Courses for Fall 2024

Title Instructor Location Time All taxonomy terms Description Section Description Cross Listings Fulfills Registration Notes Syllabus Syllabus URL Course Syllabus URL
ANTH 0020-001 Anthropology, Race, and the Making of the Modern World Deborah A Thomas MW 10:15 AM-11:14 AM Anthropology as a field is the study of human beings - past, present, and future. It asks questions about what it means to be human, and whether there are universal aspects to human existence. What do we share and how do we differ? What is "natural" and what is "cultural"? What is the relationship between the past and the present? This course is designed to investigate the ways anthropology, as a discipline, emerged in conjunction with European (and later, American) imperialism, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the will to know and categorize difference across the world. We will probe the relationships between anthropology and modern race-making by investigating how anthropologists have studied key institutions and systems that structure human life: family and kinship, inequality and hierarchy, race and ethnicity, ritual and symbolic systems, gender and sexuality, reciprocity and exchange, and globalization and social change. The course fundamentally probes how the material and ideological constellations of any given moment shape the questions we ask and the knowledge we produce about human Society sector (all classes) https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202430&c=ANTH0020001
ANTH 0030-001 Human Origins, Evolution and Diversity Caroline E Jones TR 1:45 PM-2:44 PM How did humans evolve? When did humans start to walk on two legs? How are humans related to non-human primates? This course focuses on the scientific study of human evolution describing the emergence, development, and diversification of our species, Homo sapiens. As a starting point, we discuss the conceptual framework of evolutionary theory as well as basic genetics and heredity as they relate to human morphological, physiological, and genetic variation. We then examine what studies of nonhuman primates (monkeys and apes) can reveal about our own evolutionary past, reviewing the behavioral and ecological diversity seen among living primates. We conclude the course examining the "hard" evidence of human evolution - the fossil and material culture record of human history from our earliest primate ancestors to the emergence of modern Homo sapiens - and also explore the new insights into modern human origins and dispersal provided by genetic studies. We will further examine the nature of human biological variation and discuss the history of scientific racism in physical anthropology. As part of this course, you will have the opportunity, during recitations, to conduct hands-on exercises collecting and analyzing behavioral, morphological, and genetic data on both humans and nonhuman primates and work with the Department of Anthropology's extensive collection of fossil casts. Living World Sector (all classes)
ANTH 0050-601 Great Transformations Deborah I Olszewski TR 5:15 PM-6:44 PM This course explores the history and archaeology of the last 20,000 years from the development of agriculture to the industrial revolution. Why did people across the world abandon foraging for farming? How and why did cities and states develop? Why did societies succeed or fail? How have humans transformed themselves and the natural world, including the landscape and the climate? We will explore the methods that archaeologists use to consider these questions and analyze evidence for social and economic change from the Middle East, the Americas, Asia, Africa, Australia and Europe. In addition, students will have a chance to conduct hands-on exercises with artifacts from the Penn Museum during practicums. History & Tradition Sector (all classes)
ANTH 0063-401 East & West: A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Cultural History of the Modern World Lisa A Mitchell MW 10:15 AM-11:14 AM Sugar and Spices. Tea and Coffee. Opium and Cocaine. Hop aboard the Indian Ocean dhows, Chinese junks, Dutch schooners, and British and American clipper ships that made possible the rise of global capitalism, new colonial relationships, and the intensified forms of cultural change. How have the desires to possess and consume particular commodities shaped cultures and the course of modern history? This class introduces students to the cultural history of the modern world through an interdisciplinary analysis of connections between East and West, South and North. Following the circulation of commodities and the development of modern capitalism, the course examines the impact of global exchange on interactions and relationships between regions, nations, cultures, and peoples and the influences on cultural practices and meanings. The role of slavery and labor migrations, colonial and imperial relations, and struggles for economic and political independence are also considered. From the role of spices in the formation of European joint stock companies circa 1600 to the contemporary cocaine trade, the course's use of both original primary sources and secondary readings written by historians and anthropologists will enable particular attention to the ways that global trade has impacted social, cultural, and political formations and practices throughout the world. SAST0063401 Hum & Soc Sci Sector (new curriculum only)
ANTH 0091-401 Sustainable Development and Culture in Latin America Teresa Gimenez MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM This interdisciplinary course exposes students to the three dimensions of sustainable development -environmental, economic, and social- through an examination of three products -peyote, coca, and coffee- that are crucial in shaping modern identity in areas of Latin America. The course integrates this analysis of sustainable development in relation to cultural sustainability and cultural practices associated with peyote, coca, and coffee and their rich, traditional heritage and place in literature, film, and the arts. ENVS0053401, LALS0091401, SPAN0091401
ANTH 0103-401 Origin and Culture of Cities Richard L Zettler TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM The UN estimates that 2.9 of the world's 6.1 billion people live in cities and that this percentage is rapidly increasing in many parts of the world. This course examines urban life and urban problems by providing anthropological perspectives on this distinctive form of human association and land use. First we will examine the "origin" of cities, focusing on several of the places where cities first developed, including Mesopotamia and the Valley of Mexico. We will then investigate the internal structure of non-industrial cities by looking at case studies from around the world and from connections between the cities of the past and the city in which we live and work today. MELC0003401, URBS0003401 History & Tradition Sector (all classes)
ANTH 0111-401 Archaeology & The Bible Timothy Hogue
Vanessa Workman
MW 12:00 PM-1:29 PM Archaeology and the Bible is a chronological survey of the long span of human occupation in the Land of the Bible, known by the names of the modern nation-states and political entities that occupy the area, as well as various short hands such as Levant and Syria-Palestine, from ca. 10,000 BCE, when humans first began to farm and herd animals through the time of the Divided Monarchy of Israel and Judah. While archaeology has moved beyond a primary concern with illuminating the Bible, NELC 155 will investigate the broader import of archaeological discoveries for our understanding of ancient Israel and its neighbors. JWST0111401, MELC0100401
ANTH 0120-401 Globalization And Its Historical Significance TR 3:30 PM-4:29 PM This course sets the current state of globalization in historical perspective. It applies the concepts of anthropology, history, political economy and sociology to the study of globalization. We focus on a series of questions not only about what is happening, but about the growing awareness of it and the consequences of this increasing awareness. In answering these questions we draw on a variety of case studies, from historical examples of early globalization (e.g. The Atlantic and Indian Ocean Worlds, global flows of conspicuous commodities such as sugar, coffee, and tea, the rise and transformations of early capitalism), to issues facing our current globalized world (e.g. mass-mediatization and multilingualism, border regimes and international migration, planetary urbanization). The body of the course deals with particular dimensions of globalization, reviewing both the early and recent history of each. The overall approach is historical and comparative, setting globalization on the larger stage of the economic, political and cultural development of various parts of the modern world. The course is taught by anthropologists who draw from economic, linguistic, sociocultural, archaeological, and historical perspectives, offering the opportunity to compare and contrast distinct disciplinary approaches. It seeks to develop a general social-science-based theoretical understanding of the various historical dimensions of globalization: economic, political, social and cultural. SOCI2910401 Hum & Soc Sci Sector (new curriculum only)
ANTH 1002-401 Introduction to Africa David K. Amponsah
Mathias Chukwudi Isiani
MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM This course provides an introduction to the study of Africa in all its diversity and complexity. Our focus is cultural, geographical, and historical: we will seek to understand Africa s current place in the world political and economic order and learn about the various social and physical factors that have influenced the historical trajectory of the continent. We study the cultural formations and empires that emerged in Africa before European colonial invasion and then how colonialism reshaped those sociocultural forms. We ll learn about the unique kinds of kinship and religion in precolonial Africa and the changes brought about by the spread of Islam and Christianity. Finally, we ll take a close look at contemporary issues such as ethnic violence, migration, popular culture and poverty, and we'll debate the various approaches to understanding those issues. AFRC1002401 Society sector (all classes)
ANTH 1104-401 On the Stage and in the Streets: An Introduction to Performance Studies Jennifer Thompson TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM What do Hamilton, RuPaul’s Drag Race, political protest, TikTok Ratatouille, and Queen Elizabeth’s funeral have in common? They all compose repertoires of performance. From artistic performances in theatres, galleries, and concert halls to an individual’s comportment in everyday life, to sporting events, celebrations, courtroom proceedings, performance studies explores what happens when embodied activities are repeatable and given to be seen. In this course we ask: what is performance? How do we describe, analyze, and interpret it? What do theatre and everyday life have in common? How does performance legitimize or challenge the exercise of power? How has social media shifted our understanding of the relationship of our daily lives to performance? How does culture shape what is considered to be performance and how it functions? What isn’t performance? Throughout the semester students will apply key readings in performance theory to case studies drawn from global repertoires of contemporary and historical performance. In addition to analyzing artistic performances, we will also consider sporting events, celebrations, political events, and the performance of everyday life. We will attend to the challenges provoked by performance’s embodied, ephemeral, affective, effective, relational, and contingent aspects. Coursework will include discussion posts, class facilitation, and the opportunity to choose between a research paper or creative project for the final assessment. COML0104401, ENGL1890401, THAR0104401
ANTH 1238-401 Introduction to Medical Anthropology Emily K Ng MW 1:45 PM-2:44 PM Introduction to Medical Anthropology takes central concepts in anthropology -- culture, adaptation, human variation, belief, political economy, the body -- and applies them to human health and illness. Students explore key elements of healing systems including healing technologies and healer-patient relationships. Modern day applications for medical anthropology are stressed. HSOC1382401 Hum & Soc Sci Sector (new curriculum only)
ANTH 1300-401 Introduction to Mediterranean Archaeology Thomas F. Tartaron MW 12:00 PM-12:59 PM The cultures of Greece and Rome, what we call classical antiquity, span over a thousand years of multicultural achievement in the Mediterranean. This course tells the story of what it was like to live in the complex societies of ancient Greece and Rome. This story is told principally using the art, architecture, pottery and coins produced by these societies. We will examine both the bold and sexy, and the small and humble, from the Parthenon to wooden huts, from the Aphrodite of Knidos to the bones of a fisherman named Peter. CLST1300401 History & Tradition Sector (all classes)
ANTH 1340-001 Making the Natural World: An Introduction to Political Ecology Mark T Lycett TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM What are the limits of nature? When do natural systems become human or socio-natural systems? In this course, we examine the human construction of nature both conceptually, through ideas about environment, ecosystem, organism, and ecology; and materially, through trajectories of direct action in and on the landscape. Beginning with a consideration of foundational concepts in human ecology, we will discuss current problems and approaches, centering on political ecology. Readings and case studies are drawn from human-environmental contexts in Oceania, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Europe, and North America. We will also consider topics including a) the relationship between indigenous and technocratic knowledge and resource governance, b) environmental movements themselves as objects of ethnographic study; c) justice and sustainability as environmental goals; d) inequality, displacement and violence as environmental problems; and e) fair trade and food security or sovereignty.
ANTH 1410-401 Museums, Monuments, and Social Justice Richard M Leventhal TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM Monuments, museums, and heritage are all critical parts of the world that we have created and are shaped by. These institutions and sites often claim to represent our past, who we imagine ourselves to be today, and how we might define our futures. We often rely on museums and monuments to frame history and history’s relationship to our current social and cultural systems. However, in recent years, social, racial, and economic justice movements have pushed us to rethink the function of monuments, museums, and heritage. In particular, these social movements have helped us understand how racism, sexism, and colonialism are responsible for the creation of monuments and museums. This course examines the echoes and continuities of colonial representations in museums and monuments. In addition, we will examine how new ways of commemorating and representing the past can result in a new vision for our future. By visiting a variety of local monuments and sites and by engaging in conversations about accountability and social justice, this course will challenge us to rethink the tangible and intangible ways that we weave the past into the present for the creation of the future. ARTH0141401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202430&c=ANTH1410401
ANTH 1480-001 Food and Fire: Archaeology in the Laboratory Katherine M Moore MW 1:45 PM-2:44 PM This course will let students explore the essential heritage of human technology through archaeology. People have been transforming their environment from the first use of fire for cooking. Since then, humans have adapted to the world they created using the resources around them. We use artifacts to understand how the archaeological record can be used to trace breakthroughs such as breaking stone and bone, baking bread, weaving cloth and firing pottery and metals. The seminar will meet in the Penn Museum's Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials. Students will become familiar with the Museum's collections and the scientific methods used to study different materials. Class sessions will include discussions, guest presentations, museum field trips, and hands-on experience in the laboratory. Hum & Soc Sci Sector (new curriculum only) https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202430&c=ANTH1480001
ANTH 1500-402 World Musics and Cultures MW 1:45 PM-3:44 PM This course examines how we as consumers in the "Western" world engage with musical difference largely through the products of the global entertainment industry. We examine music cultures in contact in a variety of ways-- particularly as traditions in transformation. Students gain an understanding of traditional music as live, meaningful person-to-person music making, by examining the music in its original site of production, and then considering its transformation once it is removed, and recontextualized in a variety of ways. The purpose of the course is to enable students to become informed and critical consumers of "World Music" by telling a series of stories about particular recordings made with, or using the music of, peoples culturally and geographically distant from the US. Students come to understand that not all music downloads containing music from unfamiliar places are the same, and that particular recordings may be embedded in intriguing and controversial narratives of production and consumption. At the very least, students should emerge from the class with a clear understanding that the production, distribution, and consumption of world music is rarely a neutral process. Fulfills College Cross Cultural Foundational Requirement. AFRC1500402, MUSC1500401 Arts & Letters Sector (all classes)
ANTH 1688-401 Sex and Socialism Kristen R Ghodsee MW 3:30 PM-4:59 PM This seminar examines classic and current scholarship and literature on gender and sexuality in contemporary Eastern Europe, and examines the dialogue and interchange of ideas between East and West. Although the scholarly and creative works will primarily investigate the changing status of women during the last three decades, the course will also look at changing constructions of masculinity and LGBT movements and communities in the former communist bloc. Topics will include: the woman question before 1989; gender and emerging nationalisms; visual representations in television and film; social movements; work; romance and intimacy; spirituality; and investigations into the constructed concepts of "freedom" and "human rights." GSWS1680401, REES1680401, SOCI2972401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202430&c=ANTH1688401
ANTH 1755-401 Listening in Troubled Times (SNF Paideia Program Course) Aaron Levy W 12:00 PM-2:59 PM In this course, we will explore histories and theories of listening and the power of listening as a means to connect with other times and spaces. This course is part of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Paideia Program. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings. ENGL0755401
ANTH 2221-401 Material World in Archaeological Science Marie-Claude Boileau
Deborah I Olszewski
Vanessa Workman
TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM By focusing on the scientific analysis of inorganic archaeological materials, this course will explore processes of creation in the past. Class will take place in the Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials (CAAM) and will be team taught in three modules: analysis of lithics, analysis of ceramics and analysis of metals. Each module will combine laboratory and classroom exercises to give students hands-on experience with archaeological materials. We will examine how the transformation of materials into objects provides key information about past human behaviors and the socio-economic contexts of production, distribution, exchange and use. Discussion topics will include invention and adoption of new technologies, change and innovation, use of fire, and craft specialization. ANTH5221401, ARTH0221401, CLST3302401, MELC2960401, MELC6920401
ANTH 2230-401 Storytelling in Africa Pamela Blakely T 5:15 PM-8:14 PM African storytellers entertain, educate, and comment obliquely on sensitive and controversial issues in artful performance. The course considers motifs, structures, and interpretations of trickster tales and other folktales, storytellers performance skills, and challenges to presenting oral narrative in written and film texts. The course also explores ways traditional storytelling has inspired African social reformers and artists, particularly filmmakers. Students will have opportunities to view films in class. AFRC2230401, CIMS2230401
ANTH 2340-301 Pharmaceuticals and Global Health Michael B Joiner W 5:15 PM-8:14 PM In some parts of the world, spending on pharmaceuticals is astronomical. In others, people do not have access to basic or life-saving drugs. Individuals struggle to afford medications; whole populations are neglected, considered too poor to constitute profitable markets for the development and distribution of necessary drugs. This seminar analyzes the dynamics of the burgeoning international pharmaceutical trade and the global inequalities that emerge from and are reinforced by market-driven medicine. Questions about who will be treated and who will not filter through every phase of pharmaceutical production --from preclinical research to human testing, marketing, distribution, prescription, and consumption. Whether considering how the pharmaceutical industry shapes popular understandings of mental illness in North America and Great Britain, how Brazil has created a model of HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment program, or how the urban pooer in Delhi understand and access healthcare, the seminar draws on anthropological case studies to illuminate the roles of corporations, governments, non-governmental organizations, and individuals in relation to global pharmaceuticals. As we analyze each case and gain famliarity with tehnographic methods, we will ask how individual and group health is shaped by new medical technologies and their evolving regulatory regimes and markets. The course familiarizes students with critical debates on globalization and with local responses to globalizing processes; and it contributes to ethical and political debates on the development and access to new medical technologies.
ANTH 2440-001 Disease and Human Evolution TR 3:30 PM-4:59 PM This course will explore the role played by disease in human evolution, from the emergence of the human lineage to the present day. We will evaluate both infectious and non-infectious diseases and examine the way in which populations and disease organisms have co-evolved. Related issues to be explored include the nature of the virulence and pathogenicity of infectious agents, and the impact of vaccination on pathogen evolution. In addition, we will discuss the epidemiological transition and the rise of complex diseases of modernization (e.g., diabetes, cancer) that has occurred in the past several centuries. Overall, the course will provide a broader understanding of the influence of disease processes on the evolution of the human species.
ANTH 2460-401 Molecular Anthropology Theodore G Schurr TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM In this course, we will explore the molecular revolution in biological anthropology. In particular, we will examine how molecular data can be used to illuminate anthropological question concerning human origins, evolution and biological variation. Some of the specific topics to be covered in this course are the phylogenetic relationships among primates, kinship in apes and monkeys, the hominoid trichotomy, modern human origins and migrations, Neanderthal and Denisovan admixture with modern humans, biogenetics of skin color, and physiological, phenotypic and disease adaptations. ANTH6460401
ANTH 2550-401 Modern Southeast Asia Andrew M. Carruthers TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM This first-year friendly course provides a broad introductory overview of modern Southeast Asia, surveying the region's extraordinary diversity and ongoing social, economic, and political transformations. Centering on the nation-states that have emerged following the second World War, we will assess elements of Southeast Asian geography, history, language and literature, cosmologies, kinship systems, music, art and architecture, agriculture, industrialization and urbanization, politics, and economic change. We will remain particularly attentive to the ways Southeast Asians negotiate and contend with ongoing challenges with modernization, development, and globalization. SAST2550401
ANTH 2866-401 Exploring the Ancient Maya: Image, Text, and Artefact Simon Martin W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM Few topics in ancient studies are experiencing such profound and revelatory change as that of the Ancient Maya—a complex society that covered what is today southeastern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and parts of Honduras and El Salvador. The decipherment of Maya script and advances in archaeological techniques, including aerial LiDAR scanning and isotopic analysis, are combining with art historical and literary sources to transform our understanding of a culture that ranks among the most famous, but enigmatic, on this continent. The ability to read Maya inscriptions has created the first historical archaeology for the ancient Americas, giving access to an Indigenous voice that has been silent for more than a millennium—with implications not only for scholarship but for the efforts of descendent peoples in asserting a modern Maya identity with existing Latin American states. This course will be a broad-based, contemporary look at archaeological practice as it operates through multiple disciplines, all in pursuit of the single goal of illuminating a vibrant and living past. LALS2866401
ANTH 3045-401 Oil to Diamonds: The Political Economy of Natural Resources in Africa Adewale Adebanwi T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This course examines the ways in which the processes of the extraction, refining, sale and use of natural resources – including oil and diamond – in Africa produce complex regional and global dynamics. We explore how values are placed on resources, how such values, the regimes of valuation, commodification and the social formations that are (re)produced by these regimes lead to cooperation and conflict in the contemporary African state, including in the relationships of resource-rich African countries with global powers. Specific cases will be examined against the backdrop of theoretical insights to encourage comparative analyses beyond Africa. Some audio-visual materials will be used to enhance the understanding of the political economy and sociality of natural resources. AFRC4500401, PSCI4130401, SOCI2904401
ANTH 3050-301 Anthropology and Policy: History, Theory, Practice Gretchen E L Suess W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM From the inception of the discipline, anthropologists have applied their ethnographic and theoretical knowledge to policy issues concerning the alleviation of practical human problems. This approach has not only benefited peoples in need but it has also enriched the discipline, providing anthropologists with the opportunity to develop new theories and methodologies from a problem-centered approach. The class will examine the connection between anthropology and policy, theory and practice (or 'praxis'), research and application. We will study these connections by reading about historical and current projects. As an ABCS course, students will also volunteer in a volunteer organization of their choice in the Philadelphia area, conduct anthropological research on the organization, and suggest ways that the anthropological approach might support the efforts of the organization.
ANTH 3052-301 An Anthropological Approach to Bioethics Justin T Clapp W 3:30 PM-6:29 PM Bioethics and anthropology have a complicated relationship. Though the two disciplines have long studied overlapping topics, the contribution of anthropological work to bioethical discussions and associated health policy interventions has been limited. This course will investigate whether and how anthropology can contribute to ethics and characterize the unique perspective that the discipline adds to bioethics topics. We will begin by carrying out an anthropology of bioethics, exploring how bioethics developed as a field with a specific philosophical and political orientation and a particular conception of which issues in health, illness, and medicine are worthy of attention as ethical problems. Next, we will clarify how anthropology can contribute to bioethical theory and debate by considering decades-old, ongoing debates about the relevance of (descriptive) social scientific findings to the development of (prescriptive) bioethics frameworks. Finally, we will apply an anthropological lens to bioethical problems. We will use anthropology's global, ethnographic orientation to explore a series of classic bioethics topics (e.g., the rights of research subjects, the allocation of medical resources, the uses of genetic testing, the withdrawal of life-sustaining care), examining how anthropologists' conclusions about these topics might differ from bioethicists', why, and with what ramifications. https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202430&c=ANTH3052301
ANTH 3090-401 Psychoanalysis and Anthropology Gregory P Urban T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This course will introduce students to the rich literature that has grown up around the encounter between psychoanalysis and anthropology, from totem and taboo, to studies of the Oedipus complex, child-rearing practices, ritual symbolism, mythology, and dreams. The class will also look to the future, endeavoring to examine as well such issues as the role of computers (are they self objects?) and the internet (including such online games as "Second Life"), dreams in space alien abduction narratives, sexuality in advertising, political psychology, and other contemporary issues. This course counts towards towards the Psychoanalytic Studies (PSYS) Minor. ANTH6090401
ANTH 3429-301 Anthropology of the Environment Kevin M Burke W 3:30 PM-6:29 PM This seminar draws from social scientific and scientific literatures to explore current themes in the anthropology of the environment. We will investigate the links between climate change science and social science, and the ways in which anthropologists can contribute via in-depth fieldwork methodology and long engagement in issues of society-environment interactions. We will also explore how potential environmental, social, and biological impacts of global warming on the future are being assessed through conceptual paradigms linked to risk, probability, scenario forecasting, tipping points, planetary boundaries, and extinction.
ANTH 3444-401 Human Growth and Development Caroline E Jones MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM In this course we will examine key issues and the processes involved in human growth and development. By their very nature, growth and development are biocultural processes that require an integrated analysis of social construction and biological phenomena. As such, we will incorporate insight from evolutionary theory, ecology, developmental biology, psychology, human biology, and cultural anthropology in our study of growth and development. Such an integrated perspective will help students to see that development is not just a biological unfolding from birth through adolescence and adulthood. Rather, development is best understood as process that is deeply intertwined with the environment within which the organism develops. Additionally, we will apply these biocultural and socio-ecological insights to emerging health challenges associated with various developmental stages. The study of human growth and development is useful to all students in biological, health-related, and social sciences. Course enrollment is restricted to juniors, seniors, and graduate students only. ANTH5444401
ANTH 3480-301 Colonialism and its Legacies Kathleen D. Morrison MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM In this course we explore the history and long-term consequences of European colonial expansion, with a primary focus on Eurasia and on the British Empire, though we will range further afield as needed. Rather than attempting a comprehensive historical overview, we will use a series of case studies to illustrate changing understandings of colonialism and associated processes, including anti-colonial movements, decolonization, postcoloniality, and the enduring effects of colonialism in the present. This is a seminar-style course.
ANTH 3745-401 Rights of/for Nature: Critical Engagements from Latin America Carolina Angel Botero R 10:15 AM-1:14 PM This course delves into various approximations of the Rights of Nature movement. It specifically examines a range of legal actions that have arisen to safeguard life and emphasize human relationships with non-human entities. The course is particularly dedicated to dissecting a range of legal strategies that have come into existence to ensure the preservation of life forms beyond just humans, forging a profound connection between humanity and the diverse entities that constitute the natural world. The course will concentrate on Latin American cases as a burgeoning global movement, although the philosophical and theoretical exploration extends far beyond this region. Some topics we will discuss in class are: Earth Law and the Rights of Nature; Bringing Nature to Court and the Law; and Animal Rights. For instance, are animals part of the Rights of Nature movement?  By analyzing these legal actions, students will understand how legal systems can be leveraged as powerful environmental conservation and advocacy tools. Students will also learn the importance of bridging the legal practice with how the social sciences approach these questions.  ANTH5745401, LALS3745401, LALS5745401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202430&c=ANTH3745401
ANTH 3867-401 Reproduction, Justice and Care: Listening in Philly Daniela Brissett
Alissa M. Jordan
W 12:00 PM-2:59 PM In this class, you will be introduced to reproductive justice as a holistic theory and a methodological framework that can guide the practice of medicine and anthropology. You will create an oral history with a Philly-based community activist, midwife, doula, or other practitioner whose work engages with reproductive justice, understood expansively as the right to have children, to not have children, and to parent children in healthy environments free from violence and state oppression. At the end of the class, we will release these oral histories together as part of a new season of CEE’s “Reckoning and Repair in Philadelphia” podcast. Recent reports in Philadelphia have called particular attention to the severity of the maternal health crisis in the city, where black birthing people are more than four times as likely to die of preventable causes than their white peers. Such inequalities are not unique or new; Philadelphia was a crucial site where medicine broadly and obstetrics more specifically were born… . Philadelphia is the first city in the United States to have an obstetric society, and it is also the educational home of the so-called father of gynecology, James Marion Sims, who notoriously experimented on enslaved women to develop foundational obstetric procedures still in use today. At the same time, Philadelphia has also been an activist stronghold, as a site of historical Black, Caribbean, Latinx, and immigrant organizing and community care for more than a century. Today, midwives, doulas, doctors, environmental justice workers and others continue to develope nurturing models of child, maternal, and familial care that uplift communities. Many of these have been informed by reproductive justice frameworks. Engaging with a long tradition of scholar-activist ethnography, we will turn to the experiences of these community organizers, birthworkers, midwives, and doulas to gain an understanding of their battles for reproductive justice in Philadelphia: from the persistent inequities in maternal medical care, to the community work to create safe neighborhoods, to patient rights education campaigns, to medical interventions within prisons. Working one-on-one with a partner engaged in this work, students will produce an oral history of reproductive justice in Philadelphia. In the process students will learn crucial methods of critical medical anthropology, and build their skills in ethnographic listening as both a research method and a potentially transformative act of care. It is open to students with all levels of experience, including those with no prior background in audio/media production Through your podcast episodes, you'll answer the following questions: 1. How have historical medical practices and medical cultures in Philadelphia, especially in the context of clinical obstetric care, shaped the current disparities and challenges in reproductive health? 2. What cultural, social, and economic factors have influenced the development of homegrown methods of care within Philadelphia's reproductive justice community, and what do these practices provide (or avoid) that hospital practices do not? 3. How do the experiences and perspectives of doula, reproductive justice workers, and health practitioners intersect with or challenge established medical paradigms? 4. What good does listening and documenting these stories of care and resistance in reproductive justice do, if anything, at the personal, social, and institutional level. This course offers a unique, hands-on, real-world experience, enabling you to develop collaborative, ethical, and engaged work that contributes to Philadelphia's reproductive justice community. ANTH6867401
ANTH 4000-301 Research Seminar in Anthropology Emily K Ng F 8:30 AM-11:29 AM ANTH 4000 is a Research Seminar for anthropology majors. It defines the Penn anthropology major by bringing together and inter-relating major threads from the different subfields of the Penn anthropology curriculum. Each session includes contributions from members of the standing faculty and seminar discussions of a research theme in which anthropological knowledge is currently progressing.
ANTH 5080-401 Conservation of Archaeological Sites and Landscapes Frank G. Matero
Lynn M. Meskell
W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This seminar will address the history, theories, principles, and practices of the preservation and interpretation of archaeological sites and landscapes. The course will draw from a wide range of published material and experiences representing both national and international contexts. Topics will include site and landscape documentation and recording; site formation and degradation; intervention strategies including interpretation and display, legislation, policy, and contemporary issues of descendent community ownership and global heritage. Depending on the site, students will study specific issues leading toward the critique or development of a conservation and management program in accordance with guidelines established by ICOMOS/ ICAHM and other official agencies. HSPV7470401
ANTH 5110-401 Ethics, Archaeology, and Cultural Heritage Richard M Leventhal T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This seminar will explore some of the most important issues that are now a central part of archaeological, anthropological and historical research throughout the world. The identification and control of cultural heritage is a central part of the framework for research within other communities. Issues for this course will also include cultural identity, human rights, repatriation, colonialism, working with communities and many other topics. Field research today must be based upon a new series of ethical standards that will be discussed and examined within this class. Major topics include: cultural heritage - definitions and constructs, cosmopolitanism and collecting, archaeology and looting, cultural heritage preservation, museums - universal and national, museum acquisition policies, cultural identity, international conventions (including underwater issues), national laws of ownership, community based development, cultural tourism, development models, and human rights. LALS5110401
ANTH 5221-401 Material World in Archaeological Science Marie-Claude Boileau
Deborah I Olszewski
Vanessa Workman
TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM By focusing on the scientific analysis of inorganic archaeological materials, this course will explore processes of creation in the past. Class will take place in the Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials (CAAM) and will be team taught in three modules: analysis of lithics, analysis of ceramics and analysis of metals. Each module will combine laboratory and classroom exercises to give students hands-on experience with archaeological materials. We will examine how the transformation of materials into objects provides key information about past human behaviors and the socio-economic contexts of production, distribution, exchange and use. Discussion topics will include invention and adoption of new technologies, change and innovation, use of fire, and craft specialization. ANTH2221401, ARTH0221401, CLST3302401, MELC2960401, MELC6920401
ANTH 5240-401 Plants and Society Chantel E. White T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM Interactions between humans and the living landscape around us have played - and continue to play - a fundamental role in shaping our worldview. This course is designed to introduce students to the diverse ways in which humans interact with plants. We will focus on the integration of ethnographic information and archaeological case studies in order to understand the range of interactions between humans and plants, as well as how plants and people have profoundly changed one another. Topics will include the origins of agriculture; cooking and plant processing; human health and the world of ethnomedicine; and poisonous and psychoactive plants. We will examine ancient plant material firsthand at the Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials (CAAM) and will handle botanical ecofacts from the Penn Museum's collections. Students will also carry out a substantial research project focused on an archaeological culture and plant species of their own interest. CLST5316401
ANTH 5444-401 Human Growth and Development Caroline E Jones MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM In this course we will examine key issues and the processes involved in human growth and development. By their very nature, growth and development are biocultural processes that require an integrated analysis of social construction and biological phenomena. As such, we will incorporate insight from evolutionary theory, ecology, developmental biology, psychology, human biology, and cultural anthropology in our study of growth and development. Such an integrated perspective will help students to see that development is not just a biological unfolding from birth through adolescence and adulthood. Rather, development is best understood as process that is deeply intertwined with the environment within which the organism develops. Additionally, we will apply these biocultural and socio-ecological insights to emerging health challenges associated with various developmental stages. The study of human growth and development is useful to all students in biological, health-related, and social sciences. Course enrollment is restricted to juniors, seniors, and graduate students only. ANTH3444401
ANTH 5470-401 Anthropology and Education M 11:45 AM-1:44 PM An introduction to the intent, approach, and contribution of anthropology to the study of socialization and schooling in cross-cultural perspective. Education is examined in traditional, colonial, and complex industrial societies. EDUC5495401, URBS5470401
ANTH 5490-301 Topics in Archaeological Method and Theory Megan Crandal Kassabaum R 1:45 PM-4:44 PM The subject matter of this seminar will vary by term and instructor. Each course will concern itself with contemporary archaeology through an in-depth examination of new directions in archaeological method and theory. Please check https://www.sas.upenn.edu/anthropology/courses/topics-courses for the term-specific course description.
ANTH 5500-401 Critical Ethnography Jasmine Johnson T 12:00 PM-2:59 PM "This graduate course introduces students to theories, practices, and critiques of critical ethnography. Ethnography -- an approach to the study of culture which anthropologist James Clifford described as a process that "translates experiences into text" - will have our full attention. This process of translation, although seemingly straightforward, requires layers of interpretation, selection, and the imposition of a viewpoint or politics. While ethnography is often narrowly conceived of as a methodology, this course considers ethnography as a mode of inquiry, as a philosophy, as an ongoing question and performance. We wrestle with notions of "the self" and "the other" at the intersection of imbricated cultural and performance worlds. Together we'll ask: How is ethnography both critical and performative? What is the relationship between theory and method? How can we evaluate ethnographic work? And finally, what kinds of ethnographers do we want to be? This course considers a range of ethnographic examples in order to analyze both the craft and the stakes of "translating experiences into text." AFRC5500401
ANTH 5745-401 Rights of/for Nature: Critical Engagements from Latin America Carolina Angel Botero R 10:15 AM-1:14 PM This course delves into various approximations of the Rights of Nature movement. It specifically examines a range of legal actions that have arisen to safeguard life and emphasize human relationships with non-human entities. The course is particularly dedicated to dissecting a range of legal strategies that have come into existence to ensure the preservation of life forms beyond just humans, forging a profound connection between humanity and the diverse entities that constitute the natural world. The course will concentrate on Latin American cases as a burgeoning global movement, although the philosophical and theoretical exploration extends far beyond this region. Some topics we will discuss in class are: Earth Law and the Rights of Nature; Bringing Nature to Court and the Law; and Animal Rights. For instance, are animals part of the Rights of Nature movement? By analyzing these legal actions, students will understand how legal systems can be leveraged as powerful environmental conservation and advocacy tools. Students will also learn the importance of bridging the legal practice with how the social sciences approach these questions. ANTH3745401, LALS3745401, LALS5745401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202430&c=ANTH5745401
ANTH 5830-401 Ethnographic Filmmaking Amitanshu Das
Paula Helene Rogers
R 2:00 PM-4:59 PM This ethnographic methodology course considers filmmaking/videography as a tool in conducting ethnographic research as well as a medium for presenting academic research to scholarly and non-scholarly audiences. The course engages the methodological and theoretical implications of capturing data and crafting social scientific accounts/narratives in images and sounds. Students are required to put theory into practice by conducting ethnographic research and producing an ethnographic film as their final project. In service to that goal, students will read about ethnography (as a social scientific method and representational genre), learn and utilize ethnographic methods in fieldwork, watch non-fiction films (to be analyzed for formal properties and implicit assumptions about culture/sociality), and acquire rigorous training in the skills and craft of digital video production. This is an ABCS course, and students will produce short ethnographic films with students in Philadelphia high schools as part of a partnership project with the School District of Philadelphia. Due to the time needed for ethnographic film production, this is a year-long course, which will meet periodically in both the fall and spring semesters. EDUC5466401
ANTH 6000-301 Contemporary Archaeology in Theory Mark T Lycett M 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This graduate seminar addresses contemporary anthropological archaeology and considers the varied ways inferences are made about past and present human behavior from the archaeological record. It reviews such fundamental topics as the use of analogy, Middle Range theory, symbolism and meaning, social and cultural evolution, ideology and power, feminism and gender, and indigenous (non-Western) perspectives. It also foregrounds basic issues regarding heritage, looting, and ethics.
ANTH 6030-301 Language in Culture and Society Asif Agha MW 9:45 AM-11:44 AM First-year anthropology graduate students or Instructor Permission. Examination of properties of human language which enable social persons to interpret the cultural world and to act within it. Topics include: principles of lexical and grammatical organization; the role of language structure (grammar) and linguistic context (indexicality) in discursive activity; referential uses of language; social interaction; markers of social role, identity, and group-belonging; criteria by which models of linguistic form and function are formulated; the empirical limits within which different models have explanatory value.
ANTH 6090-401 Psychoanalysis and Anthropology Gregory P Urban T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This course will introduce students to the rich literature that has grown up around the encounter between psychoanalysis and anthropology, from totem and taboo, to studies of the Oedipus complex, child-rearing practices, ritual symbolism, mythology, and dreams. The class will also look to the future, endeavoring to examine as well such issues as the role of computers (are they self objects?) and the internet (including such online games as "Second Life"), dreams in space alien abduction narratives, sexuality in advertising, political psychology, and other contemporary issues. This course counts towards towards the Psychoanalytic Studies (PSYS) Minor. ANTH3090401
ANTH 6280-301 Language in Culture and Society: Special Topics Asif Agha T 10:15 AM-1:14 PM The course is devoted to a single research topic of contemporary interest in linguistic anthropology. Topics vary from year to year. Readings locate current debates in relation to longstanding assumptions in the literature and new directions in contemporary research.
ANTH 6420-301 Ethnographies in Linguistic Anthropology Andrew M. Carruthers M 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This course provides graduate students in linguistic anthropology and allied fields an opportunity for sustained, critical engagement with ethnographic monographs in linguistic and semiotic anthropology. Readings vary yearly, but run the gamut from the classical or 'canonical' to the contemporary or 'experimental.' Recurring concerns include: the nature of the ethnographic monograph as text-artifact; the presentation and exposition of ethnographic and linguistic particulars; questions of 'authorial voice'; and the registers, genres, and styles of ethnographic representation obtaining in the linguistic anthropological tradition.
ANTH 6460-401 Molecular Anthropology Theodore G Schurr TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM In this course, we will explore the molecular revolution in biological anthropology. In particular, we will examine how molecular data can be used to illuminate anthropological question concerning human origins, evolution and biological variation. Some of the specific topics to be covered in this course are the phylogenetic relationships among primates, kinship in apes and monkeys, the hominoid trichotomy, modern human origins and migrations, Neanderthal and Denisovan admixture with modern humans, biogenetics of skin color, and physiological, phenotypic and disease adaptations. ANTH2460401
ANTH 6668-301 Footage Films, or Narrating a Dataset T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM We begin this course with a moratorium on audio-video capture. A hundred days without your own images:) We will attempt instead to collectively and then sequentially author a set of video essays that engage with material that we are already deeply enmeshed in. That are typically too vast, "thin", that either overflow or flow beneath representational or affective media. Examples of what we could make here would be: a video essay on the Wikileaks dataset of global US Embassy shopping lists, a film made from the Radia phone taps, and so on. This course draws on CAMP's learnings from running an open-access footage archive, Pad.ma and related projects, since 2007. Pad.ma asked: what is the ethical and political relation between the category footage ("found", shot in large quantities, with good intentions, left in shoe boxes or dying hard disks) and the category "film". Footage is the raw material, but does it also tell us how film is made, and whether it is beautiful on the inside. That film is made from footage, seems tautological. But in the process we will follow, any simple relation between footage and film is shattered into a multitude of moves by imagers, sounders, writers, editors, narrators and materials. We are inspired by Elizaveta Svilova, editor of "Man with the Movie Camera" carefully indexing, splicing and assembling pieces of film (intercutting them with images of women's work - patching phone lines, sewing, or painting fingernails), and that of her contemporary, Esfir Shub who was foraging cellars, gathering, restoring and compiling footage into films, a hundred years ago. Extending the footage metaphor to other media, we enter a vast terrain of over-collected materials. Health, insurance and other management databases, surveillance data, cctv streams, most of what the modern media industry is made of and which Matt Fuller and Andrew Goffey called Evil Media. Archive or be archived, we said in 2010. But the questions have moved beyond archival ones, to questions of what can be done with archives by situated subjects. We begin by identifying footage collections or datasets that we can situate ourselves in, individually or as a group. We evolve narrative and editorial strategies within a Pad.ma - like interface via group annotations in a process called three-ing. In the second half of the course the participants develop a series of video essays. We see this as a counter-AI process of assimilation. At the end, we may also recognise that there are missing images - and if there is need for us to film, and if so why, with whom, and how. This prepares participants ethically and formally to go forth in the world to create really new images. The course is interdisciplinary and open to graduate students who have interests in film, ethnography, film studies, digital archives and contemporary art, and who like to work collectively and processually to realise ambitious projects.
ANTH 6867-401 Reproduction, Justice, and Care: Listening in Philly Daniela Brissett
Alissa M. Jordan
W 12:00 PM-2:59 PM Course Summary In this class, you will be introduced to reproductive justice as a holistic theory and a methodological framework that can guide the practice of medicine and anthropology. You will create an oral history with a Philly-based community activist, midwife, doula, or other practitioner whose work engages with reproductive justice, understood expansively as the right to have children, to not have children, and to parent children in healthy environments free from violence and state oppression. At the end of the class, we will release these oral histories together as part of a new season of CEE’s “Reckoning and Repair in Philadelphia” podcast. Recent reports in Philadelphia have called particular attention to the severity of the maternal health crisis in the city, where black birthing people are more than four times as likely to die of preventable causes than their white peers. Such inequalities are not unique or new; Philadelphia was a crucial site where medicine broadly and obstetrics more specifically were born… . Philadelphia is the first city in the United States to have an obstetric society, and it is also the educational home of the so-called father of gynecology, James Marion Sims, who notoriously experimented on enslaved women to develop foundational obstetric procedures still in use today. At the same time, Philadelphia has also been an activist stronghold, as a site of historical Black, Caribbean, Latinx, and immigrant organizing and community care for more than a century. Today, midwives, doulas, doctors, environmental justice workers and others continue to develope nurturing models of child, maternal, and familial care that uplift communities. Many of these have been informed by reproductive justice frameworks. Engaging with a long tradition of scholar-activist ethnography, we will turn to the experiences of these community organizers, birthworkers, midwives, and doulas to gain an understanding of their battles for reproductive justice in Philadelphia: from the persistent inequities in maternal medical care, to the community work to create safe neighborhoods, to patient rights education campaigns, to medical interventions within prisons. Working one-on-one with a partner engaged in this work, students will produce an oral history of reproductive justice in Philadelphia. In the process students will learn crucial methods of critical medical anthropology, and build their skills in ethnographic listening as both a research method and a potentially transformative act of care. It is open to students with all levels of experience, including those with no prior background in audio/media production Through your podcast episodes, you'll answer the following questions: 1. How have historical medical practices and medical cultures in Philadelphia, especially in the context of clinical obstetric care, shaped the current disparities and challenges in reproductive health? 2. What cultural, social, and economic factors have influenced the development of homegrown methods of care within Philadelphia's reproductive justice community, and what do these practices provide (or avoid) that hospital practices do not? 3. How do the experiences and perspectives of doula, reproductive justice workers, and health practitioners intersect with or challenge established medical paradigms? 4. What good does listening and documenting these stories of care and resistance in reproductive justice do, if anything, at the personal, social, and institutional level. This course offers a unique, hands-on, real-world experience, enabling you to develop collaborative, ethical, and engaged work that contributes to Philadelphia's reproductive justice community. ANTH3867401
ANTH 7410-301 Anthropology of Affect Gregory P Urban F 10:15 AM-1:14 PM This course draws upon three anthropological literatures pertaining to affect. One, growing out of Darwin's observations in The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, looks at the evolutionary and neurobiological bases of affect. A second developed in connection with psychoanalysis, and centers upon insights gained through empathic and introspective processes. A third arose with cultural studies and reactions within anthropology to structuralism, including research on cross-cultural variation in the conceptualization of emotions. The course is appropriate for graduate students interested in exploring the linkages among these literatures, and who envision or are already actively undertaking research for which knowledge of them is pertinent. Students will be expected to lead discussions of specific works, as well as present aspects of their own present or proposed future research. Students outside of the Anthropology Department should contact the instructor to request a permit.