Dr. Gillespie HISTORICITIES is a 3-credit reading-intensive seminar focused on the twinned phenomena of the “historical turn” in anthropology: non-Western “historicities” and historical processes. Historicities, also referred to as “modes of historical consciousness,” “ethno-ethnohistories,” and “ideologies of history,” are dynamic processes involving the “continuous, creative bringing into being and crafting of the past in the […]
Dr. Gillespie Principles of Archaeology is a 3-credit course designed for MA students in anthropology (all subfields) and graduate students in History, Classics, or other disciplines in which a basic knowledge of archaeological research and methods is relevant. It is a useful preparation for students planning to take ANG 6110 Archaeological Theory. This course explains […]
Dr. Kernaghan In this course we examine how the material specificity of physical terrains affects legal phenomena as they come to be expressed, sensed and practiced. We observe and track how the enforcement of particular laws often varies across distinct topographies and topological formations: for instance, between cities, towns, rural areas or roads; seas with […]
Dr. Stephanie Bogart and Dr. Kim Valenta We will explore the central and cross-disciplinary concepts of primate behavior, which include, but are not limited to genetics, ecology, behavioral diversity, evolution, and sociality; and how these factors shape primatology as a field. This coursefurther investigatesthe interconnection of ecology and behavior, with implications for the origins of […]
Dr. Kernaghan This course asks how prohibition-infused social types and things (but also events, terrains and times) can be approached ethnographically. It asks how an ethnographer’s need for extended durations of proximity to what she or he studies can be made adequateto social worlds that depend upon secrecy and aggressively defend the perceived boundaries of […]
Dr. Contreras This course introduces students to the basic quantitative methods required to describe and analyze archaeological data. Each week will introduce a new data analysis or data visualization technique, and ask students to use that technique in order to address a small research problem. Because many of the challenges archaeologists face have to do […]
Dr. Contreras Our current moment in planetary history is one in which human activity is the dominant influence on Earth’s ecosystems. Scientific consensus in the 21st century is that this period can and should be distinguished from what went before, terming it the Anthropocene. This course introduces the concept, and explores the ways in which […]
Read more "ANG 6930 Archaeological Perspectives on the Anthropocene"
Dr. Daegling Skeletal growth and variation is examined through the lens of mechanobiology –how physical forces influence the development and evolution of bone tissue. Theories of bone adaptation and their influence on biomechanical thought in anthropology are explored through reviews of literature in experimental and comparative skeletal biology. Students learn quantitative techniques for modeling bone […]
Read more "ANG 6524 Skeletal Mechanics in Biological Anthropology"
Dr. Chalfin Political Anthropology is a vast field covering the spectrum of human political organization past and present. In addition to documenting the organization of political life in small-scale societies, political anthropologists are concerned with the incorporation of such societies into wider political orders via colonialism, capitalism and processes of predatory expansion. The field equally […]
Dr. deFrance Humankind has lived along coastal habitats throughout history. Life in coastal and maritime settings has led to great creativity in the development of economic systems dependent on littoral and marine foodstuffs. People who live in coastal settings also develop unique systems of knowledge, beliefs, practices, and worldviews. Maritime Adaptations is a graduate seminar […]