Introducing perspectives of Socio-Cultural Anthropology, the class explores how culture (the way of life shared by a group of people) creates varied realities and life experiences worldwide in relation to socially-generated understandings of gender, religion, ethnicity, class, race, and kinship. Focused on patterns of difference and similarity across cultures around the globe, this course teaches students the value of cross-cultural comparison and how to analyze their own cultural backgrounds through the anthropological lens.
The landscape of the Central Andes is one of environmental extremes, from the Andes mountains to coastal deserts and the Amazon rainforest. This course covers the cultures that adapted to this diverse landscape and thrived in this tropical region of South America for millennia. Class topics include the Inka Empire, once the largest Indigenous empire in the Americas, the Nazca lines, and the Chinchorro culture, renowned for creating the world’s oldest mummies. The course also discusses a variety of other pre-Inka societies and examines the role of archaeology in reconstructing the region’s history.
Though content varies from semester to semester, this intermediate class focuses on a special topic in Anthropology not fully covered in existing courses. This course may be repeated for credit when the topic differs.
Though content varies from semester to semester, this intermediate class focuses on a special topic in Anthropology not fully covered in existing courses. This course may be repeated for credit when the topic differs.
This course examines the human body as an archive of lived experience and life history through the fields of bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology. The course begins with an introduction to human osteology and bone biology and then discusses methods related to reconstructing biological profiles—age at death, sex, stature, population affinity—and identifying skeletal trauma. Theoretical approaches to studying health and disease in the past are also covered, as well as ethical debates surrounding the analysis, curation, and repatriation of human remains.
This course considers the ways in which ethnicity, race, religion, gender, class and culture shape differential access to natural resources and a healthy living environment. Drawing on anthropological studies of local ecological knowledge, political economies and city and regional planning, the class asks how disproportionate experiences of environmental benefits and burdens can be redressed in societies around the globe. Students consider culturally-informed routes to food and water security and socioecological resilience in the wake of climate change.
This course will examine human-environmental relationships from the anthropological perspective. Consideration of theoretical approaches and practical applications will be supplemented by archaeological, ethnographical, and ethnohistorical case studies. We will consider various ecosystems and landscapes as palimpsests that reveal cultural footprints to the archaeologist and human choices to the ethnographer. We will explore how an understanding of both can greatly inform ecological studies and further new thinking about environmental policy.
This is a dynamic course in plant-human interaction that bridges cultural anthropology and related disciplines like economic botany, archaeology, and environmental history to explore a selection of economic plants that have shaped human society. This course follows case studies of select taxa to explore their origins and past uses, impacts of colonial encounters, effects of climate change, and other contemporary social and political entanglements. Special attention will be given to issues of plant use and Indigenous resilience, sovereignty, and cultural revitalization, as well as potential contributions to sustainable futures and agrobiodiversity.
The historical development of anthropological theory beginning with positivism and classical evolutionary thinking through that of the neo-evolutionists. Consideration of different historical approaches is followed by exploration of cultural materialism, structuralism, Marxism, symbolic interpretation, and practice theory. The course concludes with a survey of post-modernism and collaborative approaches.
Art
An introduction to processes dependent on the lens as an imaging device, including wet-lab photography, digital photography, video editing and installation-based sequencing. The course incorporates the fundamental theoretical, technical and aesthetic principles of working with photography as an expressive medium. Assignments include darkroom laboratory work, studio projects, discussions, written analyses, and class presentations.
An introduction to two-dimensional media that explores mark making as the basis for visualization and ideation. The course incorporates the fundamental theoretical, technical and aesthetic principles of composition in two-dimensions. Students use wet and dry media to solve problems and investigate concepts of representation, abstraction and expression using traditional and non-traditional techniques.
This course introduces students to thematic approaches in photography using film-based methods, digital printing, and multi-media. Class projects and discussions center around the cultural and socio-political impact of the medium, as well the deeply personal and expressive aspects of photographic art.
The course introduces students to documentary methods and issues pertaining to photography and related media used in the making of photo-documentaries. Class projects and discussions examine the cultural and socio-political impact of this genre, as well as the genre's core triangulation points of subjectivity, objectivity, and truth.
This course explores both new and traditional media for the study and production of sculptural form. A series of assignments involve additive and reductive processes, mold making and casting, static and temporal composition, and a range of materials. Examples ranging from ancient to current sculptural practices are discussed and reviewed to provide historical and theoretical context for the assignments. The evaluation and analysis of assignments involves group discussions and individual critiques.
In this seminar, students engage in a combination of advanced assignments and self-directed projects aimed towards furthering the study of drawing, painting and mixed media in both traditional and non-traditional materials. Content will vary from semester to semester. This course may be repeated twice for credit.
The course builds on prior experience and concentrates on small and large format photography, color and alternative photographic processes. Class projects and discussions are shaped around self-defined projects. This course can be repeated twice for credit.
In this sculpture seminar, students engage in a combination of advanced assignments and self-directed projects aimed towards furthering the study of the art involved in three-dimensional media and methods.This course can be repeated twice for credit.
Participants will have already developed advanced skills in at least one of the five media offered (drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, video production). This seminar further enhances studio skills by referencing individual, self-defined project work to readings that explore the theory and practice of the visual arts, the societal role of the artist, contemporary issues and interdisciplinary approaches.
Art History
This survey course introduces the art and architecture of ancient, colonial, modern, and contemporary Latin America spanning approximately 4000 years (c. 2000 BCE- 2000 CE) and two continents (North, Central, and South America from Mexico to Brazil). We examine the style, iconography, and context of key works of art and consider enduring regional legacies and the adaptation of outside influences.
This course introduces students to the history of photography, from the invention of the medium in the 1830s to recent practices of photographers and artists working with a wide variety of photographic technologies. Emphasis is given to key artist, artistic movements, and theories of photography, as well as to visual literacy and familiarity with the multiple genres and social functions of photographic image production.