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Graduate Concentrations
THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF MEANING
This concentration focuses on the generation of meaning in both individual and social life, considered dialectically. Topics include thought, aesthetics, symbolism, and experience; cultural psychological, cognitive, and phenomenological anthropology; and ethnography as an interpretive endeavor. Considerable freedom is given the student to pursue his or her own interest within the context of an advisory committee. Intellectual community is facilitated through an ongoing seminar in which all program students and faculty participate. Interdisciplinary links include the Departments of Art, Folklore, Psychology, and Religion, and the School of Medicine.
Courses in Anthropology currently offered within this concentration
include:
105 Anthropology of the South
121 Culture and Personality
122 Cultural Anthropology
123 Magic, Ritual, and Belief
125 Emotions and Society
129 Culture and Power in Southeast Asia (ASIA 129, Folklore 129)
130 Native North American Cultures (Folklore 130)
134 Art, Myth, and Nature: Cross-Cultural Perspectives
135 Consciousness and Symbols
137 Gender and Performance
138 Landscape and Spatial Anthropology
141 Anthropology of Gender, Health and Illness
142 Religion and Anthropology
145 Politics of Culture in East Asia
146 Introduction to Folklore
154 Environmental Consciousness and Action
166 Kinship, Reproduction, Reproduc Technology and the New Genetics
167 Anthropology of Space and Power
169 History and Anthropology
170 Medicine and Anthropology
173 Anthropology of the Body and the Subject
174 Chinese World Views
176 Self and Other in the Ethnographic Encounter
184 Language and Culture
185 Anthropology of Science
188 Observation and Interpretation of Religious Action
196 Gardens, Shrines and Temples of Japan
217 Advanced Studies in Art and Archiculture
240 Power
250 Seminar in Medical Anthropology
252 Transcultural Psychiatry
254 Phenomenological Anthropology
256 Evolution of Human Cognition
259 Social Formation of Mind310 Seminar in the Anthropology of Meaning
The 327 and 328 course numbers are used for teaching specialized seminars on a flexible basis. Recent titles relevant to this concentration include:
- Us Theory and Ethnography in Crisis
- Development, Modernity, and New Technologies
- Fictions of Gender
ARCHAEOLOGY, ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
This concentration brings together faculty, research, and courses which examine the ecological and evolutionary processes affecting human populations in the present and in the historic and prehistoric past. It provides the opportunity to develop scholarly interests in the interrelated areas of human ecology and evolution, ethnohistory, ethnobotany, and archaeology.
Faculty participating in this concentration share interests in diachronic interpretation of human culture, society, and livelihood, often from a biocultural, material, or ecological perspective. Topics of special interest include agricultural and state origins, sociocultural and biological evolution, the use of ethnographic and ethnohistoric materials in archaeological study, and ecological adaptations of foragers and food producers. This concentration emphasizes the development of theory, concepts and methods through the practice of ethnographic and archaeological fieldwork, primarily in Europe and the Americas.
Students who work in this concentration must take at least three courses from the following list, as well as the area course required of each concentration. Additional coursework and individualized study or field experience are designed in consultation with the student's faculty advisors to provide a secure foundation in theory and methods as well as specialized knowledge of an area or topic required for the Ph.D. degree. Students are encouraged to seek interdisciplinary skills by taking courses in related subjects (e.g., geography, ecology, anatomy, biology, and statistics), and to develop their research abilities through use of the laboratories and computer facilities maintained by the Department of Anthropology and the Research Laboratories of Anthropology.
Courses in Anthropology currently offered within this concentration include:
110 Principles of Archaeology
111 Laboratory Methods of Archaeology
111A Laboratory Methods in Archaeobotany
111B Zooarchaeology
111C Laboratory Methods: Lithic Seminar
112 Human Origins
114 Human Osteology
115 Human Genetics and Evolution
116 Primate Social Behavior
117 Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Adaptation and Behavior
131 Archaeology of South America
139 Environmental Anthropology
150 Archaeology of North American Indians
151 Field School in Archaeology
152 Prehistoric Foodways
153 Field School in South American Archaeology
156 Archaeology and Ethnography of Small-Scale Societies
158 Archaeology of Sex and Gender
160 Historical Ecology
220 Seminar in Archaeological Theory
222 Research Methods in Archaeology
255 Seminar in Cultural Ecology and Population
256 Evolution of Human Cognition
271 Archaeological Theory
260 Seminar in Human Evolutionary Ecology
266 Seminar in Ethnobotany
327 Seminar in Selected Topics (Fall)
328 Seminar in Selected Topics (Spring)
The 327 and 328 course numbers (with various section numbers assigned to individual faculty) are used for teaching specialized seminars on a flexible basis. Recent titles which would be relevant to this concentration include:
- Household Archaeology
- New World Chiefdoms and States
- Hunters and Gatherers
SOCIAL SYSTEMS
This concentration focuses on the social nature of human experience, and the structure and dynamics of social organization. It is intended for students who wish to focus on such topics as sex roles, family organization, kinship, political anthropology, economic anthropology, urban anthropology, and comparative social organization. It offers students the opportunity to develop a critical appreciation of major theoretical approaches, familiarity with a variety of comparative analytical strategies, and intensive knowledge of relevant ethnographic data.
The orientations of participating faculty members are marked by common interests in questions of social process and change, comparative analysis, and the dialectical relationships between social organization and ecological and symbolic patterns.
Students working in this concentration are expected to take at least three courses from the following list, and through this coursework, individual readings, and other seminars approved by the students' committees, to achieve an advanced understanding of the structure and dynamics of their selected topics, both synchronically and diachronically, on several levels: e.g., domestic, local (or municipal), regional, subcultural, and macro-cultural (or national).
Students working in the Social Systems Concentration are also required to take two ethnographic area courses in order to acquire a comparative data base, cross-cultural perspective, and knowledge of the relationship between theoretical developments and data which are prerequisite for professional competence in sociocultural anthropology. One of these area courses (either a regularly offered course or specially designed reading and research) must be on the ethnographic area in which the student plans to do Ph.D. fieldwork.
Courses in Anthropology currently offered within this concentration include:
119 Global Health
120 Culture Change and Under-developed Areas
122 Anthropology of Human Rights
124 Law, Culture, and Society
127 Aboriginal Cultures of Mexico and Central America (Folklore 127)
129 Culture and Power in Southeast Asia
130 Native North American Cultures
137 Gender and Performance
140 Gender and Culture
141 Anthropology of Gender, Health and Illness
145 Politics of Culture in East Asia
148 Anthropology and Public Interest
149 Anthropology and Marxism
154 Environmental Consciousness and Action
155 Ethnohistory 165 Economic Anthropology
166 Kinship, Reproduction, Reproductive Technology, & the New Genetics
167 Anthropology of Space and Power
168 State Formation
170 Medicine and Anthropology
177 European Societies
178 Chinese Diaspora in the Asia Pacific
182 Contemporary Chinese Society
185 Anthropology of Science
186 Schooling and Diversity: Anthropological Perspectives
197 Ethnography and Culture After Empire
215 Feminism and Society
224 Seminar in Anthropology and Cybernetics
240 Power
244 Seminar in Ethnicity and Cultural Boundaries
249 Studies in Cultural Production
250 Seminar in Medical Anthropology
253 Gender, Sickness, and Society
265 Seminar in the Anthropology of Law
The 327 and 328 course numbers are used for teaching specialized seminars on a flexible basis. Recent titles relevant to this concentration include:
- Public Academics
- Transnationalism
- Politics of Nature