Penn Arts & Sciences Logo

Courses for Fall 2023

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 Tayeba Batool LLAB 109 MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM 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. No prerequisites. Fulfills College sector requirement in Society and foundational approach in Cross-Cultural Analysis. SAST0002401, URBS0002401 Society sector (all classes)
ANTH 0020-001 Anthropology, Race, and the Making of the Modern World Noam A Osband MUSE B17 MW 10:15 AM-11:14 AM Anthropology as a field is the study of human beings - past, present, and future. It asks questions about what it means to be human, and whether there are universal aspects to human existence. What do we share and how do we differ? What is "natural" and what is "cultural"? What is the relationship between the past and the present? This course is designed to investigate the ways anthropology, as a discipline, emerged in conjunction with European (and later, American) imperialism, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the will to know and categorize difference across the world. We will probe the relationships between anthropology and modern race-making by investigating how anthropologists have studied key institutions and systems that structure human life: family and kinship, inequality and hierarchy, race and ethnicity, ritual and symbolic systems, gender and sexuality, reciprocity and exchange, and globalization and social change. The course fundamentally probes how the material and ideological constellations of any given moment shape the questions we ask and the knowledge we produce about human Society sector (all classes)
ANTH 0030-001 Human Origins, Evolution and Diversity Theodore G Schurr MUSE B17 TR 1:45 PM-2:44 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 0050-601 Great Transformations Deborah I Olszewski OTHR IP TR 5:15 PM-6:44 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=202330&c=ANTH0050601
ANTH 0105-401 Ancient Civilizations of the World Richard L Zettler DRLB 4C4 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. NELC0050401, URBS0050401 History & Tradition Sector (all classes)
ANTH 0120-401 Globalization And Its Historical Significance Kevin M Burke MEYH B1 TR 3:30 PM-4:29 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. SOCI2910401 Hum & Soc Sci Sector (new curriculum only)
ANTH 0930-401 Latinx Environmental Justice Teresa Gimenez HAYD 360 MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM This course explores the involvement of the Latinx environmental justice movement since the 1960s. It addresses theories and concepts of environmental racism and environmental justice, underscoring how Latinx have challenged, expanded, and contributed to the environmental justice discourse. In this course, students will explore national case studies of environmental and racial injustice as they bear on Latinx communities both in rural areas and in urban barrios throughout the United States. The course will analyze these case studies through the lens of Latinx artistic and literary texts (essays, paintings, short stories, documentaries, and short films) as they provide a unique historic and multicultural perspective of the Latinx experience with environmental injustice and of how Latinxs imagine alternative transitions and responses to environmental marginalization. In addition, the works of Latinx artists and writers will serve as case studies to deconstruct racial stereotypes of Latinxs as unconcerned about environmental issues, shedding light on how they share a broad engagement with environmental ideas. The case studies analyzed in this course emphasize race and class differences between farmworkers and urban barrio residents and how they affect their respective struggles. The unit on farmworkers will focus on workplace health issues such as toxic chemicals and collective bargaining contracts. The unit on urban barrios will focus on gentrification, affordable housing, and toxic substances in the home. We will also review current and past programs that have been organized to address the aforementioned problems. This is an Academically Based Community Service Course (ABCS course) through which students will learn from and provide support to a Latinx-serving organization in the City of Philadelphia on preventing exposure to hazardous substances, thus bridging the information gap on environmental justice issues in the Latinx community in Philadelphia. Information dissemination and education efforts will be conducted by collaborating with Esperanza Academy Charter School in Philadelphia to implement lessons on preventing exposure to hazardous substances. Studying environmental justice and pairing it with community service will heighten students' awareness of the complexities of culture, race, gender, and class while providing them with an invaluable experience of cross-cultural understanding. ENVS0054401, LALS0093401, SPAN0093401, URBS0093401
ANTH 1002-401 Introduction to Africa David K Amponsah
Mathias Chukwudi Isiani 		WILL 421 TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM This course provides an introduction to the study of Africa in all its diversity and complexity. Our focus is cultural, geographical, and historical: we will seek to understand Africa s current place in the world political and economic order and learn about the various social and physical factors that have influenced the historical trajectory of the continent. We study the cultural formations and empires that emerged in Africa before European colonial invasion and then how colonialism reshaped those sociocultural forms. We ll learn about the unique kinds of kinship and religion in precolonial Africa and the changes brought about by the spread of Islam and Christianity. Finally, we ll take a close look at contemporary issues such as ethnic violence, migration, popular culture and poverty, and we'll debate the various approaches to understanding those issues. AFRC1002401
ANTH 1020-001 Iraq: Ancient Cities and Empires Richard L Zettler CANCELED Iraq: Ancient Cities and Empires is a chronological survey of the ancient civilization that existed in the drainage basin of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers from the early settled village farming communities of the 7th millennium BCE to the middle of the 1st millennium BCE, when Nebuchadnezzar II ruled Babylon and much of the Middle East. Though organized period by period, NELC 241 explores various social, political, economic, and ideological topics, exposing students to various strands of evidence, including settlement survey data, excavated architectural remains, artifacts, and documentary sources, as well as an eclectic mix of theoretical perspectives. The course aims to provide students with a strong foundation for the further study of the ancient and pre-modern Middle East. NELC1000401, URBS1020001 Perm Needed From Instructor
ANTH 1151-401 Madness and Mental Health in East Asian Worlds Emily K Ng MUSE 345 T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM Madness, however conceived, can trouble the limits of our worlds. Since COVID-19, questions of mental health have resurfaced with a sense of urgency, as many faced unprecedented changes in collective and intimate life. This course explores madness and mental health in East Asian worlds, across geographies, histories, social-political transformations, and racialized imaginations. How do East Asian therapeutics approach madness, through and beyond the concepts of psychiatry, neuroscience, or even ‘mental health’? What happens when Euro-American diagnostic categories and treatments travel to East Asia as part of missionary and empire-building projects? Bringing together readings in medical and psychological anthropology, as well as history, literature, psychoanalysis, and transcultural psychiatry, we will explore themes such as: shifting concepts of madness in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese medical and spiritual cures, colonial legacies of ‘culture-bound syndromes,’ and race as a site of psychic struggle in Asian American diasporas. ASAM1620401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202330&c=ANTH1151401
ANTH 1169-401 Merchants, Saints, Slaves and Sojourners: the Worlds of the Indian Ocean CANCELED Do oceans serve to divide and demarcate distinct cultures and regions? Or do they facilitate exchange, connection and cosmopolitanism? This course will explore the manner in which the Indian Ocean has played both roles throughout history, and how the nature of those divisions and connections has changed over time from the ancient to the modern world. We will reconstruct the intertwined mercantile, religious and kinship networks that spanned the Indian Ocean world, across the Middle East, East Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia and China, illuminating the histories of Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam, while also considering the role of successive imperial political formations, from Rome to Britain. Throughout the semester we will seek to understand the Indian Ocean through the people who lived and worked in its milieu - from consuls and military commanders, to traders, brokers, sailors, prisoners and slaves. Course materials will draw on a variety of disciplines (anthroplogy, archaeology, material culture, religious studies) to construct the cultural, economic, and environmental history of the Indian Ocean. SAST1169401
ANTH 1219-301 Archaeology in the City of Brotherly Love Megan Crandal Kassabaum
Sarah Linn 		This course introduces the archaeology of Philadelphia and the surrounding area through guided visits to local prehistoric and historic sites, accompanied by readings, discussions, and guest lectures. This is an experiential course, in that students will explore local archaeological sites, both well known and rarely discussed, in person. Moving beyond reading the histories of places like Eastern State Penitentiary, the President's House, or Sycamore Mills, students will engage with social scientific analysis of the material culture and landscape features that remain in the archaeological record. This course is open to all undergraduates, no previous archaeological experience is required. The course will be held Fridays from 10am - 5pm including travel time to the sites and back to the Penn Museum, transportation provided by the university. Enrollment is limited so permission of the instructor is required. Course may be repeated for credit. Society sector (all classes) https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202330&c=ANTH1219001
ANTH 1238-401 Introduction to Medical Anthropology Adriana Petryna MUSE B17 MW 1:45 PM-2:44 PM Introduction to Medical Anthropology takes central concepts in anthropology -- culture, adaptation, human variation, belief, political economy, the body -- and applies them to human health and illness. Students explore key elements of healing systems including healing technologies and healer-patient relationships. Modern day applications for medical anthropology are stressed. HSOC1382401 Hum & Soc Sci Sector (new curriculum only)
ANTH 1300-401 Introduction to Mediterranean Archaeology Charles Brian Rose STIT 263 MW 12:00 PM-12:59 PM The cultures of Greece and Rome, what we call classical antiquity, span over a thousand years of multicultural achievement in the Mediterranean. This course tells the story of what it was like to live in the complex societies of ancient Greece and Rome. This story is told principally using the art, architecture, pottery and coins produced by these societies. We will examine both the bold and sexy, and the small and humble, from the Parthenon to wooden huts, from the Aphrodite of Knidos to the bones of a fisherman named Peter. CLST1300401 History & Tradition Sector (all classes)
ANTH 1410-401 Museums, Monuments, and Social Justice Richard M Leventhal MUSE 329 TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM Monuments, museums, and heritage are all critical parts of the world that we have created and are shaped by. These institutions and sites often claim to represent our past, who we imagine ourselves to be today, and how we might define our futures. We often rely on museums and monuments to frame history and history’s relationship to our current social and cultural systems. However, in recent years, social, racial, and economic justice movements have pushed us to rethink the function of monuments, museums, and heritage. In particular, these social movements have helped us understand how racism, sexism, and colonialism are responsible for the creation of monuments and museums. This course examines the echoes and continuities of colonial representations in museums and monuments. In addition, we will examine how new ways of commemorating and representing the past can result in a new vision for our future. By visiting a variety of local monuments and sites and by engaging in conversations about accountability and social justice, this course will challenge us to rethink the tangible and intangible ways that we weave the past into the present for the creation of the future. ARTH0141401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202330&c=ANTH1410401
ANTH 1480-401 Food and Fire: Archaeology in the Laboratory Katherine M Moore MUSE WDNR MW 1:45 PM-2:44 PM This course will let students explore the essential heritage of human technology through archaeology. People have been transforming their environment from the first use of fire for cooking. Since then, humans have adapted to the world they created using the resources around them. We use artifacts to understand how the archaeological record can be used to trace breakthroughs such as breaking stone and bone, baking bread, weaving cloth and firing pottery and metals. The seminar will meet in the Penn Museum's Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials. Students will become familiar with the Museum's collections and the scientific methods used to study different materials. Class sessions will include discussions, guest presentations, museum field trips, and hands-on experience in the laboratory. CLST1302401, NELC0910401 Hum & Soc Sci 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 1500-402 World Musics and Cultures Ryan L Tomski LERN 210 MW 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. AFRC1500402, MUSC1500402 Arts & Letters Sector (all classes)
ANTH 1755-401 Listening in Troubled Times (SNF Paideia Program Course) Aaron Levy BENN 224 W 12:00 PM-2:59 PM In this course, we will explore histories and theories of listening and the power of listening as a means to connect with other times and spaces. This course is part of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Paideia Program. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings. ENGL0755401
ANTH 2060-301 Cultures of Science and Technology Kevin M Burke DRLB 3N6 M 3:30 PM-6:29 PM Science and technology figure centrally in the economic, political, and socio-cultural changes that impact our worlds. Happenings in the life sciences, including the discovery of new genes, pathways, and processes, are redrawing concepts of the body and human nature and refiguring social and political relations. The seminar starts from the premise that scientific facts are made, not things existing a priori in the world and that are merely picked up by researchers and consumed by lay audiences. Likewise, technologies are created through a process of intense negotiation between producers and their sophisticated users. Focusing on the biosciences, we explore the production of science and technology and how they 1)affect individuals, self-identities, subjectivity, kinship, and social relationships; 2)have interacted with or reinforced political programs, racial classifications, unequal access to knowledge, and patterns of social injustice; 3)inform contemporary institutional structures, strategies of governance, and practices of citizenship. We will combine methods and perspectives from social and cultural anthropology, and the social studies of science and technology, and will draw from historical case studies, contemporary ethnographies of science, scientific and medical journals, documentary films and media reports. Hum & Soc Sci Sector (new curriculum only)
ANTH 2221-401 Material World in Archaeological Science Marie-Claude Boileau
Deborah I Olszewski
Vanessa Workman 		MUSE 190 TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM By focusing on the scientific analysis of inorganic archaeological materials, this course will explore processes of creation in the past. Class will take place in the Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials (CAAM) and will be team taught in three modules: analysis of lithics, analysis of ceramics and analysis of metals. Each module will combine laboratory and classroom exercises to give students hands-on experience with archaeological materials. We will examine how the transformation of materials into objects provides key information about past human behaviors and the socio-economic contexts of production, distribution, exchange and use. Discussion topics will include invention and adoption of new technologies, change and innovation, use of fire, and craft specialization. ANTH5221401, ARTH0221401, CLST3302401, NELC2960401, NELC6920401
ANTH 2230-401 Storytelling in Africa Pamela Blakely WILL 843 T 5:15 PM-8:14 PM African storytellers entertain, educate, and comment obliquely on sensitive and controversial issues in artful performance. The course considers motifs, structures, and interpretations of trickster tales and other folktales, storytellers performance skills, and challenges to presenting oral narrative in written and film texts. The course also explores ways traditional storytelling has inspired African social reformers and artists, particularly filmmakers. Students will have opportunities to view films in class. AFRC2230401, CIMS2230401
ANTH 2332-301 Medicine and the Language of Pain Justin Clapp MUSE 329 W 3:30 PM-6:29 PM Pain can be a particularly complex and morally charged object of biomedicine. The interiority of pain- the deeply private nature of pain experience- complicates its communication. Pain, particularly its chronic form, defies purely biological explanation, troubling fundamental biomedical distinctions between mind and body, subject and object. And decisions about analgesia are fraught, as doctors and patients pursue relief from pain amidst a widespread epidemic of opiate abuse that infuses their interaction with concerns about addiction, drug seeking, culpability, and responsibility. This seminar seeks to shed light on these issues by using concepts from linguistic and medical anthropology to explore how we experience, think about, and talk about pain. As an interdisciplinary endeavor, the course is of relevance not only to anthropology but also to medical sociology, medical ethics, public health, health policy, and science and technology studies. https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202330&c=ANTH2332001
ANTH 2340-301 Pharmaceuticals and Global Health Michael B Joiner MUSE 330 M 5:15 PM-8:14 PM In some parts of the world, spending on pharmaceuticals is astronomical. In others, people do not have access to basic or life-saving drugs. Individuals struggle to afford medications; whole populations are neglected, considered too poor to constitute profitable markets for the development and distribution of necessary drugs. This seminar analyzes the dynamics of the burgeoning international pharmaceutical trade and the global inequalities that emerge from and are reinforced by market-driven medicine. Questions about who will be treated and who will not filter through every phase of pharmaceutical production --from preclinical research to human testing, marketing, distribution, prescription, and consumption. Whether considering how the pharmaceutical industry shapes popular understandings of mental illness in North America and Great Britain, how Brazil has created a model of HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment program, or how the urban pooer in Delhi understand and access healthcare, the seminar draws on anthropological case studies to illuminate the roles of corporations, governments, non-governmental organizations, and individuals in relation to global pharmaceuticals. As we analyze each case and gain famliarity with tehnographic methods, we will ask how individual and group health is shaped by new medical technologies and their evolving regulatory regimes and markets. The course familiarizes students with critical debates on globalization and with local responses to globalizing processes; and it contributes to ethical and political debates on the development and access to new medical technologies.
ANTH 2515-401 Race, Rights and Rebellion Keisha-Khan Perry WILL 421 W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This course provides an in-depth examination of theories of race and different kinds of social struggles for freedom around the globe. We will critically engage the latest scholarship from a variety of scholars and social movement actors. From anti-slavery revolts to struggles for independence to anti-apartheid movements, this course will emphasize how racialized peoples have employed notions of rights and societal resources grounded in cultural differences. Though much of the readings will highlight the experiences of African descendant peoples in Africa and its diaspora, the course will also explore the intersections of Black struggles with social movements organized by indigenous peoples in the Americas. Students will also have the unique experience of accessing readings primarily written by primarily Black scholars, some of whom have participated as key actors in the social movements they describe. Key concepts include power, resistance, subaltern, hegemony, identity politics, consciousness, and intellectual activism. The course will be organized around the following objectives: 1. To explore a range of contemporary theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches to the study of social movements; 2. To focus on the relationship between race, gender, class, culture, and politics in the African diaspora; 3. To study the historical development of organized struggles, social protests, uprisings, revolutions, insurgencies, and rebellions; 4. To examine the political agency of African descendant peoples in the global struggle for liberation and citizenship. AFRC3515401, LALS3515401, SOCI2907401
ANTH 2620-401 Anarchism: Theories and Ethnographies Kristen R Ghodsee GLAB 102 MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM "That we are Utopians is well known. So Utopian are we that we go the length of believing that the Revolution can and ought to assure shelter, food, and clothes to all..." -Pyotr Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread. Although born in the West through the works of William Godwin and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, anarchism as a political theory was subsequently developed by a variety of Russian and Ukrainian theorists and activists, including Mikhail Bakunin, Lev Tolstoy, Pyotr Kropotkin, Nestor Makhno, and Emma Goldman (in exile in the United States). Anarchism fundamentally questions the need for political power and authority, particularly as embodied in a state. As a political theory, anarchism makes moral claims about the importance of individual liberty and presents a positive theory of human flourishing that is based on ideals of non-coercive consensus building. This course investigates the 19th century theoretical foundations of Russian and Ukrainian anarchist theory through a close examination of key texts from the 19th and early 20th centuries and includes ethnographic explorations of anarchist practices in eastern Europe in the 21st century. All readings will be in English. REES1631401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202330&c=ANTH2620401
ANTH 2790-301 Theorizing the Role of Affect in Society and Culture Gregory P Urban MUSE 328 R 1:45 PM-4:44 PM Affect has held a prominent place in social theory, including the role of fear in Hobbes's formulation of the origins of civil society, respect (for the sacred) in Durkheim's theory of religion, and guilt in Freud's understanding of civilization. Can such formulations be brought into conversation with the biological understandings of human beings from Darwin up to recent developments in affective neuroscience? This reading and discussion-based seminar focuses on such questions. We explore the terrain of social, cultural, and psychoanalytic theory in light of conceptualizations growing out of the biological side of anthropology. We trace social and cultural theorization through the twentieth developments, including A.R. Radcliffe-Brown on joking and lamentation, Frantz Fanon on hate and guilt in race relations, Clifford Geertz on long-lasting moods and motivations, and others. We also explore twenty-first century developments in affect theory within anthropology and adjacent disciplines, including works by Lauren Berlant and Kathleen Stewart. During the course of the semester, students will write short reading response papers, and lead class discussions based on their responses. They will also work on and submit a final term paper based on their exploration of some aspect of the literature in which they are especially interested. https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202330&c=ANTH2790301
ANTH 2840-401 World Heritage in Global Conflict Lynn M Meskell TOWN 305 W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM Heritage is always political. Such a statement might refer to the everyday politics of local stakeholder interests on one end of the spectrum, or the volatile politics of destruction and erasure of heritage during conflict, on the other. If heritage is always political then one might expect that the workings of World Heritage might be especially fraught given the international dimension. In particular, the intergovernmental system of UNESCO World Heritage must navigate the inherent tension between state sovereignty and nationalist interests and the wider concerns of a universal regime. The World Heritage List has almost 1200 properties has many such contentious examples, including sites in Iraq, Mali, Syria, Crimea, Palestine, Armenia and Cambodia. As an organization UNESCO was born of war with an explicit mission to end global conflict and help the world rebuild materially and morally yet has found its own history increasingly entwined with that of international politics and violence. ANTH5840401, CLST3319401, HSPV5840401, NELC2920401
ANTH 2978-401 Just Futures Seminar II: Health and Healing in Abiayala (the Americas) Lucia Isabel Stavig WILL 319 TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM Health and Healing in Abiayala (the Americas) will introduce students to ecosocial notions of health, colonialism’s contributions to ill-health, and decolonial action as healing action. Part one of the course introduces general concepts of body, health, and illness in biomedical models. It then pivots to the relational and ecosocial practices of body, health, and wellbeing among many First Peoples of the Abiayala, highlighting “radical relationality.” For many First Peoples, community includes humans, plants, animals, ancestors, and earth beings (such as the land, mountains, rivers, and lakes) that are materially, socially, and spiritually interdependent. These beings work together to maintain a “shared body” through practices of reciprocal care. Part two of the course examines how the shared body has been and is threatened by the colonization of Indigenous lands and bodies through (e.g.) land dispossession, pollution, extractive industry, lack of access to quality education and medical care, forced sterilization, forced removal of children, exploitative economic relations, and political violence. The third part of the course will follow how First Peoples of Abiayala are healing from the physical, social, and spiritual wounds of colonialism through decolonial action. First Peoples are creating their own healing centers and ecological protection agencies, engaging in Land Back movements, in legal and direct-action processes to protect the shared body from extractive industry, and reproductive justice movements. Healing is future oriented, powering the “radical resurgence” of First Peoples. Some questions addressed in this class include, where does the body begin and end? What constitutes personhood? How does continued colonization affected indigenous peoples’ health—and that of all peoples? How do indigenous peoples use ancestral knowledges, relation ethics, and local ecologies to help heal historic and contemporary wounds to power their futures? Is there a political dimension to healing? How do autonomy and self-determination figure into healing and wellbeing? GSWS2978401, HSOC2332401, LALS2978401
ANTH 3015-001 The Maya in Mesoamerica: The Development of Ancient Maya Culture within its Broader Regional Context Simon Martin MUSE 419 W 10:15 AM-1:14 PM This class offers both an introduction and examination of Ancient Maya culture and society reflecting the major new finds offered by recent research. Fusing archaeology, epigraphy (the decipherment of Maya writing), art history, and ethnohistory, with the emerging technologies of LiDAR, speleothem, and isotopic analyses, “The Maya in Mesoamerica” explores the development of a vibrant, distinctive, and visually rich society, and how it fits into the wider history of a Mesoamerican region stretching from Mexico to Nicaragua. In including Maya inscriptions, we will be interested not only in etic historical studies in the present day but the emic voice of the only ancient American people to leave us a copious body of literature. https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202330&c=ANTH3015001
ANTH 3045-401 Oil to Diamonds: The Political Economy of Natural Resources in Africa Adewale Adebanwi EDUC 114 T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This course examines the ways in which the processes of the extraction, refining, sale and use of natural resources – including oil and diamond – in Africa produce complex regional and global dynamics. We explore how values are placed on resources, how such values, the regimes of valuation, commodification and the social formations that are (re)produced by these regimes lead to cooperation and conflict in the contemporary African state, including in the relationships of resource-rich African countries with global powers. Specific cases will be examined against the backdrop of theoretical insights to encourage comparative analyses beyond Africa. Some audio-visual materials will be used to enhance the understanding of the political economy and sociality of natural resources. AFRC4500401, AFRC5700401, ANTH5700401, PSCI4130401, SOCI2904401, SOCI5700401
ANTH 3307-401 Intro to Digital Archaeology Jason Herrmann MUSE 190 MW 3:30 PM-4:59 PM Students in this course will be exposed to the broad spectrum of digital approaches in archaeology with an emphasis on fieldwork, through a survey of current literature and applied learning opportunities that focus on African American mortuary landscapes of greater Philadelphia. As an Academically Based Community Service (ABCS) course, we will work with stakeholders from cemetery companies, historic preservation advocacy groups, and members of the African Methodist Episcopal Church to collect data from three field sites. We will then use these data to reconstruct the original plans, untangle site taphonomy, and assess our results for each site. Our results will be examined within the broader constellation of threatened and lost African American burial grounds and our interpretations will be shared with community stakeholders using digital storytelling techniques. This course can count toward the minor in Digital Humanities, minor in Archaeological Science and the Graduate Certificate in Archaeological Science. AAMW5620401, ANTH5220401, CLST3307401, CLST5620401, NELC3950401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202330&c=ANTH3307401
ANTH 3376-301 Ethnographic Approaches to Urban Athletics and Human Movement Sara D Kelly
Jequan Major
Gretchen E L Suess 		CANCELED Rooted in the rubric of public interest social science, the course focuses on bridging theory and practice motivated by a commitment to social justice through original ethnographic research. In particular, this course will focus on kinesiology and the anthropology of sports and well-being through intense analysis of the Young Quakers Community Athletics (YQCA) program, a collaboration between the Netter Center for Community Partnerships and Penn Athletics. In guest lecturers from multiple disciplines will help to round out the course. The core learning objective is to bring a broad range of specialized expertise to foster a holistic examination of a complex institutional partnership intended to promote positive social transformation and improved human health and well-being.
ANTH 3420-001 Dispossessions in the Americas: The Loss and Recovery of Indigenous Lands, Bodies, and Heritage Margaret M Bruchac CANCELED Settler colonialism in the Americas is both material and ideological, rooted in dispossessions that are traceable to historical conquest, yet marked in the present. To rectify dispossession is to look both backwards and forwards, to repair material losses and to attend to the values and ideologies that hybridize our present. This course delves into case histories of Indigenous, Latinx, Afro-descendant, and other marginalized populations who have been dispossessed of territory, natural resources, freedom, political rights, and cultural heritage. Our primary goals are the following: first, we seek to document specific territorial, embodied, and heritage dispossessions through the mechanisms of deceit, disease, and warfare (both broadly and specifically); second, we aspire to outline and identify models and processes that promote recovery and restorative justice. Faculty from several departments and programs (anthropology, history, Latin American studies, Native American studies, gender studies, etc.) will present guest lectures highlighting their critical studies of archaeological, museological, artistic, and other processes of dispossession and recovery. Their case studies include: counter-mapping techniques for identifying Indigenous lands; mapping the movements of bodies and objects among museums; tracking trends in heritage loss and recovery; etc. Students will learn about useful resources and initiatives for decolonizing, and will gain experience in understanding dispossessions of the past, while applying restorative methodologies in the present.
ANTH 3664-401 Documentary Ethnography for Museum of Exhibition practices Sosena Solomon CHEM 119 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. e class will utilize cinematic techniues 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 e Metropolitan Museum’s African art galleries. e semester will culminate in students creating their own short lm content that will screen publicly in the gallery at the end of the semester. ANTH6664401, CIMS3664401, CIMS6664401, FNAR3664401, FNAR6664401
ANTH 3665-401 Fables from the Flesh: Black feminist movement and the embodied archive Jennifer Harge Drawing inspiration from Harge’s multiform fable project FLY | DROWN and Audre Lorde’s conception of biomythography, students will trace their interiority to realize and imagine how personal histories, ancestral inheritance, and metaphysics live/move through the body. We will translate and transform stories of the flesh into a series of compositional modalities–which may include text, movement, performance, sound, and installation–to create lexicons that honor subjectivity as form. Informed by surrender, refusal, imagination, and self-sovereignty; we will situate our embodied archives as vessels for fable writing, create and correct myths through movement, and expand our relationship to memory, time, space, and illegibility. Throughout the course, we will turn to Black feminist literary and performance works employing fable, myth, and ancestral legacies including but not limited to: Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Aretha Franklin’s gospel music, Jaamil Olawale Kosoko’s Chameleon, and a close reading of Harge’s FLY | DROWN. The room will be grounded in practices of Black fellowship, moving between study group, kickback, ceremony, cypher, and incubator. We will oscillate between these formats depending on the needs of the course and the cohort. AFRC3665401, AFRC6665401, ANTH6665401, GSWS3665401, GSWS6665401
ANTH 3690-301 Language and Identity Andrew M Carruthers MUSE 328 TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM If language lies at the heart of what it means to be human, then our everyday linguistic and communicative practices lie at the heart of our communal and individual identities. This seminar examines the relationship between ‘language’ and ‘identity,’ while also unsettling our preconceived notions about these sociocultural phenomena. We explore a number of interrelated questions: What does what we say (and how we say it) say about who we are? Is it true an individual can ‘choose’ their identity, and if so, how and why? What is the ‘self’ and how is it expressed through spoken communicative interaction? How does being a speaker of a language mean being a member of a community? How do fashions of speaking relate to forms of life? We will address these and other issues, drawing on anthropological and transdisciplinary scholarship and ethnographic examples from across the globe.
ANTH 3766-401 Cultures of Surveillance Zehra Hashmi MUSE 328 W 10:15 AM-1:14 PM Developments in digital technology have generated urgent political discussions about the pervasive role of surveillance in our everyday life, from the mundane to the exceptional. But surveillance has a much longer history. In this course, students will learn to think and write critically about the historical, socio-cultural, and political dynamics that define surveillance today. This course asks: how can we historicize what we call surveillance to understand its political and social implications beyond what appears in the document caches of the NSA or on a Black Mirror episode? What role does identity and identification play in surveillance? How do surveillance and computational technologies produce racializing effects? Students will apply course concepts to technologies of daily use, such as self-tracking devices like fit bits or identity documents, and reflect on debates surrounding race, policing, imperialism, and privacy. Through primary source materials, films, podcasts, and key texts, we will engage in a cross-cultural exploration of the multi-faceted phenomena of surveillance technology. Through regular writing assignments, such as surveillancediaries, students will analyze and articulate how they understand surveillance to operate in various domains of everyday life. In this course, students will: (1) Apply course concepts to their lived experience, from securitized architecture to search engines, in order to understand how surveillance operates in everyday life; (2) Analyze how historical context has shaped the current configuration of securitization and surveillance on a global scale; (3) Use ethnographic approaches to study the interaction between individuals, their social relations, and technologies of surveillance. STSC3766401
ANTH 3930-401 Latinx Environmental Justice Teresa Gimenez DRLB 3C8 MW 3:30 PM-4:59 PM This course explores the involvement of the Latinx environmental justice movement since the 1960s. It addresses theories and concepts of environmental racism and environmental justice, underscoring how Latinx have challenged, expanded, and contributed to the environmental justice discourse. In this course, students will explore national case studies of environmental and racial injustice as they bear on Latinx communities both in rural areas and in urban barrios throughout the United States. The course will analyze these case studies through the lens of Latinx artistic and literary texts (essays, paintings, short stories, documentaries, and short films) as they provide a unique historic and multicultural perspective of the Latinx experience with environmental injustice and of how Latinxs imagine alternative transitions and responses to environmental marginalization. In addition, the works of Latinx artists and writers will serve as case studies to deconstruct racial stereotypes of Latinxs as unconcerned about environmental issues, shedding light on how they share a broad engagement with environmental ideas. The case studies analyzed in this course emphasize race and class differences between farmworkers and urban barrio residents and how they affect their respective struggles. The unit on farmworkers will focus on workplace health issues such as toxic chemicals and collective bargaining contracts. The unit on urban barrios will focus on gentrification, affordable housing, and toxic substances in the home. We will also review current and past programs that have been organized to address the aforementioned problems. This is an Academically Based Community Service Course (ABCS course) through which students will learn from and provide support to a Latinx-serving organization in the City of Philadelphia on preventing exposure to hazardous substances, thus bridging the information gap on environmental justice issues in the Latinx community in Philadelphia. Information dissemination and education efforts will be conducted by collaborating with Esperanza Academy Charter School in Philadelphia to implement lessons on preventing exposure to hazardous substances. Studying environmental justice and pairing it with community service will heighten students' awareness of the complexities of culture, race, gender, and class while providing them with an invaluable experience of cross-cultural understanding. ENVS3445401, LALS3930401, SPAN3930401, URBS3930401
ANTH 4000-301 Research Seminar in Anthropology Lauren M Ristvet MUSE 329 F 8:30 AM-11:29 AM ANTH 4000 is a Research Seminar for anthropology majors. It defines the Penn anthropology major by bringing together and inter-relating major threads from the different subfields of the Penn anthropology curriculum. Each session includes contributions from members of the standing faculty and seminar discussions of a research theme in which anthropological knowledge is currently progressing.
ANTH 5026-401 Material & Methods in Mediterranean Archaeology Lauren M Ristvet MUSE 419 W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This course is intended to provide an introduction to archaeological methods and theory in a Mediterranean context, focusing on the contemporary landscape. The class will cover work with museum collections (focusing on the holdings of the Penn Museum), field work and laboratory analysis in order to give students a diverse toolkit that they can later employ in their own original research. Each week, invited lecturers will address the class on different aspects of archaeological methodology in their own research, emphasizing specific themes that will be highlighted in readings and subsequent discussion. The course is divided into three sections: Method and Theory in Mediterranean Archaeology; Museum collections; and Decolonizing Mediterranean Archaeology. The course is designed for new AAMW graduate students, though other graduate students or advanced undergraduate students may participate with the permission of the instructor. AAMW5260401, CLST6300401
ANTH 5110-401 Ethics, Archaeology, and Cultural Heritage Richard M Leventhal MUSE 419 T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This seminar will explore some of the most important issues that are now a central part of archaeological, anthropological and historical research throughout the world. The identification and control of cultural heritage is a central part of the framework for research within other communities. Issues for this course will also include cultural identity, human rights, repatriation, colonialism, working with communities and many other topics. Field research today must be based upon a new series of ethical standards that will be discussed and examined within this class. Major topics include: cultural heritage - definitions and constructs, cosmopolitanism and collecting, archaeology and looting, cultural heritage preservation, museums - universal and national, museum acquisition policies, cultural identity, international conventions (including underwater issues), national laws of ownership, community based development, cultural tourism, development models, and human rights. LALS5110401
ANTH 5220-401 Intro to Digital Archaeology Jason Herrmann MUSE 190 MW 3:30 PM-4:59 PM Students in this course will be exposed to the broad spectrum of digital approaches in archaeology with an emphasis on fieldwork, through a survey of current literature and applied learning opportunities that focus on African American mortuary landscapes of greater Philadelphia. As an Academically Based Community Service (ABCS) course, we will work with stakeholders from cemetery companies, historic preservation advocacy groups, and members of the African Methodist Episcopal Church to collect data from three field sites. We will then use these data to reconstruct the original plans, untangle site taphonomy, and assess our results for each site. Our results will be examined within the broader constellation of threatened and lost African American burial grounds and our interpretations will be shared with community stakeholders using digital storytelling techniques. This course can count toward the minor in Digital Humanities, minor in Archaeological Science and the Graduate Certificate in Archaeological Science. AAMW5620401, ANTH3307401, CLST3307401, CLST5620401, NELC3950401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202330&c=ANTH5220401
ANTH 5221-401 Material World in Archaeological Science Marie-Claude Boileau
Deborah I Olszewski
Vanessa Workman 		MUSE 190 TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM By focusing on the scientific analysis of inorganic archaeological materials, this course will explore processes of creation in the past. Class will take place in the Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials (CAAM) and will be team taught in three modules: analysis of lithics, analysis of ceramics and analysis of metals. Each module will combine laboratory and classroom exercises to give students hands-on experience with archaeological materials. We will examine how the transformation of materials into objects provides key information about past human behaviors and the socio-economic contexts of production, distribution, exchange and use. Discussion topics will include invention and adoption of new technologies, change and innovation, use of fire, and craft specialization. ANTH2221401, ARTH0221401, CLST3302401, NELC2960401, NELC6920401
ANTH 5230-401 Archaeobotany Seminar Chantel E White MUSE 190 T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM In this course we will approach the relationship between plants and people from archaeological and anthropological perspectives in order to investigate diverse plant consumption, use, and management strategies. Topics will include: archaeological formation processes, archaeobotanical sampling and recovery, lab sorting and identification, quantification methods, and archaeobotany as a means of preserving cultural heritage. Students will learn both field procedures and laboratory methods of archaeobotany through a series of hands-on activities and lab-based experiments. The final research project will involve an original in-depth analysis and interpretation of archaeobotanical specimens. By the end of the course, students will feel comfortable reading and evaluating archaeobotanical literature and will have a solid understanding of how archaeobotanists interpret human activities of the past. AAMW5390401, CLST7313401, NELC6930401
ANTH 5390-301 Advanced Readings in Environment and Society Nikhil Anand MUSE 328 T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM As capitalist relations remake the earth through projects of intensified mineral extraction, carbon-based energy consumption and the production of 'waste', in this course we will examine the diverse histories and practices through which nature-society relations have been studied in anthropology and related disciplines. The course will follow a genealogical approach to understand some contemporary theoretical developments in environmental anthropology, including multispecies ethnography, the anthropology of infrastructure, and ontological anthropology. In what ways do these modes of doing anthropology recapitulate or address some of the earlier debates on race, indigeneity, materiality and alterity? How might recent work in the field generate new ways to remake the world and our understanding of it? The class will combine key theoretical texts in cultural ecology, political ecology and science and technology studies together with ethnographies of natureculture to investigate how earth water, earth, air and fire are being remade in the current moment. It borrows from and builds on the "Reading List for a Progressive Environmental Anthropology" by Guarasci, Moore and Vaughn (2018) to rethink and reconstitute what counts as the canon of the field by attending to the contributions of women, people of color, scholars working outside of the United States, and indigenous authors. By examining theentanglements of nature, culture and political economy in the contemporary moment, the course will enable students to situate and construct their dissertation research projects with what is a prolific and compelling literature to imagine and understand our climate changed world.
ANTH 5460-401 Global Citizenship Kathleen D Hall CANCELED 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. EDUC5431401, URBS5460401
ANTH 5470-401 Anthropology and Education Leigh Graham STIT 356 M 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 Perm Needed From Department
ANTH 5510-301 Experimenting with Ethnography: Craft, Genre & Conceptual Work Kristina M Lyons MUSE 328 W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This course takes inspiration from conversations and practices occurring at the interfaces of cultural anthropology, creative nonfiction, and experimental ethnography. Anthropologist Stuart McLean (2017) has asked: "What might become of anthropology if it were to suspend its sometime claims to be a social science? What if it were to turn instead to exploring its affinities with art and literature as a mode of engaged creative practice carried forward in a world heterogeneously composed of humans and other than humans?" At the same time, the emergence of the environmental and medical humanities as academic disciplines in the twenty-first century reflect the growing conviction that environmental and public health problems cannot be solved by science and technology alone. Instead, the need for public engaged writing and experimental methods and alliance building between the arts and social and natural sciences ask us to reflect about the craft, expanding genre, and conceptual work of our ethnographic practice. In this course, we will push our methodological premises and analytical training to experiment with the contexts, human interlocutors, matters of concern, and diverse materialities that emerge from and participate in our ethnographic research. This is a writing intensive seminar, and we will workshop different elements of the craft of ethnographic writing, as well as introduce several multimodal techniques into our modes of ethnographic conceptualization.
ANTH 5550-301 Movement, Mobility, Migration Andrew M Carruthers MUSE 329 M 1:45 PM-4:44 PM What counts as movement, mobility, and migration? This seminar explores how anthropologists have examined movement, mobility, and migration from various angles of vision. We attend to a wide range of interlocking issues across different contexts: proprioception and kinaesthesia; dance and the body; spatial orientation and deictic selectivity; market forces and transnational flows; cellular migration and membrane transport; migration infrastructures and cross-border channels; affect and social mobility; and much else besides. We will attempt to theorize the relation between movement, mobility, and migration - three phenomena that are sometimes unproductively conflated in the anthropological literature.
ANTH 5700-401 Oil to Diamonds: The Political Economy of Natural Resources in Africa Adewale Adebanwi EDUC 114 T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This course examines the ways in which the processes of the extraction, refining, sale and use of natural resources – including oil and diamond – in Africa produce complex regional and global dynamics. We explore how values are placed on resources, how such values, the regimes of valuation, commodification and the social formations that are (re)produced by these regimes lead to cooperation and conflict in the contemporary African state, including in the relationships of resource-rich African countries with global powers. Specific cases will be examined against the backdrop of theoretical insights to encourage comparative analyses beyond Africa. Some audio-visual materials will be used to enhance the understanding of the political economy and sociality of natural resources. AFRC4500401, AFRC5700401, ANTH3045401, PSCI4130401, SOCI2904401, SOCI5700401
ANTH 5830-401 Ethnographic Filmmaking Amitanshu Das EDUC 124 R 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This ethnographic methodology course considers filmmaking/videography as a tool in conducting ethnographic research as well as a medium for presenting academic research to scholarly and non-scholarly audiences. The course engages the methodological and theoretical implications of capturing data and crafting social scientific accounts/narratives in images and sounds. Students are required to put theory into practice by conducting ethnographic research and producing an ethnographic film as their final project. In service to that goal, students will read about ethnography (as a social scientific method and representational genre), learn and utilize ethnographic methods in fieldwork, watch non-fiction films (to be analyzed for formal properties and implicit assumptions about culture/sociality), and acquire rigorous training in the skills and craft of digital video production. 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. Due to the time needed for ethnographic film production, this is a year-long course, which will meet periodically in both the fall and spring semesters. EDUC5466401 Perm Needed From Department
ANTH 5840-401 World Heritage in Global Conflict Lynn M Meskell TOWN 305 W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM Heritage is always political. Such a statement might refer to the everyday politics of local stakeholder interests on one end of the spectrum, or the volatile politics of destruction and erasure of heritage during conflict, on the other. If heritage is always political then one might expect that the workings of World Heritage might be especially fraught given the international dimension. In particular, the intergovernmental system of UNESCO World Heritage must navigate the inherent tension between state sovereignty and nationalist interests and the wider concerns of a universal regime. The World Heritage List has almost 1200 properties has many such contentious examples, including sites in Iraq, Mali, Syria, Crimea, Palestine, Armenia and Cambodia. As an organization UNESCO was born of war with an explicit mission to end global conflict and help the world rebuild materially and morally yet has found its own history increasingly entwined with that of international politics and violence. ANTH2840401, CLST3319401, HSPV5840401, NELC2920401
ANTH 5893-640 Natural and Cultural Heritage in Global Perspective Brian I Daniels MUSE 330 R 5:15 PM-8:14 PM This seminar will explore the ideas surrounding the theories, discourses, and practices surrounding natural and cultural heritage. Heritage has become inscribed in the planning of urban and rural landscapes, designed as tourist destinations, and considered a universal good in global cosmopolitan society. But it would be well to ask: what kind of "nature" and "culture" has been labeled as heritage? What kind of organizations, economics, and politics are necessary to sustain it? How are these put in place? By whom? For whom? Over the course of the semester, students will engage with readings that discuss how cultural and natural heritage is communicated to the public and the relationship between academic critique and pragmatic social engagement.
ANTH 6000-301 Contemporary Archaeology in Theory Mark T Lycett MUSE 419 M 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This graduate seminar addresses contemporary anthropological archaeology and considers the varied ways inferences are made about past and present human behavior from the archaeological record. It reviews such fundamental topics as the use of analogy, Middle Range theory, symbolism and meaning, social and cultural evolution, ideology and power, feminism and gender, and indigenous (non-Western) perspectives. It also foregrounds basic issues regarding heritage, looting, and ethics.
ANTH 6030-301 Language in Culture and Society Asif Agha MUSE 410 MW 9:45 AM-11:44 AM First-year anthropology graduate students or Instructor Permission. Examination of properties of human language which enable social persons to interpret the cultural world and to act within it. Topics include: principles of lexical and grammatical organization; the role of language structure (grammar) and linguistic context (indexicality) in discursive activity; referential uses of language; social interaction; markers of social role, identity, and group-belonging; criteria by which models of linguistic form and function are formulated; the empirical limits within which different models have explanatory value.
ANTH 6310-301 Grammatical Categories Asif Agha MUSE 410 T 10:15 AM-1:14 PM The course is an introduction to grammatical organization in human language for students in linguistic anthropology and associated fields. Primary foci: methods for the analysis of grammatical categories; constituency and propositional content; grammatical typology and universals. Other topics: relationship of grammatical categories to other principles organizing communication, conceptualization and interpersonal conduct; analysis of interlocking category systems; relationship of categories to actual human behavior. Students are encouraged to apply the techniques developed in lectures and assigned readings to the analysis of a non-Indo-European language over the course of the semester.
ANTH 6580-301 Discourse Seminar Gregory P Urban CANCELED This seminar explores the interface between discourse, culture, and social processes. It is designed for graduate students in anthropology and related disciplines who (1) wish to study some aspect of culture from the perspective of discourse, including not only discourse in the form of linguistic signs but also discourse as film or other multimodal signs; and (2) themselves have or will acquire during the semester materials (texts, recordings, ethnographic data, etc.) that they wish to analyze from an anthropological point view or who are preparing dissertation proposals dealing these issues. While the course is designed with these two purposes, graduate students interested in studying literature on discourse for other purposes are also welcomed. Class sessions will include discussion of theoretical issues in the study of discourse, as well as writings by contemporary authors dealing with semiotics, discourse, and film. The seminar is designed for maximum flexibility in accommodating students interests and needs.
ANTH 6664-401 Documentary Ethnography for Museum of Exhibition practices Sosena Solomon CHEM 119 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. e class will utilize cinematic techniues 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 e Metropolitan Museum’s African art galleries. e semester will culminate in students creating their own short lm content that will screen publicly in the gallery at the end of the semester. ANTH3664401, CIMS3664401, CIMS6664401, FNAR3664401, FNAR6664401
ANTH 6665-401 Fables from the Flesh: Black feminist movement and the embodied archive Jennifer Harge Drawing inspiration from Harge’s multiform fable project FLY | DROWN and Audre Lorde’s conception of biomythography, students will trace their interiority to realize and imagine how personal histories, ancestral inheritance, and metaphysics live/move through the body. We will translate and transform stories of the flesh into a series of compositional modalities–which may include text, movement, performance, sound, and installation–to create lexicons that honor subjectivity as form. Informed by surrender, refusal, imagination, and self-sovereignty; we will situate our embodied archives as vessels for fable writing, create and correct myths through movement, and expand our relationship to memory, time, space, and illegibility. Throughout the course, we will turn to Black feminist literary and performance works employing fable, myth, and ancestral legacies including but not limited to: Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Aretha Franklin’s gospel music, Jaamil Olawale Kosoko’s Chameleon, and a close reading of Harge’s FLY | DROWN. The room will be grounded in practices of Black fellowship, moving between study group, kickback, ceremony, cypher, and incubator. We will oscillate between these formats depending on the needs of the course and the cohort. AFRC3665401, AFRC6665401, ANTH3665401, GSWS3665401, GSWS6665401
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 7701-401 Methodology Seminar: Historical Anthropology Lisa A Mitchell Topics vary SAST7701401