DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY Course Descriptions Autumn 2008

20405/30405. Anthropology of Dis/ability (=MAPS 36900, SOSC 36900, CHDV 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

21105.  Classical Readings in Anthropology: Foundational Concepts in the Anthropology of Religion: Animism, Totemism, Shamanism.  Raymond Fogelson, . TuTh 3:00-4:20.

21256. Intensive Study of a Culture: Northern Mexico and the Border (LACS 21256). As the US-Mexico border has become a focus of national attention, it has often been portrayed as out of control, unsecured, the site of an "invasion," where obscure and threatening forces penetrate the US.  We will consider the formation of the border in historical context and ponder its function vis-à-vis US and Mexican national identities, state consolidation, and flows of labor and capital-though with particular emphasis on changing social forms on the Mexican side.  As we read historical and ethnographic (and other) accounts of the border, we will draw on an assortment of classic anthropological and social-theoretical approaches to the nation, the state, domination, identity, and boundaries.  We will examine: 1. the formation of the border in the 19th century, 2. bureaucracy and border policing, 3. identity and built environment in today's border cities, and 4. the maquiladora or assembly-plant industry.  Reading across these disparate literatures, we will draw connections between them even as we question the coherence of "the border" as a place and attempt to grasp its socially constituted nature.  Rihan Yeh. MonWed 3:00-4:20

21257.  Intensive Study of a Culture: Jazz Music in American Culture. (PQ Anthropology majors only.)  This course is an in-depth introduction to the cultural history of jazz music in American culture, examined through the lens of a number of key cultural themes that have mediated the way jazz music has been imagined and approached both in popular and scholarly discourse throughout the 20th century. We will explore how jazz has been experienced and perceived as both a local and global, commodified and autonomous, highbrow and lowbrow art form. Tensions between notions of music orality and literacy, merging and separation of composition and execution in musical practice, and formal and informal artistic socialization have also contributed to the complex status of jazz. The course draws upon anthropological and ethnomusicological writings in order to understand the often ambiguous position of jazz music in American culture with respect to key notions about art and aesthetics in the United States. Eitan Wilf. TuTh 12:00-1:20.

21308. Modern Readings in Archaeological Theory.  Since 1950, archaeology has undergone a series of wrenching intellectual transformations that have shaped and reshaped the field's intellectual agenda, its relationship with anthropology, and its understaning of the human past.  This seminar explores the shaping and reshaping of contemporary archaeology witnin the two dominant paradigm shifts of the last half-century: the riels of the New Archaeology and the critical response of post-processualism.  We examine key texts and controversial papers, including works by Binford, Flannery, Schiffer, Hoder, Wylie, and Leone. A.T. Smith. Wed 1:30-4:20.

22530/32530.  Ethnographic Film. This seminar explores ethnographic film as a genre for representing "reality," anthropological knowledge and cultural lives.  We will examine how ethnographic film emerged in a particular intellectual and political economic context as well as how subsequent conceptual and formal innovations have shaped the genre.  We will also consider social responses to ethnographic film in terms of 1) the contexts for producing and circulating these works, 2) the ethical and political concerns raised by cross-cultural representation and 3) the development of indigenous media and other practices in conversation with ethnographic film.  Throughout the course, we will situate ethnographic film within the larger project for representing "culture," addressing the status of ethnographic film in relation to other documentary practices including written ethnography, museum exhibitions and documentary film.  Julie Chu. Thurs 1:30-4:20.

25420.  Anthropology of Policymaking.  In this course, we will use anthropological and social theories of knowledge, power, ritual, and authority to interrogate the contemporary domains of policymaking.  While anthropology has played a vital role in ascertaining the effects of the spread of capitalism at the local level, it has had comparatively little to say about the institutional structures of the contemporary geopolitical order -- the very sites through which transnational flows of money, ideas, and goods are legitimated and articulated.  This course attempts to broaden the scope of the anthropological inquiry into globalization by shifting the ethnographic emphasis from the daily practices of local actors "on the ground" to the daily practices of policymakers, government bureaucrats, and the staff of international financial agencies such as the IMF and the World Bank who are explicitly and implicitly engaged in the negotiation and mediation of capitalism at the national and international levels.  It does so by asking the following questions:  How is the hegemony of the state and specific transnational policy agendas constituted and contested by the daily practices of policymakers, bureaucrats, and international economic advisers?  How is the relationship between national and international contexts of policy making discursively constructed and coordinated?  We begin by looking at how newly emerging subfields within anthropology conceptualize the state, modes of governance, and global economic flows as ethnographic objects.  In the second half of the course, we consider how we might construct an alternative framework for analyzing policymaking dynamics within the geopolitical order.  Tara Schwegler.   

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.  Emilio Kouri. MWF 1:30-2:20.

24001-24002-24001. Colonizations I, II, III (=CRPC 24001-24002-24003, HIST 18301-18302-18203, SOSC 24001-24002-24003).  PQ: These course must be taken in Sequence.  This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies.  This three-quarter sequence approaches the concept of civilization from an emphasis on cross-cultural/societal connection and exchange.  We explore the dynamics of conquest, slavery, colonialism, and their reciprocal relationships with concepts such as resistance, freedom, and independence, with an eye toward understanding their interlocking role in the making of the modern world.  Themes of slavery, colonization and the making of the Atlantic world are covered in the first quarter.  Modern European and Japanese colonialism in Asia and the Pacific is the theme of the second quarter.  The third quarter considers the processes and consequences of decolonization both in the newly independent nations and the former colonial powers.  S. Dawdy, Aut. TuTh 10:30-11:50.

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.

27001-27002-27003/37001-37002-37003. 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 linguistics 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.  Staff. TuTh 1:30-2:50.

2793l-27932-27933/47931-47932-47933.  Beginning Spoken K'iche' Maya I, II, III (=LACS 27101-27102-27103/37101-37102-37103, LGLN 30700.  Robin Shoaps. MWF 9:30-10:20.

27505.  Professional Persuasions: The Rhetoric of Expertise in Modern Life (=LING 27220). This course seeks to dissect the linguistic forms and semiotics processes by which experts (often called professionals) persuade their clients, competitors and the public to trust them and rely on their forms of knowledge.  We will consider the discursive aspects of professional training (e.g., lawyers, economists, accountants), and take a close look at how professions such as social work, psychology and medicine stage their interactions with clients.  The goal of the course is to examine a central feature of modern life:  the reliance on experts, by analyzing the rhetoric and linguistic for m of expert knowledge. S. Gal. TuTh 10:30-11:50.

29500/59500.  Archaeology Lab Practicum  (PQ Only w/ Consent of Instructor) This is a hands-on lab practicum course in which students will be exposed to various stages of artifact processing on a collection from a recently excavated site, including: washing, sorting, flotation, identification, data entry, analysis, report preparation and curation.  The primary requirement is that students commit to a minimum of 9 hours of lab work per week, with tasks assigned according to immediate project needs.  In addition, undergraduates will be required to submit a final writing assignment researching one artifact (or group of related artifacts) while graduate students will be required to make a specific contribution to the project report, as assigned by the instructor. S. Dawdy, ARR  SuAWSp.

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.

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. This course is designed for students beginning graduate study in anthropology.  It is intended to provide a broad perspective on the history of social theory in the West, and critical skills for reading in and contributing to social and cultural theory.  We will use the history of theorizing about society and culture as a means to discuss the past, present, and future of anthropology and its relations with other scientific and humanistic disciplines.   J. Kelly. TuTh 1:30-4:20.  Haskell 315.

34803.  Anthropology and Literature: The Brothers Karamazov & Russian Culture (=SCTH 32550, RUSS 34300).  Close reading of select passages, intense discussion of basic issues such as soul, guilt, forgiveness, depravity, innocence, lust hatred, sin, Christian love, jealousy, shame, brotherly love.  Some attention to Biblical subtexts, cultural-historical context (e.g., Russian Orthodoxy, Western rationalism) and certain questions about the language of Dostoevsky.  Theoretical issues to be explored include dialogue and polyphony, poetics vs prosaics, skepticism versus faith, and tropology and typology.  Some collateral reading from Pesmen's Russia and Soul, Bakhtin, and Figges.  The Pevear/Volokhonsky translation.  Knowledge of Russian helpful but not necessary.  P. Friedrich.Thurs 9:30-12:20. Open to undergraduates.

36700:  Archaeology of Race and Ethnicity. (PQ: Some background in archaeological theory and method.  Open to undergraduates with consent of instructor.)  How can we tell whether material differences in the archaeological record correspond to boundaries human groups draw between themselves? This question lays bear the heart of the problem of archaeological inference, which has cycled through several controversies in the discipline.  We will review these debates and pursue related questions, such as: Can we see ethnic diversity or ethnogenesis in the archaeological record? Can race be constructed through artifacts?  Did race exist in prehistory or antiquity?  What are the political stakes involved in archaeological studies of race and ethnicity? Over the last several years, a new emphasis on the social construction of racial and ethnic identities has invited a re-examination of the ways in which aspects of the material world (architecture, pottery, food, clothing, etc.) may participate actively in the dialectical process of creating or obscuring difference, suggesting both new avenues of research and new problems to confront in a topic that remains highly relevant to today's society.  S. Dawdy. Wed 9:30-12:20

35005. Classical Theories of Religion (=HREL 32900).  Bruce Lincoln. MW 10:00-11:20.

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. Michael Silverstein. WedFri 9:30-11:20

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. Staff. 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. A. Dahlstrom. TuTh 10:30-11:50

42500.  Anthropology of the Afro-Atlantic World (=CRPC 42500)  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

43200.  Orientalism, Historiography & Postcolonial Studies. This course takes as its point of departure Edward Said's seminal text, its impact, and the variety of responses to it.  Among other issues, we will explore how Said's writings  affected area studies beyond the Middle East and brought into sharp focus long standing debates over the forms of knowledge produced in the Humanities and Social Sciences; how literary criticism became a focal point of critical studies of colonialism and imperialism; and how contemporary scholarship has welcomed or rejected Saidian interventions. We will also consider the critiques of areas studies that grew out of these debates, and explore the relation between the state and the production of knowledge in the academy. J. Hevia. Wed 3:00-5:50.

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

52610.  Advanced Readings: Africanist Anthropology.  Jean Comaroff. Thurs. 9:00-11:50. Moved to Spring 2009

53702.  21st Century: Ethnicity, Inc. (A course sponsored by the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory. Limit: 20 graduate students, no auditors. Preference for students from doctoral departments) Jean & John Comaroff.   Cancel

54410.  Hybridity. Ever since the late 1980s when James Clifford discovered that the "pure products" had "gone crazy", and Ulf Hannerz alerted us to the fact that the "world" was "in creolization", notions of "hybridity" and "hybridization" (and their various conceptual relatives such as mestizaje, creolization, syncretism, and so forth) have enjoyed increasing currency in our discipline. Often seen as the results of globalization-induced and medially accelerated Hyperdiffusionism, "hybrids", it seems, are the ubiquitous sign of a postmodern denouement of both "cultures" as "we knew them" (once, when we were "modern"), and the antidote to older anthropological reifications. How ironic then that while the "hybrid" obviously gestures toward what Marilyn Strathern has called "post-plural" conceptions of culture, the languages that are supposed to make it analytically visible often hearken back to the vocabularies of regimes of "breeding" ("hybrid" or "creole"), religious orthodoxies ("syncretism"), systems of racial exclusion and domination ("mestizaje"), or other institutional mechanisms and practices that reproduce and police categorical boundaries - often in order to stabilize particular distributions of power and privilege.
        This experimental course aims less to scrutinize the analytical utility of the conceptual language these terms appear to put at our disposal, than to probe into the epistemological conditions and taxonomic politics that make "the hybrid" thinkable in the first place, and seemingly "good to think" at the current moment. The central question it poses is: how do we know that something is "hybrid" (or not)? After a very brief initial survey of contemporary "hybridology" and the forms of analysis it seeks to supercede, we will take our departure from Bruno Latour's suggestion that "hybrids" are the inevitable products of practices of categorical "purification". In line with this, we will examine the politics of classificatory discernment, recognition, and naturalization that are productive of both the "purities" and the "hybrids" that appear to stand out, and even ostensibly militate, against them. After a foray into taxonomics and "natural kind" philosophy, we will discuss an array of case studies concerning the maintenance of classificatory infrastructures and categorical boundaries in regard to species, sex, language, race, and distinctions between humans and animals, nature and society, persons and things, and life and death.
        My hunch is that we might conclude that contemporary "hybridity"-talk is epistemologically problematic and politically troubling because far from destabilizing normalized categorical schemes, it necessarily reinforces precisely those distinctions that make "hybrid anomalies" visible in the first place. However, I remain entirely open to be convinced of the merits of hybridity (or rather: conceptualizations of it that I have, so far, failed to take into account).   S. Palmié.  Wed 1:30-4:20.

55505.  AdvSem: Legal Anthropology.  JL Comaroff. Tues 12:00-2:30  Moved to Spring ‘09

57716.  LingAnthSem: Topic TBA.     Michael Silverstein. ARR

58305.   Andean Archaeology & Ethnohistory (200 units)   Alan Kolata.  ARR