Anthropology

51 Hillhouse, Rm 2A, 432.3665
M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.

Chair
Andrew Hill

Director of Graduate Studies
Harold Scheffler (Rm 10, 51 Hillhouse, 432.3673, harold.scheffler@yale.edu)

Professors
Richard Burger, Michael Dove (Forestry & Environmental Studies), J. Joseph Errington, Andrew Hill, Frank Hole, William Kelly, Enrique Mayer, Roderick McIntosh (Visiting), Alison Richard (Provost), Harold Scheffler, James Scott (Political Science), Helen Siu, John Szwed, David Watts, Harvey Weiss (Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations)

Associate Professors
Kathryn Dudley (American Studies), Patricia Pessar (Adjunct, American Studies), Linda-Anne Rebhun

Assistant Professors
Bernard Bate, Richard Bribiescas, Kamari Maxine Clarke, David Graeber, Isak Niehaus (Visiting), Eric Sargis, Thomas Tartaron, Eric Worby

Lecturers
Marcello Canuto, Carol Carpenter (Forestry & Environmental Studies), Nora Groce (Epidemiology & Public Health), Valter Sinder (Visiting)

Fields of Study
The department has four subfields. 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.

Master's Degrees
M.Phil. See Graduate School requirements.

M.A. This degree is intended for students not continuing in the Ph.D. program. Requirement is satisfactory completion of at least one year in that program. Special attention is given to the quality of papers submitted in course work. Applications for a terminal master's degree are not accepted.

Program materials are available upon request to the Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Anthropology, Yale University, PO Box 208277, New Haven CT 06520-8277; fax, 203.432.3669; e-mail, anthropology@yale.edu; Web site, http://www.yale.edu/anthropology/.

Courses
ANTH 500a, Seminar in Sociocultural Anthropology. Harold Scheffler. Wednesday 10-11.50
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.

ANTH 501a, Field Methods and Research Design. Helen Siu. Wednesday 10-11.50
The course offers critical evaluation of the nature of ethnographic research. Research design includes the rethinking of site, voice, and ethnographic authority.

ANTH 510b, Resistance, Rebellion, and Survival Strategies in Rural Latin America. Gilbert Joseph, Patricia Pessar. Tuesday 1.30-3.20
An interdisciplinary examination of new conceptual and methodological approaches to such phenomena as peasants in revolution, millenarianism, "banditry," refugee movements, and transnational migration. Also HIST 807b.

ANTH 513au, Language, Culture, and Ideology. J. Joseph Errington. Tuesday 1.30-3.20
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 515bu, Culture and Political Economy. Helen Siu. Tuesday 1.30-3.20
This seminar is a critical introduction to anthropological formulations of the junctures of meaning, interest, and power. Readings include classical and contemporary ethnographies that are theoretically informed and historically situated. Enrollment limited to twenty-four.

ANTH 526a, Peasantries in Latin America. Enrique Mayer. Tuesday 1.30-3.20
A review of the major theories about the rural-based-sometimes culturally distinct-societies of Latin America. A second concern are the contemporary trends of change in agrarian societies in Latin America due to market expansion, colonization, illegal crops, urban migration, and political participation of the peasant sector. The course also looks at current policy debates about rural areas and political upheavals such as Shining Path, Colombian guerrillas, and the Zapatistas in Chiapas.

ANTH 531a, Ethnography and the Futures of Anthropology. William Kelly. Monday 3.30-5.20
This seminar offers critical readings of recent ethnographies to assess the possibilities of our core representational form in light of challenges to and within contemporary culture theory. Examples of texts are Peter Whiteley's Rethinking Hopi Ethnography, Dorinne Kondo's About Face, and Charles Piot's Remotely Global. The seminar is open only to graduate students (and advanced undergraduate anthropology majors) who have taken ANTH 500a and b or equivalent course work.

ANTH 541a, Agrarian Societies: Culture, Society, History, and Development. Michael Dove, Linda-Anne Rebhun, James Scott. Monday 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 753a, HIST 965a, PLSC 779a.

ANTH 542b, Social Change and Popular Culture in Sub-Saharan Africa. Kamari Clarke. Monday 2.30-4.20
Explores social transition in various counties in Sub-Saharan Africa. In understanding the tensions between tradition and modernity, the crisis of underdevelopment, and the role of cultural brokers in contributing to the globalization of various African cultural practices, we examine the ways in which various modes of popular culture reflect and shape new social phenomena. Also AFAM 656bu.

ANTH 544a, Brazilian Readings: Identity and Fragmentation. Valter Sinder. Wednesday 3.30-5.20
Assessment of the narrative boundaries between history, literature, biography, and cultural anthropology, taking as point of reference historical novels and essays published in Brazil since 1980. Knowledge of Portuguese helpful.

ANTH 548a, Gender and Media in India. Bernard Bate. Thursday 1.30-3.20
Examines variously mediated narratives and performances of gender in India. Expanding on folkloristic and anthropological approaches to gender(ed) performance in story, song, and theater, we consider recent feminist/scholarly examinations of such media as television, film, advertising, and literature. Topics range from classical epic (Ramayana, Shilapathigaram) including stories of gods and goddesses aired in film and television to the cultural production associated with contemporary political praxis and the gendering of the political field.

ANTH 560bu, American Communities. Kathryn Dudley. Wednesday 1.30-3.20
Consideration of the concept of community and an examination of various kinds of communities-ranging from those defined by social proximity to those defined by a common experience or ideology-that are part of the American experience, in order to understand the value Americans place on community itself and the ways in which the pull of individuals exacts a toll on that commitment.

ANTH 562bu, Topics in Chinese Anthropology and History. Helen Siu. Wednesday 1.30-3.20
The seminar explores the Chinese identity as it has been reworked over the centuries. It familiarizes student with major works in Chinese anthropology and their intellectual connections with general anthropology and historical studies. Topics include kinship and marriage, marketing systems, rituals and popular religion, ethnicity and state making, and the cultural nexus of power.

ANTH 569au, Economic Anthropology. Enrique Mayer. Wednesday 1.30-3.20
An introduction to understanding economic systems in other cultures and societies. How work and leisure is organized, who gets what and how, and how economic concerns tie into other aspects of social life. Major debates and controversies examined, and examples from different parts of the world are presented. No prior training in economics or anthropology necessary.

ANTH 576bu, Anthropology of the Object. Eric Worby. Tues/Thurs 1-2.15
An exploration of the culturally variable means through which value and significance are attributed to objects. Topics for discussion include gift-giving and commodity exchange; the classification collection, and display of art and artifacts; the gendered and racialized body as object for self and other; advertising, consumption, and commodity fetishism; concepts of property; the politics of value.

ANTH 581a, Society and Environment: Introduction to Theory and Method. Michael Dove. Thursday 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 747a.

ANTH 587bu, The Anthropology of Sound.John Szwed. Thursday 1.30-3.20
The socially mediated nature of sound, and the cultural consequences of technologies of sound transmission, modification, and recording. Topics include the pre- and postindustrial soundscapes; audio ethnography; the art of noise; synesthesia; problems of originality and plagiarism (covers, sampling, mixing, machine music, etc.); world music; audio imperialism and terrorism; musical utopias; imaginary soundscapes. Also AMST 763bu.

ANTH 595a, Transnationalism, Modernity, and Diaspora. Kamari Clarke. Wednesday 2.30-4.20
As anthropologists continue to grapple with changing notions of "the field" from local to global, this course covers recent and emerging scholarship that explores theoretical problems of modernity, transnationalism, and diaspora in specific historical and ethnographic contexts. Drawing on a range of ideas from world systems theories of globalization to notions of the invention of diasporas, to postmodern ideas of social constructions, the emphasis is on the interrelations between local and global cultural processes. These processes disrupt the once homogenizing tendencies of ethnography and instead push us to examine different criteria for analyzing and constructing communities. Also AFAM 573a.

ANTH 596bu, Recasting Gender: Religion, Science, and the Body. Kamari Clarke. Wednesday 2.30-4.20
A central goal of the seminar is to identify ways of disarticulating the production of gender by examining how these roles are both naturalized and disrupted in local and global spheres. Also AFAM 683bu.

ANTH 597a, Sustainable Development and Conservation: Introduction to Social Aspects. Carol Carpenter.
This course provides a fundamental understanding of the social aspects involved in implementing sustainable development and conservation projects, focusing on applied problems regarding the participation of people in such projects and the impacts such projects have on people. Communities are a major focus, particularly the social divisions and social ties relevant to the community management of resources. The course reviews different types of development and conservation projects and the particular problems they pose for indigenous people. It also examines short-term methodologies for evaluating the social aspects of such projects. This course is a prerequisite for F&ES 752b and F&ES 759b. Also F&ES 757a.

[ANTH 598b, Sustainable Development and Conservation: Advanced Readings in Social Theory. Carol Carpenter, Michael Dove.]

ANTH 610b, Society and Environment: Advanced Readings in Social Theory. Michael Dove, Carol Carpenter. Thursday 2.30-5.20
This is an advanced seminar on the relationship between society and environment, examining key theoretical developments and current issues in social, political, and historical ecology and ecological anthropology. The course explores the wider conceptual and institutional contexts of resource use and environmental relations. It focuses on discourses and debates about nature and culture, and examines the paradigm shift from modernity to postmodernity in theorizing about the environment. The relationship between society and the environment is examined through both contemporary theory and ethnographic examples. The course is an opportunity for students to plumb critical issues, place their work in a wider theoretical context, and develop their own research and writing. Prerequisite: F&ES 747a, F&ES 757b, or F&ES 756b. Team taught. Limited enrollment.Three hours lecture/seminar. Taught alternate years. Also F&ES 752b.

ANTH 626bu, Anthropological Perspectives on Gender and Health. Linda-Anne Rebhun. Wednesday 1.30-3.20
Examines how issues of gender articulate with health as examined by anthropologists. Topics include women's health (reproductive issues, STDs, sexual violence, genital surgry, etc.), men's health (especially alcohol and drug use, STDs, violence, occupational issues), and issues of sexual identity, with a special emphasis on political, economic, and cultural aspects of gender and health. In addition, we look at moral/political issues like abortion and new reproductive technologies from an anthropological perspective.

ANTH 629bu, Rhetorics and Publics. Bernard Bate. Monday 2.30-4.20
An examination of the relationship between ideas of language use and function and the organization and imaginary of sociopolitical practice. We query such concepts as "rhetoric" and "the public" in a variety of historical and ethnographic contexts, from the ideas of language among Spanish and Nahuatl speakers during the conquest of Mexico to the oratory of Patrick Henry and Abraham Lincoln.

ANTH 634au, Anthropology of the Postcolonial State. Eric Worby. Monday 3.30-5.20
Ethnographc and interpretive approaches to the postcolonial state and the forms of public culture to which it gives rise. Topics include the formation of state structures and citizen subjects, nationalism in relation to discourses of gender, race, marginality, and modernity; corruption and moral discourse on the public sphere; ritual and aesthetic dimensions of rule and resistance; tensions between popular, civic, and global culture.

ANTH 681au, Introduction to Jazz Studies. John Szwed. Tuesday 1.30-3.20
An overview of the music and its cultural history, with consideration of the influence of jazz on the visual arts, dance, literature, and film; an introduction to the scholarship and methods of jazz studies. Also AFAM 557au, AMST 703au.

ANTH 702bu, Archaeological Method and Theory II. Marcello Canuto. Wednesday 1.30-3.20
The principles archaeologists use to explain human cultural development from the material record of the past. Questions considered include: What is archaeology and what are its aims? Is there or is there not a coherent body of archaeological theory to which most archaeologists subscribe? What appear to be the most productive theoretical approaches for understanding and interpreting the past? Also ARCG 702bu.

ANTH 705Lbu, Archaeology Laboratory II. Thomas Tartaron. Thursday 1-4
Practical experience in preparation, analysis, and interpretation of artifacts and nonartifactual archaeological data. Students undertake term projects. Also ARCG 705Lbu.

ANTH 712au, Ancient Civilizations of Mesoamerica. Marcello Canuto. Tues/Thurs 11.30-12.45
The Indian civilizations of Mexico and Central America from earliest times through the Spanish conquest. Also ARCG 712au.

ANTH 716bu, Neanderthals and Wise Men. Frank Hole. Tues/Thurs 1-2.15
Examines popular and scientific views concerning the archaic hominids known as neanderthals and their role in the cultural and biological evolution of modern Homo sapiens. Also ARCG 716bu.

ANTH 719au, Ethnohistory and Archaeology. Roderick McIntosh. Thursday 2.30-4.20
Review of the major problems and methodologies associated with the use of ethnohistory by archaeologists. How do archaeologists construct a historical imagination? Looks at a variety of sources: colonial and "visitor" documents, peoples' written description of themselves, oral traditions, classic ethnographies, and art history. Also ARCG 719au.

ANTH 726au, Practicum in Archaeology. Frank Hole. Monday 1.30-3.20
Hands-on experience in the study of archaeological artifacts, utilizing collections from the Near East and America. Students develop skill in attribute analysis, classification, illustration, and cultural and chronological interpretation. Also ARCG 726au.

ANTH 732au and 733Lau, Archaeological Field Techniques and Archaeology Lab I. Thomas Tartaron. Tues/Thurs 9-10.15, Lab sa 9-5
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 ARCG 733Lau.

ANTH 737bu, Archaeological Research Design. Frank Hole. Mon/Wed 1-2.15
Various approaches to designing archaeological research are presented and discussed through the use of case studies. As final projects students design and present their own research proposals. Also ARCG 737bu.

ANTH 740au, Maya Archaeology.Marcello Canuto. Wednesday 2.30-4.20
Examination of current problems in Maya archaeology, epigraphy, iconography, and ethnohistory. Topics include the preclassic, classic, and postclassic periods. the development and collapse of classic Maya civilization, economic and political organization, warfare, and external relations. Also ARCG 740au.

ANTH 741bu, Archaeology of Communities. Marcello Canuto. Thursday 2.30-4.20
An examination of households and of their integration into communities in ancient complex societies. Heavily emphasizing theoretical perspectives from cultural anthropology, this course studies archaeological approaches to a holistic study of everyday life in ancient societies. Reading is drawn from diverse fields of ethnography, ethnoarchaeology, ethnohistory, and archaeology. Also ARCG 741bu.

ANTH 745au, Human Landscapes of the Past: A Landscape Archaeology Approach. Thomas Tartaron. Tues/Thurs 11.30-12.45
Examination of landscape as a powerful concept in archaeology, and the basis of a thriving research agenda within the discipline. This course trces the intellectual development of landscape perspectives in archaeology, from a primary concern with adaptive and economic aspects of human-environment interactions to more recent interst in cognitive and culturally constructed landscapes. Case studies reveal a multiplicity of archaeological approaches. Permission from instructor required for non-archaeology/anthropology undergraduates. Also ARCG 745au.

ANTH 753au, Early Prehistory. Frank Hole. Tues/Thurs 1-2.15
The formation of modern society began with the beginning of food production and the establishment of permanent settlements. Triggered by climatic and environmental factors, the Neolithic Revolution led to innovations in architecture, art, metallurgy, religion, diet, technology, trade, and social organization that provided the foundations for the earliest civilizations. This course focuses on the Neolithic period in the region including the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkey, Iraq, and western Iran. Also ARCG 753au.

ANTH 803b, Reproductive Ecology of Humans and Nonhuman Primates.Staff.
This seminar surveys the current understanding of the physiology of reproductive function within the control of evolutionary and life history theory. Emphasis is placed on popula- tion variation in female and male reproductive endocrinology as well as the sources of that variation.

ANTH 811a, Behavioral Endocrinology.Staff.
This seminar examines the role of hormones in the evolution and expression of human and nonhuman primate behavior. Emphasis is placed on behaviors that are associated with aggression, stress, mating, and parenting. Advanced undergraduates are welcome with instructor's permission.

ANTH 815a, Primate Functional Morphology.Eric Sargis.
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 816b, Topics and Issues in Systematics. Eric Sargis.
Examination of the methodological and theoretical bases for phylogenetic analysis and classifiction. Focus is on cladistic methodology, but phenetic and classical methods are covered as well. Major controversies in systematics are also discussed. Morphological studies of primates and other mammals serve as primary examples, but molecular studies are also considered.

ANTH 851a, Topics and Issues in Evolutionary Theory. David Watts and staff.
A seminar focusing 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 856au, Reconstructing Human Evolution: An Ecological Approach. Andrew Hill. Thursday 1.30-3.20
If human evolutionary change has been determined or affected by ecological factors, like changes in climate, competition with other animals, 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. An examination of methods of obtaining data relevant to this, by evaluating the techniques and results of such other fields as geology, paleobotany, and paleozoology. It also surveys ethnographic, primatological, and other biological models of early human behavior.

ANTH 864b, Human Osteology. Eric Sargis. Tues/Thurs 11.30-12.45
A lecture and lab course on the characteristics of the human skeleton and its use in studies of function morphology, paleodemography, and paleopathology. Laboratories familiarize students with skeletal parts; lectures focus on the nature of bone tissue, its biomechanical modification, sexing, ageing, and interpretation of lesions.

ANTH 875b, Topics and Issues in Primate Behavioral Ecology. David Watts. Monday 2.30-4.20
Includes: kinship and dominance as organizing principles of primate social groups; feeding competition and risk of predation as determinants of group size; mating strategies and sexual dimorphism; dispersal, transfer, and the permeability of social boundaries; the structure of primate communities; the role of primates in ecological community function. Formerly ANTH 819.

ANTH 951a or b, Directed Research in Ethnology and Social Anthropology.
By arrangement with faculty.

ANTH 952a or b, Directed Research in Linguistics.
By arrangement with faculty.

ANTH 953a or b, Directed Research in Archaeology and Prehistory.
By arrangement with faculty.

ANTH 965a or b, Directed Research in Physical Anthropology.
By arrangement with faculty.

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