Provides historical and theoretical foundation of physical anthropology. Grounds students in the changing frameworks and perspectives during the last 150 years regarding questions in human biology, evolution, nature, and culture, by examining texts and scientific journals.
Introduces history, ethnography, and theory of cultural anthropology with emphasis on awareness of construction of anthropological canon and areas of conflict within it, leading up to contemporary debates on a variety of issues. Two-term course: students must enroll in both quarters.
Introduces history, ethnography, and theory of cultural anthropology with emphasis on awareness of construction of anthropological canon and areas of conflict within it, leading up to contemporary debates on a variety of issues. Multiple-term course; students must enroll in both quarters to receive academic credit.
Provides an overview of the first five million years of human evolution and a framework for studying evolution and reconstructing the human past. Emphasizes that all lines of evidence must be included: hominid fossils, archaeology, paleoecology, and molecular data.
Focuses on human skeletal biology, the identification of elements, physiology of hard tissue formation, growth, and maintenance. Students are required to show competence in skeletal identification to pass this class.
Introduces graduate students to the practice of fieldwork. Students design and carry out a quarter-long research project exploring a range of methods and producing an analytical case study. Readings and discussion emphasize both methodological critique and successful implementation.
Introduces the principles, approaches, methods, and professional dimensions of design anthropology. Emphasis is on collaborative methods and development of new methods for ethnographic research, analysis, and communication. Through a quarter-long research project, students develop non-academic professional skills, including portfolio materials. Students cannot receive credit for this course and ANTH 196R.
Introduces dominant discourses about major American religions and their role in public life with particular attention to intersecting differences, such as race, sex/gender, and disability and to shifting religious/political boundaries. Visual and textual media, political commentary, and popular ethnographies are analyzed.
Reviews environmental, physiological, behavioral, and cultural ways that humans interact with their physical surroundings. Effects of human culture on the environment, and of the environment on the shape of human culture will be emphasized.
Examines the human life cycle using an evolutionary framework. Examines key aspects of the human life stages using findings and concepts from developmental biology, physiology, nutrition, evolutionary ecology, and life history theory. These stages include: gestation, infancy, childhood, juvenile and adolescent periods, and senescence. Each stage of the life cycle is compared and contrasted with the developmental life of nonhuman primates and mammals. Other related topics include developmental plasticity and epigenetics.
Takes the many strands of scholarship on power relations between individuals within the context of institutions and conceptualizes how individuals come to exist through power relations, and how power is fundamental to social being.
Deepens students' understanding of methods applied in biological anthropology research. (Formerly Methods in Physical Anthropology.)
Examines theories and case studies at the intersection of religion, states, and secularity. Topics include: secularism as a political doctrine; state and social regulation of religion and religious normativity; secular cultural practices; and lines of secular/religious entanglement and conflict.
Examines, theoretically and ethnographically, how societies and their cultures are created and reified through spatializing practices, including border-making, mapping, landscape aesthetics, globalization, time/history/memory, movement, and other locating activities.
Examines secularism as a practice of government with a concomitant set of ethics. Topics include: the notion of religion necessary for secularism; forms of moral and political inclusion/exclusion enacted by secular governance; and the kind of ethical subject secularism engenders. (Formerly course 255.)
Examines some approaches used by anthropologists and other thinkers to bring things into focus: as gifts, signs, commodities, and tools. Explores whether, by taking things seriously, anthropologists might learn to be empirical in new ways. Students cannot receive credit for this course and ANTH 196F.
Devoted entirely to writing grant proposals. Students either work on their graduate education fellowships or their doctoral dissertation grants or both. Reading materials consist of granting agency documents plus examples of successful applications.
Discusses centrality of the idea of regions in studies of culture, the history of locating social theory, and debates about area studies. Students develop area of transregional bibliographies. Primarily for second- or third-year anthropology graduate students reading area literatures.
Visuality as epistemology, image-consumption, and the political and representational possibilities stemming from digitization and the World Wide Web are increasingly important issues in the humane sciences. Offers historical and critical background and the possibility of hands-on practice using visual material in current research.
Examines recent work on the role of intimacy and affective labor in value production, political mobilization, and transnational capital linkages. Special attention given to how these terms are invoked to answer methodological and narrative concerns in ethnographic writing.
Contemporary social theory and science both focus on bodies as critical sites of inquiry and the production of knowledge. Explores these theoretical intersections and constructions of the body with new ethnographic works. Questions how race, gender, and culture are inscribed through bodily practice, imagery, and phenomenology.
Advanced graduate seminar in environmental anthropology and science and technology studies, focusing on how nature is produced in the modern world and what political and practical significance this has in different contexts.
Examines how feminist anthropology creates its objects of knowledge by focusing on questions of method and representation. The class reads across these traditional objects--women and gender, for example--to highlight the epistemological and political stakes of feminist work in anthropology.
An examination of language system and language use in relationship to cultural contexts of communication in Western and non-Western societies. Also examines the complex role which linguistic inquiry and models have played in broader theories of culture.
Advanced topics in cultural anthropology. Current topics in anthropological theory and ethnography taught on a rotating basis by various faculty members. Precise focus of each seminar varies and will be announced by the department.
Explores theoretical and methodological issues in the field of social justice with an emphasis on ethnographic analysis. Topics include: rights, obligations, justice, equality, compensation, and ethics.
Introduction to selected themes in political economy, stressing the work of Marx. Topics include the development of capitalism, colonialism, dependency, world systems, state formation, class consciousness, commodity fetishism, the nature of late capitalism, post-modernism, and the aesthetics of mass culture. Through political economy's interlocutors, raises questions about gender, race and ethnicity, and post-structuralist critiques.
Survey of history and topics of contemporary interest in environmental anthropology, including political ecology, environmental history, ethnoecology, and multi-species anthropology. Additional advanced readings on contemporary environmental anthropology research. Students cannot receive credit for this course and ANTH 146.
Instructor
Andrew Mathews
Examines emerging critiques on the science, communication, and practice of nutrition using multidisciplinary approaches. Special attention is given to the effects of modern nutrition.
Moves from a brief introduction to classic economic anthropology to recent work on histories of money and capitalism and cultures of financial markets, of accounting, and of legal and illegal trading practices
Explores narratives of nature and their practical consequences in contests over wild places and their resources. Readings focus on the histories of forests and on analytic frameworks—ecology, social history, interpretation, cultural studies—with which to investigate competing constructions of the environment.
Major figures, ideas, and writing in 19th- and 20th-century cultural anthropology surveyed. Students cannot receive credit for this course and ANTH 152.
Examines cultural anthropology's interdisciplinary practices of knowledge formation at an advanced level. Drawing on various types of theoretical texts, the course elaborates on the relationship between culture and power, taking up different themes each time it is taught.
Surveys medicine cross-culturally, with particular focus on power, tradition, and theories of embodiment. Students cannot receive credit for this course and ANTH 134.
First examines the regulation of religion and the normalization of sex/sexuality as parallel modalities of secular rule in the production of modern citizens and subjects. Ultimately inquires into the relationship between proper religion and proper sexuality in secular state formations. (Formerly course 259.)
Addresses the use of experiments in anthropological research, theory, and writing.
Explores theoretical and methodological approaches to the cross-cultural study of race, with an emphasis on historical and ethnographic analysis. Main approaches considered include Foucauldian, Gramscian, diaspora theory, and the everyday poetics and politics of race. (Formerly course 246.)
Examines conceptualizations and practices of freedom across geographical space and historical time. Readings drawn from Greek philosophy, Islamic, Christian, and Buddhist religious traditions. Enlightenment philosophy, liberal and neo-thought, and contemporary ethnographies.
Replicas, copies, and fakes anchored conceptually by the authentic/original enable the marketing of cultural commodities like arts and crafts, especially since the advent of photography. Course explores these commercial and signifying processes in the global art and culture market.
Follows the history of film and ethnography, media and methodology into the birth of cinema and anthropology in the early 20th century. Students learn theories of representation and media, conduct ethnographic research, and prepare a short film.
Provides a critical survey of debates, old and new, in the study of kinship. Readings range from classical treatments to recent reformulations that use kinship as a lens for exploring intimacy, memory, futurity, embodiment, commodification, and power. Students cannot receive credit for this course and ANTH 163.
Emerging anthropological approaches to global history. Considers both 500-year and much longer historical frameworks. For the former, the evidence of documents, both European and non-European, is particularly important. For the latter, archaeological and evolutionary approaches are essential. Students cannot receive credit for this course and ANTH 196H.
Historical review of prehistoric archaeology from antiquarianism to the present. Emphasis on the development of archaeological theory, its relation to evolutionary and anthropological theory, and themes ongoing over time. Students cannot receive credit for this course and ANTH 170.
Historical overview of archaeology, concentrating on archaeological practice in the English-speaking world from the late 19th through the 21st Centuries. Emphasis is on development of archaeological theory in its social context; its relation to evolutionary and anthropological theory; and themes ongoing over time. Students cannot receive credit for this course and ANTH 270.
Provides an in-depth understanding of current trends in archaeological thought, and enables students to place issues of archaeological interpretation into broader historical and theoretical frameworks. This course is a follow-up to ANTH 270, but not a substitute.
Introduces graduate students to archaeological research design. Topics include: middle range theory; multistage research strategies; sampling strategies and appropriate field methodology; and issues specific to particular scales of archaeological analysis (artifact, household, site, region).
Survey of the ecological and archaeological evidence for the origins of plant and animal domestication in Africa, Eurasia, and the Americas. Discussion will center on the preconditions of this drastic alteration in human ecology and its consequences in transforming human societies. Students cannot receive credit for this course and ANTH 173.
The origins of complex society: the transition from egalitarian foraging societies to the hierarchical, economically specialized societies often referred to as states or civilizations. Focuses on both Old World and New World cultures. Students may not receive credit for this course and ANTH 174.
Graduate tutorial on the archaeology of precolonial African kingdoms and states. Particular attention paid toward the origins of social inequality and the evolution of centralized politics. Students cannot receive credit for this course and ANTH 175.
In-depth examination of development of Native cultures in North America from end of last ice age to time of European contact. Focuses on specific regional trajectories and problems of social change.
Examines the pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica and reviews the archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence related to the origins and development of cultures including the Olmec, Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec, and Aztec. Students cannot receive credit for this course and ANTH 176B.
This seminar draws from readings in archaeology, history, and Native American/Indigenous studies to assess borderlands throughout colonial-era North America as important arenas of change and continuity for indigenous societies, including indigenous technologies, foodways, gender roles, governance, and much more.
Tutorial on archaeology of European colonialism and the early-modern world. Focuses on the nature of European colonial expanison in New and Old Worlds; culture contact and change; and power and resistance in colonial societies. Students cannot receive credit for this course and ANTH 178.
Considers feminist perspectives on the human past; archaeologists' perspectives on feminist theory; and the impact of gender, feminist, and critical social theory on the archaeological profession. Students cannot receive credit for this course and ANTH 194C.
Advanced graduate seminar that focuses on techniques and theories used to bridge the gap between the recovery of ceramic remains from archaeological contexts and their interpretation with respect to various anthropological issues and problems. Students cannot receive credit for this course and ANTH 180.
Emphasizes advanced techniques of ceramic analysis, including materials selection and processing, hand-building, and open-pit firings. Standard techniques for describing and measuring formal and technological attributes of pottery also presented. Students cannot receive credit for this course and ANTH 180L.
"Landscape" has emerged as a unifying concept for the interpretation of such archaeological features at multiple scales of analysis. This course answers these and other questions by examining how "landscapes" have been tackled archaeologically from multiple perspectives (settlement archaeology, "off-site" archaeology, and approaches building on ideas about culture, ideology and power).
Explores the theoretical and methodological challenges faced by archaeologists excavating ancient households. Students examine the social, economic, and political characteristics of households and investigate how they intersect and support the social and physical aspects of communities.
Lectures and seminar on archaeological faunal analysis. Topics include: mammalian evolution and osteology; vertebrate taphonomy; reconstruction of human diet from faunal remains; foraging strategy theory; data collection and management; and methods of quantitative analysis. Students cannot receive credit for this course and ANTH 184.
Practicum in vertebrate osteology, covering all larger mammal species of central California, plus selected bird and fish species, and topics in evolution and ecology of selected taxa. Students cannot receive credit for this course and ANTH 185.
A graduate seminar on advanced theoretical or methodological topics pertinent to advanced graduate student and faculty interests.
Traces the development of indigenous archaeology primarily in North America. Topics include: the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and issues of cultural patrimony; postcolonialism; decolonizing methodologies; community-based research; oral sources and other ways of knowing the past; and future directions.
Provides training in scientifically backed educational practices for new Anthropology TAs. Through reading, class discussion and activities, we explore different methods of teaching and ways to conceptualize pedagogy. Includes teaching theories; survey of educational tools and techniques; and lesson planning.
Designed to offer an institutionalized mechanism for the presentation of research papers and teaching efforts by faculty and advanced graduate students.
Seminar for students interested in theories and methodology of social and cultural anthropology devoted to critical discussion of different methods of comparison practiced in anthropology.
Introduces literature relevant to students' research emphases and allows for discussion of new scientific publications.
The first core course of the Biological Anthropology Graduate Program. Students learn the principles and methods by which research projects in biological anthropology are devised and executed. Students cannot receive credit for this course and ANTH 195A.
Seminar proposing that arts, such as dance, weaving, and creative writing, and the cultivation of more traditional scholarly works can and should be pursued together. The pursuit of such research-creation is a social justice practice that values many ways of knowing and can lead to emotionally compelling and politically effective communication. Students are introduced to concepts and debates from crip theory, feminist, queer, and critical race studies, performance studies, and narrative theory. They also participate in workshops using body-centered writing, moment work, visual arts, and embodied listening to produce creation-scholarship in a medium of their choice. Taught in conjunction with ANTH 196N; students cannot receive credit for this course and ANTH 196N.
Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.
Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.
Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.
Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.
Supervised tutorial in specialized analytic methods in archaeology or physical anthropology. Students collaborate on laboratory research with a departmental mentor or, with advisor's consent, with researchers on or off campus, preparing a manuscript for publication or an extensive literature review. Permission of instructor required. Enrollment restricted to graduate students.
Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.
Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.
Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.