Fall 2001 Course Descriptions

Fall 2001

Course Descriptions

102 ANTHROPOLOGY: HUMAN ORIGINS AND CULTURE (4 hrs)

Professor Stanley Ambrose Office: 381 Davenport Hall; PH: 244-3504
ambrose@uicu.edu

Professor Steve Leigh Office: 393 Davenport Hall; PH: 244-3503
s-leigh@uiuc.edu

This course is a basic introduction to the aims, methods and results of archaeological and physical anthropological research into human origins and human physical, biological and cultural evolution. Topics include the nature of evolution, our primate ancestors, becoming human, human variation, the origin of technology and tools use, the origin and evolution of language and art, domestication of plants and animals, and the rise of early civilizations. Lectures are geared towards introducing students to the basic concepts of the discipline; discussion sections clarify the approaches used and permit discussion of the topics under review. In addition to a midterm and a final exam, quizzes will be given in discussion sections.

REQUIRED TEXTS:
Jolly, C.J. and R. White. Physical Anthropology and Archaeology. 5th Edition. Alfred A. Knopf Publishers, New York.
Lewin, R. Human Evolution: An Illustrated Introduction. Third Edition. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Boston.
Gonick, L. Cartoon History of the Universe, Volume 2. Sticks and Stones. Rip-Off Press, San Francisco.

*THIS COURSE FULFILLS THE SOCIAL PERSPECTIVES GEN. ED. REQ.

103 INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Professor Martin Manalansan Office: 309C Davenport Hall; PH: 244-3500
manalans@uiuc.edu

This course introduces cultural anthropology, a subfield of the discipline of anthropology. Cultural Anthropology attempts to make the diverse cultures of the world understandable by making the strange familiar and the familiar strange. But looking at the ways social meanings and human communities are organized, this course will not only provide an overview of cultural anthropology but also a critical awareness of the complex historical historical and cultural interconnections between other cultures and our own.

*THIS COURSE FULFILLS THE SOCIAL PERSPECTIVES GEN. ED. REQ.

104 TALKING CULTURE (3 hrs.)

Professor Brenda Farnell Office: 309E Davenport Hall; 244-9226
bfarnell@uiuc.edu

This course provides an introduction to linguistic anthropology, focusing on language as a means to understand self and society; demonstrating the role of language in the development of a person’s concept of self and in the creation and maintenance of society and culture; emphasizing language use within community as key to the analysis of cultural practices. We examine how talk and gestures actually work in different cultural contexts, look at problems of cross-cultural communication, and explore difficulties among people who speak the same language, especially when differences of class, age, gender, sexual orientation, and/or ethnicity are involved.

Texts include the following books and a coursepack

Rodriguez, Richard. Hunger of Memory.

Basso, Keith. Portraits of the Whiteman

*THIS COURSE FULFILLS THE SOCIAL PERSPECTIVES AND COMPARITIVE CULTURAL STUDIES GEN ED. REQ.

105 INTRODUCTORY WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY. (3hrs.)

Professor Tim Pauketat Office: 123 Davenport Hall, PH: 244-8818
pauketat@uiuc.edu

Discusses the basic philosophy and methods of archaeology, provides an introductory survey of archaeological excavations and discoveries in the Near East, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Topics cover nearly four million years of human prehistory, and include King Tut's tomb, Stonehenge, Viking contacts with the Americas, Cahokia and the mound builders, and the search for America's prehistoric civilizations. This course is planned for non-Anthropology majors, and is meant to appeal to students who have always had an interest in archaeology and prehistory. The course is primarily a survey of archaeological finds around the world. However, the course is also unique, for the students each have a chance to excavate a simulated site of their very own. This "Dig" constitutes the term project and is written up as a paper. There are also three one hour exams.

TEXTS: Images of the Past, by T. Price and G. Feinman, Mayfield Publishing Company

*THIS COURSE FULFILLS THE HISTORICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES GEN. ED. REQ.

143 BIOLOGICAL BASES OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR. (3hrs.)

Professor Brian Richmond Office: 189 Davenport Hall Ph: 333-3676
Brich@uiuc.edu

This course presents a broadly based survey of the biological components of human behavior. Course content draws on evidence from the evolutionary record (primate and human evolution), comparative ethology (especially non-human primates), neuroanatomy and psychology. Specific topics include hormones and reproduction, growth & development, sociobiology, genetic bases of behavior, language, the human brain, intelligence, and the evolution of human behavior. The course should be of interest to students in a wide variety of disciplines including biological and social sciences and humanities as well as anyone interested in the study of human behavior.

Texts:
Pope, G.G. (2000) The Biological Bases of Human Behavior. Allyn and Bacon: Boston.
Garber, P.A. and Leigh, S. (1999) Readings in the Biological Bases of Human Behavior. Fourth Edition. Pearson Custom Publishing: Needham Heights, MA.
*THIS COURE FULFILLS THE LIFE SCIENCES GEN. ED. REQ.

150 NOVEL ARCHAEOLOGY. (3hrs.)

Professor Olga Soffer Office: 309 Davenport Hall, PH: 333-2100
o-soffer@uiuc edu

This course is designed for non-anthropology majors and is a survey course of prehistory as seen through the eyes of novelists, science fiction writers, videos, and films. In this course we will learn something about what happened in the past - during roughly 2,500,000 years of our prehistory, as well as examine the interface between fact and fiction and the present and the past. Course requirements include reading a lot of novels, viewing films, as well as active participation in the class discussions. Exams include a midterm and a final as well as a term paper/project.

TENTATIVE TEXTS:
Auel, J. The Mammoth Hunters. New York: Crown Publishing.
Bishop, M.   Ancient of Days. New York: T. Doherty Assoc.
Christie, A.   Murder in Mesopotamia. New York: Dell Publishing.
Fagan, B.M.   World Prehistory. IVth ed. Little, Brown and Co.
Gear, W.M. and K. Gear PEOPLE OF THE RIVER, New York: Tor
Kurten, B.   Dance of the Tiger. Berkeley: University of California.
Michner, J.   The Source. New York: Fawcett paperbacks.
Von Daniken, E. Chariots of the Gods. Berkeley: Berkeley paperbacks.

*THIS COURSE FULFILLS THE HISTORICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES GEN. ED. REQ.

180 ANTHROPOLOGICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON DEATH. (3hrs.)

Professor Helaine Silverman Office: 187 Davenport Hall, PH: 333-1315
helaine@uiuc.edu

Death is the greatest of the life crises and since time immemorial all human societies have devised ways to cope with and explain death. Cultural responses to death are highly varied and tightly patterned. Anthropologists and archaeologists take a keen professional interest in mortuary customs because of the information this culture-specific behavior can provide about the living society. This course is a cross-cultural introduction to the celebration of death across time and space.

The semester is structured as follows:
SEPTEMBER: carry out a field project with the professor at Mt. Hope Cemetery (on the south side of campus)
OCTOBER: in-class lectures and discussions
NOVEMBER: watch feature-length films ("The Loved One," "The Funeral," and "Soylent Green") and critique them in class; visit a funeral home
DECEMBER: in-class guest lectures by a rabbi and a priest on Jewish and Catholic death rituals and religious beliefs concerning death; discussion of cemetery project results; course summary

Major lecture topics (some of which will be illustrated with slides):
- how and why anthropologists and archaeologists study death; rites of passage
- case studies from the ancient world

- death and regeneration of life (human sacrifice, trophy head taking, cannibalism, vampires, Day of the Dead)

- changing attitudes toward death in the western world and in the U.S. specifically

- the development of cemeteries and the funerary industry

- survey of cemeteries (ethnic in U.S., in Peru, elsewhere)

- the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) issue insofar as excavation of precolumbian burial sites is concerned; debate on NAGPRA

Written assignments:

1) a last will and testament (due in the last class session)

2) one-page reading notes of the required readings (due throughout the semester)

3) cemetery project report

Reading assignments will be selections from:

The Hour of Our Death by Philippe Aries

The Sacred Remains by Gary Laderman

The Last Great Necessity by Charles Sloane

Celebrations of Death by Peter Metcalf and Richard Huntington

Vampires, Burial and Death by Paul Barber

The Undertaking -- Life Studies from the Dismal Trade by Thomas Lynch

*THIS COURSE FULFILLS THE SOCIAL PERSPECTIVES GEN.ED.REQ.

182 PEOPLES AND CULTURES OF SOUTH AMERICA (4 hrs.)

Professor Andrew Orta Office: 396D Davenport Hall, PH: 244-7108
andyorta@uiuc.edu

This course will examine the peoples and cultures of Latin America in historical and contemporary perspective. We begin with the colonial history of the region as this reveals enduring themes and issues central to the understanding of Latin American societies. Through a set of cases studies we will develop a comparative perspective on similarities and differences across the region as well as an in depth ethnographic knowledge of our particular cases. Finally, we will be considering a set of contemporary issues (including environmental politics, migration, religious change and conflict, drug trafficking and the increasing militarization of the "war on drugs", the economics and politics of globalization, etc.) relevant to the region and underscoring the relevance of the region.

*THIS COURSE FULFILLS THE NON-WESTERN CULTURES GEN. ED. REQ.

186 SOUTHEAST ASIAN CIVILIZATIONS. (3hrs.)

Professor F.K. Lehman Office: 209H Davenport Hall, PH: 333-8423
f-lehman@uiuc.edu

Same as AS ST 186 and HIST 172

This is essentially an institutional history of the lowland civilizations of Mainland and Island Southeast Asia, with a strong anthropological orientation as its analytical/explanatory basis. It deals chiefly with the histories of the Indianized and Sinicized States in the context of the Indian Ocean-China Sea trade, the institutional history of Buddhism and Hinduism in the region, and the development of regional systems of monarchy and their local variations. It deals at length with the rise and development of regional and national cultures in these states, and the effects of Western Colonialism and the rise of new nations.

TEXT:

The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia, Vol. I, Cambridge U Press.

*THIS COURSE FULFILLS THE NON-WESTERN CULTURES & HISTORICAL & PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES GEN. ED. REQ.

190 AMERICAN JEWISH CULTURE. (3hrs.)

Professor Matti Bunzl Office: 386B Davenport Hall; PH: 265-4068
bunzl@uiuc.edu

This course will examine American Jewish experience in its cultural and historical diversity. In doing so, the course will introduce the approaches of cultural anthropology in order to investigate how an ethnic group has elaborated and continues to elaborate its identity in American culture and society through strategies of individual and collective behavior. In this framework, American Jewish identities will emerge as the products of specific interactions between Judaism's overarching cultural system and local American cultural formations. To understand these processes, we will initially examine the different waves of Jewish immigration, trace patterns of acculturation, and investigate American forms of anti-Semitism. This focus on Jewish migration will be followed by the sustained examination of American Jewish religions and communal life, emphasizing rearticulations of religions community from the nineteenth century to the present. In the final part of the course, we will discuss the ongoing cultural negotiation of American Jewish identities, focusing on questions of race, gender, and kinship and the role of the Holocaust in American life.

*THIS COURSE FULFILLS THE NON-WESTERN/US MINORITY CULTURES GEN. ED. REQ.

199S TRANSNATIONAL ISLAM (3 hrs.) (As. St. 298) (Meets w/ Anth 398S)

Professor Mahir Saul Office: 309J Davenport Hall; PH: 244-3502
m-saul@uiuc.edu

The topic of this course is Islam as a contemporary global phenomenon. It focuses mostly on the large communities of Islamic origin in Western Europe and in the U.S., which came into existence because of migration flows that have reshaped the world after World War II and an important movement of conversion among African-Americans. Therefore this course addresses how significant economic and political processes of decolonization and race affected the world position of Islam, and how Islam in turn is today influencing national identities and citizenship in the west. The course also deals with Indonesia and the Philippines where Islam is not new, although these places are left outside of most conventional accounts of it, but changing under similar forces.

The course starts with an introduction on the basics of the Muslim religion and its social history to provide a basis for subsequent units. It ends with a more general reflection on Islam in the modern world. This course is designed for students who have a limited acquaintance with Islam but are interested in it as part of the modern world, a force fashioning it as well as an arena for responding to its development. (meets with Anth 398S)

John Esposito, Islam: The Straight Paith

Fazlur Rahman, Islam

Jørgen Nielsen, Muslims in Western Europe

G. Nonneman. et al., Muslim Communities in the New Europe

Philip Lewis, Islamic Britain

Aziz Al-Azmeh, Islams and Modernities

A packet of photocopied articles

220 INTRODUCTION TO ARCHAEOLOGY (3hrs)

Professor Barry Lewis Office: 209f Davenport Hall, PH: 244-3501
blewis@uiuc.edu

This course provides an introduction to theory and methods in archaeological research, data collection, and analysis. The objective is to familiarize the student with the strategies that are employed in the investigation of archaeological remains and how these strategies further the aims of an anthropological archaeology. Grades will be based on 2 in-class exams, 2 section quizzes, and weekly workbook assignments.

Texts:

Colin Renfrew and Paul Bahn (2000) Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice. 3rd edition. Thames & Hudson.

Steve Daniels and Nicholas David (1982) The Archaeology Workbook. University of Pennsylvania Press.

221 MATERIALS AND CIVILIZATION: AN OVERVIEW OF ARCHAEOMETRY. (3hrs.)

Sarah Wisseman Office: 116 Observatory, PH: 333-6629
wisarc@uiuc.edu

"Materials and Civilization..." is an introduction to archaeometry, the interface between archaeology and the natural and physical sciences. This interdisciplinary field requires close collaboration between different specialists who apply modern instrumental techniques (such as radiocarbon dating and neutron activation analysis) to extract technological, cultural, and historical information from ancient materials. Applications range from archaeological fieldwork to conservation of museum objects and historic monuments, including such topics as bone chemistry and paleodiet, early tool use, sourcing of ceramics, prospection and geoarchaeology, dating, and art forgery.

The class will be enlivened by guest lectures, classroom debates, and fieldtrips to campus museums and laboratories. Evaluation will be based both on written work and oral participation.

INSTRUCTOR: Sarah U. Wisseman, Director of the Program on Ancient Technologies and Archaeological Materials (ATAM), and a Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Adjunct Professor of the Classics. After completing a B.A. in Anthropology at Harvard University and a Ph.D in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology at Bryn Mawr College, Dr. Wisseman worked as a curator at the Spurlock/World Heritage Museum prior to joining ATAM. Her special interests are ceramic technology and archaeometry, including experimental replication of Etruscan and Roman pottery. She has participated in archaeological excavations in Israel, Italy, and North America and supervised numerous archaeometric projects such as the one on the University of Illinois' Egyptian mummy.

PREREQUISITE: Campus Honors Program or consent of the instructor.

230 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY (3 hrs)

Professor Arlene Torres Office 383 Davenport Hall; PH: 244-3511
a-torres @uiuc.edu

This course explores the study of human societies by focusing on the development of anthropological theories of social structures, culture history, ritual and power, aesthetics and social movements. We begin with critical works in the discipline of anthropology. We then focus on models that weave structure, social relations, history and symbolic interpretations and representations.

Texts:

Kuper, Adam Anthropology for Anthropologists: the Modern British School

Ohunki-Tierney (editor) Culture Through Time: Anthropological Approaches

McClaurin, Irma Women of Belize: Gender and Change in Central America

Olwig, Karen Fog Global Culture, Island Identity Continuity and Change in the Afro-Caribbean Community of Nevis

Selected Readings will also be placed on Reserve

259 SPANISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES IN THE UNITED STATES. (3hrs.)

Professor Alejandro Lugo Office: 385 Davenport Hall, PH: 333-0823
a-lugo@uiuc.edu

In this class, we will examine the cultures and histories of U.S. Latinas and Latinos. Although we will focus on recent ethnographic studies about AND by Latinos and Latinas, we will also explore other genres: poetry, short story, film, video and historical and sociological texts. Topics to be discussed include: identity, language, ideology, sexuality, power, racial discourse, gender inequality, and diasporas. We will critically examine the imagined, the intended, and the invented communities constituting the Latina/o population of this country. In particular, we will explore (though not exclusively) the experiences of Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Cuban Americans, both "white" and "non-white."

262/WS 262 CULTURAL IMAGES OF WOMEN (3 hrs.)

Professor Alma Gottlieb Office: 386C Davenport Hall, PH: 244-3515
ajgottli@uiuc.edu

Do women everywhere wish to be slender? Is menstruation everywhere viewed as a curse or handicap? Is childbirth seen universally as an illness to be medicated? Is motherhood by definition a heterosexual experience? Do menopausal women everywhere suffer from "hot flashes"? This course will explore these and related questions, investigating how women around the world experience their bodies. Throughout the semester we will inquire how not only social roles but also images, uses and meanings of the bodies that all women inhabit are shaped in deep, though often invisible, ways by culture. To help us examine opposing perspectives on difficult issues, we will also have student teams stage a few in-class debates on controversial topics: the biological basis for gender differences in behavior/the (un)reasonableness of female "circumcision" rituals/the (un)reasonableness of efforts to eliminate Indian suttee. Through a variety of readings, films, and inquiries on these topics, the course will introduce you to critical approaches to gender and society offered by cultural anthropology.

Course Requirements:

Students will do a variety of writing for the class, including the following:

-Several in-class quizzes plus one take-home essay

-1-page reactions to films shown in class

-Short essays on in-class debates

-Short reaction piece to a relevant campus lecture or event

-Short piece based on personal fieldwork (24 hours without looking in a mirror)

Prerequisites:

You will get more out of this course if you have already taken at least one introductory course in cultural anthropology (e.g. ANTH 103), history, or one of the other social sciences (sociology, political science, economics), or another women's studies course. Permission of instructor is required if you haven't taken at least one such course.

Texts:

Readings will include a packet of articles as well as the following books:

Susan Bordo, Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body

Thomas Buckley and Alma Gottlieb (eds.), Blood Magic: The Anthropology of Menstruation

Colleen Ballerino Cohen, Richard Wilk, and Beverly Stoeltje, eds., Beauty Queens on the Global Stage

Robbie Davis-Floyd and Carolyn Sargent, eds., Childbirth and Authoritative Knowledge

Karen Houppert, The Curse: Confronting the Last Unmentionable Taboo: Menstruation

Ellen Lewin, Lesbian Mothers

*THIS COURSE FULFILLS THE SOCIAL PERSPECTIVES GEN ED. REQ.

270 INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY (3 hrs.)

Professor F.K. Lehman Office: 209H Davenport Hall, PH: 333-8423
f-lehman@uiuc.edu

The interaction between linguistics and anthropology is the subject of this course. We will explore issues of language and identity; language and culture; language and mind; and language and social interaction. Universal dimensions of language will be contrasted with those aspects of language which vary from one speech community to the next. You will be introduced to analytical procedures and have opportunities to apply these methods to realistic problems.

This course can be taken as a standard offering or for COMP II credit. Graduate students must sign up for the standard discussion section. Undergraduates may elect to take the course for COMP II by selecting one of the two COMP II sections or may take the course as a standard offering by selecting the standard section.

Text

Alessandro Duranti, Linguistic Anthropology, Cambridge University Press, 1997

William A. Foley, Anthropological Linguistics: An Introduction. Blackwell Publishers. 1997

**THIS COURSE SATISFIES THE COMP I REQUIREMENT FOR UNDERGRADUATES

271 INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY (ADVANCED COMPOSITION) (3hrs.)

Professor F.K. Lehman Office: 209H Davenport Hall, PH: 333-8423
f-lehman@uiuc.edu

Text

Alessandro Duranti, Linguistic Anthropology, Cambridge University Press, 1997

William A. Foley, Anthropological Linguistics: An Introduction. Blackwell Publishers. 1997

**THIS COURSE SATISFIES THE COMP II REQUIREMENT FOR UNDERGRADUATES

318 ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH DESIGN. (3hrs.)

Professor R. Barry Lewis Office: 209F Davenport Hall; PH: 244-3501
blewis@uiuc.edu

This course examines the basic principles of research design in the social sciences. It is aimed at undergraduate and graduate students in cultural anthropology, biological anthropology, and archaeology. Topics to be covered include research ethics, different approaches to framing questions and designing research, sampling, the design of questionnaires and other kinds of data collection forms, data collection techniques, and general problems of measuring quantitative and qualitative data.

An important component of Anth 318 is for the student to select a research problem, design an approach to address this research problem, and do the data collection portion of the design. These projects and data can be the focus of data analysis courses such as Anth 322 (Analyzing Quantitative Anthropological Data) and Anth 325 (Analyzing Qualitative Anthropological Data) in subsequent semesters. The research project will count for 35% of your final grade. There also will be 7-8 homework assignments worth 35% of your grade, and two essay-type take-home exams worth a total of 30%. An introductory statistics course is no longer a prerequisite of Anth 318.

Anth 318 or Anth 353 qualify you to apply for the department's NSF Ethnographic Research Training Fellowship.

323 ECONOMIC ANTHROPOLOGY. (3 hrs.)

Professor Mahir Saul Office: 309J Davenport Hall, PH: 244-2502
m-saul@uiuc.edu

Economic anthropology deals with economic activity in its social and cultural matrix. The course will start with an overview of the field, with a sample of its core literature, and then will move on to its current concerns. It will cover themes such as the gift, gender roles, the representations of work, trade and markets, and the impact of colonialism. There will be an emphasis on the divers approaches within the discipline.

Texts:

S. Narotzky, New Directions in Economic Anthropology

M. Sahlins, Stone Age Economics.

Arjun Appadurai, The Social Life of Things

S. Gudeman, A. Rivera, Conversations in Columbia

J. Parry, M. Bloch, Money and the Morality of Exchange

Jane I. Guyer, Money Matters: Instability, Values, and Social Payments in the Modern History of West African Communities

326 THE RISE OF CIVILIZATION IN ANCIENT PERU. (3 hrs.)

Professor Helaine Silverman Office: 187 Davenport Hall, PH: 333-1315
helaine@uiuc.edu

This course surveys the rise of civilization in ancient Peru from the earliest evidence of human occupation in the Central Andes to the threshold of state formation. The course emphasizes the major archaeological cultures and considers the social, political, economic, ideological and environmental factors that promoted the development of complex society in the Central Andes. Each lecture is extensively illustrated with slides.

The requirements for undergraduates are an in-class midterm and final.

Graduate students will do a take-home exam.

348 PREHISTORY OF AFRICA. (3 hrs.)

Professor Stanley Ambrose Office: 189 Davenport Hall, PH: 244-3504
ambrose@uiuc.edu

Africa is the cradle of mankind and the sole source of evidence for the first four million years of hominid evolution and cultural development. For the most recent periods the archaeological record is a major source of evidence for the precolonial history of modern African populations. This course surveys the fossil and archaeological evidence for the evolution of human behavioral patterns from the earliest hominids to modern humans in Africa. Topics will include a survey of the fossil hominids, models of hominid origins, alternative models for the intellectual, cultural, economic and technical abilities of early hominids, a survey of regional cultural sequences, the diversification and specialization of cultural traditions in later prehistory, and the processes and events resulting in the present distribution of hunter-gatherer, pastoral and agricultural adaptations. Ecological and evolutionary approaches to understanding the processes of hominid evolution and culture change will be stressed.

Requirements include one mid-term exam, a final exam, and a short term paper.

Prerequisite: Anthropology 102.

TEXTS: David W. Phillipson (1993). African Archaeology, 2nd edition (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge).

350 PREHISTORY OF EUROPE. (3 hrs.)

Professor Olga Soffer Office: 309 Davenport Hall, PH: 333-2100
o-soffer@uiuc edu

This is a comprehensive course covering about a million years of European prehistory from initial colonization to the successful spread of farming communities across Europe. It focuses both on cultural history and on processual issues of cultural integration and culture change. The class will be run as a seminar where lectures on general issues will be combined with weekly student presentations on the specific regional archaeological records of their chosen area.

TENTATIVE TEXTS:

.Gamble, C. l999 THE PALEOLITHIC SOCIETIES OF EUROPE, Cambridge U. Press

Whittle, A. l996 PEOPLE IN THE NEOLITHIC, Cambridge U. Press

Additional readings on reserve in Department Library, Davenport Hall # 193

356 HUMAN OSTEOLOGY. (3 hrs. or 1 unit)

Professor Linda Klepinger Office: 209G Davenport Hall, PH: 244-3513
klepinge@uiuc.edu

Identification of human skeletal material and basic techniques of measurement; morphological methods of assessing age at death, sex, ancestry and stature from the human skeleton. Exams include five lab quizzes, one lab final and one written final. No paper.

TEXT:

Bass, William M., Human Osteology, Columbia: Missouri Archaeological Society.

Recommended: Steele and Bramblett, The Anatomy and Biology of the Human Skeletal, Texas A & M University Press.

362 MODERN EUROPE: ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES. (4 hrs. or 1unit)

Professor Bill Kelleher Office: 391 Davenport Hall, PH: 244-3516
wkellehe@uiuc.edu

In the past two decades ethnographic work in Europe has proliferated. This literature has addressed a variety of anthropological problems but has had modernity and the sociocultural processes entailed in it as a nearly constant theme. This course, likewise, organizes the anthropology of Europe around the theme of modernity - the social, cultural, political and economic processes which constitute it and the dilemmas which it creates. The course pays particular heed to approaches which intersect history and anthropology. Topics to be addressed include the rural/urban divide; changing family structures; class formation; nationalism and ethnic conflict; religion, ritual and society; gender; contemporary immigration; and transformations in the formerly socialist states. Prerequisite: Anthropology 230.

There will be a coursepack to accompany the following texts:

Daphne Berdahl, Where the World Ended: Re-Unification and Identity in the German Borderland

John Borneman, Belonging in the Two Berlins: Kin, State, Nation

Temma Kaplan, Red City, Blue Period: Social Movements in Picasso's Barcelona

Nadia C. Serematakis, The Last Word: Women, Death and Divination in Inner Mani

Patrick Joyc, Democratic Subjects: The Self and the Social in Nineteenth Century England

Anastasia N. Karakasidou, Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood: Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia, 1870-1990

Alaina Lemon, Between Two Fires: Gypsy Performance and Romani Memory from Pushkin to Postsocialism

Katherine Verdery, The Political Lives of Dead Bodies: Reburial and Postsocialist Change

363 RELIGION IN ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE. (4 hrs. or 1 unit)

Professor Andrew Orta Office 396D Davenport Hall, PH: 244-7108
andyorta@uiuc.edu

Is religion universal? Or is it an analytic category of Western social science? If the former, what precisely is religion? If the latter, what has this classic category of analysis helped us learn about other societies -- and about our own? In this course we will take these and related questions as a point of departure for developing an anthropological perspective on religion and a critical perspective on the place of religion in anthropological thought. A close reading of some classic texts will provide a grounding in the major theoretical traditions and a familiarity with the most important case studies from earlier generations of scholars, including Durkheim, Marx, Weber, Tylor, Frazer, Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, Douglas, Turner and Levi-Strauss. We then turn to a selection of more recent writings, including a set of contemporary ethnographies, to examine current anthropological approaches to the study of religion, and the salience of religion to the ethnography of contemporary societies. Is religion best seen as a vehicle of control or of resistance? Is religion imperiled by processes of modernization and globalization, or is it compatible with (or even well adapted to) these developments? How do religions change, die out, emerge? We will examine these and related issues as evident in a range of recent work on the anthropology of religion.

381 GLOBILIZATION AND ASIAN DIASPORAS. (3 hrs. or 1 unit)

Professor Martin Manalansan Office: 309C Davenport Hall; PH: 244-3500
manalans@uiuc.edu

The course situates Asian diasporic movements within a comparative and transnational framework that broadens the conceptual and theoretical foundations of traditional area and ethnic studies. Using Asian American communities as points of comparison with other Asian diasporic communities in the world, the course also brings together the histories, methodologies and theories of ethnic, area, postcolonial and global/transnational studies. By utilizing various texts from anthropology, sociology, geography, urban studies, economics, and cultural studies, the course aims to provide students the opportunity to examine Asian American issues within emerging debates around globalization. The course presents concepts and theories of globalization, diaspora and transnationalism as they are implicated in Asian immigration, travel and mobility in the late twentieth century and in the new millennium.

394 HUMAN PALEOPATHOLOGY (3 hrs. 3/4 or 1 unit)

Professor Linda Klepinger Office: 209G Davenport Hall; PH: 244-3513
klepinge@uiuc.edu

Comprehensive study of the evidence of human disease in antiquity, emphasizing diagnosis of skeletal pathologies and the anthropological interpretation of historic and prehistoric disease patterns.

Prerequisite: Anth 356, a course in Anatomy, or an equivalent course.

TEXT:

Arthur C. Aufderheide and Confrado Rodriguez-Martin, THE CAMBRIDGE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF HUMAN PALEOPATHOLOGY. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998.

398I INTEGRATED FOUR FIELDS SEMINAR. (4 hrs. or 1 unit)

Professor Matti Bunzl Office: 386B Davenport Hall; PH: 265-4068
bunzl@uiuc.edu

Professor Steve Leigh Office: 209J Davenport Hall; PH: 244-3503
s-leigh@uiuc.edu

Professor Tim Pauketat Office: 123 Davenport Hall; PH: 244-8818
pauketat@uiuc.edu

This course -- co-taught by an archaeologist, a biological anthropologist, and a cultural anthropologist -- is designed to explore the nature of anthropology as an integrated discipline. To do so, faculty and students will engage in an ongoing dialogue across sub-disciplinary lines, examining the theoretical, conceptual, and empirical domains that unite and divide us as practitioners of anthropology. We will pay particular attention to some of the discipline's "classic" issues; and in probing how the different sub-disciplines approach them, we will seek new avenues of integration. Specific topics that will be covered include: the culture/nature problem; language, gesture, and communicative strategies; spirituality, religion, and ritual; ecology; kinship and the genetic basis of behavior; the relationship of behavior to practice and prehistory to history; evolutionary theory and its uses in each subfield; the cultural concept of race and the biology of human variation; social hierarchy, cooperation, and aggression in human and non-human primates; cognition, decision making, and space; sex, gender, and mating/marriage systems, etc. Evaluation is based on 1) class discussion and 2) a term paper that explores a contemporary topic in anthropology from a multidisciplinary perspective. The course is open to graduating seniors and graduate students in anthropology. First-year graduate students are required to enroll in the course.

398S TRANSNATIONAL ISLAM (3 hrs.) (As. St. 298) (Meets with Anth. 199S)

Professor Mahir Saul Office: 309J Davenport Hall; PH: 244-3502
m-saul@uiuc.edu

John Esposito, Islam: The Straight Paith

Fazlur Rahman, Islam

Jørgen Nielsen, Muslims in Western Europe

G. Nonneman. et al., Muslim Communities in the New Europe

Philip Lewis, Islamic Britain

Aziz Al-Azmeh, Islams and Modernities

A packet of photocopied articles

398T AFRO -AMERICA IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARRIBBEAN. (4 hrs. or 1 unit)

Professor Arlene Torres Office 383 Davenport Hall; PH: 244-3511
a-torres @uiuc.edu

This course focuses on the Afro-American experience in Latin America and the Caribbean from an historical and contemporary perspective. By developing an understanding of anthropological approaches to the study of cultural retentions and transformations and the study of race and ethnicity we critically explore how blackness is constituted and reconstituted throughout the "New World" Diaspora. We begin with an analysis of theoretical models and ethnographic texts that inform contemporary Afro-Latin scholarship. We then range in focus from history, to the structure of race relations, to the study of various cultural contexts where a black identity is embraced and affirmed. Finally, we will critically reflect upon the ways by which racial paradigms forged over the past five centuries have informed our knowledge and understanding of the blackness in the Americas as we enter the twenty-first century.

Required Texts

Hyatt, Vera and Rex Nettleford (eds.) Race, Discourse and the Origin of the Americas Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995

Mintz, Sidney & Richard Price The Birth of African American Culture: An Anthropological Perspective Boston: Beacon Press, 1992

Price, Richard The Convict and the Colonel Boston: Beacon Press, 1998

Torres, Arlene & Norman E. Whitten, Jr. & Blackness in Latin America and the Caribbean Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Vol. II,1998

Whitten, Norman E. Jr. & Arlene Torres Blackness in Latin America and the Caribbean Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Vol. I, 1998

440 PROBLEMS IN PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY (1 unit)

Professor Brian Richmond Office: 189 Davenport Hall Ph: 333-3676
brich@uiuc.edu

This course examines the biomechanics of humans and their extinct relatives in the context of modern primate biomechanics. The course presents an introduction to the analytical methods and principles of biomechanics, including Newtonian mechanics, stress, strain, scaling, kinematics, electromyography, and finite element analysis. These methods and principles are discussed in the context of major topics in human evolutionary biomechanics, including how the modern human musculo-skeleton is designed for bipedal walking and running, biomechanical trade-offs in the pelvis for birth mechanisms and bipedalism, friction, the roles of tendon and ligament elasticity, and the biomechanics of chewing, balance control, climbing, stone tool-making, and throwing.

Text: To be announced

443 PROBLEMS IN PRIMATE BEHAVIOR AND ECOLOGY. (1 unit)

Professor Paul Garber Office: 309K Davenport Hall, PH: 333-0075
p-garber@.uiuc.edu

This course focuses on current topics and debates in primate behavior and ecology. These include the relationships between group size, group spacing, and feeding ecology, kinship, social organization and group cohesion, dispersal, cooperation, parental behavior, breeding strategies, mate competition, patterns of aggression and cooperation in primate social interactions, cognition foraging, and decision-making, and the ecology of group movement. Readings will cover all major primate taxa and be taken from recent issues of anthropological journals. Articles will be assigned for weekly discussions. Each student will be required to make in-class presentations, participate and lead class discussions, complete written assignments, and write a research paper. Prerequisites: One of the following courses: Anthropology 340, 341, or 343, an upper division course in animal behavior or tropical ecology, or the consent of the instructor.

450B ENLIGHTENMENT/MODERNITY (1/2 or 1 unit)

Professor Matti Bunzl Office: 386B Davenport Hall; PH: 265-4068
bunzl@uiuc.edu

The emergence of modernity has been a core issue of anthropology, history, and social theory for well over a century. This has led to the articulation of distinct disciplinary paradigms, influenced by such varying figures as Marx, Durkheim, Weber, and Foucault. In light of the recent rapprochement of history and anthropology, this interdisciplinary course seeks to bring these perspectives into conversation. Juxtaposing anthropological and historical perspectives, we will seek to articulate novel approaches to the cultural study of modernity. To do so, we will shine the ethnographic spotlight on the modern Jewish experience, taking it as an axiomatic case for the transitions engendered by the processes of secularization, urbanization, and globalization. Students will be encouraged to deploy the theoretical insights from the course to their own ethnographic areas of interest. The course will meet jointly with History 478B, taught by Adam Sutcliffe.

450F DISCOURSE CENTERED METHODS. (1/2 or 1 unit)

Professor Brenda Farnell Office: 209E Davenport Hall; PH: 244-9226
bfarnell@uiuc.edu

As ethnographers, we collect, translate and interpret “discourses” of all kinds. We engage in conversations with our informants/consultants, shift to an internal dialogue when trying to analyze what it all means, talk with teachers/colleagues in the discipline and engage in writing texts. Discourse centered approaches to anthropology consider language-in-use to be the primary means by which social action, cultural knowledge and social institutions are achieved, maintained and enacted. “ Culture” thus becomes a dynamic, emergent, dialogical process arising from the embodied interaction of agents in social and cultural spaces. In this course, we explore a number of theories and methods from linguistic anthropology for analyzing discursive practices in some detail. We connect these with Foucault’s use of the terms “discourse” and “discursive formations” as they apply to language and power. Students will be encouraged to apply the theories and methods of transcription and analysis learned in the course to their own research interests.

Prerequisites: Anth 270 or similar, an Intro. to linguistics class, or consent of instructor.

Texts include the following books and a coursepack:

Bauman, Richard and Joel Sherzer 1989 (eds.) Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking.

Duranti Alesandro and Charles Goodwin (eds.) Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon.

Gee, James Paul. An Introduction to Discourse Analysis.

Todorov, Tzvetan. 1984. Mikhail Bakhtin: The Dialogical Principle

Urciuoli, Bonnie. 1996. Exposing Prejudice

450H/ History 453/487 Constructing Native America

Professors Brenda Farnell, Anthropology Office:209E Davenport Hall, PH: 244-9226
bfarnell@uiuc.edu

Professor Frederick Hoxie, History Office: 446 Gregory Hall; PH: 333-8660
hoxie@uiuc.edu

This interdisciplinary seminar will examine past and present scholarly constructions of Native American individuals and societies, using a variety of critical approaches offered by (primarily) history and anthropology. Writings by early European travelers, Enlightenment thinkers, and pioneers of anthropological thought set the stage for later interpretations and refutations, both Native and non-Native. We examine how, and to what extent, contemporary approaches to the study of kinship, gender, language and orality, landscape, and leadership contrast with, or perpetuate, earlier strategies and confront problems of representation.

Students may opt to take the course as a research seminar or a readings course. "Research" students will read in common with the entire seminar for approximately half of the semester and then will work under faculty supervision on their own "construction" of some aspect of Native American life. Research students will also have an opportunity to learn about research resources in the area, including the Newberry Library and Field Museum in Chicago and the Great Lakes Branch of the National Archives. "Readings" students will complete the entire sequence of course readings and prepare a historiographic review essay that reflects an in-depth examination of one of the seminar's topics.

450I INTRODUCTION TO ILLINOIS ANTHROPOLOGY (1/2 unit)

Professor Matti Bunzl Office: 386B Davenport Hall; PH: 265-4068
bunzl@uiuc.edu

This course meets once a week to introduce first-year graduate students to the anthropology faculty at the University of Illinois. Students will be required to prepare for the meetings by reading selections of faculty members' work. At the end of the semester, students will write a short paper in response to the various presentations.

454 RITUAL AND POWER IN SOCIAL LIFE. (1 unit)

Professor Norman Whitten Office: 382 Davenport Hall; PH: 244-3514
nwhitten@uiuc.edu

This seminar takes as its central focus the complementarity of ritual and power in social life. We first examine relatively early works of Clifford Geertz to highlight the notions of ideology and religion as cultural systems, epochalism and essentialism as complementary processes in nationalism and ethnic-bloc formation, national integration and internal segmentation as reciprocal phenomena and analogic tropes as basic units of culture. We turn next to an examination of Eric Wolf's book that ranges from the Aztec to the rise and fall of the Nazi party. Here we try to understand power as a negotiated asymmetry between parties or units that rests on but is not the same as control over resources and control over paradigms. Then, with Victor Turner, we explore in more detail enacted tropes and concrete social events set in various contexts. With Sapir, Crocker, et. al. in The Social Use of Metaphor (and with other readings) we seek to draw together materials by reference to the ways by which humans build correspondences between known and unknown domains of experience, simultaneously revealing and obfuscating systems of control, and the means by which barriers created are overcome, transformed, and reproduced. We then consider structures of domination, social movements, and systems of radical change by looking at writings of Michael Taussig, Thomas Abercrombie, Michel-Roth Trouillot and others who regard interpretation in ethnography and in history as complementary phenomena. We finish the seminar with a look at rituals and power in globalization culture in localities and rituals and powers of localities in global phenomena. After about 4 weeks a brief "reflective essay" is written by students. Reports are given by students at different points in the seminar, and a term paper is required. The paper is based on the reflective essay and report. Its substance comes entirely from the course readings and discussions.

Prerequisites: Graduate Standing in anthropology, or consent of the instructor.

460 PROSEMINAR IN ETHNOLOGICAL THEORY. (1 unit)

Professor Alejandro Lugo Office: 385 Davenport Hall; PH: 333-0823
a-lugo@uiuc.edu

The purpose of this advanced seminar is to examine foundational theoretical schemes in socio-cultural anthropology. We will focus on the twentieth century and will take into consideration the political and intellectual contexts in which theoretical formulations emerged. We will examine anthropological theorizing as it developed vis-a-vis classic social theory; that is, we will study the intersections and ruptures between Durkheimian theory, marxism, structuralism, symbolism, and the cultural perspective in Weberian orientations. We will close with recent theoretical writings that are currently challenging the human sciences (both the social sciences and the humanities). The relatively new trends in the study of society and culture include postcolonialism, poststructuralism, feminist theory, postmodernism, and cultural studies. I hope that through this seminar, the student will be exposed to a selective (not exhaustive) body of literature that will provide conceptual tools necessary to critically and productively intervene in anthropology and beyond.

467 KINSHIP/CULTURE/POWER/AFRICA: CLASSICS AND CRITIQUES (1/2 or 1 unit)

Professor Alma Gottlieb Office: 386C Davenport Hall; PH: 244-3515
ajgottli@uiuc.edu

Kinship theory in anthropology was in good part deve-loped with reference to Africa. In recent years, it has come under major assault. To what extent is kinship theory still relevant to our discipline? If it still commands interest, to what extent can African societies still contribute to the development of new kinship models beyond the already known and worn ones? Reciprocally, what can kinship theory--classic and contemporary --tell us about African societies? This course explores these issues by first looking at lineage theory and related writings on descent, which were the building blocks of classic (mostly British) models of kinship. We then go on to look at a variety of critiques of that body of literature, as well as recent and contemporary approaches (mostly American) that have endeavored to provide alternative frameworks of analysis. Here we will focus especially on ideological and cultural foundations of kinship systems; on the relevance of history and political economy into the realm of kinship; and on feminist approaches to kinship systems. Specific topics to be covered include: the corporate descent group as an anthropological/African institution; bridewealth and affinal exchanges; polygyny; divorce and widow(er)hood; patriliny, matriliny, and double descent; residence forms; ancestor worship; and witchcraft. Case studies will include both societies well known in the anthropological literature (e.g. Nuer, Asante), and those that are not so famous but nevertheless intriguing; they range over all parts of Africa south of the Sahara.

PREREQUISITES: Graduate standing in anthropology or African studies; or permission of instructor.

READINGS (TENTATIVE)

Textbooks for the course will include the following, plus some articles assembled as a course pack:

-Adam Kuper, Anthropology and Anthropologists: The Modern British School (1983,rev. ed.)

-Jack Goody, The Expansive Moment: Anthropology in Britain and Africa, 1918-1970

-E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Kinship and Marriage among the Nuer (1950)

-A. R. Radcliffe-Brown and Daryll Forde (eds.), African Systems of Kinship andMarriage (1950)

-Victor Turner, Schism and Continuity in an African Tribe (1957)

-Karen Sacks, Sisters and Wives:The Past and Future of Sexual Equality (1979)

-Ifi Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an AfricanSociety (1987)

-Alma Gottlieb, Under the Kapok Tree: Identity and Difference in Beng Thought(Indiana U. Press, 1992)

-Jan Jansen and Clemens Zobel, eds., The Younger Brother in Mande (1996)

-Richard Werbner, Tears of the Dead: The Social Biography of an African Family(1991)

-Susan Reynolds Whyte, Questioning Misfortune: The Pragmatics of Uncertainty in Eastern Uganda (1997).</