Anthropology
10 Sachem, 432.3670
www.yale.edu/anthro/
M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.
Chair
William Kelly
Director of Graduate Studies
J. Joseph Errington (10 Sachem, 432.3672)
Professors
Elayaperumal Annamalai, Richard Burger, Michael Dove (Forestry & Environmental Studies), Kathryn Dudley, J. Joseph Errington, Andrew Hill, Frank Hole, William Kelly, Enrique Mayer, Roderick McIntosh, Patricia Pessar (Adjunct; American Studies), Harold Scheffler, James Scott (Political Science), Helen Siu, John Szwed, David Watts, Harvey Weiss (Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations)
Associate Professors
Richard Bribiescas, M. Kamari Clarke, Nora Groce (Adjunct; Epidemiology & Public Health)
Assistant Professors
J. Bernard Bate, Marcello Canuto, William Honeychurch, Michael McGovern, Karen Nakamura, Douglas Rogers
Lecturers
Carol Carpenter (Forestry & Environmental Studies), Dhooleka Raj (South Asia Studies), Graeme Reid (Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies), Gilles Tarabout (South Asia Studies)
Fields of Study
The department covers three subfields: archaeology; sociocultural and linguistic anthropology; and physical anthropology. Archaeology focuses on ritual complexes and writing, ceramic analysis, warfare, ancient civilizations, origins of agriculture, and museum studies. Sociocultural anthropology provides a range of courses: classics in ethnography and social theory, religion, myth and ritual, kinship and descent, historical anthropology, culture and political economy, agrarian studies, ecology, environment and social change, medical anthropology, emotions, public health, sexual meanings and gender, postcolonial development, ethnicity, identity politics and diaspora, urban anthropology, global mass culture, and alternate modernity. Linguistic anthropology includes language, nationalism, and ideology, structuralism and semiotics, feminist discourse. Physical anthropology focuses on paleoanthropology, evolutionary theory, human functional anatomy, race and human biological diversity, primate ecology. There is strong geographical coverage in Africa, the Caribbean, East Asia (China and Japan), Latin America and South America, Southeast Asia (Indonesia), South Asia and the Indian Ocean, the Near East, Europe, and the United States.
Special Requirements for the PH.D. Degree
Although there are a few required courses or seminars for each subfield, more than three-fourths of a student’s program consists of electives, including course work in other departments. Admission to candidacy requires: (1) completion of two years of course work (sixteen term courses); (2) independent study and research; (3) satisfactory performance on qualifying examinations; and (4) a dissertation research proposal submitted and approved before the end of the third year. Qualifying examinations, normally taken at the end of the second year, consist of eight hours written (four hours on one of the subfields, four hours on the student’s special interest), and two hours oral. Dissertations are normally based on field or laboratory research.
Combined Ph.D. Programs
The Anthropology department also offers a combined Ph.D. in Anthropology and Forestry & Environmental Studies in conjunction with the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, and a combined Ph.D. in Anthropology and African American Studies in conjunction with the Department of African American Studies. These combined programs are ideal for students who intend to concentrate in, and to write dissertations on, thematic and theoretical issues centrally concerned with anthropology and one of these other areas of study. Students in the combined degree programs will be subject to the combined supervision of faculty members in the Anthropology department and in the respective department or school.
Admission into the combined degree program in Anthropology and African American Studies is based on mutual agreement between these two departments. Individual students will develop courses of study in consultation with their academic advisers and with the directors of graduate study for both departments. Students in the program must take core courses in Anthropology and in African American Studies, plus related courses in both departments approved by their advisory committees. In addition, they must successfully complete the African American Studies third-year Research Workshop. Oral and written qualifying examinations must include two topics in the field of African American Studies and two topics in Anthropology. The examination committee must include at least one faculty member from each department. The dissertation prospectus must be submitted to the directors of graduate study of both departments and approved by the faculty of both. The thesis readers committee must also include at least one faculty member from each department, and the faculties of both departments must approve its composition.
Master’s Degrees
M.Phil. See Degree Requirements.
M.A. Applications for a terminal master’s degree are not accepted. This degree is granted to students not continuing in the Ph.D. program. The student must complete eight graduate-level term courses approved for credit in the Anthropology department and maintain an average grade of High Pass.
Contact information: Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Anthropology, Yale University, PO Box 208277, New Haven CT 06520-8277; 203.432.3670; e-mail, anthropology@yale.edu; Web site, www.yale.edu/anthro/.
Courses
ANTH 500a, The Development of the Discipline: Historical Trajectories. William Kelly.
M 9–12
This seminar emphasizes the characteristics of anthropology as a discipline and as a profession, and the historical trajectory of sociocultural anthropology from the late nineteenth century to the 1970s. The seminar is reserved for first-year doctoral students in Anthropology.
ANTH 500b, The Development of the Discipline: Contemporary Themes. Kalyanakrishnan Sivaramakrishnan.
W 10.30–12.20
The major theoretical orientations in social and cultural anthropology (especially in the United States and Europe), their historical development and importance, their relation to one another and to other disciplines. The seminar is reserved for first-year doctoral students in Anthropology, and students are presumed to have taken ANTH 500 in the fall term.
ANTH 501a, Anthropology and Classical Social Theory. Douglas Rogers.
W 1–4
Readings of primary texts in classical social theory, especially the writings of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of these theorists in the early development of anthropology and social science more broadly. This course is reserved for first-year graduate students in Anthropology.
ANTH 501b, Anthropology and Contemporary Social Theory. M. Kamari Clarke.
T 6–7.50 p.m.
An overview of central themes and debates in contemporary social theory, with a focus on the integration of theory and research, rather than a hermeneutical analysis of particular theoretical texts. Concentrating on questions of power, inequality, the self, and community, assessment of the relevance of sociological theory to advancing an understanding of the complexities of late twentieth-century Western society. Critical theory, feminist theories, postmodernism, and the contributions of individual theorists reviewed and critiqued.
ANTH 502a, Research in Sociocultural Anthropology: Design and Methods. Helen Siu.
W 1.30–3.20
The course offers critical evaluation of the nature of ethnographic research. Research design includes the rethinking of site, voice, and ethnographic authority.
ANTH 502b, Research in Sociocultural Anthropology: Ethnographic Writing and Representation. Kathryn Dudley.
W 1.30–3.20
This course examines the representational practices that inform the doing and making of ethnography, broadly construed as the depiction of social life in the past and present. We consider classic and contemporary approaches to ethnography as a literary form as well as explore precedents and possibilities in the visual and performing arts. Also AMST 746b.
ANTH 508au, Queer Ethnographies. Graeme Reid.
W 1.30–3.20
Explores both classic and contemporary ethnographies of gender and sexuality. Emphasis on understanding anthropology’s contribution to, and relationship with, gay and lesbian studies and queer theory. Also WGSS 701au.
ANTH 513au, Language, Culture, and Ideology. J. Joseph Errington.
T 9.25–11.15
Influential anthropological theories of culture are reviewed with critical reference to theories of language that inspired or informed them. Topics include American and European structuralism, cognitivist and interpretivist approaches to cultural description, work of Bakhtin, Bourdieu, and various “critical theorists.”
ANTH 514a, Postcolonial Nature in the Tropical World. Kalyanakrishnan Sivaramakrishnan.
W 2.30–4.20
The study of the environment, especially in the tropical world, is a topic of growing importance and complexity. Anthropological understanding of environmental problems, and the body of scholarship, has grown to the point where fascinating inter-regional links can be traced, and comparisons made, about tropical forest management, human-animal relations, biodiversity conservation, water/air pollution, environmental justice, organic farming or sustainable consumption, and ideas about natural heritage trusteeship. This course develops a systematic comparison across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, for students to grasp regionally situated and cross-regional patterns of environmental change, resource conflicts, and identity politics that have emerged over the last three hundred years. Enrollment limited to twelve students.
ANTH 525au, Modern India: Society/Politics. Kalyanakrishnan Sivaramakrishnan.
M 2.30–4.20
Indian society and politics examined through paired concepts/affiliations like nation/state, faith/secularism, capital/labor, citizen/subject, public/culture to understand the major sociopolitical processes of change in the twentieth century. These analytical lenses are used to discuss key political events and related social transformations like the formation of independent India, the Indian emergency, caste and democracy, religion and the public sphere, and the social aspects of economic liberalization.
ANTH 527bu, Socialisms and Postsocialisms. Douglas Rogers.
W 9.25–11.15
An exploration of anthropologists’ writings on socialist societies and trajectories out of socialism. Although primary emphasis is on Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the course also takes up both socialisms and postsocialisms as transnational phenomena, ripe for global-scale analyses and contextualized comparisons. Topics may include the workings of socialist political economy; national, cultural, ethnic, and other identities; notions of personhood and subjectivity; gender regimes; property relationships; exchange and consumption; language ideologies; politics and the state; and critiques of “transition studies” in Western political science and economics.
ANTH 533bu, Bilingualism in Social Context. J. Joseph Errington.
T 9.25–11.15
The linguistic phenomenon of bilingualism is presented through broad issues in social description inseparably linked to it: growth and change in bilingual communities, bilingual usage, social identity, and allegiance; interactional significances of bilingual speech repertoire use.
ANTH 537a, Politics/Aesthetics. Michael McGovern.
T 9.25–11.15
This course explores the complex relations between expressive culture and the exercise of power. Starting with the works of the Frankfurt School and such authors as Lukacs, Debord, Raymond Williams, and Rancière, the course proceeds through a series of thematic steps, examining case studies. We look at Zairean popular music and painting as political critique; the politics of museum and other exhibitionary displays; the question of visibility both as it relates to talk about transparency and conspiracy and as it relates to urban planning. The course ends with several full-length monographs on the performance of secularism in contemporary Turkey, the attribution of agency to architecture in Jerusalem, and the “theater state” in Bali. The course attempts to analyze the politics of artistic creation and the aesthetic elements of political rhetoric and practice as two moments in a dialectical—indeed, dialogical—relation.
ANTH 541a, Agrarian Societies: Culture, Society, History, and Development. Amity Doolittle, Robert Harms, James Scott.
M 1.30–5.20
An interdisciplinary examination of agrarian societies, contemporary and historical, Western and non-Western. Major analytical perspectives from anthropology, economics, history, political science, and environmental studies are used to develop a meaning-centered and historically grounded account of the transformations of rural society. Team-taught. Also F&ES 836a, HIST 965a, PLSC 779a.
ANTH 581a, Society and Environment: Introduction to Theory and Method. Michael Dove.
M 2.30–5.20
Critical issues in the analysis of relations between society and environment. Topics include (1) the identification of environmental “problems” focusing on the rationale of development intervention and failure, and the study of environmental discourse; (2) conceptual boundaries in resource-use systems and in conceptions of nature and culture; (3) conceptual boundaries in environmental relations between center and periphery and between the local and the global; (4) the sociology of science of environmental relations, encompassing views of indigenous knowledge, objective distance, scientific “forgetfulness,” and relations between the natural and social sciences; and (5) the implications of the foregoing for current critiques of science. Also F&ES 832a.
ANTH 582b, Households, Communities, Gender (for Development and Conservation). Carol Carpenter.
T 2.30–5.20
The implementation of development and conservation projects involving people requires an understanding of households, communities, and gender; unfortunately, policy is laden with mistaken assumptions about these social units. This course examines both the anthropology of households, communities, and gender, and common assumptions about them in development and conservation. Economic and political aspects of relations within these units are intimately linked, and are examined together. Important global variations in the structure of households, communities, and gender exist, and are explored in the course. The structure of households, communities, and gender in any particular locality influences the economic and political relation with its region, nation, and the world system—with essential implications for development and conservation. The course aims to study local social units in order to understand their importance for regional, national, and global development and conservation. The goal is to encourage future policy makers and implementers to examine their assumptions about society, and to think more critically about the implications of these social units (and their variations around the world) for development and conservation. No prerequisites. Three hours lecture/seminar. Also F&ES 849b.
[ANTH 595a, Transnationalism, Modernities, and Diasporas.]
ANTH 597a, Social Science of Development and Conservation. Carol Carpenter.
T 2.30–5.20
This course provides a fundamental understanding of the social aspects involved in implementing sustainable development and conservation projects. Social science has two things to contribute to the practice of development and conservation. First, it provides ways of thinking about, researching, and working with social groupings—including rural households and communities, but also development and conservation institutions, states, and NGOs. Second, social science tackles the analysis of the knowledge systems that implicitly shape development and conservation policy and impinge on practice. The goal of the course is to stimulate students to apply informed and critical thinking to whatever roles they play in sustainable development and conservation, in order to move toward more environmentally and socially sustainable projects and policies. A prerequisite for F&ES 835b and F&ES 840b. Three hours lecture/seminar. Also F&ES 839a.
ANTH 598b, Social Science of Development and Conservation: Advanced Readings. Carol Carpenter, Michael R. Dove.
Th 2.30–5.20
This course is an advanced seminar on the social science theory of sustainable development and conservation, intended for students interested in research design and policy planning in this field. It traces the conceptual history of the ideas of progress and development from the colonial period through the present and examines how these ideas are used by the parties who fund, design, and manage development projects. Topics discussed vary from year to year in response to current debates and events, but in the past have included the idea of poverty, the politics of mapping, microcredit and the entrepreneurial subject, the politics of indigeneity, new directions in political ecology, the tsunami in Indonesia, the WorldWatch debate on conservation and indigenous people, and the idea of community in the natural and social sciences. Students are expected to use the course to develop, and present in class, their own research and writing. Prerequisite: F&ES 832a or F&ES 839a. Three-hour lecture/seminar. Enrollment limited to twelve. Taught alternate years. Also F&ES 840b.
ANTH 599au, Popular Religion in India. Gilles Tarabout.
MW 9–10.15
The aim of this course is to introduce students to religion in India in its actual practice. While its main focus is on popular Hinduism, it also takes interactions with Muslim and Christian communities into account. The approach is ethnographical and anthropological and relies on both extant literature and specific fieldwork experience in the North (Himachal Pradesh) and the South (Kerala) of India. The course includes extended readings and the regular viewing of audiovisual materials (original for the most part).
ANTH 619au, Language and the Public Sphere. J. Bernard Bate.
T 1.30–3.20
Explores the relationship between language and the public sphere through consideration of theoretical perspectives of Jürgen Habermas and Benedict Anderson along with ethnographic and historical examination of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century America and Europe, nineteenth- and twentieth-century Arabia, and India from the third to the twentieth century.
ANTH 622bu, Africa and the Disciplines. David Apter.
t 1.30–3.20
A broad survey of Africa’s relation to academic discourse, as seen in a variety of disciplines. This course examines how Africa is represented and discussed in different fields; how disciplinary formations, language, popular conceptions, and related intellectual practices of the various disciplines have affected academic approaches to studies of Africa; and how these approaches have reinvented particular African geographies (e.g., sub-Saharan vs. North African, francophone vs. anglophone, South Africa vs. the rest of Africa, and contemporary diasporic articulations). Attention to questions surrounding the management of “The New World Order.” After a general context is established over the first four weeks of the term, scholars representing various fields in the humanities, social and political sciences, and the professional schools visit the seminar to discuss their work in relation to the ways that their respective discipline(s) have explored related themes. Throughout the term, attention is given to issues of interdisciplinarity. Also AFST 764bu, PLSC 784bu.
ANTH 625au, Music Cultures in America. Kathryn Dudley.
W 1.30–3.20
Explores historical and ethnographic approaches to musical traditions, styles, and communities, with a focus on the dynamics of race, class, and gender in music production and consumption.
ANTH 661bu, The Ethnography of Speaking. J. Bernard Bate.
T 1.30–3.20
The seminar examines the social use of language and focuses on the interrelationships among verbal form, social function, and cultural meaning in varying modalities of spoken communicative interaction.
ANTH 674bu, Anthropologies of Insurgency. Michael McGovern.
T 9.25–11.15
This course explores the interlinked categories of rebel, bandit, and freedom fighter to understand insurgency from an anthropological viewpoint. Privileging sociological and micropolitical analysis, the course approaches specific instances of illegal use of force in their sociocultural and historic settings, and builds toward a consideration of insurgency from “the actors’ points of view.”
ANTH 705Lbu, Archaeology Laboratory II. Roderick McIntosh.
W 1–4
Practical experience in preparation, analysis, and interpretation of artifacts and nonartificial archaeological data. Students undertake term projects. Also ARCG 705Lbu.
[ANTH 706bu, Mesopotamia from Sumer to Saddam.]
ANTH 707bu, Origins of Complex Society in West Africa. Roderick McIntosh.
T 9.25–11.15
Using original readings of site reports and primary source articles, we explore the great diversity of expressions of emerging complexity in prehistoric West Africa. Also ARCG 707bu.
ANTH 732au and 733Lau, Archaeological Field Techniques and Archaeology Lab I. Roderick McIntosh.
MW 4–5.15, lab Sa 8.30–5
An introduction to the practice and techniques of modern archaeology, including methods of excavation, recording, mapping, dating, and ecological analysis. The lab offers instruction in the field at an archaeological site in Connecticut in stratigraphy, mapping, artifact recovery, and excavation strategy. The courses must be taken concurrently and are counted together as 1 credit. Also ARCG 732au and 733Lau.
ANTH 760b, The Archaeological Monograph: Past Traditions and Future Trends. Marcello Canuto.
HTBA
Also ARCG 760b.
[ANTH 763au, Archaeologies of Empire.]
ANTH 773bu, Civilizations and Collapse. Harvey Weiss.
Th 2.30–4.20
Collapse documented in the archaeological and early historical records of the Old and New Worlds, including Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica, the Andes, and Europe. Analysis of politico-economic vulnerabilities, resiliencies, and adaptations in the face of abrupt climate change, anthropogenic environmental degradation, resource depletion, “barbarian” incursions, or class conflict. Also ARCG 773bu, NELC 588bu.
ANTH 776bu, GIS and Spatial Analysis for Archaeology. William Honeychurch.
T 2.30–4.20
Introduction to the practice of GIS in anthropology with attention to archaeological applications. The growing use of Geographical Information Systems among anthropologists has transformed the way we carry out research and conceive of space. The course draws on research examples from a range of theoretical, analytical, and geographical contexts and introduces students to current software. Emphasis is placed on understanding how anthropological archaeologists have employed GIS as part of generating evidence to assess their hypotheses. Also ARCG 776bu.
ANTH 782au, Advanced Archaeological Theory. Roderick McIntosh.
W 7–8.50 p.m.
Review of the intellectual history of archaeology with original readings of the central texts from the Enlightenment to the present. Deals particularly with the tension between the use of science and mysticism/nationalism in the interpretation of prehistoric processes. Also ARCG 782au.
ANTH 784au, Origins of Complex Societies in Mesoamerica. Marcello Canuto.
W 2.30–4.20
This course provides a survey of the archaeological cultures of southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and western Honduras from the earliest inhabitants of the region through the emergence of the first states. Theoretical issues covered include the development of agriculture, the transition to sedentary villages, as well as the origins of sociopolitical complexity and the first states in the region. Also ARCG 784au.
ANTH 803b, Reproductive Ecology of Humans and Nonhuman Primates. Richard Bribiescas.
T 1.30–3.20
Survey of the current understanding of the physiology of reproductive function within the control of evolutionary and life history theory. Emphasis on population variation in female and male reproductive endocrinology as well as the sources of that variation.
ANTH 815b, Primate Functional Morphology. Eric Sargis.
Th 1.30–3.20
Examination of the form and function of primate cranial, dental, and postcranial morphology. Includes the relationship between diet and body size, as well as locomotion and body size; craniodental adaptations in relation to dietary differences; postcranial adaptations in relation to differential substrate use; and postcranial adaptations for various locomotor modes. Paleobiological implications for fossil primates are also considered.
ANTH 822b, Topics and Issues in Human Evolution. Andrew Hill.
W 1.30–3.20
Topics from the span of primate evolution are covered: the early primates, origin of modern type primates, anthropoid origins, monkey and hominoid evolution. Readings and discussions focus on issues of taxonomy—judging morphological similarities and differences among fossils. Specific attention paid to traits paleontologists use to assign fossils to species and functional/behavioral significance of those traits. Lectures and lab use of fossils provide background on fossil evidence. Also ARCG 822b.
ANTH 841a, Behavioral Biology of Human Males. Richard Bribiescas.
HTBA
This course examines the biology and evolution of human male behavior and life histories. Topics to be covered include the evolution and underlying biology of aggression, libido, competition, senescence, and sexuality. Readings are drawn from the current and historical literature of behavioral endocrinology and neurobiology with some discussion of the utility of comparative models drawn from nonhuman primates and other organisms.
ANTH 849a, Primate Models in Human Evolution. David Watts.
M 1.30–3.20
ANTH 851a, Topics and Issues in Evolutionary Theory. Andrew Hill, Eric Sargis.
T 1.30–3.20
Focus on current literature in theoretical evolutionary biology, intended to give new graduate students intensive training in critical analysis of theoretical models and in scientific writing.
ANTH 856a, Reconstructing Human Evolution: An Ecological Approach. Andrew Hill.
W 1.30–3.20
If human evolutionary change has been determined or affected by ecological factors, such as changes in climate, competition with other animals, and availability and kinds of food supply, then it is important to determine ecological and environmental information about the regions and time period in which human evolution has occurred. Examination of methods for obtaining data relevant to such information, and for evaluating the techniques and results of such other fields as geology, paleobotany, and paleozoology. Ethnographic, primatological, and other biological models of early human behavior. Also ARCG 856au.
ANTH 864bu, Human Osteology. Eric Sargis.
MW 2.30–3.45
A lecture and laboratory course focusing on the characteristics of the human skeleton and its use in studies of functional morphology, paleodemography, and paleopathology. Laboratories familiarize students with skeletal parts; lectures focus on the nature of bone tissue, its biomechanical modification, sexing, aging, and interpretation of lesions. Also ARCG 864bu.
ANTH 891b, Advanced Laboratory Methods in Reproductive Ecology and Behavioral Endocrinology. Stephanie Anestis.
M 10.30–1.30
The assessment of hormones and other biological agents is central to research into the proximate mechanisms that govern the evolution of life history traits in all vertebrates, including humans and nonhuman primates. This course introduces students to contemporary laboratory methods pertaining to human and nonhuman primate reproductive biology and endocrinology. Training includes the assessment of steroid and protein hormones in a variety of mediums including blood, urine, and saliva, using radioimmunoassay (RIA) and enzyme immunoassay (EIA) methods. Collection, storage, and preservation of biological samples collected under field conditions as well as proper safety protocols are also included in the training regimen. Open to undergraduates with permission of instructor.
ANTH 941a and b, Research Seminar in Japan Anthropology. William Kelly.
HTBA
This seminar offers professional preparation for doctoral students in Japan anthropology through systematic readings and analysis of the anthropological literature, in English and in Japanese. Permission of the instructor required.
ANTH 951a, Directed Research in Ethnology and Social Anthropology.
By arrangement with faculty.
ANTH 951b, Directed Research in Ethnology and Social Anthropology.
By arrangement with faculty.
ANTH 952a, Directed Research in Linguistics.
By arrangement with faculty.
ANTH 952b, Directed Research in Linguistics.
By arrangement with faculty.
ANTH 953a, Directed Research in Archaeology and Prehistory.
By arrangement with faculty.
ANTH 953b, Directed Research in Archaeology and Prehistory.
By arrangement with faculty.
ANTH 954a, Directed Research in Biological Anthropology.
By arrangement with faculty.
ANTH 954b, Directed Research in Biological Anthropology.
By arrangement with faculty.
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