DEPARTTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY Course Descriptions Spring 2008

21106.  Classical Readings: World's Fairs. (PQ Limit 15, undergraduates only) This course will survey the growth and decline of World's Fairs as "total cultural facts."  Emphasis will be placed on the socio-economic factors giving rise to World's Fairs, beginning with the Crystal Palace Exposition in London in 1853 to the present.  Students will be encouraged to seek out primary documents to engage in original research.  R. Fogelson, TuTh 3:00-4:20.

21253. Intensive Study of a Culture: US Cities in Transition.  After decades of economic disinvestment, physical decline and social out-migration, the 1990s ushered in an era of redevelopment in major U.S. cities. How can we understand this redevelopment? What do we make of the contested claims on space, belonging and identity made by people living in, or connected to, transitioning urban neighborhoods? How should we evaluate development interventions whose end results seem to diverge from their stated intentions, and often lead to the displacement of long-time residents? This course will develop practical inroads into the transitioning American city that will both complement and complicate our common-place intuitions about the urban redevelopment we witness around us. Readings and primary material stay close to ethnographic perspectives. We will consider how focusing on the meaning and experience of everyday life in changing urban spaces can problematize civic ideals, including various forms of diversity, residential-based social connection and democratic citizenship. Additional readings will offer theoretical and methodological introductions to broader problems of multiculturalism, spatial experience and the public sphere. Taken together, readings, case studies, primary materials, discussions and a site visit will equip students with the tools to approach contemporary urban redevelopment with an anthropological lens.  Catherine Fennell. TuTh 9:00-10:20

21305/45300. Modern Readings in Anthropology: Explorations in Oral Narrative: The Folk Tale (= HUCL 45300).  This course studies the role of storytelling and narrativity in society and culture: comparison of folk tale traditions; the shift from oral to literate traditions and the impact of writing; the principal schools of analysis of narrative structure and function; and the place of narrative in the disciplines law, psychoanalysis, politics, history, philosophy, and anthropology. Story per­formance and contemporary storytelling in America are considered and encouraged. J. Fernandez. 4:30-5:50 TuTh

21420.  Ethnographic Methods.  (PQ. 3rd year anthropology majors only). Anthropology as a discipline is distinguished by its use of ethnography, the intense, intimate study of a small section of human society.  This method brings with it both advantages and challenges.  It allows anthropologists (and, by extension, their readers) to look into human motivations, concerns, hopes, and joys - in short, to see the fine detail of life behind the numbers of government reports, economic trends, opinion polls, and other statistics.  At the same time, there is an intimate relationship between researcher and researched (individuals called informants, collaborators, partners, and often friends) that does not always exist in other fields.  Often referred to as "participant observation," anthropologists usually live or spend most of their time with those they write about, seeing details of private lives that would not necessarily be revealed through formal interviews or surveys.  Because of this, anthropologists often struggle with how to organize this information, how to write it in a way meaningful to an audience unfamiliar with that society, how to maintain the privacy of those whose lives they shared - even what to leave out altogether. 
        Anthropological methods are constantly changing with the growing knowledge of the investigator of the specifics of the fieldsite they are interacting with.  This course will explore anthropological methods by allowing students to engage in an ethnographic project of their own.  Throughout the quarter students will engage with this site, consider what methods are best for the situation, and reconsider how they would change their methods if this were to be a long-term project.  Students will be expected to share their observations with their classmates, learning from their informants, each other, and the course readings.  The final paper will consist of an analysis of their observations, but also a serious consideration of mistakes made, methodological assumptions that changed, and thoughts on how a larger ethnographic project in the fieldsite would be conducted.  Clare Sammells. TuTh 12:00-1:20

22000/35500. Anthropology of Development (=ENST 22000). This course analyzes the contributions of anthropological understanding to development programs in "underdeveloped" and "developing" societies.  Topics we will consider include: the history of development; different perspectives on development within the world system; the role of principal development agencies and their use of anthropological knowledge; the problems of ethnographic field inquiry in the context of development programs; the social organization and politics of underdevelopment; the cultural construction of "well-being"; economic, social, and political critiques of development; population, consumption and the environment; and future scenarios of development. Alan Kolata. TuTh 10:30-11:50.

22910/42900. Performance and Politics in India (=SALC 22900). With the explosion of commercial media in India during the last twenty years, much attention has been given to the relationship between political action and mass media. This seminar considers and pushes beyond such much-debated recent instances as the alleged complicity between the televised 'Ramayana' and the rise of an violently intolerant Hindu nationalism. We will consider the potentials and entailments of various forms of mediation and performance for political action on the subcontinent, from 'classical' textual sources, through 'folk' traditions and 'progressive' dramatic practice, to contemporary skirmishes over 'obscenity' in commercial films.  William Mazzarella. Thurs 9:00-11:50.

ANTH 23040. Conflict and Inequality in Latin America (= LACS 19803).  This class presents an overview of Latin America by focusing on forms of social conflict and inequality found across the region. Because this is a survey course, it is organized around the principle regional units into which Latin America has traditionally been divided. However, we will also make a point of investigating the cross-regional commonalities and sub-regional differences often obscured by this division. Throughout the course, we will explore three primary issues, considering how they unfold in the particular ethnographic context(s) examined each week. The first is what constitutes power and relations of power. The second is the construction and operation of group boundaries, particularly as they relate to conflict among ethnic groups and between them and the state. And the final is the neo-colonial role played by the United States in such phenomena as drug trafficking and international migration. As this course considers Latin America through the lens of cultural anthropology, we will also pay attention to how the issues touched on in class relate to concerns in the study of anthropology more generally. Hilary Parsons Dick. Th 1:30-4:20pm

24511/34502  The Anthropology of Museums II (=SOSC 34600).  PQ: Open to advanced undergraduates with consent of instructors. This two-quarter seminar will examine various organizational and ideological features of museums from an anthropological perspective.  The readings -- both theoretical and ethnographic -- cover a wide range of subjects, among which are the Columbian Exposition, the Holocaust, interactive exhibitions, and the art market. In addition, the course includes visits to museums around Chicago with guest professionals as guides into the culture of museums. A fieldwork experience will be an integral part of the Spring quarter.  R. Fogelson, M. Fred. Wed 5:30-8:20 pm.

25305.  Anthropology of Food and Cuisine.  Contemporary human foodways are not only highly differentiated in cultural and social terms, but often have long and complicated histories. Anthropologists have long given attention to food - but up until quite recently, they have done so in an unsystematic, haphazard fashion. Food has figured prominently in theories of gift exchange, religious sacrifice, classificatory systems, the analysis of social structure and symbolic systems, but also political economy, cultural ecology, and applied work in famine-modeling, food security, and medical anthropology. More recently, food and eating have become the focus of an anthropology of the body, and have come to figure in attempts to theorize sensuality and the politics of pleasure and suffering. This course will explore several such themes with a view towards both the micro- and macro-politics of food by examining a range of ethnographic and historical case studies and theoretical texts. It takes the format of a seminar augmented by lectures (during the first few weeks), scheduled video screenings, and individual student presentations during the rest of the course.  S. Palmié. MonWed 11:30-12:50.

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.  Wed. 1:30-4:20.

25906.  Shamans and Epic Poets of Central Asia (=NEHC 20766/30766, EEUR 20766/30766).  This course explores the rituals, oral literature, and music associated with the nomadic cultures of Central Asia. K. Arik,  WedFri 1:30-2:50. 

26615.  Chicago Studies: Archaeological Field Methods in Jackson Park (PQ Enrollment limited to 20.)  Students will serve as the field crew on an archaeological dig in Jackson Park.  A weekly lecture (Wed. 10:30-11:20) will provide context for and description of archaeological methods.  Students will sign up for 6 hours a week of on-site excavation time (Fri 10:00-4:30 or Sat. 10:00-4:30).  This course is set in the context of a research project investigating the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition and the history of Jackson Park through the present day.  Issues of 19th century American consumer habits, tourism, and site transformation will be introduced both through direct field experience and through weekly lecture.  Students will also be introduced to the importance of active engagement with archaeology's interested publics. Rebecca Graff. Wed 10:30-11:20 and Fri or Sat 10:00-4:30.

26715/36715. Rise of the State in the Near East (=NEAA 20030/30030) This course provides an introduction to the background and development of the first urbanized civilizations in the Near East in the period from 9000 to 2200 BC. In the first half of the course we will examine the archaeological evidence for the first domestication of plants and animals and the earliest village communities in the "fertile crescent" - the Levant, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia. The second half of the course will focus on the economic and social transformations which took place during the development from simple, village based communities to the emergence of the urbanized civilizations of the Sumerians and their neighbors in the fourth and third millennia BC.  Gil Stein. TuTh 12:00-1:20

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 oif 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 1:30-1:50

ANTH 27405. Seminar: Latinos and Language Ideology: Race, Ethnicity and Nationalism in Language-Use. (=LACS 24703).  This course considers language ideologies (the morally and politically charges ideas speakers have about the relative value of languages), examining how they shape the social construction of racial, ethnic, and national identities in the U.S. In particular, this course will examine the role language ideologies play in constructing Latino as a distinct ethno-racial group. In order to contextualize this investigation, this course will compare ideologies about Spanish and Chicano English with those about African American English. Thus, this course problematizes the classical U.S. black-white racial paradigm, while considering how the linguistic production of race and ethnicity inform population politics and nation-state building in the U.S. Hilary Parsons Dick. TuTh 10:30-11:50

28010.  Introduction to Biological Anthropology (=BIOS 13330). Biological anthropology is the study of human biology and evolution in its broadest sense, including a comprehensive understanding of primate evolution (comparative primatology) as well as specific familiarity with the fossil record of human evolution (paleoanthropology). Broad-based knowledge of primate evolution yields general principles that can be applied to interpretation of human evolution without the special pleading arising from a narrow focus on direct evidence of human evolution in isolation. This course provides a general evolutionary framework for the 360 living and 470 fossil primate species as a background to considering modern humans and their direct fossil relatives. Applications of chromosomal studies (karyology) and biomolecular comparisons (molecular phylogenetics) are also covered to establish the evolutionary framework. Other basic topics covered include: principles of classification, principles of phylogenetic reconstruction, scaling effects of body size, primates in the context of mammal evolution, diets and dentitions, locomotor morphology and behavior, morphology and function of sense organs, evolutionary aspects of the brain, reproductive biology, and social organization. Each lecture concludes with implications for human evolution.  Robert Martin.  Thurs 10:30-11:50

28210/48210. Colonial Ecologies.  (=ENST 22100) This seminar explores the historical ecology of European colonial expansion in a comparative framework, concentrating on the production of periphery and the transformation of incorporated societies and environments. In the first half of the quarter we will consider the theoretical frameworks, sources of evidence,  and analytical strategies employed by researchers to address the conjunction of environmental and human history in colonial contexts. During the second half of the course we will explore the uses of these varied approaches and lines of evidence in relation to specific cases and trajectories of transformation since the sixteenth century. M. Lycett. TuTh 10:30-11:50

28215.  Urban Ecology: Environmental History of the Modern City. (=ENST 22501). We typically think of the city as something detached from nature, an artificial space of impersonal concrete walls and human competitive avarice that is situated on one side of a strictly defined urban-rural divide. In this seminar, we will discuss the historical and political processes that have led to the production and naturalization of such perceived urban-rural divisions, and how these divisions are ideological constructions that have influenced the spatial and social organization of our world. Specifically, we will challenge the urban-rural model by employing a theoretical perspective that is grounded in recent theories of urban ecosystems. We will consider how the production of cities entails the transformation of immediate and distant, local and regional spaces that extend far beyond a city's formal limits. We will explore how urban and rural distinctions influence and inform political decision-making, thereby contributing to the uneven distribution of power and resources, even though the production of cities is intimately related to the production of broader socioeconomic and political landscapes. Furthermore, we will discuss how urbanization strategies oftentimes produce and perpetuate the spatial and ecological parameters of radical social inequality, both within and between cities. More particularly, we will use examples from contemporary American cities (particularly Chicago, New Orleans and Los Angeles) to discuss how the interrelationship between humans and the environment in the modern world is largely shaped by a political economy that draws sharp conceptual and physical distinctions between city and countryside, and the people that inhabit these spaces. Although the urban ecosystems theoretical perspective is relatively young, this course's overview will allow for a sufficient introduction to this intriguing analytical framework.  
         Moreover, by focusing on the development and transformation of the Chicago area landscape, the readings will allow you to envision the dynamic environmental history of your immediate surroundings, encourage critical thinking about and involvement in Chicago-based urban ecology initiatives, as well as perceive and experience aspects of the Chicago area landscape in a new light. Overall, we will discuss how divided urban-rural landscapes are produced relative to particular historical and political concepts of the environment. We will augment this discussion by referring to the actual empirical effects of these concepts in terms of economic inequalities, epidemiological trends, the spatiality of pollution, and uneven resource allocation.  Steven Kosiba. TuTh 3:00-4:20.

28300/38200. Comparative Primate Morphology (=EVOL 38200, HIPS 23500).This course carries 200 units of credit. Functional morphology of locomotor, alimentary, and reproductive systems in primates is studied. Dissections are performed on monkeys and apes. R. Tuttle. MWF 1:30-4:20

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 9:00-11:50.

ANTH 35915.  Death and Mourning: The Politics of Self-Sacrifice in the Middle East (=PLSC 36800). This graduate seminar explores suicide bombing, discourses of martyrdom, contestation over gravesites, practices of commemoration, and the imagery of self-sacrifice in the Middle East. Drawing on debates in political science, anthropology, and history, we shall investigate the relevance of military occupation to suicide bombing, the relationships among dying, killing, and state sovereignty, the vexed connections between obligation and consent, changing norms about violence as a mode of political struggle, and the various forms of political solidarity that notions of sacrifice exemplify. This course is theoretically oriented and historically and ethnographically grounded. In contrast to approaches that posit the politics of self-sacrifice as a "problem" in need of a solution or as a peculiarly Middle Eastern phenomenon, this course seeks to de-pathologize such practices by comparing and contrasting them to practices of violence and commemoration in other times and places. Among the authors we will read are Hannah Arendt, Talal Asad, Lara Deeb, Frantz Fanon, Engseng Ho, Thomas Laqueur, Claudio Lomnitz, Robert Pape, Roxanne Varzi, and Slavoj Zizek.  Lisa Wedeen. Wed 10:30-1:20

362. Ceramic Analysis for Archaeologists.  This course introduces students to the theoretical foundations and analytical techniques that allow archaeologists to use ceramics to make inferences about ancient societies.  Ethnographic, experimental, and physical science approaches are explored to develop a realistic, integrated understanding of the nature of ceramics as a form of material culture and to assess both the kinds of interpretations of ancient people that can plausibly be made on the basis of their pottery and which techniques and research strategies may best serve to obtain useful information.  Practical training in the use of the Ceramic Laboratories is included. Donna Nash.  Fri 11:00-1:50.  Course meets at the Field Museum.

37302. Phonology II (=LING 20900/30900). PQ: Anthro 373. The principles of generative phonology are introduced and studied in detail, emphasizing the role of formalism and abstractness in phonological analysis. The emphasis is on Sound Pattern of English theory, with brief discussion of more recent autosegmental and metrical models. Jason Riggle. TuTh 1:30-2:50

37500. Morphology (=LING 21000/31000). PQ: Anthro 373. This course deals with linguistic structure and patterning beyond the phono­logical level, primarily from a structuralist point of view. It concentrates on analysis of grammatical and formal oppositions and their structural relation­ships and interrelationships. Amy Dahlstrom. TuTh 1:30-2:50.

39001-02. Archaeological Theory/Method.  PQ: Required for first-and second-year graduate students in archaeology; open to undergraduates only with consent of instructor; this course carries 200 units of credit.  This course examines the logics of archaeological interpretation and the principles of archaeological representation.  Through an immersion in various genres of archaeological thought and writing, we will chart the historical development of the project of archaeology as it has been transformed from the the discipline's inception to today.  The course is organized into two parts.  The first, subtitled Archaeology, provides an intensive overview of the dominant position and problems of modern archaeological method and theory.  In this section of the course, we will explore the major historical movements in archaeological thought since the formalization of the discipline in the 19th century through the contemporary constellation of thematic concerns.  It is in these discussions that we will strive to bring forward the rich and subtle logics that underlie archaeological interpretation.  The second section of the course, subtitled Archaeography, centers on an exploration of archaeological representation and overlapping issues raised in the sister field of historiography.  In this section of the course we will discuss general issues in the philosophy of history as they bear upon the production of landmark archaeological monographys.  By the end of the course, students should have a thorough understanding of the theorietical frameworks that underlie contemporary archaeological research and the unique problems that follow efforts to represent the archaeological record.  Adam. Smith.  TuTh 1:30-4:20.

40145.  Imagining the Social: Ontological Presuppositions of Social Science (=SOCI 40149). This is an experimental course which concerns itself with the following sets of problematiques. Social theorists have developed a range of modes in which they have imagined the social. In other words they have developed rather different understandings about the most fundamental parts as components of larger social wholes, their dynamic relations with each other and the interaction effects between wholes and parts (e.g.various sorts of individualisms, holisms etc). One could also say that they have built their theories on rather different kinds of social ontologies. One goal of this course is to develop a certain feel for such ontological differences and their consequences for research.  However, with the attack against overly scientistic understandings of societies at the end of the 19th century (for example by Wilhelm Dilthey) and the fundamental critique of the (especially Hegelian and perforce right wing (progress evolutionism) and left wing (progress revolutionism) philosophy of history (for example by Jacob Burckhardt) it became clearer that changes in social imaginations of the people at a particular time enabled and/or disabled processes of institution formation. The second goal of this course is therefore a thematization of the import of social imaginaries and the dynamics of their transformation.
If imaginaries matter, however, those developed by social theorists can no longer just be understood either as mere reflections of a particular social order (as vulgar Marxism does), nor as a timeless scientific accounts of social processes (as positivism holds), but they have to be seen as models for social life as much as models of social life (to use Geertz' felicitous rendering of Weber). Especially with the short 20th century behind us, it has become clear how various social imaginaries spawned by social theorizing and/or social science have helped to shape the institutional fabric of our time. This is not only true for the failed projects of state socialism and fascism but of course also for neo-liberal market capitalism. This is to say nothing less than that the social sciences are deeply implicated both in the glories and the miseries of what we have become. The third goal of this course is therefore to develop a sensitivity for the relationship between theoretical and popular social imaginaries (social theory as Zeitgeist, avant-garde etc) and the dialectic between social imaginaries and institutional arrangements. This dialectic raises questions about the goal, and the ethics of social scientific writing. On the other it raises a whole slew of old issues of individualism vs. holism, system vs. history, structure vs. agency, micro vs. macro, understanding vs. explaining anew.  Andreas Glaeser. Tues 4:30-7:20.

41200.  Anthropology of History (=HIST 44901).  Anthropologists have long been concerned with the temporal dimension of human culture and sociality, but, until fairly recently (and with significant exceptions), have rarely gone beyond processual modeling. This has dramatically changed. Anthropologists have played a prominent role in the so-called "historic turn in the social sciences", acknowledging and theorizing the historical subjectivities and historical agency of the ethnographic "other", but also problematizing the historicity of the ethnographic endeavor itself. The last decades have not only seen a proliferation of empirically rich and theoretically sophisticated historical ethnographies, but also a decisive move towards ethnographies of the historical imagination. Taking its point of departure from a concise introduction to the genealogy of the trope of "historicity" in anthropological discourse, this course aims to explore the possibilities of an anthropology of historical consciousness, discourse and praxis - i.e. the ways in which human groups select, represent, give meaning to, and strategically manipulate constructions of the past. In this, our discussion will not just focus on non-western forms of historical knowledge, but include the analysis of western disciplined historiography as a culturally and historically specific form of promulgating conceptions of the past and its relation to the present. S. Palmié. Tues 12:00-2:50.

42915. Producing Authoritative Knowledge. This graduate seminar encourages a cross-fertilization between ethnographic approaches to the study of media production and to science studies.  Both fields deal with issues of technology, epistemology, and authority, although in different ways.  Yet, rarely are these fields brought into conversation with each other.  What can be gained by emphasizing the mediated nature of scientific knowledge like brain scans or archeological artifacts?  What can be gained by examining certain kinds of media, like journalism or documentary, as forms of knowledge?  What methods might be shared between the two fields?  Topics include:  embodied knowledge production, affect and knowledge production, the authority of the visual, and expertise and global identities.  Amahl Bishara. Thurs 12:00-2:50

43700.   Weber, Veblen and Genealogies of Global Capitalism.  Two intellectual traditions have dominated discussion of the history of capitalism:  classical to neo-classical economics, and Marxism.  This course searches for other possibilities.  It focuses on critical comparative reading of Thorstein Veblen's theory of the late modern "new order" and Max Weber's comparative sociology, but will also read widely among other authors, including Simmel, Sombart, Mahan, Tolstoy and Gandhi.  Questions to engage will include: relations between capital, the state, and military force (between means of production and means of coercion); commerce in Asia before European colonialism and the rise of colonial plantations and monopoly trading companies; types of capital, the rise and spread of joint-stock companies, stock markets, and capitalist corporations; the "new order," decolonization and the nation-state.  J. Kelly. Tues 6:00-8:50.

44700.  Specters of Marx: Matter, Mind, Method.  (PQ. Limit 20).  In this seminar, we will interrogate a certain number of Marxist perspectives, and examine how/whether they can help to shed light on the relationship between ideas, material expressions, and social analysis in a post-Marxist world. While many post-mortems have been sung for Marxism, and many allegations of bankruptcy declared, there is often limited or distant engagement with the core texts from which this critique departs. Moreover, recent critical homage, such as Jacques Derridas /Specters of Marx/, seems to suggest that the force of Marx's spirit lives on not as timeless doctrine, to be sure, but as recombinant traces, orientations, and possibilities embedded in the work of writers influenced by his thought.
       Without losing sight of the historical logics of capitalism and the state, we will focus on key texts in the Marxist intellectual tradition as they relate to issues of mind, matter, and method. Starting with Marx himself, the seminar will unfold in roughly chronological and thematic progression to track how his seminal ideas have been amplified, transformed, or undermined by later generations of social theorists (Lukács, Gramsci, Adorno, Benjamin, Althusser, Debord, Lefèbvre, Ollman, Sayer, Derrida, Jameson, Eagleton, Zizek). In the process, we will critically reflect on Marxist engagements with ideas of culture, space, time, history, ideology, hegemony, modernity, and politics, to name but a few.
       Each of these topics could easily be the focus of a whole course. In this light, the seminar hopes to offer an introduction to ideas and concepts, while striving for depth of analysis. This being said, a modicum of familiarity with the broad horizon of Marxist thinking (e.g. labor, relations of production, commodity, fetishism, value, consciousness, alienation, etc.) will be useful and is strongly recommended.  François Richard. Tues 1:30-4:20.

50500.  Commodity Aesthetics: Critical Encounters.  Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno's classic writings on the relationship between cultural production, capitalism and aesthetic experience, value and embodiment are back on the anthropological agenda. Why should this be the case? What relevance does the cultural critique of the Frankfurt School hold for contemporary ethnographic projects? Although this seminar in a sense hinges on the work of Benjamin and Adorno, it is above all an attempt to locate the questions they asked in relation to a longer philosophical genealogy: broadly, German critical responses to capitalist modernity and its particular claims on the senses. Readings will include excerpts from key texts by Kant, Hegel, Marx, Lukacs, Weber, Simmel, Balasz, Kracauer, Adorno, and Benjamin. William Mazzarella.  Tues 9:00-11:50

51035  Culture and Agency (=SSAD 50812) This seminar explores the relationship between agency and
culture-that is, between the capacity to act and the dynamic systems that frame the meaning and direction of that action. Readings and discussions are geared toward understanding key scholarly formulations of agency-from the familiar notion that agency is a property of individual actors to the idea that agency exists as a kind of opportunity in time and space.  While the course focuses on reading primary texts in cultural and social theory, we will also examine a number of empirical studies which demonstrate how different groups of people, across an array of cultural and historical settings, have thought about how and under what circumstances it is possible
to act.  Throughout the course, we will think critically about the ethical and political consequences of such popular and scholarly notions.  For example, we will inquire into how certain formulations of agency intersect with neoliberal projects (e.g. globalization, multiculturalism) and discourses (e.g. "learned helplessness," "dependency") that are familiar to contemporary, American social work.  Students concerned with issues of political mobilization may also have special interest in this course, as we grapple with how human agency
both reproduces and transforms cultural systems.  E. Summerson Carr. Thurs 1:30-4:20

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.  Michael Silverstein. ARR.

52210.  Archaeological Research Design. This a practicum course for archaeology graduate students (typically in their third or fourth year) to prepare the dissertation research proposal and dissertation grant applications.  The focus of the course will be the intellectual as well as the pragmatic issues involved in developing a strong archaeological research design.  Issues related to professional development will also be incorporated.  Steady work on proposal writing is expected.  Most of the required work will consist of weekly writing and critique exercises.  Alan Kolata.  ARR.

53315.  Rethinking Travel and Migration (=CRPC 52215). Migration and travel are unusual themes in the social sciences, humanities, and even policy studies areas.  These themes, for a variety of reasons, have been taken up by each of the disciplines in these fields; but rarely do writers from these disciplines engage each other.  Consequently, we have amassed an enormous literature on travel-related topics that has no center/core and few points of connection.  This seminar is about identifying some points of connection from the discipline of anthropology.  We will identify problem spots that have emerged through various approaches to the study of travel (and political/economic migrations in particular) and then address how a selection of ethnographies have worked to bind concepts of travel to broader socio-cultural themes.  Kesha Fikes. Mon 8:30-11:20.

54100.  Professionalization Seminar. (PQ: Anthropology post-field graduate students only)  Course covers a number of topics of interest to post-field students who either are or are soon to be on the job market:  construction of job letters & CV's, "AAA" & on-campus job interviews/talks, negotiating with prospective employers, publication (journal articles, first book), first job and advancement to tenure,  etc. M. Silverstein.  ARR

55020.   Anthropological Readings on Contemporary Islam.  Hussein Agrama.  Wed 1:30-4:20.