Sociocultural Anthropology

Please refer to the online directory of courses for times and locations. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/bulletin/uwb/ Revised 9/3/09

ANTH V1002x (sec 001) The Interpretation of Culture. 3pts. S. Gregory. The anthropological approach to the study of culture and human society. Case studies from ethnography are used in exploring the universality of cultural categories (social organization, economy, law, belief system, art, etc.) and the range of variation among human societies.

ANTH V1002x (sec 002) The Interpretation of Culture. 3pts. A. Heo. The anthropological approach to the study of culture and human society. Case studies from ethnography are used in exploring the universality of cultural categories (social organization, economy, law, belief system, art, etc.) and the range of variation among human societies.

ANTH V2004x Introduction to Social and Cultural Theory. 3 pts. J. Pemberton.Introduces students to theoretical works and ideas that have formed modern field of anthropology. These include classic 19th century social theories (e.g., those of Durkheim, Weber, Marx), 20th century interpretive approaches (for example, structuralism), and contemporary modes of sociocultural analysis. Discussion Section Required. Enrollment limit to 78.

ANTH V2008x Film and Culture. 3 pts. P. Vail. How have cultures been represented through film? This course offers a selective introduction to the past and present of ethnographic and documentary filmmaking. It also considers Hollywood depictions of "other" cultures and the growing number of films by directors working within their own communities. Film and Culture joins scholarly and filmmaking sensibilities to examine the relation of cultural identity to portrayal in film.

ANTH V2010x Major Debates in the Study of Africa. 3 pts. M. Mamdani. Major Cultures A-List. This course will focus on key debates that have shaped the study of Africa in the postcolonial African academy. We will cover six key debates (a) history before external impact; (b) agency and responsibility in different kinds of slave trade; (c) State Formation (conquest, slavery, colonialism); (d) underdevelopment (colonialism and globalization); (e) nationalism and the anti-colonial struggle; (f) pan-Africanism and globalization. The approach will be multidisciplinary and readings will be illustrative of different sides in the debate.

ANTH V2090x The Road. 3 pts. R. Chaney. As literary, cinematic, and musical trope, the Road bears the weight of both transcendent American aspirations and banal evocations of national ethos. Engaging popular literature, film, and music, this course examines the figurative and literal Road as a medium that both reveals and constructs senses of American identity and place.

ANTH V2015x Chinese Society & Culture. (formerly V3015). 3 pts. M. Cohen. Social organization and social change in China from late imperial times to the present. Major topics include family, kinship, community, stratification, and the relationships between the state and local society.

ANTH V2100x Muslim Societies. 3 pts. B. Messick. An examination of religion and society not limited to the Middle East. A series of Muslim societies of various types and locations will be approached historically and contextually to understand their family resemblances and their differences, their distinctive mechanisms of coherence and their patterns of contestation.Major Cultures A-List

ANTH V3004x Introduction to Environmental Anthropology. 3 pts. N. Peterson. In the past thirty years, disciplines across the social sciences and humanities -- from philosophy to history to sociology to political science to geography to cultural studies -- have undergone a "greening" as the social aspects of nature have come to be seen as a legitimate, even sexy subject of scholarly investigation. In a very real sense, anthropology has always been environmental. Given nature's tremendous capacity to shape nearly every facet of our existence, both physiological and cultural, the self-proclaimed "science of humanity" could hardly be otherwise. This course provides a critical introduction to environmental anthropology, beginning with a brief exploration of its historical roots and examining its various iterations (including cultural, historical, and human ecology) but concentrating especially upon anthropology's contributions to the interdisciplinary field of political ecology, with a particular emphasis on issues of environmental justice. Although the readings for the course are discipline-specific, I will attempt to contextualize the anthropological take on particular environmental topics within the broader cross-disciplinary framework noted above in lectures and class discussions.

ANTH V3005x Africa: Culture and Society. 3 pts. B. Larkin. This class examines the social, cultural and political life of African postcolonies. Drawing on a wide range of disciplines it examines the political and cultural forces that condition the everyday experience of contemporary Africans.

ANTH V3040x Anthropological Theory I. 4 pts. L. Sharp. Prerequisite: an introductory course in anthropology. Institutions of social life. Kinship and locality in the structuring of society. Monographs dealing with both literate and nonliterate societies will be discussed in the context of anthropological fieldwork methods. (Open to anth majors only; others require advanced permission of the instructor)

ANTH V3090x Introduction to Native American Studies: Indigenous North America from 1871 to the Present. 3 pts. A. Simpson. This course engages the ways in which the late period of “settlement” in North America relies upon particular forms of knowledge, history-making, law-making and symbolic representation. What are the contemporary implications of this period for Native peoples today? And how do the logics that made settlement “make sense” live within the present?Central to understanding these efforts at history-making is the mastery of concepts that govern the interpretation of the past. Among these critical concepts are the notions of “savagery”, of “civilization”, “property” and “ownership.”These concepts are embedded within the practices of militarism, policy, law and representation-making that work in concert to make Indigeneity in North America known, managed, resisted and expressed in certain ways. Enrollment limited to 50.

ANTH V3440x. US Cities in Transition. 3 pts. C. Fennell. This course will develop practical inroads into the problem of the transitioning American (U.S.) city that will both complement and complicate commonplace intuitions about the urban change we witness unfolding around us. Readings and primary material stay close to anthropological and ethnographic perspectives. We will consider how focusing on the meaning and experience of everyday life in changing urban spaces can problematize ideals associated with contemporary urban living, including various forms of diversity, residential-based social connection and democratic citizenship. Additional readings introduce students to analytical perspectives on multiculturalism, spatial experience and the public sphere. Taken together, readings, case studies, primary materials and discussions will equip students with the tools necessary to approach contemporary urban change with an anthropological lens.  "Preference given to CSER and ANTHRO students who were in their second and third years" Enrollment limited to 20

BC3871x Senior Thesis Seminar I. B. Larkin. Please note: this course is intended for--and required of-- Barnard seniors. Discussion of research methods and planning and writing of a senior essay accompanies research on problems of interest to students, culminating in the writing of individual senior essays. The advisory system requires periodic consultation and discussion between the student and the adviser as well as the meeting of specific deadlines set by the department. Instructor's Permission Required.

ANTH V3882x Politics of Sensibility and the Sensory Order. 3 pts. A. Heo. This course explores how corporal senses (e.g. of touch, vision, smell listening) are formed through various sociocultural practices which render bodies, objects, and media part of a word ‘sensible.’ Upper-division seminar. Open to advanced undergraduates. Enrollment is limited to 20 students.

ANTH V3917x Urban Guerrillas: The Anthropology of Political Resistance. 4 pts. N. Panourgia. Started in antiquity, practiced as ideology in the 19th century, but acquiring a discourse in the 1960s, urban guerrilla movements became emblematic of political praxis of the youth. In this course we will address issues that are to do first with the conceptualization of youth as a category, the political and cultural movements that made such a conceptualization possible, the ideologies that inform such political action, and the development of these ideologies as youth become middle-aged. Material drawn from literature, political theory, anthropology from Europe (Greece, France, Germany, Spain, UK, Italy), Latin America (Chile, Argentina, Guatemala, Peru), the Middle East, and the current international anti-globalization movement.

ANTH V3921x Anticolonialism. 3 pts. D. Scott. Through a careful exploration of the argument and style of three vivid anticolonial texts, C.L.R. James' The Black Jacobins, Aimé Césaire's Discourse on Colonialism, Albert Memmi's Colonizer and Colonized, and Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth, this course aims to inquire into the construction of the image of colonialism and its projected aftermaths established in anti-colonial discourse. Enrollment limit 20.

ANTH V3937x Mass-Mediations of Modernity. 4 pts. R. Morris.Prerequisites: at least one course in anthropology or social theory. T 2:10-4:00. How do new media technologies affect social worlds? What is the relationship between mass mediation and modernity? Explores the force of media technology, its relationship to transnational forms of capital, to the development of new subjectivities, and to the rise of new networks of power and social relations.

ANTH V3966x Culture, Mental Health and Clinical Practice. 4 pts. K. Seeley. This course considers mental disturbance and its relief by examining historical, anthropological, psychoanalytic and psychiatric notions of self, suffering, and cure.After exploring the ways in which conceptions of mental suffering and abnormality are produced, we look at specific kinds of psychic disturbances and at various methods for their alleviation. Course is limited to 20 + Inst. Permission is required.Seniors and Juniors.

ANTH V3969x Specters of Culture. 4 pts. J. Pemberton.This course pursues the spectral effects of culture in the modern.Through a consideration of anthropologically significant, primarily nonwestern sites and various domains of social creation--performance, ritual practice, narrative production, technological invention--we will trace the ghostly remainders of cultural machineries, circuitries of voice, and representational forms crucial to modern discourse networks.Instructor’s permission required.

ANTH V3973x Environmental and Development. 4 pts. N. Peterson. This course examines how economic development and environmental conservation have become different means for valuing nature and natural resources. Both of these have sometimes altered and sometimes reinforced inequalities across local, national, and international scales. In this course, students will be asked to think critically about the relationships between global commodities, natural resources management, development organizations, and local ideas about these. Requirements: Junior standing or higher or permission of the professor.

ANTH V3974x Lost Worlds, Secret Spaces: Modernity and the Child. 4 pts. M. Ivy. Examines how bodies become mechanized and machines embodied. Studies shifts in the status of the human under conditions of capitalist commodification and mass mediation. Readings consist of works on the fetish, repetition and automaticity, reification and late modern technoprosthesis. Permission of Instructor required.

ANTH W3997x Supervised Individual Research Course In Anthropology. 2-6 pts. ITBA. Prerequisite: the written permission of the staff member under whose supervision the research will be conducted. This permission is to be filed with the College secretary in 452 Schermerhorn Extension.

ANTH V3999x Honors Seminar in Anthropology. 4 pts. E. Combs-Schilling. This is a seminar at which senior anthropology majors will develop a research project and write a thesis in consultation with a professor. Students must have at least a 3.6 GPA in the major and a preliminary project concept.

ANTH W4480x Critical Native and Indigenous Studies. 3 pts. A. Simpson.This course is an interdisciplinary survey of the literature and issues that comprise Native American and Indigenous Studies. Readings for this course are organized around the concepts of indigeneity, coloniality, power and "resistance" and concomitantly interrogate these concepts for social and cultural analysis. The syllabus is derived from some of the "classic" and canonical works in Native American Studies such as Custer Died for Your Sins but will also require an engagement with less canonical works such as Red Man's Appeal to Justice in addition to historical, ethnographic and theoretical contributions from scholars that work outside of Native American and Indigenous Studies. This course is open to graduate students and advanced undergraduates.

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Archaeology

ANTH V1007x The Origins of Human Society.3 pts. K. Fewster. An archaeological perspective on the evolution of human social life from the first bipedal step of our ape ancestors to the establishment of large sedentary villages. While traversing six million years and six continents, our explorations will lead us to consider such major issues as the development of human sexuality, the origin of language, the birth of "art" and religion, the domestication of plants and animals, and the foundations of social inequality. Designed for anyone who happens to be human.($10.00 Lab Fee Mandatory)

ANTH V2040x Hunter-Gatherers: Presents, Pasts and Possible Futures. K. Fewster. 3 pts. Hunting and gathering has been identified as the strategy of subsistence at the time fully modern humans emerged, according to analogy with similar groups found today from the semi-deserts of southern Africa to the frozen plains of Antarctica. The apparent temporal duration and geographical extension of this mode of life suggests that it is one of the most successful economic means by which human beings have lived their lives. There would seem, therefore, to be some merit in studying hunter-gatherers as a group. But to what extent can human societies be compared in the present, the past, and possibly the future, on the basis of their subsistence alone?

ANTH V3064x Death and the Body. 3 pts. M. Linn This class explores the ways in which archaeologists use the dead body to explore past beliefs and social practices, critically assessing these approaches from the broader perspective of anthropological and sociological theories of the body's production and constitution. We'll look at the ways in which social status, gender and personhood are expressed through the dead body and through practices of body modification and display. In this context we'll also consider the social relations of archaeological exhumation, the conflict that can arise over the excavation of human remains, and their treatment as courtroom evidence in forensic archaeology. ($10.00 Lab Fee Mandatory)

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Biological/Physical Anthropology

ANTH V3970x Biological Basis of Human Variation. 4 pts. R. Holloway. Biological evidence for the modern human diversity at the molecular, phenotypical, and behavioral levels, as distributed geographically. Prerequisites: ANEB V1010 and permission of the instructor. Enrollment limit is 15.

ANTH G4147x Human Skeletal Biology I. 3 pts. R. Holloway. Prerequisites: Recommended for archaeology, physical anthropology, premedical, and biology students interested in the human skeletal system. Intensive study of human skeletal materials, using anatomical and anthropological landmarks to assess sex, age, and ethnicity of the bones. Other primate skeletal material and fossil casts are used for comparative study. Instructor’s permission required. Enrollment limited to 12.

Of Related Interest

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