Course Offerings

A study of indigenous practices and worldviews. Examples are selected from North, Central or South America. The course considers current writings, controversies and basic methodological problems in studying the traditions of people indigenous to the Americas.

An introduction to cross-cultural perspectives on human development and aging, beginning with conception and proceeding through infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, elderhood and death.

Special topics course.

This course provides an introduction to the anthropology of law and its comparative and cultural dimensions. It examines the changing dynamics of law and the practical applications of anthropological insights in the resolution of cultural and legal rights issues in contemporary societies.

Special topics course.

This course introduces students to the major contemporary approaches to the study of politics and power in anthropology. Topics to be addressed include the state, civil society, citizenship, ethnicity, race and nationalism, sovereignty and violence.

An exploration of issues arising from writing about the experience and interpretation of ethnographic fieldwork. Aspects of representation such as writing and using fieldnotes, style, structure, techniques of persuasion, fictionalization and reflexivity will be examined. Students will also learn about historical experiments with surrealism, poetry and fiction.

This course introduces anthropological approaches to technology and science. It questions strictly technical perspectives by raising issues of power, association, legitimacy and design. A central focus is the 'cyborg', a real and imagined meeting-place between the body and technology that has implications for biomedicine, biocommerce, and computers in the present and the future.

A selective introduction to the nations, cultures, and histories of Indigenous peoples today. Students learn about the ongoing struggles of Indigenous peoples and the contemporary relevance of Indigeneity in a globalizing world, engaging with important concepts, including settler colonialism, extractive capitalism, territorialisation, and environmentalism. The course also discusses the ways in which Indigenous communities respond, resist, and adapt to the forces around them.

This course examines how cultural anthropologists apply their theories, methods and insights to the solution of practical problems. The historical development of applied anthropology, the ethical dilemmas of applied fieldwork and the research methods used in such fieldwork will be examined. Such areas of concentration as community development, advocacy anthropology, policy research and social impact assessment are investigated.