102  ANTHROPOLOGY: HUMAN ORIGINS AND CULTURE  (4 hrs)

Professor Steve Leigh                           Office:  209J Davenport Hall, PH:  244-3503

   s-leigh@uiuc.edu

 

Professor R.Barry Lewis                                   Office:  209F Davenport Hall, PH:  244-3501

   blewis@uiuc.edu      

 

This class explores the fossil and archaeological evidence for human biological and cultural evolution.  We examine the fossil and artifact record of the last several million years in order to develop an understanding of why we are interesting animals and a somewhat unique species.  The first part of the course considers our biological heritage. We learn the biological bases of human life and carefully evaluate the human fossil record.  The second part of the course introduces students to archaeology, the evolution of cultural behavior, and world prehistory. Final grades will be based on two examinations, two quizzes, two 3-5 page article reviews, and discussion section assignments.

 

Texts:

Lewis, Barry, et al. (2007) Understanding Physical Anthropology and Archaeology.
9th Edition. Wadsworth, Belmont, CA.

Lewin, R. (2005) Human Evolution: An Illustrated Introduction. 5th Edition. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Boston.

 

*APPROVED FOR SOCIAL PERSPECTIVES GEN ED REQUIREMENT.

 

103  INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY  (3 hrs)

Professor Ellen Moodie                                                      Office:  391 Davenport Hall, PH:  244-7849

    moodie@uiuc.edu

                                                                               

This course will present the foundational areas of anthropological analysis though a series of cases that emphasize social and cultural relations in global contexts.  It will direct attention to the anthropological history of global empires, colonial states, and neoliberal global networks.  We shall study transnational family and kinship relations, the exchanges that sustain them, and new forms of marriage.  We’ll consider the cultural formations entailed in the development of modern nation states and track the transformations such states undergo in contemporary globalization as both poor and rich countries retract services and rearrange the social and cultural experiences of their citizens.  We’ll examine these transformations through case studies of religious fundamentalism, medical emergency, ecological crisis, changing musical and artistic practices, and ethnic violence.  We’ll study cases from indigenous America, the U.S.A, the Pacific Islands, China, India, Norway, Brazil, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo

In Fall 2005 this course will be limited to first year undergraduate students.  The course will be connected to 6 other Freshmen-only courses (in history, economics, world literature, geography, religion, and sociology) that relate the discipline introduced to global issues.  All the students in these courses will attend 6 lectures given by guest speakers that deal with global themes of interest to the subject matter of all these introductory courses.  Students are encouraged to take more than one of these courses during Fall semester 2006.     

 

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

 

 

104  TALKING CULTURE (3 hrs)

Professor Brenda Farnell                                              Office:  209E Davenport Hall; PH:  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 plus articles on e-reserve:

Thomas, Linda and Shan Wareing et al. 2004. Language, Society and Power. 2nd Edition. London and New York: Routledge.

Bauer, Laurie and Peter Trudgill (eds.) 1998. Language Myths. London and New York: Penguin.

Schaller, Susan 1991. A Man Without Words. Berkeley: University of California Press.

 

105 WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY (3 HRS)

Professor Timothy Pauketat                              Office:  123 Davenport Hall; PH:  244-8818

   pauketat@uiuc.edu

 

This class throws you into a world of archaeological discovery in the Americas, Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Near East. We touch on archaeology's basic philosophy, methods, and theories as we review the last 10,000 years of human history, looking for what varies from epoch to epoch and place to place--and what doesn't. We focus on specific problems, places, and people--King Tut, Stonehenge, Vikings, Mexican pyramids, etc. The course is designed for non-anthropology majors who have always had an interest in archaeology but who may or may not know much about the deep past and the processes of human history.

 

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

 

 

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

Dr. Rebecca Stumpf                                         Office:  189 Davenport Hall, PH:  333-8072

   rstumpf@uiuc.edu

 

What makes us act the way we do?  Is our behavior a product more of our biology or our upbringing?  In this course, we critically consider current controversies and ideas on the origin and development of human behavior, and the extent to which human behavior is influenced by nature versus nurture.  We investigate the bases of human behavior by drawing 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.

 

*THIS COURE FULFILLS THE LIFE SCIENCES GEN. ED. REQ.

 

 

184 ASIAN AMERICAN CULTURES  (3 hrs)

Instructor Hyunhee Kim                                    Office: Please contact the Anthropology Department in 109 Davenport Hall at 333-3616

   hkim19@uiuc.edu

 

Asian Americans have increasingly become a visible part of the American national landscape in recent years.  While images of exotic Chinatowns, inscrutable math wizards, and strange rituals have long dominated the American popular imagination of post-1965 Asian American communities and cultures, there are emerging images and narratives that defy these conventions and stereotypes.  The class will examine these multi-faceted dimensions of Asian American lives and communities through the lenses of ethnography, film, music, the internet, and other media.  This fall semester, the course follows several themes including, youth cultures, sexuality, and gender.

 

 

190  AMERICAN JEWISH CULTURE  (3 HRS)

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 Judaisms overarching cultural system and local American cultural formations.  To understand these processes, we will initially examine American synagogue culture, emphasizing the ongoing rearticulations of religious and cultural existence.  This focus on religious and communal life will be followed by an investigation of Jewish immigration, patterns of acculturation, and forms of antisemitism, paying particular attention to the questions of race and gender in the constitution of American Jewish culture.  In the final part of the course, we will turn to discussions of Israel and the Holocaust as seminal coordinates in the ongoing articulation of American Jewish identities.

 

 

199 RACE AND NATION IN THE SPANISH CARIBBEAN  ( 3 HRS)

Professor Marc Perry                                          Office:  393 Davenport Hall, PH: 265-6491

    mdp@uiuc.edu

 

This course provides a comparative survey of the interwoven dynamics of race and national construction in the making of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean.  Drawing on a range of readings in history, media studies, music, fiction writing and poetry as well as anthropology, this course will explore the overlapping historical contexts of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic.  The focus of attention however will be placed on the on-going centrality of race in these island nations from slave-based sugar plantations to today’s reggaeton music.

 

 

199 THE WORLD OF SEPHARAD (3HRS)

Professor Mahir Saul                                           Office:  309J Davenport Hall, PH: 244-3502

    m-saul@uiuc.edu

 

This is a course on the society and culture of the Sephardim, a large sector of World Jewry who were expelled by royal decree from Spain at the end of the fifteenth century and settled in various parts of the world.  They became a conduit between Christianity and Islam.  Focusing on the communities the Sephardim established in the Mediterranean countries and later in America, the course will cover the flourishing cultural life they created in their new lands, their Judeo-Spanish language, literature, music, participation in the economy and in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the political movements of the emerging nations.

 

 

220 INTRODUCTION TO ARCHAEOLOGY  (3hrs)

Professor Barry Lewis              Office: 209F Davenport Hall, PH: 244-3501

   blewi@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 two in-class exams, two section quizzes, and weekly assignments.

 

Text:

Renfrew, Colin and Paul Bahn (2004) Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice.  4th edition.  Thames & Hudson.

 

 

 

230  SOCIALCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY   (3 hrs)

Professor F.K. Lehman                                                Office:  209H Davenport Hall, PH: 333-8423

   f-lehman@uiuc.edu

 

Introduction t the anthropological study of contemporary human societies; emphasis on the comparative study of social organization, interpersonal relations, cultural ecology, and processes of sociocultural change, but also includes some consideration of the method and theory of ethnological field research.  Prerequisite:  ANTH 103 or consent of the instructor.

 

241  HUMAN VARIATION AND RACE  (3 hrs)

TBA                                         Office: Please contact the Anthropology Department in 109 Davenport Hall at 333-3616

 

 

This course examines the biology and behavior of our closest living relatives, the great apes.  Beginning with an overview of the taxonomic relationship between the great apes and humans, we will then cover the locomotion, feeding ecology, social organization, mating patterns, and behavior of chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans.  Lecture material focuses on topics such as social cooperation, mating strategies, inter-and intrasexual social interactions, infanticide, tool use, diet, food sharing, reproductive behavior, cognition and conservation. We will evaluate the appropriateness of the great apes as models for understanding human behavior and evolution.

 

 

259 LATINA/O CULTURES  (3 hrs)

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 from an anthropological perspective.  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."

 

 

260  WORLD ENTHNOGRAPHY   (3 hrs)

Professor F.K. Lehman                                        Office:  209H Davenport Hall; PH:  333-8423

    f-lehman@uiuc.edu

 

This course serves as an introduction to the classical and more recent forms of ethnography, the descriptive and analytical literature of the subject.  First, it is intended to give anthropology students an introduction to the range of actual/possible cultural and social systems, as a basis for understanding what it is that anthropological theory is supposed to account for.  Secondly, it is intended as an introduction to the development of theory and method on the basis of the history of how field work has been done and reported. Finally, it is intended to show how the development of how ethnography is done has depended upon the development of theory and upon the nature of the main issues and problems, both theoretical and pragmatic that anthropologists have been concerned with at different periods.  The materials presented will be chiefly books and monographs, but some use will also be made of ethnographic films.

 

 

277(HONORS)  ANCIENT CITIES, SACRED LAND  (3 HRS)

Professor Helaine Silverman                              Office:  295 Davenport Hall;  PH:  333-1315

    helaine@uiuc.edu           

 

THIS IS A CAMPUS HONORS PROGRAM COURSE. ENROLLMENT IS OPEN ONLY TO CHP STUDENTS. This course focuses on tourist cities and tourist lands. Tourism, in its modern Western iteration, is closely associated with colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism. Beginning in the seventeenth century the sons of the European elite, notably the British, made a lengthy "Grand Tour" of the continent as part of their cultural and educational training. In the nineteenth century wealthy young women, appropriately chaperoned, set off as tourists as well. As empires grew, so did opportunities for tourism, with Egypt becoming particularly popular among the upper classes in the second half of the nineteenth century into the early twentieth. With technological advances (trains and steam ships, automobiles, planes and jets) the mass movement of people was facilitated, opening up travel to the middle classes both nationally and internationally. Today the tourism industry is global in scope, transnational in economic organization, and still strongly colonialist in cultural practice. This course is a critical examination travel, tourism and tourist cities in their social, political, economic, and physical ("built environment") aspects over time and across the world. We draw on perspectives from anthropology,  architecture, landscape architecture, art, advertising, geography, history, cultural studies, and literature.

Assignments (evenly spaced throughout the semester): travel memoir (15%), film critique (10%), travel scrapbook (25%), marketing campaign (25%), a project (25%). There are no exams.

Readings: a selection of articles on e-reserve plus six books (adventure, non-fiction, and fiction): Lost City of the Incas by Hiram Bingham (originally 1948); The Theming of America by Mark Gottdiener (Westview, 2001); Paradise News by David Lodge (Penguin, 1993); A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2000); The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (Vintage, 2003); Tourists at the Taj by Tim Edensor (Routledge, 1998).

 

 

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

Professor Helaine Silverman                              Office:  295 Davenport Hall;  PH:  333-1315

    helaine@uiuc.edu           

 

This course explores the basic factors and processes leading to the rise of civilization in ancient Peru (Central Andes). We begin with the peopling of the Americas and quickly move up to the threshold of civilization at approximately 3000 BC in the Late Preceramic Period/Late Archaic Period. We then consider the rise of sedentary, agriculturally-based communities and the evolution of some of these into multi-valley polities. We finish the course with an examination of Andean states. Throughout the course we will try to identify the distinctly Andean features that define this culture area. The approach will be cultural ecological, evolutionary, social structural, and culture historical. The course goal is to provide students with a solid understanding of the different major pre-Columbian societies of ancient Peru as variations on a basic Andean theme, and to give students the intellectual tools with which to get deeper into the literature and, potentially, the field itself. Lectures are abundantly illustrated with slides. There are four exams, spaced throughout the semester: each is worth 25 points.

 

required textbooks (available at campus bookstore)

People of the Andes  by James B. Richardson III  (St. Remy Press, 1994)@ $ 25

Andean Archaeology edited by Helaine Silverman (Blackwell, 2004) @ $36

Cities of the Ancient Andes by Adriana von Hagen and Craig Morris (T&H, 1998) @ $17

Incas and Their Ancestors, revised ed. by Michael E. Moseley (T& H, 2001) @ $20      

 

 

399/499  CURRENT TOPICS IN ANTHROPOLGOICAL GENETICS  (3 hrs)

Professor TBA                                     Office: Please contact the Anthropology Department in 109 Davenport Hall at 333-3616

 

 

399/499  URBAN AFRICA AND POPULAR CULTURE  (4 HRS)

Professor Sasha Newell                                      Office:  309S Davenport Hall; PH: 244-0464

    newell@uiuc.edu

 

In this course, we explore the cultural transformations and continuities produced by the emergence of African cities during and after colonialism.  Tracing anthropological debates around African urban centers from the 1940s until the present, we will consider the efflorescence of new cultural forms of music, art, film, literature, in conjunction with new sources of identity such as slang, nationality, religion, ethnicity, consumption, and migration.  Attention will be given to local efforts at attaining 'modernity' as well as perceived "loss of culture" and movements to preserve 'tradition'.  Theoretical issues to be discussed: mimesis, modernity and 'hybrid' identities; urban social integration and the production of ethnicity; colonialism, class, and resistance; capitalism and economy; transformations in kinship, gender and sexuality.

 

 

411 METHODS OF CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY.  (3 HRS)

Professor Ellen Moodie                                                      Office:  391 Davenport Hall, PH:  244-7849

    moodie@uiuc.edu

 

This course understands that fieldwork is an analytically motivated process.  Ethnographers enter their "fields" with -- and conduct their research in constant dialogue with -- research questions and hypotheses.  In this spirit, this course will take up the methods of anthropological research, namely the articulation among the research question, field research, and data analysis.  Required readings will examine interviews; observation; textual analysis; ethics; archival research (including popular/political discourse); fieldnotes; and surveys.  The course will include many ethnographic exercises as well as a mini ethnography conducted through EOTU (The Ethnography of the University, www.eotu.uiuc.edu).  Texts include: Pierre Bourdieu et al, The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society; Mitchell Duneier, Sidewalk; Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw, Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes; and Capps and Ochs, Constructing Panic: The Discourse of Agoraphobia. Partner and group work will be required.

 

 

448 THE PREHISTORY OF AFRICA   (3 HRS)

Professor Stanley Ambrose                                               Office:  381 Davenport Hall, PH:  244-3504

    ambrose@uiuc.edu

 

Africa is the cradle of humanity, the sole source of evidence for the first six million years of hominid evolution and cultural development, and the place where many of the most significant advances in cultural evolution and innovations in technology occurred. 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 African environments, ecology and climate change, models of hominid origins, alternative models for the development of intellectual, cultural, economic, linguistic 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 term paper.

 

Prerequisite:  Anthropology 102 and 220

 

Texts: African Archaeology 3rd edition (2005), by David W. Phillipson, Cambridge University Press.

Human Beginnings in South Africa (1999), by Hilary J. Deacon and Jeanette Deacon, Altamira Press.

Additional required and supplementary articles and book chapters will be placed on e-reserve in the library.

 

 

456  HUMAN OSTEOLOGY  (3or 4 hrs)

Professor TBA                                                     Office: Please contact the Anthropology Department in 109 Davenport Hall at 333-3616

 

This course will allow students to develop proficiency in the identification of human osteological remains, and the methods used for discriminating age, sex, stature and signs of pathology in human skeletons.  Additional emphasis will be placed on the growth and development of bone as a tissue and the ways in which bone responds to mechanical/environmental factors.

 

 

460  HERITAGE MANAGEMENT    (3 OR 4 HRS)

Professor Helaine Silverman                              Office:  295 Davenport Hall;  PH:  333-1315

    helaine@uiuc.edu           

 

Heritage management concerns local, regional, national and international cultural patrimonies in a historically and socially informed multivocalic present.  The purpose of this course is to present theoretical and practical issues of heritage management to advanced undergraduate students and graduate students committed to a career in archaeology, tourism, cultural landscapes, museums and related fields.  The literature read in the course and the discussions held around the course topics are directed at these students who will be confronting cultural heritage and social and environmental impact issues as public archaeologists, landscape architects, resource managers, and museum curators, among others.  The course will be run largely as a seminar, focusing on discussion and debate of the readings (several books, articles, websites).  Among the topics covered are the following:

 

  • History and the preservation of place. How are histories of place constructed and reproduced? Whose histories? How can place history empower the local community?
  • Theming the past. Invented tradition. Manufacturing history and inventing place
  • Nationalism and the politics of culture
  • Resort ruins and landscapes 
  • Protecting Monuments. Conflicts. The concept of world heritage
  • Case studies of  Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, Chichen Itza, Colonial Williamsburg
  • Case studies of rehabilitation of places of pain, shame
  • Heritage cities, heritage towns
  • The reconstruction of sites. Authenticity.  Simulacra.  Hyperreality
  • Issues of representation, descendant communities, local communities
  • The ethics of collecting
  • NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act)
  • CRM (Cultural Resource Management)
  • International and national organizations concerned with heritage management
  • Antiquities laws and their enforcement
  • Ethics
  • Public education and professional heritage practice in the public interest

   

 

 

461  HISTORY OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL THEORY  ( 3 OR 4 HRS)

Professor Stanley Ambrose                                               Office:  381 Davenport Hall, PH:  244-3504

    ambrose@uiuc.edu

 

This course is an undergraduate/graduate seminar on the history of theory in archaeology designed as a "capstone" course for undergraduates and a "foundation stone" course for graduate students in archaeology. We will examine the ascent and decline of theoretical approaches in our sub-discipline within the context of both 1) the specific place and time period during which they emerged, 2) general developments in anthropology at large, and 3) broader intellectual and scientific paradigms. We will critically analyze different theoretical approaches, including antiquarian, evolutionary, historical, neo-evolutionary, functional, processual (including General Systems Theory), ecological, Marxist, structuralist, and post-processual archaeologies (including agency, gender, practice, performance, etc.). We will critically evaluate specific examples of archaeological research done within the framework of each paradigm and theory.

 

Requirements: The course is divided into two sections - Part I is devoted to lecture and critical discussion of different theoretical approaches. Part II is devoted to student presentations of their individual research projects. Graduate students will lead weakly discussions of the assigned readings. Short reading notes will be submitted weekly on the assigned texts.

 

Required texts:

Hodder, Ian, ed. 2001. Archaeological Theory Today. Polity Press, Cambridge

Trigger, B. G. l989. A History of Archaeological Thought. Cambridge U. Press

Additional required and supplementary articles and book chapters will be distributed electronically.

 

 

466  CLASS, CULTURE AND SOCIETY  (4 hrs)

Professor Arlene Torres                                                     Office:  510 E. Chalmers/Latino Studies, PH: 265-0370

    atorres2@uiuc.edu

 

This course examines anthropological studies of work, class, and gender in a variety of sociohistorical and modern contexts.  It addresses debates about the salience of class, particularly when we consider the global and (U.S. national) transformation of labor; the racialization, ethnicization and feminization of the manufacturing industry; and the importance of consumption.  We examine how labor patterns were examined and interpreted by various theorists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  As such we will examine classical theories of class and how they inform contemporary theories about the gendered, racial and cultural dimensions of class via our critical analysis of ethnographic work.

 

Readings

Centro de Estudios Puertorriquenos Centro Journal Special Issue on Chicago

New York: Hunter College Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños, 2002.

Gewertz Deborah and Frederick K. Errington Emerging class in Papua New Guinea: the telling of difference.  New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Joyce, Patrick (ed.) Class. Oxford University Press 1995.

Lamming, George In the Castle of My Skin (with an introd. by Richard Wright) Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999.

Lewis, Earl In their own interests: race, class, and power in twentieth-century Norfolk, Virginia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

McCarthy, Cameron The Uses of Culture: Education and the Limits of Ethnic Affiliation New York: Routledge, 1998.

Suarez-Findlay, Eileen Imposing decency: the politics of sexuality and race in Puerto Rico, 1870-1920. Durham, NC : Duke University Press, 1999.

Willis, Paul Learning to labour: how working class kids get working class jobs. Columbia University Press, 1981.

 

 

467  CULTURES OF AFRICA  (3 hrs)

Professor Mahir Saul                            Office:  309J Davenport Hall;  PH: 244-3502

   m-saul@uiuc.edu

 

This course is an introduction to the populations of Sub-Saharan Africa.  It will deal with topics of contemporary and historical relevance to Africa, exemplifying the diversity of social, political, and economic realities of the continent.  The class readings will include recent publications and a few pieces considered classical, written by anthropologists and others in the humanities.  The class grade will be based on a midterm and final essay exam, and an oral presentation made in class. Graduate students will also write a final research paper.

508  FEMINISM, GENDER AND SEXUALITY  (4 HRS)

Professor Alejandro Lugo                                  Office:  385 Davenport Hall;  PH:  333-0823

    a-lugo@uiuc.edu

 

In this advanced seminar we will examine feminist thought in socio-cultural anthropology. We will study the many ways in which anthropologists have theorized and represented the lives of both women and men in specific ethnographic contexts--all from a feminist perspective.  We will also investigate how the cultural construction of gender articulates with ethnicity, class, sexuality, and race in particular ethnographic, literary, and historical studies.  The ultimate goal of the seminar is to provide graduate students with a solid foundation of the ways anthropologists (often in conversation with other scholars) have contributed to a complex understanding of how women and men experience everyday life in different societies, and of the extent to which they participate in socio-political transformations as well as in their own cultural reproduction.

 

 

513  FORMAL ANALYSIS OF KINSHIP  (4 HRS)

Professor F.K. Lehman                                        Office:  209H Davenport Hall, PH:  333-8423

    f-lehman@uiuc.edu

 

The course is really about the formal analysis of detailed ethnographical materials,  both algebraic and statistical (but the statistical training remains in Barry Lewis’s course,  and he and I consult on the interface between the respective course materials and emphases).

 

It is emphatically not just an abstract theory class in the sense of mere system building, but a systematic exploration with rich empirical data of the methods, logical and other, for relating formal theory to detailed data and evaluating theory generally by such means. Ideally the student should have taken my 339, which is  a class on just the comparative examination of various sorts of proposed ‘theories’ of social and cultural phenomena against in the light of understanding desiderata logico-empirical, scientific canons demand of anything posing as a theory.

 

Whilst the class nominally focuses upon kinship as the most available systematic ‘test case’ for technical reasons,  it is not particularly ‘about’ kinship,  and in fact deals a good deal with all sorts of ethnographical domains both descriptively and comparatively.  It very definitely focuses upon the use of this kind of work in actual field investigation.  Homework problems are regularly assigned.  I append hereto the substantial reference list for the class,  but I regret  that there simply is no textbook for the class,  although everyone must have a good grasp of the discrete mathematics in, say, B. H. Partee,  R. Wall,  and A. ter Meulen (Mathematical Methods in Linguistics),  as well as of related material. We shall go into such possibly arcane things as, on the one hand category theory (it has been richly applied in our kinship algebraic analyses) and sampling theory (see my paper ‘On Falsification Once Again,’, for instance, in the Steward Journal 1976, 8, 1: 53-66— absolutely essential for understanding the premisses and means for relating statistical work to formal theory,  as well as for evaluating theory against data). Obviously, the class is intended, among other things to serve the needs of students doing ethnographical work in cognitive anthropology,  and to that end,  we make a great deal of use both of my published mathematical work in kinship and in cognitive anthropology,  and my Cognitive Science Research Notes papers,  being prepared for eventual publication,  as well as the detailed formal and analytical work in the monographic MS by Lehman and R. R. Sands,  which addresses in detail a very large portion of the spectrum of the literature on the analytic application of notions of structure and order applicable to social and cultural and cognitive systems.  We go, likewise, into the recent work by various people, e.g., R. Jackendoff,  R. Keesing, the neo-Whorfians,, AI people and so on, on the pros and cons of universalist, perception-driven theories of the semantics of domains of space and time in the light of comparative examination of a wide range of ethnolinguistic and experimental data.

 

I spend a certain amount of time also dealing with actual field methods because it is necessary to ensure that ‘experimental design’ appropriate to theoretical assumptions be understood and put properly in place. I even include techniques of recording data, field record keeping and matters of data retrieval, since without attention to such matters one can hardly rely upon field materials as empirical evidence in the intended sense. How does one interview?  How does one check elicited ‘responses’ for reflection of cognitive understanding?  How does one ensure relevant sampling?  these are questions addressed in this context as well.

 

In short, this is a course on the application of (mainly discrete) mathematical methods in the analysis of ethnographical and related materials,  as well as the construction and evidentiary testing of logico-empirical scientific theories about such things.

 

The course grade is based upon 2 things: (a) class participation, including sporadic assignment and clear indication of reading done, and (b) a final paper or examination (your choice). Each of ((a) and (b) is worth 50% of the over-all course grade.

 

This class has no textbooks as such, but you should have:

Parkin, Robert, and Linda Stone, eds. (2004) Kinship and Family: An Anthropological Reader. Malden, MA:  Blackwell Ascher, Marcia (2002) Mathematics Elsewhere. Princeton University Press.

 

I shall provide ample bibliographies and materials on kinship theory and mathematical anthropology, largely in electronic form. Good places to look at, in addition are e-journals: MACT (Mathematical Anthropology and Cultural Theory http://mathematicalanthropology.org/and Structure and Dynamics http://repositories.cdlib.org/imbs/socdyn/sdeas/. However, here are some things you really have to look at soon:

 

F.K. L. Chit Hlaing

1974    Prolegomena to a Formal Theory of Kinship (with K.G. Witz), pp. 111-134 in P. Ballonoff, ed., Genealogical Mathematics. Mouton:          

      The Hague.

1974   Forward. Pp.vii-xviii in P. A. Ballonoff, ed., Mathematical Models in Social and Cognitive Structures. Urbana: University of Illinois       Press. Illinois Studies

1979    A Formal Theory of Kinship: The Transformational Component (with K.G.  Witz).Committee on Culture & Cognition, UIUC, Report

      number 11.

1995   Some Consequences of the Proper Formal Relation of Genealogical Structure to the Structure of Kin-  Term Spaces’. Paper             for the panel ‘Kinship and Kinship Theory: A Vibrant Future or Just a Healthy  Past?’ AAA Meetings, November, 1995.     Journal of Quantitative Anthropology

2001  Aspects of a Formalist Theory of Kinship: The Functional Basis of its Genealogical Roots and Some Extensions in Generalized

      Alliance Theory. AnthropologicalTheory 1 (2): 212-239 [Special Issue, edited by D. B.  \ Kronenfeld]. Sage Publications

2002 (with David J. Herdrich) On the Relevance of Point Fields for Spatiality in Oceania.  in a special issue, edited by G. Bennardo, Pacific Linguistics , special issue, 179-197.Canberra:  Australian National University.

2003   A Computational Approach to the Cognition of Space and its Linguistic Expression MACT Vol. 1, #2 (June), Pp.1-82   

2004  On the 'Globality Hypothesis' about Social/Cultural Structure: An Algebraic Solution. Proceedings of the European Meetings                     on Cybernetic Systems Research

2004/5 (in press)  Notes Towards a Formal Cognitive Theory of Grammatical Aspect and its Treatment in Burmese. In a book on           Burmese Language & Literature,  edited by Justin Watkins,. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics..

2005    Letters in MACT between F. K. L. C hit Hlaing and Dwight Read of UCLA, on kinship mathematics

Read, Dwight W.

2005    Formal Analysis of Kinship Terminologies and its Relation to What Constitutes Kinship, in MACT (*provides much reference material to his earlier computational work and the general literature)

 

 

516  HISTORY AND ANTHROPOLOGY  (4 HRS)

Professor Brenda Farnell                                    Office:  209E Davenport Hall, PH: 244-9226

    bfarnell@uiuc.edu

 

Professor Fred Hoxie                                           Office:  446F Greg Hall, PH:  333-8660

    hoxie@uiuc.edu

 

This seminar will explore the use of anthropological and historical methods in the construction of historical narratives. While focusing initially on Native North America, the course will be valuable to people who are interested in the histories of peoples in any location, or who wish to investigate new historical methodologies informed by socio-cultural/linguistic anthropology. Students will begin the course with an intensive period of reading and discussion before shifting to individual research projects.

 

 

517  ANTHRO APPROACH TO MEMORY  ( 4 HRS)

Professor Janet Keller                                         Office:  395 Davenport Hall, PH:  333-3529

    jdkeller@uiuc.edu

 

This course is designed for advanced graduate students with interests in the areas of Culture, Memory and History in Ethnography.  The first two weeks of the semester will be devoted to foundational, theoretical considerations shaping anthropological research on social memory, individual remembering and the interaction of these processes in representations and performance.  Subsequently we will read a selection of ethnographies, articles and excerpts from longer works to address the contemporary array of approaches to history and memory studies and develop critical perspective on this literature.  Graduate students participating in the class will develop critical reviews throughout the semester and present an original essay, research paper, dissertation segment, or research project design for the final requirement.  Readings will be taken primarily from the following lists.
 
Texts will include the following:


Birth, Kevin 2006 The Immanent Past. Special Issue Ethos 34:2 (June) with contributions from Kevin Birth, Jennifer  Cole, Jason    James,  Kyoko Murakami and David Middleton, Elizabeth Ferry and Geoff White.

Connerton, Paul 1989 How Societies Remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

     Durkheim, Emile  1974 [1924] Sociology and Philosophy. Reprint by The Free Press (a division of Macmillan Publishing).

     New York.

Halbwachs, Maurice1980 [1950] The Collective Memory. New York: Harper and Row.

     Hyussen, Andreas 2003 Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory.Stanford: Stanford University  
     Press.

Malkki, Liisa 1995 Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory and National Cosmology Among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania.       Chicago:            University of Chicago Press.
Sutton, David 2001 Remembrance of Repasts: An Anthropology of Food and Memory. New York: Berg.
     Wertsch, James V. 2002 Voices of Collective Remembering. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 
With a selection from the following work:
Bartlett, Frederic C.  1967 [1932] Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge       University Press.

   Bunzl, Matti 1995 On the Politics and Semantics of Austrian Memory: Vienna’s Monument against War and Facism.”  
    History and Memory 7(2):7-40.
  Bunzl, Matti 1998 Counter-Memory and Modes of Resistance: The Uses of Fin-de-Siecle Vienna for Present-Day Austrian
  Jews. In Dagmar Lorenz and Renate Posthofen (EDS.) Transforming the Center, Exploring the Margins:   Essays on Ethnic
  and Cultural Boundaries in German Speaking Countries. Columbia, SC: Camden House. 

Goody, Jack 2000 The Power of the Written Tradition. Washington D. C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Hutchins, Edwin 1995 Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Lambek, Michael and Antze, Paul (EDS) 1998 Tense Past: Cultural Essays in Trauma and Memory. London: Routledge.
Stewart, Kathleen  1996   A Space By the Side of the Road: Cultural Poetics in an Other America. Princeton: Princeton          University Press.

  Walkerdine, Valerie 2006 Workers in the New Economy: Transformation as Border Crossing. Ethos 34:1.

Wilson, Robert A.  2004 Boundaries of the Mind: The Individual in the Fragile Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 

 

541  ONTOGENY AND PHYLOGENY  (4 HRS)

Professor Steve Leigh                                         Office:  209J Davenport Hall;  PH: 244-3503

    sleigh@uiuc.edu

 

This course investigates how ontogeny (growth and development) relates to phylogeny (evolutionary change) across the course of human evolution.  The course focuses on the expectional nature of human size and shape development and its evolution, with particular attention to the evolution of the human skull and brain.  We cover theoretical principles of allometry and scaling, then apply these to problems in human evolution.  Grading is based on class discussion, performance on problem sets, a final class paper and presentation.  Prerequisites:  ANTH 102, ANTH 240, ANTH 440 or equivalent.

 

 

555  THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF COMPLEXITY  (4 HRS)

Professor Tim Pauketat                         Office:  123 Davenport Hall, PH:  244-8818

   pauketat@uiuc.edu

 

One of the most central research problems in archaeology remains the origins and development of social complexity and "civilizations."  Today, the study of complexity encapsulates a suite of theories dealing with centralization, governance, identity formation, urbanization, etc., that can only be developed historically and comparatively. Thus, this intense graduate seminar seeks to engender an awareness of what complexity is and how we understand it by reviewing the comparative ethnological literature of the 20th century (functionalist, structuralist, political-economic) and the most recent archaeological studies (evolutionary and historical). We will seek to clarify the specific relationships between religion, ideology, power, practice, rulership, monumentality, feasting, and more. Course grade is based on participation and a final paper.