Anthropology Courses

• ANTHRO110 AA (Summer '99) - Cultural Anthropology
  College of San Mateo - Peter Chroman
  Study of culture as the man-made environment of particular societies. A cross-cultural comparison of cultural practices.
  
  Definition of Religion
  
  
• ANTHRO2 (Spring '00, Summer '01) - Introduction to Archaeology
  University of California, Berkeley - Laurie Wilkie (TA:Paolo Pellegatti)
  An introduction to the methods, goals, and theoretical concepts of archaeology. The course outlines how archaeologists make interpretations using the cultural materials of past human societies. Topics include the history of archaeology; developing a research design; field methods; laboratory analyses; chronology; and reconstructing past economic and social organizations. Examples of survey, excavation and analytical techniques will be presented as part of the class.
  
  Archaeology Humor
  Notes on Fagan
  
  
• ANTHRO3 (Spring '00) - Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology
  University of California, Berkeley - Stanley H. Brandes (TA:Susan Bramley)
  This course provides an introduction to major currents in social and cultural anthropology. It considers the history of anthropological research and methodology as well as a variety of approaches to the field, such as interpretive, symbolic, psychological, economic, political, and linguistic perspectives. Some of the topics singled out for special treatment in the course include ethnic and gendered identities, ritual and religion, and the cultural meaning of food and drink.
  
  The course will include lectures based on the research areas of Professors Brandes (Mesoamerica and Europe) and Ferme (West Africa), as well as occasional visiting lecturers, and approximately six films. Students will also participate in discussion sections.
  
  
• ANTHRO170 (Spring '01) - China: "The Urban Question"
  University of California, Berkeley - Xin Liu
  This class focuses on the economic and political changes taking place in contemporary Chinese society. It begins with an examination of everyday life during the years of the Maoist revolution (1950s-1970s), i.e., to provide a depiction of its forms and norms of social practices, and then turns to a discussion of the impact of the economic reforms beginning in the late 1970s, to look at how these forms and norms were changed or modified, according to whose interests and under what circumstances. What occupies the forefront of our attention is the great transformation that has changed China's social and cultural landscape, both in a literal and a metaphorical sense; while, what lies in the intellectual background of this class concerns the question of how the Chinese experience of revolution and reform may be understood as a unique experiment of human society in becoming modern or modernized. As an anthropological inquiry, this class will also provide for the students a sense of what is going on in the field of anthropology as well as the major concerns of its current theoretical debates.
  
  Required texts:
  Walder, A. G. 1986. Communist neo-traditionalism: work and authority in Chinese industry.
  Chan, A., R. Madsen, and J. Unger. 1992. Chen Village under Mao and Deng.
  Lee, C-K. 1998. Gender and the south China miracle: two worlds of factory women.
  Liu, X. 2000. In one's own shadow: an ethnographic account of the condition of post-reform rural China.
  
  Schedule
  Final Paper Abstracts (05/09/01)
  Final Paper (5/11/01)
  
  
• ANTHRO172AC (Spring '01) - Topics in American Cultures: "Minority Education in Contemporary Perspective"
  University of California, Berkeley - John Ogbu
  The seminar will cover some of the topics of anthropological interest in minority education. The topics will include the relationship between culture and education, language and education, "intelligence" and education, labor market forces, minority status, equal access and affirmative action, and minority perspectives on education. The topics will be drawn from studies and discourse of minority education in the United States as well as other contemporary urban industrial societies. The course is open to upper division and graduate students.
  
  Summary 1: The Asian American Education Experience (01/31/01)
  Summary 2: Immigrant and Involuntary Minorities in Comparative Perspective (02/7/01)
  Summary 3: Minorities in the American Class System (02/14/01)
  Summary 4: Strategies for Failure (02/21/01)
  Summary 5: A Threat in the Air (02/28/01)
  Summary 6: Education and Investment in Human Capital (03/07/01)
  Summary 7: From the Theories of Social and Cultural Reproduction to the Theory of Resistance (03/14/01)
  Summary 8: Disruptive School Behavior (03/21/01)
  Group Summary 2: Intergroup Differences Among Native Americans In Socialization and Child Cognition (04/11/01)
  Group Summary 3: Black and White (04/18/01)
  Group Summary 4: Linguistic Genocide in Education Or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights? (04/25/01)
  Opinion (05/02/01)
  Final: Pilipino American Representation and Achievement (05/17/01)
  
  
• ANTHRO112-1 (Spring '02) - Special Topics in Biological Anthropology: "Human Sexuality in an Evolutionary Perspective"
  University of California, Berkeley - Lori Hager
  This class examines the evolution of human sexuality from biological and cultural perspectives. We examine human sexuality within an evolutionary framework as we consider the modern human body with a view from the present and from the past. We investigate modern humans from around the world to better understand what is meant by modern human sexuality within biological and cultural contexts. We also investigate sexuality in our closest living relatives, the nonhuman primates, to better understand our primate heritage in biology and in behavior. The origins of human sexuality are explored as we consider the hominid fossil record for clues to our past. Prerequisites: Anthro 1 highly recommended.
  
  Required texts:
  Understanding Human Sexuality, J. Shibley Hyde and J. D. DeLamater, 7th edition, (2000), McGraw-Hill; Boston.
  
  Birth Control (03/12/02)
  
  
• ANTHRO128-2 (Spring '02) - Special Topics in Archaeology: "Gender and Feminist Practice"
  University of California, Berkeley - Meg Conkey
  This is a wide-ranging course that will consider two interconnected issues: 1) the ways in which we have come to take up "gender" as an explicit concern in archaeology; and 2) what feminist practice might mean for archaeology. The course will involve participation by all students, in both structured and more open-ended ways, and it will involve a good deal of (albeit excellent!) reading. We will consider the recent, but vibrant, developments in gender research over the past 15 years in Anglo-American archaeology, beginning with casting a wider net--the history of gender and feminism in anthropology and ethnography, and the development of feminist critiques of science, including issues in the philosophy and sociology of science more widely.
  
  We will need to consider the concept "gender", as a term, as a theory, as a process, and as historically and culturally-situated. We will need to place this archaeological interest in gender within the wider history of anthropological archaeology, and within the sociology of archaeology (e.g., equity issues; differential valuing of research, etc.). We will engage with recent concerns in feminist theory, especially in issues of our understandings of sex/gender and sexuality and the problematization of the concept of "gender". As well, we will discuss if there is such a thing as a feminist method (science, ethnography, epistemology, archaeology), and will explore what it might mean "to do archaeology as a feminist"; that is, what feminist practice is in and for archaeology. Lastly, we will consider the "writing" of archaeology and other ways of presenting archaeological "results", including a special session on narrativity and the use of fiction, and another on multimedia and hypertextuality.
  
  This will be a fast moving class if you have not had any archaeology or anthropology; if you have not been exposed to any feminist theory or gender studies, you can do it, but may want some outside reading here and there.
  
  Required texts:
  1. Gilchrist, Roberta (2000) Gender and Archaeology: Contesting the Past Routledge, London (paperback).
  2. A Course Reader.
  3. Hays-Gilpin, K. and D. Whitley (1998) Reader in Gender Archaeology, Routledge, London (paperback).
  4. Nelson, Sarah Milledge (1997) Gender in Archaeology. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, CA (paperback).
  
  Sex and Gender
  Feminist Commitments in Anthropological Research (05/07/02)
  
  
• ANTHRO158 (Spring '03) - Religion and Anthropology
  University of California, Berkeley - Mariana Ferreira
  Is there a distinct and recognizable sphere of culture that can be defined as "religion"? How does religion as a force shape peoples' world views and motivate action? In what circumstances does religion become " the opium of the people," facilitating colonial domination? To what extent does the existence of "the sacred" in modernity become the object of worship and the source of power? Why is there a resurgence of shamanism as "archaic techniques of ecstasy" in a situation of globality? This course focuses upon these and other questions and theoretical issues that play themselves out of a sociocultural approach to the study of religion.
  
  The goals of the course are: (1) to examine the place of religion in the history of anthropological thought; (2) to familiarize ourselves with key topics within the anthropology of religion, such as magic, ritual, and belief; (3) to rethink religion in its relation to culture, power and history; and (4) to acquire a set of conceptual tools for addressing religious resurgence in the contemporary world. There will be an emphasis on indigenous knowledges and practices in North and South America, such as shamanism, prophetism, and magic realism.
  
  Class Notes: php / doc