explores the evolution, taxonomy, and behavior of primates – an order of mammals which includes human beings, and our closest living relatives. Engagement with Penn Museum specimens will showcase morphological differences among species which help explain patterns of locomotion, feeding/foraging, and reproductive and social behaviors. We will review relevant scientific literature about primates in the wild and captive environments, as well as human- non-human-primate interactions in different contexts. Using the comparative method, course discussions will include topics of aggression, cooperation, cognition, and conservation. Students will employ the scientific method to conduct their own observational study at the Philadelphia Zoo, and practice skills in information/scientific literacy to complete a literature review paper of their own. | Living World Sector (all classes) | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202610&c=ANTH0070301 | ||||||||
| ANTH 0105-401 | Ancient Civilizations of the World | Richard L Zettler | TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM | This course explores the archaeology (material culture) of early complex societies or civilizations in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Aegean. According to the traditional paradigm, civilization first emerged during the fourth millennium BCE in Egypt and Mesopotamia. In the Mediterranean, state-level societies first appeared in Crete and mainland Greece in the early second millennium BCE. This course investigates how and why these civilizations developed, as well as their appearance and structure in the early historic (or literate) phases of their existence. A comparative perspective will illustrate what these early civilizations have in common and the ways in which they are unique. This course will consist largely of lectures which will outline classic archaeological and anthropological theories on state formation, before turning to examine the available archaeological (and textual) data on emerging complexity in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Aegean. This course does not presuppose any knowledge of archaeology or ancient languages; the instructor will provide any background necessary. Because this is a course on material culture, some of the class periods will be spent at the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. These will consist of a guided tour of a relevant gallery, as well as a hands-on object-based lab with archaeological materials selected by the instructor. | MELC0050401, URBS0050401 | History & Tradition Sector (all classes) | ||||||||
| ANTH 0120-601 | Globalization And Its Historical Significance | Chrislyn L Laurore | TR 5:15 PM-6:44 PM | This course sets the current state of globalization in historical perspective. It applies the concepts of anthropology, history, political economy and sociology to the study of globalization. We focus on a series of questions not only about what is happening, but about the growing awareness of it and the consequences of this increasing awareness. In answering these questions we draw on a variety of case studies, from historical examples of early globalization (e.g. The Atlantic and Indian Ocean Worlds, global flows of conspicuous commodities such as sugar, coffee, and tea, the rise and transformations of early capitalism), to issues facing our current globalized world (e.g. mass-mediatization and multilingualism, border regimes and international migration, planetary urbanization). The body of the course deals with particular dimensions of globalization, reviewing both the early and recent history of each. The overall approach is historical and comparative, setting globalization on the larger stage of the economic, political and cultural development of various parts of the modern world. The course is taught by anthropologists who draw from economic, linguistic, sociocultural, archaeological, and historical perspectives, offering the opportunity to compare and contrast distinct disciplinary approaches. It seeks to develop a general social-science-based theoretical understanding of the various historical dimensions of globalization: economic, political, social and cultural. | SOCI2910601 | Hum & Soc Sci Sector (new curriculum only) | ||||||||
| ANTH 0131-401 | Not Just Numbers: Navigating Tribal Nations, the Federal/Tribal relationship, and Population Data | Gwynne Evans-Lomayesva | TR 3:30 PM-4:59 PM | “I am Hopi, and I count!” This 2020 Decennial Census slogan rang through Indian Country in the years leading up to the 2020 count. Advocates from national native organizations encouraged tribal citizens to respond to the decennial census and include the American Indian/ Alaska Native racial classification. Who are the Tribal Nations? Why was increasing response to the 2020 Decennial Census important? What is the difference between tribal ancestry, tribal enrollment, the American Indian/ Alaska Native racial classification, and Tribal Nations? Why did people have to be encouraged to identify the American Indian/ Alaska Native racial classification? Why does this even matter? Whether your knowledge of the Tribal Nations and indigenous peoples is limited or vast, everyone in this course will gain a richer understanding of the Tribal Nations and indigenous peoples of the United States in the 21st Century. This course provides a contextual background to the Tribal Nations in the current era and an introductory exploration of American Indian/ Alaska Native population data and research in the United States. You will be introduced to different ways of defining/measuring the populations, data collections (barriers and limitations), how to verify interpretation of data, and even how to download data from federal public sources. Students will learn a high-level overview of the relationships between the Tribal Nations and the federal government, examine how different fields—such as policy, journalism, and social/biomedical research—utilize data, and learn to critically assess the strengths and limitations of various data sources or interpretations. | SOCI0012401 | Society sector (all classes) | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202610&c=ANTH0131401 | |||||||
| ANTH 0150-301 | Anthropology of Health and Healing | Ross Perfetti | W 12:00 PM-2:59 PM | What does it mean to “get better” after being sick? In this freshman seminar in anthropology, we will ask questions about recovering from illness and injury in the context of patients’ experiences, medical systems, and healthcare policy. Who gets to decide what counts as health? Why do we think of “normal” as the goal after illness, and what happens when normal isn’t possible or even desirable? By asking these questions, we will examine the broader social, cultural, and political issues related to healing. We will approach these questions through a range of readings, films, podcasts, art works, and personal stories, exploring ideas of cure, disability, and independence in everyday life. We will begin by examining the philosophical underpinnings of health, sickness, and cure. Then, we will look more closely at how political and economic contexts influence assessments of healing, such as measures of “function” and “outcomes.” We will explore how disability narratives, activism, and advocacy reframe recovery from illness and injury. We’ll also take a closer look at definitions of and models for recovery in mental health care and addiction. Finally, we will turn to questions about what it means to recover in daily life. What forms of dependency are to be embraced, and which are to be overcome? What does illness reveal about “already there” in our lives? And what kinds of futures become possible when we treat recovery as creative or collective rather than purely individual? Students will be evaluated on participation in class and in short weekly writing reflections. There will be three assignments: one group project, one individual reflection, and one final paper. | Hum & Soc Sci Sector (new curriculum only) | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202610&c=ANTH0150301 | ||||||||
| ANTH 1040-001 | Sex, Gender, and Human Nature | Rachel Watkins | TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM | This course is an introduction to the scientific study of sex in humans and how it interfaces with cultural norms around sex determination, sexuality, and gender. Within an evolutionary framework, the course examines genetic, physiological, ecological, social and behavioral aspects of sex in humans. This will include examining the biological and cultural aspects of sexual development from birth to adulthood. Focused modules will also guide an exploration of the anatomical, physiological and cultural aspects of the ways that human social organization is influenced by norms related to sex, gender and sexuality across space and time. | Living World Sector (all classes) | |||||||||
| ANTH 1230-301 | Communication & Culture | Asif Agha | MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM | The course looks at varieties of human expression -- such as art, film, language and song -- as communicative practices that connect persons together to form a common culture. Discussion is centered around particular case studies and ethnographic examples. Examination of communicative practices in terms of the types of expressive signs they employ, their capacity to formulate and transmit cultural beliefs and ideals (such as conceptions of politics, nature, and self), and to define the size and characteristics of groups and communities sharing such ideals. Discussion of the role of media, social institutions, and technologies of communication (print, electronic). Emphasis on contemporary communicative practices and the forms of culture that emerge in the modern world. | Society sector (all classes) | |||||||||
| ANTH 1254-401 | Archaeology of the Inca | Anne Tiballi | TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM | The Inca created a vast and powerful South American empire in the high Andes Mountains that was finally conquered by Spain. Using Penn's impressive museum collections and other archaeological, linguistic, and historical sources, this course will examine Inca religion and worldview, architecture, sacred temples, the capital of Cuzco, ritual calendar, ceque system, textiles, metalworking, economic policies and expansionist politics from the dual perspectives of Inca rulers and their subjects. Our task is to explain the rise, dominance, and fall of the Incas as a major South American civilization. | LALS1254401 | History & Tradition Sector (all classes) | ||||||||
| ANTH 1430-001 | Explorations in Human Biology | Mallika Sarma | MW 1:45 PM-2:44 PM | This course is an exploration of human biology from a biocultural and evolutionary perspective. The class will provide you with a better understanding of what it means to be human, how humans came to exhibit such a wide range variation, and what biological anthropology can contribute to your understanding of the world. In this class students will learn to integrate the theory and methods used in human biology research through lectures, assignments, and lab sessions. This course will explore topics including human genetics, growth and development, nutrition, disease, and reproduction. We will also use the course as an opportunity to introduce you to the important contributions of biological anthropologists to the study of race, inequality, sex and gender, and health among others. | Nat Sci & Math Sector (new curriculum only) | |||||||||
| ANTH 1490-301 | Introduction to Native American and Indigenous Studies | CANCELED | This course offers a broad introduction to evolving scholarship in the combined fields of Native American Studies and Indigenous Studies worldwide. Students will examine the various ways that Indigenous peoples and academic researchers are currently engaging with Indigenous knowledges, while also exploring the lingering impacts of settler colonialism and the influence of decolonizing methodologies. Students will gain foundational understandings of the cross-disciplinary nature of Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS), by studying theoretical interpretations of Indigenous peoples in academic and historical contexts, and by examining practical approaches to Indigenous research in diverse worldwide settings. Students will approach topics from a variety of disciplinary traditions, utilizing historical texts, ethnological studies, oral literature, material culture, and modern media, including websites and databases produced by and for Indigenous communities. Readings will include the work of researchers who bridge the disciplines of anthropology, history, folklore, art, law, science, etc. Students will watch a selection of films by Indigenous filmmakers, and attend lectures by a selection of Indigenous guest speakers. NAIS faculty advisors from various schools at Penn (e.g., School of Arts and Sciences, Education, Law, Nursing) will also present several guest lectures to highlight their unique experiences and research projects with Indigenous communities. Special case studies will focus on: new directions in collaborative research; issues in museum representation and repatriation; heritage site protection and Indigenous archaeology; legal interventions and protections for Indigenous rights; and innovative projects in language restoration and cultural recovery. | |||||||||||
| ANTH 1490-302 | Introduction to Native American and Indigenous Studies | Tina P Fragoso | TR 3:30 PM-4:59 PM | This course offers a broad introduction to evolving scholarship in the combined fields of Native American Studies and Indigenous Studies worldwide. Students will examine the various ways that Indigenous peoples and academic researchers are currently engaging with Indigenous knowledges, while also exploring the lingering impacts of settler colonialism and the influence of decolonizing methodologies. Students will gain foundational understandings of the cross-disciplinary nature of Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS), by studying theoretical interpretations of Indigenous peoples in academic and historical contexts, and by examining practical approaches to Indigenous research in diverse worldwide settings. Students will approach topics from a variety of disciplinary traditions, utilizing historical texts, ethnological studies, oral literature, material culture, and modern media, including websites and databases produced by and for Indigenous communities. Readings will include the work of researchers who bridge the disciplines of anthropology, history, folklore, art, law, science, etc. Students will watch a selection of films by Indigenous filmmakers, and attend lectures by a selection of Indigenous guest speakers. NAIS faculty advisors from various schools at Penn (e.g., School of Arts and Sciences, Education, Law, Nursing) will also present several guest lectures to highlight their unique experiences and research projects with Indigenous communities. Special case studies will focus on: new directions in collaborative research; issues in museum representation and repatriation; heritage site protection and Indigenous archaeology; legal interventions and protections for Indigenous rights; and innovative projects in language restoration and cultural recovery. | ||||||||||
| ANTH 1500-401 | World Musics and Cultures |
Hannah Marie Junco James Sykes |
WF 12:00 PM-1:29 PM | This course examines how we as consumers in the "Western" world engage with musical difference largely through the products of the global entertainment industry. We examine music cultures in contact in a variety of ways-- particularly as traditions in transformation. Students gain an understanding of traditional music as live, meaningful person-to-person music making, by examining the music in its original site of production, and then considering its transformation once it is removed, and recontextualized in a variety of ways. The purpose of the course is to enable students to become informed and critical consumers of "World Music" by telling a series of stories about particular recordings made with, or using the music of, peoples culturally and geographically distant from the US. Students come to understand that not all music downloads containing music from unfamiliar places are the same, and that particular recordings may be embedded in intriguing and controversial narratives of production and consumption. At the very least, students should emerge from the class with a clear understanding that the production, distribution, and consumption of world music is rarely a neutral process. Fulfills College Cross Cultural Foundational Requirement. | AFRC1500401, MUSC1500401 | Arts & Letters Sector (all classes) | ||||||||
| ANTH 1500-402 | World Musics and Cultures | Jiwon Kwon | MW 8:30 AM-9:59 AM | This course examines how we as consumers in the "Western" world engage with musical difference largely through the products of the global entertainment industry. We examine music cultures in contact in a variety of ways-- particularly as traditions in transformation. Students gain an understanding of traditional music as live, meaningful person-to-person music making, by examining the music in its original site of production, and then considering its transformation once it is removed, and recontextualized in a variety of ways. The purpose of the course is to enable students to become informed and critical consumers of "World Music" by telling a series of stories about particular recordings made with, or using the music of, peoples culturally and geographically distant from the US. Students come to understand that not all music downloads containing music from unfamiliar places are the same, and that particular recordings may be embedded in intriguing and controversial narratives of production and consumption. At the very least, students should emerge from the class with a clear understanding that the production, distribution, and consumption of world music is rarely a neutral process. Fulfills College Cross Cultural Foundational Requirement. | AFRC1500402, MUSC1500402 | Arts & Letters Sector (all classes) | ||||||||
| ANTH 1500-404 | World Musics and Cultures | Laurie Lee | TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM | This course examines how we as consumers in the "Western" world engage with musical difference largely through the products of the global entertainment industry. We examine music cultures in contact in a variety of ways-- particularly as traditions in transformation. Students gain an understanding of traditional music as live, meaningful person-to-person music making, by examining the music in its original site of production, and then considering its transformation once it is removed, and recontextualized in a variety of ways. The purpose of the course is to enable students to become informed and critical consumers of "World Music" by telling a series of stories about particular recordings made with, or using the music of, peoples culturally and geographically distant from the US. Students come to understand that not all music downloads containing music from unfamiliar places are the same, and that particular recordings may be embedded in intriguing and controversial narratives of production and consumption. At the very least, students should emerge from the class with a clear understanding that the production, distribution, and consumption of world music is rarely a neutral process. Fulfills College Cross Cultural Foundational Requirement. | AFRC1500404, MUSC1500404 | Arts & Letters Sector (all classes) | ||||||||
| ANTH 1500-405 | World Musics and Cultures | Kingsley Kwadwo Okyere | TR 8:30 AM-9:59 AM | This course examines how we as consumers in the "Western" world engage with musical difference largely through the products of the global entertainment industry. We examine music cultures in contact in a variety of ways-- particularly as traditions in transformation. Students gain an understanding of traditional music as live, meaningful person-to-person music making, by examining the music in its original site of production, and then considering its transformation once it is removed, and recontextualized in a variety of ways. The purpose of the course is to enable students to become informed and critical consumers of "World Music" by telling a series of stories about particular recordings made with, or using the music of, peoples culturally and geographically distant from the US. Students come to understand that not all music downloads containing music from unfamiliar places are the same, and that particular recordings may be embedded in intriguing and controversial narratives of production and consumption. At the very least, students should emerge from the class with a clear understanding that the production, distribution, and consumption of world music is rarely a neutral process. Fulfills College Cross Cultural Foundational Requirement. | AFRC1500405, MUSC1500403 | Arts & Letters Sector (all classes) | ||||||||
| ANTH 1530-001 | Gifts, Commodities, and the Market: The Anthropology of the Economy | Kevin M Burke | TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM | What is the difference between a farmer's market in West Philadelphia and a bazaar in Cairo? What is the meaning of a gift between friends? What about gifts between enemies? What are the origins, meaning, and purpose of money? What is the relationship between politics and the economy? This course will begin to answer these questions by introducing the field of economic anthropology. The economy is not an isolated phenomenon: it is interconnected with socio-cultural and political factors, thus challenging our conception of what is truly considered to be economic. By highlighting the cultural diversity of economic systems across time and space, including our own contemporary, global economy, students will learn what can be considered natural about the economy, and what is contingent on historical factors of culture, society, or politics. Prior economic coursework is not required, nor will this course entail much quantitative analysis. This is not a course in traditional economics or finance. Instead, we will examine socio-cultural, historical, and biological aspects of different economic arrangements, and discuss how anthropological approaches to the economy draw from larger theoretical perspectives (e.g. Smithian, Marxian, Polanyian, Austrian, etc) Case studies will vary widely and include topics such as gift-giving economies of the South Pacific, power and redistribution of the European Bronze Age, social relationships among 21st century Wall-Street traders, and many others that highlight the diversity of economic practices among human societies. Students will be evaluated on short written responses to readings, a midterm and non-cumulative final exam, and a research paper. | ||||||||||
| ANTH 1803-401 | Sacred Stuff: Religious Bodies, Places, and Objects | Donovan O. Schaefer | MW 5:15 PM-6:44 PM | Does religion start with what's in our heads? Or are religious commitments made, shaped and strengthened by the people, places, and things around us? This course will explore how religion happens in the material world. We'll start with classical and contemporary theories on the relationship of religion to stuff. We'll then consider examples of how religion is animated not just by texts, but through interactions with objects, spaces, bodies, monuments, color, design, architecture, and film. We'll ask how these material expressions of religion move beyond private faith and connect religion to politics and identity. | RELS1800401 | |||||||||
| ANTH 2024-401 | Dress and Fashion in Africa | Ali B. Ali-Dinar | TR 3:30 PM-4:59 PM | Throughout Africa, social and cultural identities of ethnicity, gender, generation, rank and status were conveyed in a range of personal ornamentation that reflects the variation of African cultures. The meaning of one particular item of clothing can transform completely when moved across time and space. As one of many forms of expressive culture, dress shape and give forms to social bodies. In the study of dress and fashion, we could note two distinct broad approaches, the historical and the anthropological. While the former focuses on fashion as a western system that shifted across time and space, and linked with capitalism and western modernity; the latter approach defines dress as an assemblage of modification the body. The Africanist proponents of this anthropological approach insisted that fashion is not a dress system specific to the west and not tied with the rise of capitalism. This course will focus on studying the history of African dress by discussing the forces that have impacted and influenced it overtime, such as socio-economic, colonialism, religion, aesthetics, politics, globalization, and popular culture. The course will also discuss the significance of the different contexts that impacted the choices of what constitute an appropriate attire for distinct situations. African dress in this context is not a fixed relic from the past, but a live cultural item that is influenced by the surrounding forces. | AFRC2324401, ARTH2094401 | |||||||||
| ANTH 2050-001 | Narcissism and the Contemporary | W 2:00 PM-4:59 PM | The rise and prevalence of “narcissistic personality disorders” in the last few decades and recent developments in culture and politics have made narcissism something of a household name today. At a time when the psychic, the social and the political are so intensely convergent on this very problem, the use of narcissism as a socioclinical term to understand the present seems both fitting and warranted. Yet, while this rightly brings into awareness narcissism as a phenomenon of the contemporary, and lends it the urgency it perhaps requires, the purely descriptive use of the term risks rendering a definite psychic and clinical reality into a vague and formless reference lost in a cloud of indistinction, especially when it functions in popular discourse as a catch-all term for anything involving “self-absorption.” In the vein of an “anthropology of the contemporary,” this course aims to develop a properly conceptual understanding of narcissism, drawn from clinical psychoanalytic experience. Our guiding assumption is that what we see of narcissism in our social, cultural and political reality cannot be clearly apprehended without such a clinical perspective. In this course, we will address three simple questions: How is what we call “narcissism” formed, of what does it consist, and by what is it held (maintained)? | |||||||||||
| ANTH 2267-401 | Living World in Archaeological Science |
Chantel E. White Katherine M Moore |
TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM | By focusing on the scientific analysis of archaeological remains from organic materials, this course will explore life and death in the past. Plant and animal remains from the archaeological record are studied from a variety of scales from landscapes and individual objects. The course uses laboratories in the Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials (CAAM) at the Penn Museum. Each module will combine laboratory and classroom exercises to give students hands-on experience with archaeological materials. We will examine how organic materials provide key information about past environments, the domestication of plants and animals, and the evolution of human foods and their environmental impacts. We will integrate archaeological data through discussions of topics such as health and disease, inequality, and traditional ecological knowledge. We will also discuss current approaches in archaeological science, including molecular and genomic studies, to explore the complex ways in which humans have interacted with plants and animals over time. | ANTH5267401, CLST3303401, CLST5303401, MELC2950401 | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202610&c=ANTH2267401 | ||||||||
| ANTH 2329-401 | Psychoanalytic and Anthropological Perspectives on Childhood |
Lawrence D. Blum Rahman Wortman |
T 3:30 PM-6:29 PM | How do people become who they are, both similar to others and uniquely individual? How might these similarities and differences be shaped by childhood experiences in family, community, and societies around the world? How do children develop emotionally? Morally? What features of human development, expression of emotions, and relational patterns are universal for our species? What features are not universal? And what is and is not known about these questions? In this course, we will consider these and many other questions. We will read about and discuss complex and dynamic interactions between culture and individual psychology, and between nature and nurture from birth to adulthood. We will carefully examine various phases of human development as described by psychoanalysts and anthropologists. The course includes anthropologic and psychoanalytic readings and videotapes, as well as literature, fairy tales, and mythologies from cultures around the world. The instructors are both psychiatrists, one a psychoanalyst, the other a psychoanalytically sophisticated child psychiatrist. The course counts towards the Psychoanalytic Studies (PSYS) Minor. | ANTH6329401 | |||||||||
| ANTH 2550-401 | Modern Southeast Asia | Andrew M. Carruthers | TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM | This first-year friendly course provides a broad introductory overview of modern Southeast Asia, surveying the region's extraordinary diversity and ongoing social, economic, and political transformations. Centering on the nation-states that have emerged following the second World War, we will assess elements of Southeast Asian geography, history, language and literature, cosmologies, kinship systems, music, art and architecture, agriculture, industrialization and urbanization, politics, and economic change. We will remain particularly attentive to the ways Southeast Asians negotiate and contend with ongoing challenges with modernization, development, and globalization. | SAST2550401 | |||||||||
| ANTH 2590-401 | Nutritional Anthropology | Caroline E Jones | MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM | The course is an introduction to nutritional anthropology, an area of anthropology concerned with human nutrition and food systems in social, cultural and historical contexts. On the one hand, nutritional anthropologists study the significance of the food quest in terms of survival and health. On the other hand, they also know that people eat food for a variety of reasons that may have little, if anything, to do with nutrition, health, or survival. While the availability of food is dependent upon the physical environment, food production systems, and economic resources, food choice and the strategies human groups employ to gain access to and distribute food are deeply embedded in specific cultural patterns, social relationships, and political and economic systems. Thus, nutritional anthropology represents the interface between anthropology and the nutritional sciences, and as such, can provide powerful insights into the interactions of social and biological factors in the context of the nutritional health of individuals and populations. Because food and nutrition are quintessential biocultural issues, the course takes a biocultural approach drawing on perspectives from biological, socio-cultural and political-economic anthropology. Course content will include: a discussion of approaches to nutritional anthropology; basics of human nutrition; food systems, food behaviors and ideas; methods of dietary and nutritional assessment; and a series of case studies addressing causes and consequences to nutritional problems across the world. | LALS2590401, URBS2590401 | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202610&c=ANTH2590401 | ||||||||
| ANTH 2701-301 | Indigenous Media | Jennifer Sierra | MW 3:30 PM-4:59 PM | This course introduces students to the active participation of Indigenous peoples across the globe in media technologies and the creation of media objects. We will critically explore how Indigenous peoples have engaged with media technologies—both adapting Western technologies and developing distinctive practices—to express their identities, contest stereotypes and systemic erasure, and grapple and expose pressing issues affecting their communities. This course starts by analyzing how Indigenous peoples have been represented in Euro-American media and considering the effects of these portrayals. Building upon this foundation, we will examine how Indigenous groups have used film, radio, and digital technologies to create their own modes of storytelling and self-representation. In the second half of the course, we will explore the complex relationships that have emerged with the rise of digital technologies. We will consider how Indigenous groups interpret and respond to the roles of these technologies in their communities. Importantly, we will examine how Indigenous peoples are not only users but active producers of digital technology—for example, by looking at a Diné reservation labor site involved in semiconductor manufacturing. Throughout these discussions, we will grapple with the ethical issues that arise from these technologies and their effects among Indigenous communities. Through close analysis of case studies, media artifacts, theoretical readings, and guest speakers, students will explore how media objects are not neutral or autonomous, but rather shaped by local ways of knowing, by the possibilities and limitations of technologies, and by the goals and values of societies. We will challenge the idea that media technologies are automatically good or empowering. Instead, we will examine technology as “ambivalent”—capable of helping, hindering, and creating unexpected outcomes. Students will grapple with the diversity of Indigenous groups and how differing groups go about media usage. While there are more than 5,000 distinct Indigenous groups across the world, this course will primarily focus on media participation emerging from the Americas and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Students will gain critical skills in media analysis and thoughtfully engage with issues of media, technology, and Indigeneity. | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202610&c=ANTH2701301 | |||||||||
| ANTH 2730-401 | Global Health: Anthropological Perspectives | Michael B Joiner | W 5:15 PM-8:14 PM | In some parts of the world spending on pharmaceuticals is astronomical. In others, people struggle for survival amid new and reemerging epidemics and have little or no access to basic or life-saving therapies. Treatments for infectious diseases that disproportionately affect the world's poor remain under-researched and global health disparities are increasing. This interdisciplinary seminar integrates perspectives from the social sciences and the biomedical sciences to explore 1) the development and global flows of medical technologies; 2) how the health of individuals and groups is affected by medical technologies, public policy, and the forces of globalization as each of these impacts local worlds. The seminar is structured to allow us to examine specific case material from around the world (Haiti, South Africa, Brazil, Russia, China, India, for example), and to address the ways in which social, political-economic, and technological factors -- which are increasingly global in nature -- influence basic biological mechanisms and disease outcomes and distribution. As we analyze each case and gain familiarity with ethnographic methods, we will ask how more effective interventions can be formulated. The course draws from historical and ethnographic accounts, medical journals, ethical analyses, and films, and familiarizes students with critical debates on globalization and with local responses to globalizing processes. | HSOC2382401 | |||||||||
| ANTH 2762-401 | The Politics of Everyday Life in Africa |
Adewale Adebanwi Helen Michael Bezuneh |
This course will explore the different dimensions of everyday life in Africa. Everyday life has been described by Agnes Heller (1978) as “the secret yeast of history.” What constitutes this “yeast of history” in contemporary Africa? In exploring everyday life, we will examine the existing (in)capacities in the structures of state and society in Africa for human well-being in relation to the differences between political life (bios) and bare life (zoe). The course engages with the everyday life in terms of how social, economic, and political lives are constituted and the implications of this process for whether Africans live well or not, how they die, and their struggles for alternative lives. With (ethnographic) accounts and perspectives from different countries in Africa, the course focuses deeply on how to understand and explain the conditions under which everyday social needs and economic necessities are turned into political/existential struggles as well as the conditions under which political exigencies can transform into economic, social and bodily fatalities. The overarching questions that will animate this course include these: What are the prevalent conditions of everyday life in Africa? What and who determines (in)eligibility regarding the everyday tools of good life and human survival? How are these determinations related to the differential distribution of potential and/or actual injury, harm, and damage to human life and the conditions of its survival? What can ethnographic insight contribute to our understanding of everydayness in Africa? The roles of sexualities, gender, generation, humor, identities, racism, hate, memory, memorial, transactions, etc., in the construction, reconstruction, and deconstruction of daily life – and death – in the continent will be examined. Audio-visual materials will be used to analyze important themes about quotidian life in Africa. | AFRC2762401, SOCI2905401 | ||||||||||
| ANTH 2970-401 | Nature Culture Environmentalism | Sita Mamidipudi | MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM | Water wars, deforestation, climate change. Amidst many uncertain crises, in this course we will explore the emergent relationship between people and the environment in different parts of the world. How do people access the resources they need to live? How, when and for whom does 'nature' come to matter? Why does it matter? And what analytical tools we might use to think, mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change? Drawing together classical anthropological texts and some of the emergent debates in the field of climate studies and environmental justice, in this class we focus on the social-ecological processes through which different groups of humans imagine, produce and inhabit anthropogenic environments. | URBS2970401 | Society sector (all classes) | ||||||||
| ANTH 3075-301 | Decolonizing Forced Migration: Global Issues, Local Action in Philadelphia | Rebecca Maria Mchugh | TR 3:30 PM-4:59 PM | This Academically Based Community Service (ABCS) course explores how forced migration and refugee resettlement shape local communities, with a focus on the Karen refugee community from Myanmar living in Philadelphia. Drawing from Anthropology and Asian American Studies, the course uses feminist and decolonial approaches to understand these global issues in a local context. Students will engage in hands-on, community-based work with the Karen Community Association of Philadelphia (KCAP), an organization led by Karen refugees. Through discussions, current scholarship, and active participation in KCAP projects, students will build meaningful partnerships and learn how to collaborate across cultural and disciplinary lines. Project options are diverse and shaped by both student interests and community needs. They may include digital storytelling, grant writing, urban farming, food justice, community history, policy briefs, healthcare training tools, and more. No specific background is required—students from all majors are welcome. Through this course, students will develop skills in critical analysis of policy, cross-cultural communication, language justice, and hands-on practice working in ethical collaboration with community partners. The course offers a chance to connect academic learning with real-world impact and to contribute to the work of a resilient and resourceful refugee community. | ||||||||||
| ANTH 3235-401 | The Past Preserved: Conservation In Archaeology | Molly Gleeson | F 12:00 PM-2:59 PM | This course explores the scientific conservation of cultural materials from archaeological contexts. It is intended to familiarize students with the basics of artifact conservation but is not intended to train them as conservators. The course will cover how various materials interact with their deposit environments; general techniques for on-site conservation triage and retrieval of delicate materials; what factors need to be considered in planning for artifact conservation; and related topics. Students should expect to gain a thorough understanding of the role of conservation in archaeology and how the two fields interact. | ARTH0143401, CLST3315401, MELC4955401 | |||||||||
| ANTH 3360-401 | The Peopling of the Americas | Theodore G Schurr | MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM | The peopling of the Americas is a question that has intrigued scholars and laymen for over 500 years. The origin of Native Americans was also a seminal issue during the emergence of American Anthropology as a discipline at the turn of the 20th century, with research on this topic animating current studies of ethnohistory, indigenous archeology, post-colonialism and repatriation. The proposed course will review the scholarship dedicated to describing this long history from an interdisciplinary perspective. It will explore their roots in the expansion of modern humans into Eurasia, evaluate the new archeological and genetic research that has fundamentally altered our understanding of the migration history and diversity of indigenous peoples in the American continents, and examine issues of identity, ethnicity and cultural heritage in contemporary Native populations that extend from this knowledge. The course will further draw on the instructor's fieldwork experience working with indigenous communities in Alaska, Canada, the Lower 48, Mexico and the Caribbean, as well as native Siberians in Russia, where the cultural and biological roots of ancestral Native American populations lie. | LALS3360401 | |||||||||
| ANTH 3520-401 | Music, Religion, Ritual in South and Southeast Asia. | James Sykes | WF 1:45 PM-3:14 PM | What role does music play in articulating religious identities and spaces? What is the importance of ritual musics as they persist and change in the modern world? How does music reflect and articulate religious ways of thinking and acting? In this course, we explore these and other questions about the interrelations between music, religion, and ritual in South and Southeast Asia. Focusing on India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Indonesia, the course emphasizes musics from Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim and Christian traditions; nevertheless, it draws widely to touch upon sacred musics in Pakistan, Nepal, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, and among some indigenous peoples in the region. Throughout, we explore ontologies of sound; sonic occurrences in religious structures, public processions, and pilgrimage sites; the construction of religion and ritual as ideas forged through colonial encounter and modern scholarship on religion; the politics of sacred sounds in today's public spaces and contemporary media, such as television and online; and the surprising fluidity between popular and sacred musical genres. | MUSC3520401 | |||||||||
| ANTH 3664-401 | Documentary Ethnography for Museum of Exhibition practices | Sosena Solomon | T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM | This course will investigate research modalities that center around documentary storytelling in the museum context. During the semester, we will examine research strategies that collaborate with curatorial experts. Class will utilize cinematic techniques that investigate cultural narratives revolving around cultural heritage sites, rituals and ceremonies, artifacts, materials and living traditions. Students will engage Solomon's process of her creation of the new digital and in-gallery content that will reframe the Metropolitan Museum’s African art galleries. The semester will culminate in students creating their own short film content that will be screened at the end of the semester. | CIMS3664401 | |||||||||
| ANTH 3670-401 | Experimental Ethnography Performance: A Radical Familiar | Deborah A Thomas | T 10:15 AM-1:14 PM | Students will engage with performance as a creative ethnographic research practice, guided by a special visiting fellow at the Center for Experimental Ethnography who is a master of the craft. Sections differ in content and focus, and involve a production component as well as a final exhibit/showcase/screening. | ANTH6670401 | |||||||||
| ANTH 3672-401 | Experimental Ethnography Sound: Grassroots Archiving & Curating Engagement | W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM | Students will engage with sound as a creative ethnographic research practice, guided by a special visiting fellow at the Center for Experimental Ethnography who is a master of the craft. Sections differ in content and focus, and involve a production component as well as a final exhibit/showcase/screening. | ANTH6672401 | ||||||||||
| ANTH 3673-001 | Experimental Ethnography Visual Media: Circulation, image-making, and ethnographic reservoirs | Angelantonio Grossi | M 5:15 PM-8:14 PM | Students will experiment with film and/or photography as a creative ethnographic research practice, guided by a special visiting fellow at the Center for Experimental Ethnography who is a master of the craft. Sections differ in content and focus, and involve a production component as well as a final exhibit/showcase/screening. | ANTH6673001 | |||||||||
| ANTH 3750-401 | Latin American Environmentalisms: Ecological Conflict and Cuidado (Care) across the Americas | Kristina M Lyons | W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM | This course thinks with and from Latin America to consider the environmental and ecological conflicts and politics of cuidado (care) emerging across the hemisphere in times of climate crisis and deepening socio-environmental injustice. Latin American thinkers and practitioners have provided innovative conceptual and methodological tools for analyzing, organizing, and acting in defense of territory and life. In this course, we will consider how legacies of colonialism and (neo)extractivism are not only an ongoing curse of the Americas, but also a a condition of possibility for feminist, decolonial, Indigenous, and ecological proposals, such as degrowth, buen vivir, cuerpo-territorio (body-territory), rights of nature, ontological politics, and participatory action research, among other ways of knowing, being, and doing. What can we learn from engagement with the historic and contemporary socioenvironmental challenges occurring across the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking Americas? How are diverse urban and rural communities, technoscientific actors, researchers, and ancestral knowers understanding and responding to the region’s emerging climate and environmental scenarios? What are the possibilities for dialogue, exchange, and problem solving between such diverse actors and their multiple ways of knowing and being that span millennial, colonial, and modernizing temporalities? Throughout the course, we will interrogate and reflect on these questions from the situated perspectives of Latin America and its many territorial realities, ecological relations, and social worlds. | ANTH5750401, LALS3750401, LALS5750401 | |||||||||
| ANTH 5120-301 | Environmental Archaeology | Chad Hill | MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM | Environmental archaeology is the study of past human interactions with the natural world—a world which encompasses plants, animals, and landscapes. Environmental archaeology is concerned with the wide range of ways that humans are both affected by and alter their surroundings. In this course, we will explore the types of data used to reconstruct ancient environments, how disparate strands of environmental data are combined, and examine theoretical approaches to human-environment relationships. Through case studies we will confront contentious issues in environmental archaeology and learn how archaeologists integrate the archaeological record with data from history, biology, and geosciences and make archaeological data relevant to broader issues of cultural heritage, climate change, and sustainability. | ||||||||||
| ANTH 5160-401 | Public Interest Workshop | Gretchen E L Suess | W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM | This is a Public Interest Ethnography workshop (originally created by Peggy Reeves Sanday - Department of Anthropology) that incorporates an interdisciplinary approach to exploring social issues. Open to graduate and advanced undergraduate students, the workshop is a response to Amy Gutmann's call for interdisciplinary cooperation across the University and to the Department of Anthropology's commitment to developing public interest research and practice as a disciplinary theme. Rooted in the rubric of public interest social science, the course focuses on: 1) merging problem solving with theory and analysis in the interest of change motivated by a commitment to social justice, racial harmony, equality, and human rights; and 2) engaging in public debate on human issues to make research results accessible to a broader audience. The workshop brings in guest speakers and will incorporate original ethnographic research to merge theory with action. Students are encouraged to apply the framing model to a public interest research and action topic of their choice. This is an academically-based-community-service (ABCS) course that partners directly with Penn's Netter Center for Community Partnerships. | GSWS5160401, URBS5160401 | |||||||||
| ANTH 5211-401 | Petrography of Cultural Materials | Marie-Claude Boileau | W 10:15 AM-1:14 PM | Introduction to thin-section petrography of stone and ceramic archaeological materials. Using polarized light microscopy, the first half of this course will cover the basics of mineralogy and the petrography of igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks. The second half will focus on the petrographic description of ceramic materials, mainly pottery, with emphasis on the interpretation of provenance and technology. As part of this course, students will characterize and analyze archaeological samples from various collections. Prior knowledge of geology is not required. | AAMW5120401, CLST7311401 | |||||||||
| ANTH 5267-401 | Living World in Archaeological Science |
Chantel E. White Katherine M Moore |
TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM | By focusing on the scientific analysis of archaeological remains from organic materials, this course will explore life and death in the past. Plant and animal remains from the archaeological record are studied from a variety of scales from landscapes and individual objects. The course uses laboratories in the Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials (CAAM) at the Penn Museum. Each module will combine laboratory and classroom exercises to give students hands-on experience with archaeological materials. We will examine how organic materials provide key information about past environments, the domestication of plants and animals, and the evolution of human foods and their environmental impacts. We will integrate archaeological data through discussions of topics such as health and disease, inequality, and traditional ecological knowledge. We will also discuss current approaches in archaeological science, including molecular and genomic studies, to explore the complex ways in which humans have interacted with plants and animals over time. | ANTH2267401, CLST3303401, CLST5303401, MELC2950401 | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202610&c=ANTH5267401 | ||||||||
| ANTH 5460-401 | Global Citizenship | Kathleen D. Hall | T 2:00 PM-3:59 PM | This course examines the possibilities and limitations of conceiving of and realizing citizenship on a global scale. Readings, guest lecturers, and discussions will focus on dilemmas associated with addressing issues that transcend national boundaries. In particular, the course compares global/local dynamics that emerge across different types of improvement efforts focusing on distinctive institutions and social domains, including: educational development; human rights; humanitarian aid; free trade; micro-finance initiatives; and the global environmental movement. The course has two objectives: to explore research and theoretical work related to global citizenship, social engagement, and international development; and to discuss ethical and practical issues that emerge in the local contexts where development initiatives are implemented. | EDUC5431001, URBS5460401 | |||||||||
| ANTH 5460-402 | Global Citizenship | Kathleen D. Hall | W 2:00 PM-3:59 PM | This course examines the possibilities and limitations of conceiving of and realizing citizenship on a global scale. Readings, guest lecturers, and discussions will focus on dilemmas associated with addressing issues that transcend national boundaries. In particular, the course compares global/local dynamics that emerge across different types of improvement efforts focusing on distinctive institutions and social domains, including: educational development; human rights; humanitarian aid; free trade; micro-finance initiatives; and the global environmental movement. The course has two objectives: to explore research and theoretical work related to global citizenship, social engagement, and international development; and to discuss ethical and practical issues that emerge in the local contexts where development initiatives are implemented. | EDUC5431002, URBS5460402 | |||||||||
| ANTH 5467-401 | Community Youth Filmmaking | Alissa M. Jordan | W 9:30 AM-12:29 PM | This course focuses on how the filmmaking medium and process can provide a means for engaging youth in ethnographically grounded civic action projects where they learn about, reflect on, and communicate to others about their issues in their schools and communities. Students receive advanced training in film and video for social change. A project-based service-learning course, students collaborate with Philadelphia high school students and community groups to make films and videos that encourage creative self-expression and represent issues important to youth, schools, and local communities. Stories and themes on emotional well-being, safety, health, environmental issues, racism and social justice are particularly encouraged. A central thread throughout is to assess and reflect upon the strengths (and weaknesses) of contemporary film (digital, online) in fostering debate, discussion and catalyzing community action and social change. The filmmaking medium and process itself is explored as a means to engage and interact with communities. This course provides a grounding in theories, concepts, methods and practices of community engagement derived from Community Participatory Video, Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) and Ethnographic methods. For the very first time, Penn students will be trained to operate a state-of-the-art TV studio at PSTV (Philadelphia Schools TV). At the end of the semester approved films will be screened with an accompanying panel discussion at an event at the School District of Philadelphia (SDP). These films will also be broadcast on Comcast Philadelphia's PSTV Channel 52 and webcast via the district's website and YouTube channel. This is an ABCS course, and students will produce short ethnographic films with students in Philadelphia high schools as part of a partnership project with the School District of Philadelphia. EDUC 5466 Ethnographic Filmmaking (or equivalent) is a pre-requisite or permission of instructor. | EDUC5467401 | |||||||||
| ANTH 5470-401 | Anthropology and Education | Linda Pheng | T 11:45 AM-1:44 PM | An introduction to the intent, approach, and contribution of anthropology to the study of socialization and schooling in cross-cultural perspective. Education is examined in traditional, colonial, and complex industrial societies. | EDUC5495401, URBS5470401 | |||||||||
| ANTH 5490-001 | Topics in Archaeological Method and Theory | Lauren M Ristvet | The subject matter of this seminar will vary by term and instructor. Each course will concern itself with contemporary archaeology through an in-depth examination of new directions in archaeological method and theory. Please check https://www.sas.upenn.edu/anthropology/courses/topics-courses for the term-specific course description. | |||||||||||
| ANTH 5720-401 | Geophysical Prospection for Archaeology | Jason Herrmann | M 1:45 PM-4:44 PM | Near-surface geophysical prospection methods are now widely used in archaeology as they allow archaeologists to rapidly map broad areas, minimize or avoid destructive excavation, and perceive physical dimensions of archaeological features that are outside of the range of human perception. This course will cover the theory of geophysical sensors commonly used in archaeological investigations and the methods for collecting, processing, and interpreting geophysical data from archaeological contexts. We will review the physical properties of common archaeological and paleoenvironmental targets, the processes that led to their deposition and formation, and how human activity is reflected in anomalies recorded through geophysical survey through lectures, readings, and discussion. Students will gain experience collecting data in the field with various sensors at archaeological sites in the region. A large proportion of the course will be computer-based as students work with data from geophysical sensors, focusing on the fundamentals of data processing, data fusion, and interpretation. Some familiarity with GIS is recommended. | AAMW5720401, CLST7315401, MELC5925401 | |||||||||
| ANTH 5750-401 | Latin American Environmentalisms: Ecological Conflict and Cuidado (Care) across the Americas | Kristina M Lyons | W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM | This course thinks with and from Latin America to consider the environmental and ecological conflicts and politics of cuidado (care) emerging across the hemisphere in times of climate crisis and deepening socio-environmental injustice. Latin American thinkers and practitioners have provided innovative conceptual and methodological tools for analyzing, organizing, and acting in defense of territory and life. In this course, we will consider how legacies of colonialism and (neo)extractivism are not only an ongoing curse of the Americas, but also a a condition of possibility for feminist, decolonial, Indigenous, and ecological proposals, such as degrowth, buen vivir, cuerpo-territorio (body-territory), rights of nature, ontological politics, and participatory action research, among other ways of knowing, being, and doing. What can we learn from engagement with the historic and contemporary socioenvironmental challenges occurring across the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking Americas? How are diverse urban and rural communities, technoscientific actors, researchers, and ancestral knowers understanding and responding to the region’s emerging climate and environmental scenarios? What are the possibilities for dialogue, exchange, and problem solving between such diverse actors and their multiple ways of knowing and being that span millennial, colonial, and modernizing temporalities? Throughout the course, we will interrogate and reflect on these questions from the situated perspectives of Latin America and its many territorial realities, ecological relations, and social worlds. | ANTH3750401, LALS3750401, LALS5750401 | |||||||||
| ANTH 6010-301 | Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Culture and Society | Emily K Ng | R 1:45 PM-4:44 PM | A critical examination of recent history and theory in cultural and social anthropology. Topics include structural-functionalism; symbolic anthropology; post-modern theory. Emphasis is on major schools and trends in America, Britain, and France. | ||||||||||
| ANTH 6020-301 | Evolutionary Anthropology | Theodore G Schurr | T 10:15 AM-1:14 PM | This course will explore various subfields of biological anthropology to better understand what it means to be human. Special attention will be paid to current issues and problems in these subfields, and the different ways in which researchers are attempting to understand and uncover the details of human evolution. Among the areas that are explored in this course are paleoanthropology, primatology, human biology, molecular anthropology, evolutionary medicine, epigenetics, and human life history. Specific issues to be explored include the primate roots of human behavior, brain and language evolution, new fossil hominins, the origins of anatomically modern humans, and modern human migration history. | ||||||||||
| ANTH 6080-301 | Anthropology of Futurity | Adriana Petryna | M 1:45 PM-4:44 PM | How should we think about the future amid worlds on edge? What is an inevitable versus a contingent course of events? What role do humans and non-humans, machines, animals, and plants play as agents of futurity in the context of the Anthropocene? This seminar explores these pressing questions, linking multiple sources of knowledge production—biological, medical, ecological, engineering, economic, and anthropological—with manifestations of the future. It starts with the basic premise that futures are made, molded by competing material, economic, and creative desires and possibilities, and not foreordained. Innovating futures also entails unexpected ethical and technical entanglements that current forms of knowledge cannot always anticipate. Drawing from readings in anthropology, the social studies of science and technology, Indigenous studies, as well as from engineering, AI, and scientific journals and films, we explore tensions between knowledge and uncertainty on the one hand, and ethics and innovation on the other. With these tensions in mind, we consider the myriad of agents whose role will be vital to shaping planetary futures—as well as how alternative futures, especially among communities confronting systemic inequalities and colonial and race-based injustices, are imagined and realized. From the climate crises to the ongoing pandemics, militarization, and mass migrations that have torn apart social fabrics, we will learn to become ‘technologists of the future’—that is, individuals and collectives with the tools to realize more inclusive, flourishing, and just futurities. | ||||||||||
| ANTH 6329-401 | Psychoanalytic and Anthropological Perspectives on Childhood |
Lawrence D. Blum Rahman Wortman |
T 3:30 PM-6:29 PM | How do people become who they are, both similar to others and uniquely individual? How might these similarities and differences be shaped by childhood experiences in family, community, and societies around the world? How do children develop emotionally? Morally? What features of human development, expression of emotions, and relational patterns are universal for our species? What features are not universal? And what is and is not known about these questions? In this course, we will consider these and many other questions. We will read about and discuss complex and dynamic interactions between culture and individual psychology, and between nature and nurture from birth to adulthood. We will carefully examine various phases of human development as described by psychoanalysts and anthropologists. The course includes anthropologic and psychoanalytic readings and videotapes, as well as literature, fairy tales, and mythologies from cultures around the world. The instructors are both psychoanalysts, one a psychiatrist and one a pediatrician. The course counts towards the Psychoanalytic Studies (PSYS) Minor. | ANTH2329401 | |||||||||
| ANTH 6530-301 | Social Theory from Kant to Deleuze | Asif Agha | T 10:15 AM-1:14 PM | The course examines the work of 20th century writers like Weber, Bourdieu, Foucault and Deleuze in the light of the intellectual traditions to which they belong, including the work of writers like Kant, Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche. Particular attention is given to the philosophical roots of the models of society proposed by specific authors and the question of the applicability of such models to ethnographically based anthropological research. | ||||||||||
| ANTH 6550-301 | Methods and Grantwriting for Anthropological Research | Andrew M. Carruthers | T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM | This course is designed for third- and fourth-year graduate students in anthropology who are working on their dissertation research proposals and submitting grants. Graduate students from other departments who will be submitting grant proposals that include an ethnographic component are also welcome. Students will develop their proposals throughout the course of the semester, and will meet important fall submission deadlines. They will begin by working with various databases to search funding sources relevant to the research they plan to conduct. In class sessions, they will also work with the professor and their peers to refine their research questions, their methods, the relationship of any previous research to their dissertation fieldwork, and the broader theoretical and "real-world" significance of their proposed projects. Finally, students will also have the opportunity to have live "chats" with representatives from funding agencies, thereby gaining a better sense of what particular foundations are looking for in a proposal. | ||||||||||
| ANTH 6670-401 | Experimental Ethnography Performance: A Radical Familiar | Deborah A Thomas | T 10:15 AM-1:14 PM | Students will engage with performance as a creative ethnographic research practice , guided by a special visiting fellow at the Center for Experimental Ethnography who is a master of the craft. Sections differ in content and focus, and involve a production component as well as a final exhibit/showcase/screening. | ANTH3670401 | |||||||||
| ANTH 6672-401 | Experimental Ethnography Sound: Grassroots Archiving & Curating Engagement | W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM | Students will engage with sound as a creative ethnographic research practice, guided by a special visiting fellow at the Center for Experimental Ethnography who is a master of the craft. Sections differ in content and focus, and involve a production component as well as a final exhibit/showcase/screening. | ANTH3672401 | ||||||||||
| ANTH 6673-001 | Experimental Ethnography Visual Media: Circulation, image-making, and ethnographic reservoirs | Angelantonio Grossi | M 5:15 PM-8:14 PM | Students will experiment with film and/or photography as a creative ethnographic research practice, guided by a special visiting fellow at the Center for Experimental Ethnography who is a master of the craft. Sections differ in content and focus, and involve a production component as well as a final exhibit/showcase/screening. | ANTH3673001 | |||||||||
| ANTH 6859-640 | MLA Proseminar: Cultural Diversity and Global Connections | Kathleen D. Hall | CANCELED | This course considers the intensification of global connections and what anthropologist Anna Tsing has referred to as the "zones of awkward engagement" that emerge within the contemporary global capitalist order. Social problems, such as environmental change, the welfare of refugees, human rights abuses, or poverty in the Global South, have increasingly come to be seen as global issues best solved through multinational or international cooperation. Efforts to address these problems bring together diverse stakeholders, international experts, policy makers, politicians, civil servants, activists, international and local volunteers as well as local people, each interpreting "the problem" from different cultural perspectives and possessing varying degrees of power to affect change. Ethnographic analysis is particularly well suited to examining the diverse and conflicting social interactions, misunderstandings and multiple perspectives, cultural politics and power dynamics that arise locally within these zones of awkward engagement and that ultimately shape the outcomes of social change efforts. The course will emphasize the close and critical reading of ethnographic accounts of a range of social improvement efforts --environmentalist, human rights, refugee relief, and fair trade economic efforts-- across different regions of the world to gain a better understanding of how cultural diversity and power relations shape social interaction within these globalizes zones of awkward engagement. Students will gain a deeper understanding of the nature and practice of ethnographic research and of the challenges faced in engaging globally. | ||||||||||
| ANTH 7307-401 | Intellectual Histories of South Asia in Global Context: Genealogies of the Present | Ketaki Umesh Jaywant | W 12:00 PM-2:59 PM | This graduate seminar explores intellectual histories of contemporary South Asia. Readings will trace selected literary, cultural, political, religious, and linguistic genealogies that have shaped present-day understandings, practices, alliances and categories of thought in South Asia. Particular attention will be placed on 19th and 20th century global influences and interactions, including with England, Ireland, Germany, the Soviet Union/Russia, Turkey and the Arab World, East and Southeast Asia, the United States, and Africa. Topics will including histories of mapping and census efforts, publishing projects (including those funded by the Soviet Union and the United States), international conferences (e.g., the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions at the World's Fair in Chicago, 1955 Bandung Conference, the 2009 Durban Conference), technological influences and exchanges, and educational institutions and practices. The course will also include discussions of methods for carrying out intellectual history projects and would therefore be of use for students conducting research in other regions of the world. | SAST7307401 | |||||||||
| ANTH 7701-401 | Methodology Seminar: Historical Anthropology | Lisa A Mitchell | F 12:00 PM-2:59 PM | Topics vary | SAST7701401 |