ANTHRO 116: Data Analysis for Quantitative Research (ANTHRO 216)
This course allows graduate and advanced undergraduate students in archaeology and anthropology to acquire practical skills in quantitative data analysis. Some familiarity with basic statistical methods is useful but not assumed; the structure of the course will be flexible enough to accommodate a range of student expertise and interests. Topics covered include: statistics and graphics in R; database design, resampling methods, diversity measures, contingency table analysis, and introductory methods in spatial analysis.
Terms: not given this year
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Units: 5
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UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci
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Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP)
ANTHRO 116B: Anthropology of the Environment (ANTHRO 216B)
This seminar interrogates the history of anthropology's approach to the environment, beginning with early functionalist, structuralist, and Marxist accounts of human-environment relationships. It builds towards more recent developments in the field, focusing on nonhuman and relational ontologies as well as current projects on the intersections of nature, capital, politics, and landscape histories. At the end of this class, students will be familiar with the intellectual histories of environmental anthropology and contemporary debates and tensions around questions of ethics, agency, environment, and historical causality.
Terms: Spr
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Units: 5
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Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit
Instructors:
Bauer, A. (PI)
ANTHRO 116C: Native Americans in the 21st Century: Encounters, Identity, and Sovereignty in Contemporary America (ANTHRO 16, ARCHLGY 16, NATIVEAM 16)
What does it mean to be a Native American in the 21st century? Beyond traditional portrayals of military conquests, cultural collapse, and assimilation, the relationships between Native Americans and American society. Focus is on three themes leading to in-class moot court trials: colonial encounters and colonizing discourses; frontiers and boundaries; and sovereignty of self and nation. Topics include gender in native communities, American Indian law, readings by native authors, and Indians in film and popular culture.
Terms: Win
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Units: 5
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UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-ED, WAY-SI
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Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP)
Instructors:
Wilcox, M. (PI)
ANTHRO 117: Thinking Through Animals (ANTHRO 217)
The human-animal relationship is dynamic, all encompassing and durable. Without exception, all socio-cultural groups have evidenced complex interactions with the animals around them, both domesticated and wild. However, the individual circumstances of these interactions are hugely complicated, and involve much more than direct human-animal contact, going far beyond this to incorporate social, ecological and spiritual contexts. This course delves into this complexity, covering the gamut of social roles played by animals, as well as the methods and approaches to studying these, both traditional and scientific. While the notion of `animals as social actors¿ is well acknowledged, their use as proxies for human autecology (the relationship between a species and its environment) is also increasingly recognised as a viable mechanism for understanding our cultural and economic past. The module presents an overview covering a broad timespan from the Pleistocene to the modern day. It will piece together the breadth of human-animal relationships using a wide geographic range of case studies.
Terms: not given this year
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Units: 5
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Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit
ANTHRO 117B: Monuments and Landscapes: An Archaeological Perspective (ANTHRO 217B, ARCHLGY 117B)
The landscape is a result of the action and interaction of human and natural factors. Communities have altered their landscapes for a variety of reasons, including the subsistence practices; as a consequence of economic growth; to express a social ideology, and as a consequence of political and religious drivers. Accordingly, landscapes enable physical and provide psychological sustenance to people, and the human need to relate to our surroundings is part of the way in which identities are created and disputed. Within the humanities, landscape is being conceptualized as a process, a practice and as performance, and monuments within a given landscape have an equally important role, not to mention history. They are often the most durable and well-known evidence of the ancient civilizations, and should be observed jointly with the landscape. How did the landscape predefine the monument and how did the monument complement, emphasize or devalue the landscape? What philosophy channeled the construction of the monuments within the landscapes? Whether ephemeral or permanent, the human agency left traces in the landscape; thus, both monuments and landscapes are the key indicators for understanding the ideology of a particular culture. Archaeology, through its interdisciplinary nature, provides a unique perspective, as well as tools, for examining the formation processes of all man-made elements, within both natural and cultural landscapes. nnThe course will address the multifaceted issues of the ways that people have consciously and unconsciously shaped the land around them through time. It will look into diverse, geographically and periodically influenced concepts of a monument and landscape. The course will be divided into two parts, with the first one covering the theory and methodological approaches and the second part the conceptual characteristics, modifications and changeability in various archaeological and historical periods and cultural frameworks.
Terms: Spr
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Units: 3-5
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Grading: Letter or Credit/No Credit
Instructors:
Caval, S. (PI)
ANTHRO 118: Heritage, Environment, and Sovereignty in Hawaii (EARTHSYS 118)
This course explores the cultural, political economic, and environmental status of contemporary Hawaiians. What sorts of sustainable economic and environmental systems did Hawaiians use in prehistory? How was colonization of the Hawaiian Islands informed and shaped by American economic interests and the nascent imperialsm of the early 20th centrury? How was sovereignty and Native Hawaiian identity been shaped by these forces? How has tourism and the leisure industry affected the natural environment? This course uses archaeological methods, ethnohistorical sources, and historical analysis in an exploration of contemporary Hawaiian social economic and political life.
Terms: not given this year
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Units: 4
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UG Reqs: WAY-ED
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Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP)
ANTHRO 118A: Digital Heritage: Bringing the Past Online with the Chinese American Historical Museum (ASNAMST 118A, CSRE 118A)
Interpreting the past is no longer just for people like historians and archaeologists, and it¿s no longer confined to the pages of books. More and more, community-based organizations are gathering stories and perspectives from everyday people, and they¿re putting them out for the world to see online. With these big changes, what will be the future of thinking about the past? In this course, students will work through the dynamics of digital heritage through readings, discussion, and original research. The course centers around artifacts unearthed at the Market Street Chinatown in San Jose. Each student will analyze and gather stories relating to a single artifact in order to contribute to a multimedia exhibit for the Chinese American Historical Museum in San Jose. Class time will be devoted both to discussion and to work on artifact-based projects, and will also include a fieldtrip to the museum and collaboration time with members of the Chinese Historical and Cultural Project.
Terms: not given this year
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Units: 5
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Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP)
ANTHRO 119: Zooarchaeology: An Introduction to Faunal Remains (ANTHRO 219, ARCHLGY 119)
As regularly noted, whether historic or pre-historic, animal bones are often the most commonly occurring artefacts on archaeological sites. As bioarchaeological samples, they offer the archaeologist an insight into food culture, provisioning, trade and the social aspects of human-animal interactions. The course will be taught through both practical and lecture sessions: the `hands-on¿ component is an essential complement to the lectures. The lectures will offer grounding in the main methodological approaches developed, as well as provide case-studies to illustrate where and how the methods have been applied. The practical session will walk students through the skeletal anatomy of a range of species. It will guide students on the identification of different parts of the animal, how to age / sex individuals, as well as recognize taphonomic indicators and what these mean to reconstructing post-depositional modifications.
Terms: not given this year
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Units: 5
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Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP)
ANTHRO 119A: Spirits, Selves, and the Social: Histories of Thinking about Religion (RELIGST 119X)
Why do humans worship gods, spirits, and ancestors? What roles do religion, witchcraft, and magic play in everyday life? How does religious action become meaningful in a particular context? In what sense can we know about the religious experiences of others? Focus is on approaches to religion throughout anthropology¿s history. Each student will carry out a mini-ethnography on a religious community of their choice. Students will not be required to have any previous knowledge in anthropology or the study of religion.
Terms: not given this year
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Units: 5
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Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP)
ANTHRO 120B: Indian Popular Culture
This course will explore key topics in contemporary India through an analysis of its popular culture. Bollywood and Kollywood films, Hindi soap operas and reality shows, vernacular music in Bihar, Tamil pulp fiction, matchboxes from Bangalore, clothing styles of Kerala college students, advertising in Mumbai, and cell phones used in Varanasi will all be brought together to help us shape an image of India as complex, contested, and changing. As an anthropology course, we will focus on the consumption of these media and discuss what they do in the world. Looking at both the source material itself and the way in which it is used, we will explore topics such as: nationalism, gender and sexuality, middle class aspiration, globalization, neoliberal consumerism, and the postcolonial condition.
Terms: not given this year
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Units: 5
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Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP)
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