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251 - 260 of 446 results for: ANTHRO


Last offered: Winter 2014


Terms: Aut | Units: 3-5
Instructors: Seetah, K. (PI)

ANTHRO 215B: Peoples and Cultures of Ancient Mesoamerica (ANTHRO 115B)

This course engages with the world of ancient Mesoamerica, focusing on the Mixtec, Aztec, Maya, Zapotec, Chichimec, Olmec, and Teotihuacan peoples. We address how questions about the past are framed through ethnographic and ethnohistoric accounts of daily life, how diverse scientific methods and theoretical perspectives are used to address these questions, how interpretations of daily life in the ancient Mesoamerican world are formulated, and how these interpretations are marshaled in contemporary politics and policies. We explore different scales of Mesoamerican communities, and compare the diverse material culture and lifeways represented in Mesoamerica at different time periods. Students will create interpretive frameworks for a public audience as a component of the final project.
Last offered: Spring 2014

ANTHRO 216: Data Analysis for Quantitative Research (ANTHRO 116)

Last offered: Winter 2013

ANTHRO 216B: Anthropology of the Environment (ANTHRO 116B)

Terms: Spr | Units: 5
Instructors: Bauer, A. (PI)

ANTHRO 217: Thinking Through Animals (ANTHRO 117)

The human-animal relationship is dynamic, all encompassing and durable. Without exception, all socio-cultural groups have evidenced complex interactions with the animals around them, both domesticated and wild. However, the individual circumstances of these interactions are hugely complicated, and involve much more than direct human-animal contact, going far beyond this to incorporate social, ecological and spiritual contexts. This course delves into this complexity, covering the gamut of social roles played by animals, as well as the methods and approaches to studying these, both traditional and scientific. While the notion of `animals as social actors¿ is well acknowledged, their use as proxies for human autecology (the relationship between a species and its environment) is also increasingly recognised as a viable mechanism for understanding our cultural and economic past. The module presents an overview covering a broad timespan from the Pleistocene to the modern day. It will piece together the breadth of human-animal relationships using a wide geographic range of case studies.
Last offered: Winter 2014

ANTHRO 217A: Stuff (ANTHRO 117A, ARCHLGY 117A)

Never before have humans been engulfed by so much stuff. Stuff is needed to survive giving us the basics of food, clothing, and shelter. But stuff does so much more. Smart phones rule our social interactions. Louis Vuitton handbags display status. Air conditioning masters nature. Picassos inspire beauty. Wedding bands promise eternal love. Crosses connect believers to God. Is stuff really who we are? This seminar explores the science of stuff, past, present and future, investigating deeply-held beliefs about the meaning, value, and purpose of objects. Because our stuff has become such a popular obsession, this course embraces the eclectic intersection of popular and academic knowledge. Students will seek to answer the complex whys of our relationship with objects and understand our future human condition made by the material world.
Last offered: Spring 2017

ANTHRO 217B: Monuments and Landscapes: An Archaeological Perspective (ANTHRO 117B, ARCHLGY 117B)

The landscape is a result of the action and interaction of human and natural factors. Communities have altered their landscapes for a variety of reasons, including the subsistence practices; as a consequence of economic growth; to express a social ideology, and as a consequence of political and religious drivers. Accordingly, landscapes enable physical and provide psychological sustenance to people, and the human need to relate to our surroundings is part of the way in which identities are created and disputed. Within the humanities, landscape is being conceptualized as a process, a practice and as performance, and monuments within a given landscape have an equally important role, not to mention history. They are often the most durable and well-known evidence of the ancient civilizations, and should be observed jointly with the landscape. How did the landscape predefine the monument and how did the monument complement, emphasize or devalue the landscape? What philosophy channeled the construction of the monuments within the landscapes? Whether ephemeral or permanent, the human agency left traces in the landscape; thus, both monuments and landscapes are the key indicators for understanding the ideology of a particular culture. Archaeology, through its interdisciplinary nature, provides a unique perspective, as well as tools, for examining the formation processes of all man-made elements, within both natural and cultural landscapes. nnThe course will address the multifaceted issues of the ways that people have consciously and unconsciously shaped the land around them through time. It will look into diverse, geographically and periodically influenced concepts of a monument and landscape. The course will be divided into two parts, with the first one covering the theory and methodological approaches and the second part the conceptual characteristics, modifications and changeability in various archaeological and historical periods and cultural frameworks.
Last offered: Spring 2016


Terms: Win | Units: 5
Instructors: Seetah, K. (PI)

ANTHRO 221: Language and Prehistory (ANTHRO 121)

Language classification and its implications for human prehistory. The role of linguistic data in analyzing prehistoric populations, cultures, contact, and migrations. Comparison of linguistic and biological classifications. Reconstruction, proto-vocabularies, and culture. Archaeological decipherment and the origins and evolution of writing. Archaeological and genetic evidence for human migrations. (DA-A; HEF II,III)
Last offered: Winter 2016
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