Course Offerings (GSAS Bulletin)

Two-Part Courses: A hyphen indicates a full-year course with credit granted only for completing both terms. A comma indicates credit is granted for completing each term.

CORE COURSES

Departmental Seminar: Integrating Perspectives in Anthropology
G14.1000  Subfield core course. Staff. 4 points.
A problem-focused course required of all graduate students in anthropology. Team taught by faculty from two different subdisciplines, this course explores distinctive subdisciplinary approaches to anthropological issues. Theme and faculty vary.

Social Anthropology Theory and Practice
G14.1010  Beidelman, Martin, Myers, Rapp, Rogers. 4 points.
Introduces the principal theoretical issues in contemporary social anthropology, relating recent theoretical developments and ethnographic problems to their origins in classical sociological thought. Problems in the anthropology of knowledge are particularly emphasized as those most challenging to social anthropology and to related disciplines.

Linguistic Anthropology
G14.1040  Core course in linguistic anthropology. Schieffelin. 4 points.
Introduces and examines the interdependence of anthropology and the study of language both substantively and methodologically. Topics include the relationship between language, thought, and culture; the role of language in social interactions; the acquisition of linguistic and social knowledge; and language and speech in ethnographic perspective.

History of Anthropology
G14.1636  Beidelman, Myers, Rapp, Rogers. 4 points.
The history of anthropology is rooted in philosophical questions concerning the relationship between human beings and the formation of society. This course surveys these issues as they relate to the development of method and theory. Focuses on French, British, and American anthropology and how they contributed to the development of the modern discipline. Covers key figures Franz Boas, Emile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss, Bronislaw Malinowski, and Radcliffe-Brown. Issues: cultural relativism, relation between biology and culture, functionalism, and
structuralism.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL ARCHAEOLOGY

Gender Issues in Archaeology
G14.1201  Wright. 4 points.
Focuses on recent theoretical and methodological advances in the study of gender in prehistory. Topics include the ideological biases in the interpretation of rules attributed to women and men in prehistory; the impact of major historical transformations known from the archaeological record; and the effects of long-term historical processes on the lives of women and men.

Prehistory of South Asia
G14.1207  Wright. 4 points.
Provides an in-depth study of South Asia from the earliest sedentary settlements in the region through the development of food-producing economies, urbanization, and state-level societies in the third millennium BC. Focuses on processes that led to the development of the Indus Valley civilization and its collapse, and the growth of societies on its margins (the Indo-Iranian Borderlands, Central Asia, and the Arabian Peninsula).

Prehistory of the Near East and Egypt I
G14.1208  Crabtree. 4 points.
Surveys the prehistory of the Near East and Egypt from the earliest occupation to the domestication of plants and animals, covering the period from over one million to eight thousand years ago.

Prehistory of the Near East and Egypt II
G14.1209  Wright. 4 points.
Covers the period from about ten thousand to four thousand years ago, the prehistoric to Ur III (Mesopotamia and Old Kingdom periods in Egypt). The course is comparative and concentrates on archaeological evidence, although written documentation is considered. Origins of agriculture; development of towns, villages, and cities; invention of new technologies; and emergence of state-level societies.

European Prehistory I
G14.1211  White. 4 points.
Development of human existence during the European Stone Age. Complexities of European geography, geology, vegetation, climate, and their relationship to humans. Inferences from European glacial history as a basis for comprehending the dynamic environmental context in which prehistoric peoples lived and changed. The complex database of the European prehistoric sequence and its relationship to human biological evolution. Human lifeways during the Stone Age from a diachronic perspective.

Faunal Analysis for Archaeology
G14.1212  Prerequisite: permission of instructor. Crabtree. 4 points.
Studies techniques used to identify animal remains found in archaeological sites. Practical laboratory work is emphasized. Topics include ethnoarchaeology, taphonomy, and paleoecology.

European Prehistory II
G14.1213  Crabtree. 4 points.
Surveys the archaeology of temperate Europe from the end of the Ice Age to the arrival of the Romans. Topics include Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and post-Pleistocene adaptations; the origins of agriculture in Europe; the development of metal technology; the emergence of social inequality; and the beginnings of urbanism in the later Iron Age.

Ceramic Analysis for Archaeology
G14.1221  Prerequisite: permission of the instructor. Wright. 4 points.
Ceramics are the most abundant, diverse, and imperishable objects of material culture present in the archaeological record. This course approaches ceramic analysis from experimental, ethnoarchaeological, and archaeological perspectives. Topics include the scope and potential of ceramic analysis, range of theoretical and methodological approaches, and analytical techniques archaeologists employ in their study. Students have “hands-on” experience with ceramics and formulate a research design for the study of ceramics in a specific geographical and (pre)historical context.

Technology in Preindustrial Societies
G14.2210  White, Wright. 4 points.
The craftsperson in society; a culture-historical and functional analysis of technology in the nonindustrial world. Consideration of prehistoric and contemporary examples, problems, and technologies.

Archaeological Theory
G14.2213  Crabtree, Tryon, White, Wright. 4 points.
Exposes and assesses in detail the framework of problems and questions that guides anthropological archaeology. Critically examines the process of theory construction and the nature and procedures involved in scientific explanation. Discusses dominant theoretical constructs within which the archaeological record is understood and/or explained.

Archaeological Methods and Techniques
G14.2214  Crabtree, Tryon, White, Wright. 4 points.
Examines how archaeologists bridge the gap between the theoretical goals of anthropology and a static database. Includes the relationship between theory and method, excavation techniques, sampling strategies, survey design, chronology building, taphonomy, faunal analysis, typological constructs, functional analysis of artifacts, and quantitative manipulation of archaeological data.

Seminar: Archaeology and the Environment
G14.3215  Crabtree, Tryon, White. 4 points.
Use of archaeological data, artifacts, and other materials for understanding past human-environmental relationships; materials that should be collected; methods for analysis. Rela-tionships between archaeologically known cultures and the environmental setting in which these cultures are found.

CULTURAL AND SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Culture and Media I
G14.1215  Open only to graduate students in the Departments of Anthropology, Cinema Studies, and Performance Studies. Ginsburg, Ganti, Stout. 4 points.
This course offers a critical revision of the history of the genre of ethnographic film, the central debates it has engaged around cross-cultural representation, and the theoretical and cinematic responses to questions of the screen representation of culture, from the early romantic constructions of Robert Flaherty to current work in film, television, and video on the part of indigenous people throughout the world. Ethnographic film has a peculiar and highly contested status within anthropology, cinema studies, and documentary practice. This seminar situates ethnographic film within the wider project of the representation of cultural lives, and especially of “natives.” Starting with what are regarded as the first examples of the genre, the course examines how these emerged in a particular intellectual context and political economy. It then considers the key works that have defined the genre, and the epistemological and formal innovations associated with them, addressing questions concerning social theory, documentary, as well as the institutional structures through which they are funded, distributed, and seen by various audiences. Throughout, the course keeps in mind the properties of film as a signifying practice, its status as a form of anthropological knowledge, and the ethical and political concerns raised by cross-cultural representation.

Culture and Media II: Ethnography of Media
G14.1216  Open only to graduate students in the Departments of Anthropology, Cinema Studies, and Performance Studies. Prerequisite: G14.1215. Ganti, Ginsburg, Stout. 4 points.
In the last decade, a new field—the ethnography of media—has emerged as an exciting new arena of research. While claims about media in people’s lives are made on a daily basis, surprisingly little research has actually attempted to look at how media is part of the naturally occurring lived realities of people’s lives. In the last decade, anthropologists and media scholars interested in film, television, and video have been turning their attention increasingly beyond the text and the empiricist notions of audiences (stereotypically associated with the ethnography of media), to consider, ethnographically, the complex social worlds in which media is produced, circulated, and consumed, at home and elsewhere. This work theorizes media studies from the point of view of cross-cultural ethnographic realities and anthropology from the perspective of new spaces of communication focusing on the social, economic, and political life of media and how it makes a difference in the daily lives of people as a practice, whether in production, reception, or circulation.

Video Production Seminar I, II
G14.1218, 1219  Open only to students in the Program in Culture and Media. Limited to 10 students. Prerequisites: G14.1215, H72.1998, and permission of the instructor. Ganti, Ginsburg, Stout. 4 points per term.
Yearlong seminar in ethnographic documentary video production using state-of-the-art digital video equipment for students in the Program in Culture and Media. The first portion of the course is dedicated to instruction, exercises, and reading familiarizing students with fundamentals of video production and their application to a broad conception of ethnographic and documentary approaches. Assignments undertaken in the fall raise representational, methodological, and ethical issues in approaching and working through an ethnographic and documentary project. Students develop a topic and field site for their project early in the fall term, begin their shooting, and complete a short (5- to 10-minute) edited tape by the end of the semester. This work should demonstrate competence in shooting and editing using digital camera/audio and Final Cut Pro nonlinear editing systems. Students devote the spring semester to intensive work on the project, continuing to shoot and edit, presenting work to the class, and completing their (approximately 20-minute) ethnographic documentaries. Student work is presented and critiqued during class sessions, and attendance and participation in group critiques and lab sessions is mandatory. Students should come into the class with project ideas already well-developed. Students who have not completed the work assigned in the first semester are not allowed to register for the second semester. There is no lab fee, but students are expected to provide their own videotapes. In addition to class time, there are regular technical lab sessions on the use of equipment.

Culture, Meaning, and Society
G14.1222  Open to nonanthropology graduate students; undergraduate senior anthropology honors majors; and undergraduate linguistics-anthropology joint majors. Staff. 4 points.
Explores what is involved in studying the various symbolic systems in use in various societies—both Western and non-Western—considering the role of these expressive systems in myth, ritual, literature, and art. Also reviews the history and development of a specifically anthropological perspective on the nature of symbolic processes. Close examination of important theoretical discussions is combined with extended case studies from ethnographic literature, allowing the nonspecialist to become familiar not only with the details of symbolic systems in use in a number of actual communities, but with anthropology’s emerging claim to a special kind of perspective, and a special kind of method, for their study.

Ethnographic Traditions: Latin America
G14.1314  Abercrombie. 4 points.
Examines lifeways of people in rural villages, plantations, mines, towns, and cities of Central and South America. Contrasts prehistoric systems of production and distribution with the changed relationship between human beings and land resulting from the Spanish Conquest and colonialism, revolution, and industrialization. Explores similarities and differences between culture areas, institutions, and practices, such as curing, child rearing, slavery, feasting, art, and warfare.

Ethnographic Traditions: East Asia
G14.1315  Zito. 4 points.
Traditional societies and contemporary problems of how traditional beliefs and behavior have been modified by modern changes. Topics: caste system and theories of inequality; world religions (Buddhism and Islam) as locally received; the impact of cash economy and markets on subsistence agriculture; the relation of religious beliefs to family and community structure; national culture and the international demands of industry, bureaucracy, and education. Includes Thailand, Indonesia, China, and Japan.

Ethnographic Traditions: Europe
G14.1317  Rogers. 4 points.
This course explores anthropological approaches to the study of complex western societies through consideration of cultural systems and social structures in contemporary Europe.  Focusing on the significance of old, new, or uncertain divisions within the continent and boundaries around it, this course gives particular emphasis to commonalities and variations across Europe with respect to the impact on everyday life of shifting territorial and social borders, class and ethnic diversity, and conceptions of governance in Europe’s present and future. Considers relationships of anthropological knowledge to the other scholarly traditions that have largely shaped what we know about this part of the world.

Ethnographic Traditions: South Asia
G14.1318  Ganti. 4 points.
Focuses on the Indian subcontinent (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka). Uses readings of historical and ethnographic material to examine the major theoretical issues and scholarly debates in the study of South Asia as a discrete cultural area. Some of the larger questions engaged with include the relationship between colonialism and knowledge production, the relationship of South Asia to anthropological theory, and the specificity or generalizability of the region. Topics include (but are not necessarily limited to) caste, kinship, gender, religion, nationalism, ethnic conflict, development ideologies, globalization, and visual culture.  

Ethnographic Traditions: The Caribbean
G14.1319  Khan. 4 points.
Comparisons of the Hispanic and Afro-Creole regions. Slavery, plantation structures, racial class stratifications, political religious traditions, community family patterns, and the problems of postcolonial development are analyzed from an anthropological perspective.

Constructing North America: Seminar on the Anthropology of North America
G14.1330  Ginsburg. 4 points.
Focuses on ethnographies of and about North America, examining the epistemology of fieldwork in a society where “the natives read what we write,” as well as on the imperative of linking structure and action and local knowledge with larger processes. More generally, takes a sociology of knowledge approach, relating what anthropologists have written about American culture to both the context of the development of anthropology as well as to the changing character of American society and culture. Explores chronologically and topically how anthropologists studying North American culture are simultaneously engaged in constructing it.

Art and Society
G14.1630  Myers. 4 points.
Considers art and aesthetic practice as both specific historical categories and as a dimension of human activity. Considers non-Western societies but shows relation to broader theories of aesthetics, iconography, and style, with reference to art everywhere. Considers mainly visual and plastic arts but also oral literature and crafts.

Transnational Processes
G14.1634  Prerequisite: G14.1010 or permission of the instructor. Khan, Merry, Siu. 4 points.
Focuses on studies of “deterritorialized” social and cultural processes that have emerged from the new global traffic in capital, peoples, and cultures. Topics include transnational and diasporic identities and cultures of migrating Third World peoples; urban public cultures produced by the globalization of capital, commodities, media, literacy, and international political and religious movements; current models for analyzing transnational social and cultural phenomena; and methodologies for research. Students develop a research project on the transnationalization of social relations and cultures.

Anthropological Perspectives on New Social Movements
G14.1637  Ginsburg. 4 points.
Examines forms of collective action referred to as “new social movements” (e.g., women’s grassroots and international movements, youth, environmental justice, human rights, and other forms of urban movements), which display new patterns of political action and organization that researchers have associated with the rise and spread of global capitalism. Analyzes case studies of select social movements and their related theoretical literature.

Social Organization
G14.2341  Beidelman, Myers, Rapp, Rogers. 4 points.
Comparative analysis of family and kinship organizations and of the nature and social functions of such organizations in their social and historical contexts. Specific examples are drawn from classic studies of kinship and social organization.

Sex/Gender Systems: Issues and Theory
G14.2346  Martin, Rapp, Stout. 4 points.
Implications of new research on gender for anthropological models of society and culture and for theories concerning production, wealth, and exchange; stratification, domination, and inequality; kinship and family roles; and the role of gender constructs in cultural ideologies.

Anthropology of Human Rights
G14.2600  Merry. 4 points.
Examines the contemporary elaboration and dissemination of human rights law and discourse in the post-World War II period. Explores the opposition between culture and rights and examines current anthropological work on human rights in political struggles in various parts of the world. Specific areas of focus include indigenous rights and women’s rights. The course also examines transnational, deterritorialized, and multisited ethnographic research methods for studying human rights.

Cultures of Biomedicine
G14.2610  Rapp. 4 points.
Over the last 150 years, biomedicine as a sphere of ideas and practices has made increasingly powerful claims to define the conditions of human life and death. This seminar looks at the many historical processes through which biomedical power is constituted and sustained by addressing topics such as the discovery/invention of standardized bodies, systems, and populations; public health and governance; the emergence of diagnostic categories and pharmacologies; and the role of biostatistics and other large-scale evidentiary technologies. Recent local, national, and transnational patient and provider activist movements, UN and NGO fora dedicated to diseases and disorders, indigenization of biomedical technologies and categories, and transnational medical tourism are also examined.

Anthropology of Science
G14.2620  Martin. 4 points.
Explores the contemporary ethnography and recent history of a number of “field” sciences. Focuses on the physical sciences and the social sciences, whose practitioners often worked in cooperation with the state as they built ideas about “fields” and systems control around the time of World War II. This course also takes up the case of biosecurity, in which the biosciences and the physical sciences coalesce.

Ethnographic Methods
G14.2700  Martin, Rapp, Rogers, Schieffelin. 4 points.
Examines theories and methods of ethnographic research, paying particular attention to the links between research questions and data collection techniques. In addition to readings, assignments include practice fieldwork exercises.

Memory and Heritage 
G14.3390  Abercrombie. 4 points.
This course surveys the realms of memory, social continuity, and representation of the past and of historical process or change. It seeks especially to understand the kinds of social memory that bridge the gap between remembered personal experience and the externally received representations of museology and school-book history. On the one hand, the course is a survey and history of historians’ and anthropologists’ approaches to the study of the past, of cultural change over time, and of representations of the past; on the other, it is a treatment of the role of narration in the subject’s construction of itself. The course includes in-depth treatment of the issue of time, memory, and the past as cultural constructs, including recent studies of the perception of time and of constructions of “social memory.”

LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY

Acquisition of Cultural Practices
G14.2702  Schieffelin. 4 points.
Critically explores the notion of “practice” from a number of perspectives, including symbolic interactionism, phenomenology, ethnomethodology, language socialization, and contemporary social theory, utilizing ethnographic studies on the acquisition of a variety of cultural practices, including speech and gender practices, across a range of societies and contexts. Analyzes selected social practices in terms of how they are framed, keyed, and constituted through speech and other expressive resources, through use of video and transcription.

BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Paleobiology of the Primates
G14.1512  Harrison. 4 points.
Detailed survey of current problems and debates in the study of primate evolution. Considers the practical and theoretical issues concerned with evaluating the fossil evidence. Problems include those relating to phylogenetic interpretation, taxonomy, and paleobiological and paleoecological reconstruction.

Primate Social Behavior
G14.1514  Di Fiore. 4 points.
Examines the social interactions of nonhuman primates from an evolutionary perspective, with a special focus on the roles that kinship and the social environment play in the development and expression of social behavior. Introduces relevant contemporary theoretical perspectives, including biological markets and social network theory, that complement traditional sociobiological approaches. Topics for discussion include dominance interactions; territoriality and intergroup aggression; coalitions, alliances, and other cooperative behavior; paternal care and cooperative breeding; and intersexual conflict.

Comparative Morphology of the Primates
G14.1515  Harrison. 4 points.
Surveys the anatomy of the living primates from a structural, functional, and evolutionary perspective. The subject is reviewed topically by examining different anatomical systems and behaviors—external features, the cranium, dentition and dietary behavior, postcranial anatomy and locomotor behavior, viscera, sensory and nervous systems, and reproductive anatomy. The role of comparative anatomy in functional and behavioral studies, taxonomy, and phylogenetic analyses is emphasized.

Skeletal Morphology
G14.1516  Antón, Bailey, Harrison. 4 points.
An in-depth survey of the various ways in which biological anthropologists employ human osteology, the study of bones and the skeleton. In addition to presenting a detailed review of the anatomy of the human skeleton and its associated musculature, examines a series of thematic issues and topics that emphasize the multidisciplinary nature of the study of skeletal morphology. Topics include bone biology and development, comparative osteology, biomechanics, bioarchaeology, forensic anthropology, and taphonomy.

Biological Variation Among Human Populations
G14.1517  Antón, Disotell. 4 points.
Despite the significance of culture in human adaptation, genetic variation and biological adaptability continue to affect human survival and reproduction in important ways. This course explores genetic, physiological, morphological, and behavioral variability in human populations today; its role in human adaptation; and its significance to our understanding of human evolution.

Natural History of the Primates
G14.1518  Di Fiore. 4 points.
Provides an overview of the ecology, behavior, life history patterns, and social systems of nonhuman primates and examines these aspects of primate biology from the perspectives afforded by contemporary socioecological and sociobiological theory. Also discusses the ecological roles that primates play in their natural ecosystems and introduces key issues relevant to the conservation of nonhuman primates.

Interpreting the Skeleton
G14.1520  Prerequisite: strong knowledge of fragmentary human skeletal anatomy. Antón, Bailey. 4 points.
Provides an intensive introduction to the methods and techniques used to reconstruct soft tissue anatomy and behavior from the human skeleton. Focuses on techniques and applications to all areas of skeletal biology, including bioarchaeology, paleoanthropology, forensics, and anthropology. Addresses bone biology, developmental processes, and soft tissue anatomy. Students learn (1) fundamentals of aging, sexing, and individuating human skeletal remains; (2) how to estimate stature, weight, and, to the extent possible, geographic ancestry; and (3) how to recognize and evaluate pre- and postmortem modification, including evidence of disease and activity.

Human Evolution: Problems and Perspectives
G14.2519  Antón, Bailey, Harrison. 4 points.
Major problems raised by contemporary theories of human evolution. Analysis of problems of systematics, phylogeny, natural selection, and variation from the points of view of classic as well as contemporary research.

Seminar: Physical Anthropology I, II
G14.3217, 3218  Antón, Bailey, Di Fiore, Disotell, Harrison. 4 points per term.
Designed for advanced graduate students who present and discuss their research and current topics in the literature.

GENERAL SEMINARS

Ph.D. Seminar
G14.3210, 3211  4 points per term.  
Professionalization seminars.

Topical Seminar
G14.3390 to 3399  4 points per term.
Theoretical topics selected by students and faculty in consideration.

Reading in Anthropology
G14.3910 to 3914  Variable points.

Research in Anthropology
G14.3990 to 3999  4 points per term.