DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY Course Descriptions Autumn 2007

20405/30405. Anthropology of Dis/ability (=MAPS 36900, SOSC 36900, HUDV 30405)  This seminar undertakes to explore "dis/ability" from an anthropological perspective that recognizes it as a socially constructed concept with implications for our understanding of fundamental issues about culture, society, and individual differences. The course will explore a wide range of theoretical, legal, ethical and policy issues as they relate to the experiences of persons with disabilities, their families, and advocates. At the conclusion of the course, participants will make presentation on fieldwork projects conducted during the quarter. M. Fred. Thurs 3:00-5:50

20701-20702. Introduction to African Civilization I, II. (=AFAM 20701-20702, HIST 10101-10102, HUDV 21401 [II], SOSC 22500-22600]) General education social science sequence recommended. This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. African Civilization introduces students to African history in a two-quarter sequence.  Part One shows how literary, oral, and archeological sources can be used to investigate African societies and states from the early iron age through the emergence of the Atlantic World:  cases studies include the empires of Ghana and Mali, and Great Zimbabwe.  The course also treats the diffusion of Islam, the origins and effects of European contact, and the trans-Atlantic slave trade.  Part Two of the sequence surveys 1800 through the 1990s and examines processes of colonization, transformations in Africa in the period of colonial rule, decolonization, and society and culture in contemporary Africa. Sources include historical documents, novels, and film and music.  Themes of study include government and society under colonial rule; gender, sexuality, and family; nationalism and independence; urbanization; youth and popular culture; and civil society and conflict in contemporary Africa.  Regional cases to be studied include Mali, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Tanzania, Senegal, Rwanda and South Africa. Aut. Emily Osborn, Win. Rachel Jean-Baptiste.  MW 1:30-2:50

21418.  Practice of Anthropology: Anthropological Perspectives on Governance and the State. The government, the state and the law are often taken to be relatively straightforward empirical entities.  Yet social theorists and researchers have long disagreed about what the state is, how political power operates in people's lives, and how this all should best be studies.  With the rise of transnational forms of governance and the "War on Terror" these questions have taken on a new salience and many conventional theories of governance have come up for new scrutiny.  Engaging both classic and more recent ethnographic and theoretical writing, this course offers an introduction to the anthropology of modern and contemporary states and forms of governance.  What relationships exist or can exist between the state, civil society, and citizens in different parts of the world?  How is political power tied to violence, to resistance, to ethnic and other divisions, to culture, to economic forms, and to the consciousness of rulers and ruled?  How are contemporary forms of governance different from earlier forms and how might governance transform in the future?  How can we study ethnographically and speak meaningfully and comparatively about governance across enormous cultural and political divides?  While not providing a definitive answer to any of the above questions, through a thorough introduction to the anthropological literature on contemporary forms of governance and the state, this course will enable students to consider them from a critical and informed perspective. Sean Mitchell. TuTh 12:00-1:20

21421.  Practice of Anthropology: Anthropology of Media. Anthropologists have been relative latecomers to the study of mass media in society.  Yet research of the last twenty years has demonstrated that anthropology has much to contribute to academic understandings of media practices.  What happens when peoples who were typically the object of the camera lens begin to produce their own media representations?  Which understandings of "culture" are in play during the production of media?  How do media circulate and what sorts of meanings do they generate?  This course draws from ethnographic accounts of the production and consumption of media to address classic anthropological issues of representation, cultural production, social change, and circulation.  We will begin with an introduction to the language and theoretical approaches of how we might envision an anthropology of media and the ways that media production both reflects and produces culture.  We will then turn our attention to ethnographies of media practices in television, advertising, radio, and film to explore the use of media in producing spaces, national identity, and idealized audiences and consumers.  Jayson Beaster-Jones TuTh 1:30-2:50

21510/35110  Cultural Psychology (=HUDV 21000/31000, PSYC 2300/33000, HDCP 41050) There is a substantial portion of the psychological nature of human beings that is neither homogeneous nor fixed across time and space.  At the heart of the discipline of cultural psychology is the tenet of psychological pluralism, which states that the study of "normal" psychology is the study of multiple psychologies and not just the study of a single or uniform fundamental psychology for all peoples of the world.  Research findings in cultural psychology thus raise provocative questions about the integrity and value of alternative forms of subjectivity across cultural groups.  In this course we analyze the concept of "culture" and examine ethnic and cross-cultural variations in mental functioning with special attention to the cultural psychology of emotions, self, moral judgment, categorization and reasoning. R. Shweder.  TuTh 3:00-4:20

23101-23102-23103. Introduction to Latin American Civilization I, II, III. (=HIST 16101-16102-16103, LTAM 16100-16200-16300, LCAS 34600-34700-34800, SOSC 26100-26200-26300) PQ: May be taken in sequence or individually. This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. This course introduces the history and cultures of Latin America (e.g., Mexico, Central America, South America, Caribbean Islands).  Autumn Quarter examines the origins of civilizations in Latin America with a focus on the political, social, and cultural features of the major pre-Columbian civilizations of the Maya, Inca, and Aztec.  The quarter concludes with consideration of the Spanish and Portuguese conquest and the construction of colonial societies in Latin America.  Winter Quarter addresses the evolution of colonial societies, the wars of independence, and the emergence of Latin American nation-states in the changing international context of the nineteenth century.  Spring Quarter focuses on the twentieth century, with special emphasis on the challenges of economic, political, and social development in the region.  Autumn, Alan Kolata/Dain Borges. MWF 1:30-2:20.

23315.  Tourist Encounters, Tourist Spaces. (=INST 28100). The course examines tourism as a complex social setting in which a variety of encounters and exchanges occur.  Using case materials from Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe and the US, we will examine tourism through the lenses of culture, economics and the natural and built environments.  The course is organized to include both lecture and discussion formats and students will be expected to prepare course readings in advance and to engage course materials during class sessions. Among the topics we will consider are: tourism as a strategy for economic development; tourism in the context of local and global economic transformations; eco-tourism; new approaches to community-planned and alternative tourism; guided tours as competing efforts at place- and space-making; tourism as a context for cultural destruction or revitalization; and international art expos as a new context for tourism.  Johanna Schoss, TuTh 9:00-10:20

24300/40300. Medicine and Culture (=HiPSS 273). Class limited to fifty undergraduates, 15 graduate students. Diverse systems of thought and practice concerning health, illness, and the management of the body and person in everyday and ritual contexts are examined. This course seeks to develop a framework for studying the cultural and historical constitution of healing practices, especially the evolu­tion of Western biomedicine. Jean Comaroff. TuTh 10:30-11:50.

25710/35710.  Global Society and Global Culture: Paradigms of Social and Cultural Analysis (=SOCI 20169/30169). This course will introduce students to major theories of globalization and to core approaches to global society and global culture. We will discuss micro- and macroglobalization, cultural approaches to globalization, systems theory, discourse approaches and the strong program in globalization studies. Topics include a section on the ethnography of the global, empirical studies that illustrate the interest and feasibility of globalization studies and critical studies of dimensions of globalization. Karin Knorr Cetina. Mon 12:30-3:20

25910/35910.  Media and Popular Culture of the Middle East. What can we learn about the Middle East by examining practices of mediation and popular culture?  We will begin this course with a brief look at the politics of U.S. media on the Middle East, and then turn to an examination of various ethnographies of Middle East media that elucidate key issues of identity, selfhood, and social organization.  How do practices of media production, circulation, and consumption constitute fields of the nation, tradition, and religion in the Middle East? To what extent do media like television, music, or graffiti strengthen or contest concepts of national identity, local attachments to place, or regional solidarity?  How do media like fine art or journalism help people of the Middle East imagine their places in the world?  We will also analyze how smaller media can both play a role in political change and be a vehicle for self re-imagining. Students will analyze how anthropologists have studied media, view/hear key media texts, and engage in a participatory project on Middle Eastern media. Amahl Bishara. MW 1:30-2:50

26405/46405.  The Archaeology of Households.  Households constitute a fundamental building block of societies; they represent basic units in which "everyday" activities are carried out and negotiated.  This course introduces a broad range of issues and analytical perspectives concerning the archaeology of households.  The emphasis is on theoretical approaches and case studies more than particular methods, although the latter will receive some attention.  While intrasite studies will be emphasized, some regional analysis will also be discussed.  The course covers topics such as anthropology of houses, household production and consumption, social stratification, gender issues, symbolism of space, households as "houses" and habitus, communities, and households in a regional perspective.  Antonio Curet. Wed 9:30-12:20

26710/36710.  Ancient Landscapes-1: GIS and Landscapes (=NEAA 20061/30061; GEOG 25400/35400; ANST 22600).  This course, along with Ancient Landscapes II in the Winter Quarter, will expose students to numerous spatial theories underlying studies of ancient and historical landscapes.  It will also provide students with practical experience in the methodologies and GIS tools that can be used to collect and analyze spatial data within these landscapes.  As such it is relevant to anyone who wishes to analyze data about and within the landscape in their spatial and temporal contexts.  The course has both a classroom and a laboratory component.  The classroom component consists of lectures and discussions while the laboratory component will allow students to get involved applying the concepts discussed in class through the hands on use of GIS software.  That said, the course is not a simple introduction to GIS, but rather enables students to use GIS software for advanced analysis of landscapes. Scott Branting. TuTh 10:30-11:50.

26805/46805. Material Cultures. (Primarily a graduate course) This course explores recent efforts to theorize the materiality of human social, political, and cultural life.  We will draw broadly from contemporary works in archaeology, socio-cultural anthropology, art, social thought, media studies, and literary theory to piece together a sense of the analytic possibilities afforded by analytical engagement with the world of things.  We will take historical materialism and anthropological investigations of exchange as our points of departure, broadening our perspective to take in contemporary arguments for objects as constitutive elements of mind, affect, and order.  The goal of the course is to juxtapose the experience, perception, and imagination of materiality in order to re-structure critical anthropological problems.  As such, we will attempt to forge a more archaeological sense of anthropology and plot new possibilities for anthropological archaeology.  Prior experience with archaeological theory will be helpful. AT Smith. Wed 2:00-4:5027001-27002-

27003//37001-37002-37003. Introduction to Linguistics I, II, III (= LING 20100-20200-20300/30100-30200-30300, SOSC 21700-21800-21900). PQ: Must be taken in sequence. This course is an introductory survey of methods, findings, and problems in areas of major interest within lin¬guistics and of the relationship of linguistics to other disciplines. Topics include the biological basis of language, basic notions of syntax, semantics, pragmatics, basic syntactic typology of language, phonetics, phonology, morphology, language acquisition, linguistic variation, and linguistic change. Jerrold Sadock. TuTh 1:30-2:50

27130.   America: Society, Polity, Speech Community (=LING 27130). We explore the place of languages and of discourses about languages in the history and present condition of how American mass society stands in relation to the political structures of the North American (nation-)states and to American speech communities.  We address plurilingualisms of several different origins (indigenous; immigrant) that have bee incorporated into the contemporary American speech community; the social stratification of English in a regime of standardization that draws speakers up into a system of linguistic "register"; and how language itself has become an issue-focus of American political struggles In the past and contemporaneously. M. Silverstein. WedFri  9:30-11:20

27605/37605.  Language, Culture and Thought (=HUDV 21901/31900, PSYC 21950/31900).  This is a survey course exploring the role of natural language in shaping human thought.  The topic will be taken up at three levels:  semiotic-evolutionary (the role of natural language in enabling distinctively human forms of thinking - the rise of true concepts and self-consciousness), structural-comparative (the role of specific language codes in shaping habitual thought - the "linguistic relativity" of experience), and functional-discursive (the role of specialized discursive practices and linguistic ideologies in cultivating specialized forms of thought - the pragmatics, politics, and aesthetics of reason and expression).  Readings will be drawn from many disciplines but will emphasize developmental, cultural and critical approaches.  John Lucy. TuTh 1:30-2:50.

28705/48307.  Indian Ocean: Trade and Interactions.  This course offers a multi-disciplinary approach to studying one of the oldest forums for inter-continental trade and interactions: The Indian Ocean. This geographical entity has linked peoples of Africa, Europe and Asia through the exchange of technology, ideas, goods and peoples from the dawn of the first systematic inter-continental trade between the Bronze Age polities of Egypt, Mesopotamia and India-Pakistan, ca (4th millennium BC) to the present era.   The class has two objectives: a) to understand the nature of trade and exchange mechanisms in the Indian Ocean world from both temporal and spatial perspectives and, b) to underscore the interdependency between trade/exchange and political-economy, climate, society and history.   The required readings include works from various disciplines, including economics, history, political sciences, and geography as well as archaeology and cultural anthropology.  Students will be encouraged to add to the broader understanding of Indian Ocean trade provided by the course by undertaking a comparative research project that examines two periods, two areas or two processes within this larger interaction complex.
      The course is structured as a seminar rather than a lecture so you will be expected to come to class prepared to critique, argue, discuss and synthesize the material.  Though this topic is my particular research interest, many of the readings are recent, which means that I will be reading along with you.   My goal is to guide the ongoing discussion, to situate the discussion in a larger historical and/or anthropological context.  C. Kusimba. Time TBA - 1 day a week, 3 hrs.

29700. Readings in Anthropology. PQ: Consent of instructor and program chairman. Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form. At the discretion of the instructor, this course is available for either Pass or letter grading. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.

29900. Preparation of Bachelor's Essay. PQ: Consent of instructor and program chairman. Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form. At the discretion of the instructor, this course is available for either Pass or letter grading. For honors requirements, consult the honors section under Program Requirements. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.

33101-33102.  Native Peoples of North America I, II (=CHDV 33101) Must be taken in sequence. This course is a comprehensive review of Native American cultural history, including consideration of intellectual context, prehistory, ethnology, history, and the contemporary situation. The last half of the third quarter is devoted to a mutually agreed-on topic in which stu­dents pursue individual research, the results of which are presented in semi­nar format. R. Fogelson.  TuTh 10:30-11:50

34000. Introduction to Chicago Anthropology. PQ:  Open only to first-year Anthropology graduate students. An introduction to the current faculty of the Department of Anthropology, their intellectual genealogies, and their current work.  Staff. WedFri+some Mondays  12-1:20. Haskell 315.

34101-02. Development of Social/Cultural Theory-I (200 units) PQ: Open only to first-year Anthropology graduate students.  The task of an anthropologist is arguably quite straightforward: (1) be interested in what the people one is studying are interested in, (2) contextualize, and (3) take nothing for granted, including context.  But when one realizes that what one must contextualize, and not take for granted, are the very lenses through which one perceives and analyzes the world, this task becomes considerably more daunting.  In this course, we will take some first steps towards an exploration of some of the equipment anthropologists have used, more or less self-consciously, in their efforts to understand socio-cultural universes of varying scales and sorts.  We will be taking as our focus a central problem in the prehistory of contemporary anthropology, as well as our current global predicament:  the relationship between theology and social theory, and religious and secular perspectives, more generally.  Calling into question conventional accounts of the Enlightenment as a sheer break from a bad old religious past, we will track social theory's debts and deviations from theological accounts of central themes in our discipline.  Our goal is not simply to gain an awareness of the genealogy of some of anthropology's key presumptions, as they came into being in opposition to and in dialogue with religious standpoints, but also to develop new tools and ethical standpoints for anthropological analysis at a time when both religion and secularism have become problematic terms.     D. Rutherford. TuTh 1:30-4:20.  Haskell 315.

34814.  Anthropology and Literature: World Poetry (=SCTH 32720). This course will explore fundamentals of poetry and poetics on a world basis: the music of language, theory of tropes, poetry and myth, linguistic-poetic relativism, the unique individual, sociopolitical context, the moral intention of the poet, metaphysical questions, and so forth.  The four poetic worlds to be central this year are: T'ang Chinese (e.g., Tu Fu), Russian (i.e., Pushkin), native American (e.g. Quechua, Eskimo), and three American poets (Dickenson, Frost, Hughes).  Brief introductions to other poetic worlds (e.g., Villon, Baudelaire, haiku).  Texts to be used in part:  J. Rothenburg's Technicians of the Sacred, E. Weinberger's Anthropology of Classic Chinese Poetry. P. Friedrich. Thurs 9:30-12:20. Open to undergraduates.

34816. Anthropology and Literature: Pushkin and Eugene Onegin (=SCTH 32920). Eugene Onegin, the masterpiece by Russia's great poet, Aleksander Pushkin, weaves together many diverse strands, including folklore and high society, dreams and dance, two love stories, jealousy and loss, ethnography and psychology (female and male), questions of aesthetics and poetic form, and basic values (e.g., honor and shame) -- all integrated with classic symmetry and Romantic élan.  Eugene Onegin inspired Tchaikovsky's opera (which we will sample) and is a subtext in Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace.   One book per week with some consideration of Russian society and politics in Pushkin's time, of his major contemporaries (e.g., Lermontov), of foreign connections, and of the universalist issues named above.  A mix of lectures and discussion.  Reading knowledge of Russian would be helpful but is not necessary; we will use the translations by W. Arndt, J. Falen, and V. Nabokov  P. Friedrich. Tues 9:30-12:20. Open to undergraduates.

37201. Language in Culture I (LING 3110, Psych 47001).  Must be taken in sequence.  This is a two-quarter sequence to introduce some of the central theoretical issues involved in the semiotic, cognitive and sociopolitical study of language in its contexts of communicative "use."  By developing and using semiotic concepts, the first quarter concentrates on two major problems that organize a vast literature and diverse theoretical approaches.  The first problem is to understand interpersonal communication is carried on in-and-by the medium of language.   Such communication manifests itself both in an orderly, or at least ‘(non-in)coherent' unfolding of information and in the structured and culturally consequential social action that is accomplished in-and-by that unfolding.  The second problem is to understand how language is a medium of and factor in so-called ‘conceptual' representations or mental "knowledge."  There are various sources of such knowledge ‘coded' in the forms of language, and this diversity reveals the modes of semiosis of which language is composed at its various planes.  We concentrate in particular on the semiotic characterization of dialectially emergent "cultural knowledge" or "cultural conceptualization,"  the nature of which is a current research frontier between social and cognitive sciences, between modernist and post-modernist humanities. Robin Shoaps. TuTh 10:30-11:50

37701. Phonetics (= LING 20600/30600). PQ: Ling 201, 202, or 203; or consent of instructor. This is an introduction to the study of speech sounds. Speech sounds are described with respect to their articulatory, acoustic, and perceptual structures. There are lab exercises both in phonetic transcription and in the acoustic analysis of speech sounds. A. Yu. MW  1:30-2:50.

37801. Syntax I (=LING 20400/30400). PQ: Ling 201, 202, or 203; or equivalent. This course is devoted to detailed study of the major syntactic phenomena of English, combined with exposition and critical evaluation of the principal accounts of phenomena proposed by transformational gram­marians and the theoretical frameworks within which those accounts are developed. Class discussion focuses on ideas advanced in or arising out of transformational grammar with regard to the relation between syntax and semantics and the psychological status of linguistic analyses. J. Merchant. TuTh 10:30-11:50

42500.  Anthropology of the Afro-Atlantic World.  Although originally pioneered, more than three generations ago, by scholars and critics such as C.L.R. James, Eric Williams, W.E.B. DuBois, or Walter Rodney, conceptions of an "Atlantic World" have only recently come to prominence in Anthropology. In  the past decade, however, students of Africa and the Americas have increasingly begun to phrase their inquiries in terms transcending entrenched geographical divisions of labor within the social sciences, aiming to include Africa, the Americas, and, to a certain extent, Europe into a single analytic field. Parts of this course will be devoted to a concise introduction to some of the major theoretical positions within, and controversies surrounding the new "Atlantic" anthropology of Africa and its New World diasporas. After this, we will examine a number of recent monographs and/or major articles exemplifying the promises and pitfalls of  theoretical conceptions and methodological procedures that attempt to go beyond mere transregional comparison or linear historical narratives about "African influences", and aim at analytically situating specific ethnographic or historical scenarios within integrated perspectives on an "Afro-Atlantic World".  S. Palmié.  Tues 12:00-2:50

43405. Global Ethnography (=SOCI 40150). PQ Introduction to ethnography or qualitative methods. Ethnography has long been successfully applied to local cultures and communities, to microsocial situations and even at times to national settings. In this class, we start from the global; we explore how ethnography can be extended to global structures, processes, sites and questions. We will first examine and discuss the kind of structures and elements that "belong to" global society and global culture. Course work will then be built around studies that focus on particular domains in which these structures and elements are exhibited. In the process, we review different ethnography-based methodological perspectives such as grounded theory, ethnomethodology, discourse analysis, phenomenological ethnography and performance ethnography. Students with a strong interest in theories of globalization may consider also taking the class on Global Society and Global Culture: Paradigms of Social and Cultural Analysis (F 07).  K. Knorr Cetina. Tues 9:00-11:50

43600.  Locating the Anthropology of the US.  PQ  Open to anthropology graduate students; others may enroll with permission of instructor.  This seminar focuses on recent and classical ethnographies, along with reflections on the field, to query anthropological analysis of the United States. In doing so, we explore the epistemological and cultural geographical foundations and possible futures of the discipline. This course is designed for students with active ethnographic research interests.J. Cattelino. Wed 1:30-4:20

48100. Advanced Problems in Paleoanthropology (=EVOL 48100). This course includes tutorial museum, laboratory, and field studies on the hom­inoid fossil record and contextual information relevant to its interpretation. R. Tuttle. Autumn, Winter, Spring. Annually.

48500. Advanced Problems in Primate Locomotion and Comparative Morphology (=EVOL 48500). This course is a seminar and/or laboratory study of the morphological and behavioral adaptations of selected primates and implications for primate phylogeny. R. Tuttle. Autumn, Winter, Spring. Annually.

52200.   Proposal Preparation.  (PQ: Open only to anthropology graduate students preparing for field work) This is a required course for (primarily third-year) graduate students who are preparing field work grant applications and dissertation proposal during the current academic year.  The course is taken pass/fail and provides each student the opportunity to present a pre-circulated draft research proposal for discussion and critique.  The course focuses on preparation and discussion of students' draft proposals.  Susan Gal. Thurs. 1:30-4:20

52500.  Interpretation of Ritual. (=HREL 41600, AASR 41600).  B. Lincoln. TuTh 1:30-2:50

52805. Colloquium: Gender in Europe (=Hist 53301, GNDR 53300). The seminar will discuss current theories of gender as they illuminate and are challenged by contemporary and historical visions of gender relations and gender politics across the European continent. Topics to be covered include:  Practices and regulation of sexuality and reproduction (gay marriage, marriage as migration strategy, birth control, abortion, medically-assisted reproduction, adoption); the gendering of politics (national and supranational governmental institutions, NGOs, grass-roots organizations); religion; and, changes in labor force participation and the structuring of the workplace.  In all the cases the implications of post-coloniality and the expanding European union for gender will be considered. Comparisons, circulations and contrasts along an east/west and north/south axis will be of continuing interest; we will focus on material as well as discursive cultural practices and their semiotic ordering.   S. Gal, L. Auslander. Tues 9:00-11:50.

53701.  The 21st Century: Law and Disorder in the Postcolony.  A course sponsored by the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory. (Limit: 25 graduate students, no auditors. Preference for students from doctoral departments) Postcolonial and post-totalitarian polities across the world appear to be caught in a pervasive paradox. On one hand, they manifest a pronounced faith in the law, in the capacity of the constitution and litigation, to produce social order amidst radical economic, political, and ideological change. Indeed, it might be argued that political processes are increasingly being displaced into the legal arena. On the other hand, postocolonial polities are haunted by a metaphysics of disorder: by the collapse of the Weberian ideal of the state in the face of apparently uncontrollable violence and unpoliceable crime and by the sheer difficulty of imagining a politics adequate to the present global moment. How might we understand the co-presence of these two things, the fetishism of the law and the metaphysics of disorder? And why has the growth of democratic institutions across the world been accompanied by a dramatic expansion of more-or-less organized, increasingly violent crime? What general theoretical issues do these questions raise for an understanding of the Twenty-first Century?
Jean & John Comaroff.  Tues. 3:00-5:50. Wilder House.

57712.  LingAnthSem: Ethnographic Lexicography.     Michael Silverstein. TBA