Course Offerings
2013-2014
Fall semester 2013-2014
See the Registrar's site for more information on the courses listed below.
ANT 201Foundational Concepts in Anthropology(SA)An introduction to the comparative study of human societies. The focus will be on the ways in which different communities organize their beliefs and relationships. Issues will include the role of culture in the development of our species, the relation of religion to economics, the cultural embeddedness of sexuality, and the ways in which native peoples are represented in Western thought.Lawrence Rosen
ANT 215/EEB 315Human Adaptation(STL)Human adaptation focuses on human anatomy and behavior from an evolutionary perspective. Lectures and weekly laboratory sessions focus on the evolution of the human brain, dentition and skeleton to provide students with a practical understanding of the anatomy and function of the human body and its evolution, as well as some of its biological limitations. No science background is required on the part of the student.Janet M. Monge
ANT 241/GSS 241Women's Bodies, Women's Lives(SA)Taking both a global and a local approach, this course investigates how women around the world experience their lives and their bodies across the life cycle. We explore how not only social roles but also images, uses, and meanings of the bodies that all women inhabit are shaped in deep, though often invisible, ways by cultural values and social institutions. Through readings, films, interviews, and ethnographic exercises that compare women's experiences of their bodies in the contemporary US with those of women elsewhere across the globe, the course introduces an anthropological perspective on the gendered body.Alma Gottlieb
ANT 300Ethnography, Evidence and Experience(SA)This seminar relates foundational concepts in anthropology (e.g., culture, society, identity) to methods of ethnographic research. We explore connections between ethnography's rationales in theory and the nature of evidence in practice. E.g., What is it about the idea of culture that leads us to do fieldwork? Why do ethnographers conduct participant-observation? How do ethnographers take account of their own cultural premises? The global diversity of cultural experience and imagination unsettles clean lines between theory and practice, and sustains productive debates over the scope and aims of ethnography.Carol J. Greenhouse
ANT 304Political Anthropology(SA)Political power is often said to derive from the public, but political power also produces publics. Thus, political systems, no matter how stable or traditional they may appear to be, are always in flux. Anthropologists study political authority and legitimacy as creative cultural spheres and dynamic social fields. Drawing on current ethnographic accounts of state power, transnational firms, humanitarian and other NGOs from the U.S. and elsewhere, we explore issues of power, authority, legitimacy, hegemony, resistance, representation, and discourse as cultural questions.Staff
ANT 339/SAS 217Peoples and Cultures of South Asia(SA)This course introduces core themes in culture and society in South Asia, with an anthropological focus. Topics include the religious traditions of South Asia (in particular, Hinduism, Islam); varied expressions of kinship, gender, and everyday life; and the influence of global forces on local practices. Emphasis will be on the modern period, with selective historical context highlighting recent forces of nationalism, communalism, and "modernity." A variety of films will be shown throughout the course.Isabelle R. Clark-Deces
ANT 367Personal Anthropology(SA)This course applies the theoretical and methodological tools of cultural anthropology to contemporary daily life. Readings emphasize the hidden but structurally central forces that combine to shape individual identity. Assignments are project-based. While reading about contemporary life in North America, students conduct a series of auto-ethnography/ fieldwork exercises in their own lives that provide material for short papers. Concepts of time, food preferences, clothes choices, the (race-, gender-, and class-based) privileges to which we do and do not have access, and our place in the global economy are all grist for the ethnographic mill.Alma Gottlieb
ANT 375/GSS 374Culture and International Order(SA)This seminar examines the relation of the local to the global from an anthropological perspective. Using documentary and feature film, experiential reports, ethnographies, and analytical essays, it investigates how people, material objects, and ideas are involved in cross-cultural exchange, and how meanings are assigned and created. The focus is on how global orders (of states and of cultural, religious, economic, or legal regimes) are taken up and experienced by individual people, and how such orders initiate unintended effects on local cultures.John W. Borneman
ANT 501Proseminar in AnthropologyFirst half of a two-semester seminar required for incoming graduate students in social-cultural anthropology. Along with ANT 502, the course introduces students to fundamentals of anthropological thought. Predominantly, the course focuses on anthropology's engagement with history and writing. Through reading key texts in the discipline, the class tries to understand how anthropologists transition from their fieldwork to theorizing, and from their ethnography to text.Serguei A. Oushakine
ANT 521ATopics in Theory & Practice (Half-Term): Disciplinary Practices Part 1 (Half Term)This two-part seminar/practicum on the ethics and politics of field research pays attention to differences and mutual boundary-work among anthropology and its disciplinary neighbors as well as to alternative ideas about "evidence", "the field", relations among researchers and their interloculors (as hosts, publics, and more) and about "method" itself. 521A initiates an intensive workshop approach to "participant observation", the distinction between interviewing and conversation, and record keeping; and the vetting of proposals for local fieldwork to be continued in 521B.Rena S. Lederman
ANT 521BTopics in Theory & Practice (Half-Term): Disciplinary Practices Part 2 (Half Term)This is the second of a two-part seminar/practicum on fieldwork, focusing on differences among anthropology and its disciplinary neighbors as well as to alternative ideas about "evidence", "the field", relations among researchers and their interlocutors (as hosts, publics, and more) and "method" itself. During this half, participants continue field projects initiated during 521A as bases for critical discussions of scale (e.g., the scaling-up of local study), subject position, credibility claims, and the politics and ethics of reception. We continue and conclude a discussion of improvisation and collaboration as method in ethnography.Rena S. Lederman
ANT 541Topics in Social Anthropology: Intersubjectivity and EthnographyThis course brings theories of intersubjectivity to bear on interlocution-based ethnographic field research. Intersubjectivity in modern clinical psychoanalysis focuses on how meaning develops out of relationships w/ persons & material or spiritual objects, including w/ the therapist; interlocution-based fieldwork focuses on experience-near, face-to-face forms of learning -- conscious/unconscious messages in talking & bodily communication. How might key concepts such as object relations, transference and the intersubjective third help us understand the relation of ethnographers to their interlocutors, and lead to ways of thinking and knowing?John W. Borneman
ART 294/CLA 294/ANT 373Ancient Egyptian Archaeology(LA)Everyone knows of Ancient Egypt's monumental pyramids, temples and tombs. Yet it also had cities, fortresses, palaces, potters, and even trash. The archaeological record informs us greatly about Egyptian daily life, craft and economy. In this class students will study the archaeology of Egypt to learn about their history, culture, religion and society. Students will grapple with original material in their presentations of objects, tombs, houses and sites. Moreover students will engage with the collection of the Princeton Museum of Art in a semester long, hands-on project to identify scarab-shaped amulets. The class may also travel to museums.Joanna S. SmithKate Liszka
EAS 225/ANT 323Japanese Society and Culture(SA)During the decades after World War II, Japan became the world's second largest economy and a highly educated, technologized society. While Americans once regarded Japan as a land of "corporate warriors," today Japan has become known for its popular cultural critiques of environmental destruction and for a gentler variety of capitalism that has weathered economic downturns while preserving a high quality of life for its people. We explore key social issues in Japan today: the contemporary "birth strike," gender and popular culture, civil society, medical ethics, difference and disability, adolescence and education.Amy B. Borovoy
EAS 549/ANT 549Japan Anthropology in Historical PerspectiveThe course considers Japan studies in the context of theories of capitalism, personhood, democracy, gender, and modernity. We will be discussing issues of fieldwork as method and "area" as a unit of analysis. We will also consider the place of Japan in American social thought.Amy B. Borovoy
EAS 585/ANT 585/GSS 585Anthropology of the Body: Theories and PracticesWhy the body? This course examines the rise of the notion of the body in anthropology and other fields. Engaging with major theorists of the body, it explores ethnographic advantage of the body as an analytical category of human existence, compared to notions of subject, agency, self and so on. It introduces a balanced perspective between bodily experience and social construction of the body by various forces (religious rituals, legal regulations, scientific knowledge, political protocols, medical practices, disciplines, and popular culture), and explores different bodies and the complex relationship between the body and life.Everett Y. Zhang
GHP 350/WWS 380/ANT 380Critical Perspectives on Global Health and Health Policy(SA)Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the course identifies the main actors, institutions, knowledge and values at work in the field of global health, and explores the environmental, social, political, and economic factors that shape patterns and variations in disease and health across societies. Topics include: technology and public health; development and the governance of disease; human rights and social justice; the shifting role of states, civil society, and public-private partnerships in health care delivery. Students are encouraged to think creatively about health problems and to envision innovative and effective interventions.João Biehl
GHP 403/ANT 383Health and the Social Markers of Difference(SA)This course will examine the role of social markers of difference including race, nationality, gender, sexuality, age and religion in current debates and challenges in global health. We will explore contemporary illness experiences and therapeutic interventions in sociocultural context through case studies from the US, Brazil, and South Africa. Students will be introduced to key concepts such as medicalization, embodiment, structural violence, and the social determinants of health, and gain experience in applying anthropological and related social scientific research methods to questions of global health policy.Peter A. Locke
Summer 2013-2014
GLS 310 / ANT 381 / HLS 321 Pluralism and the Body Politic in Greece
DEPARTMENT CONSENT IS REQUIRED TO ADD THIS CLASS
The seminar explores pluralism in Greece from minority governance in the Ottoman Empire to modern European multiculturalism. Through ethnographies, historical works, and films, the seminar considers how Greek governments and peoples have faced problems of cultural, linguistic, and religious difference within and outside the borders of the nation. It focuses on aspects of state government--health care, education, welfare--that clarify the boundaries of identity, community, and polity in Greece. It is based in Istanbul (week 1) and Xanthi (weeks 2-6); excursions may include Komotini, Alexandropoulis, Thessaloniki and the Rhodope Mountains. Sample reading list: Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories and the City, selections Philliou, Biography of an Empire: Governing Ottomans in an Age of Revo Clark, Twice a Stranger: How Mass Expulsion Forged Modern Greece an Clogg, Minorities in Greece: Aspects of a Plural Society See instructor for complete list
Reading/Writing assignments: Weekly reading assignments are listed on the syllabus. Written work will include two short argumentative essays essays (3-4 pp), due in Weeks 3 and 5. Additionally, students will write a one-page response to the films we screen each week. The major writing project will be a research paper (10-12 pp), accompanied by a short in-class presentation during the last week of the seminar. A brief proposal for this research project will be due in Week 2.
Requirements/Grading: Papers - 45% Term Paper(s) - 40% Class/Precept Participation - 15%
Other Requirements: Not Open to Seniors.
Schedule/Classroom assignment:TBA