Courses

Undergraduate Courses

200: Introduction to the Scientific Study of Language

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Overview of the scientific study of the structure and function of language. Introduces the main fields of linguistics, phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, discourse, historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, and psycholinguistics. Highlights the interdisciplinary relationship of linguistics with anthropology, sociology, psychology, and cognitive sciences. Cross-listed with LING 200.

201: Introduction to Social/Cultural Anthropology

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Introduction to the history, methods, and concepts of social/cultural anthropology, which is devoted to the systematic description and understanding of cultural diversity in human societies.

203: Human Antiquity: An Introduction to Physical Anthropology and Prehistory

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

This course offers a broad introduction to the human past as revealed by evolutionary studies of both biochemical and fossil evidence, and by archaeological studies of human cultural behavior.

205: Introduction to Archaeology

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

An introduction to the elementary concepts of the discipline through a series of case studies.

209: Language, Ideology and Identity in South Asia

This course will explore how both in history and contemporary South Asian society, linguistic identity has transformed ideology in nationalist and post-nationalist struggles.  In the process examining issues of multilingualism, orality and literacy, language conflicts, language use in media, advertising and cinema.  Viewing the political, civil society and social movements through the prism of language pluralism.  Cross-listed with ASIA 209.

210: Anthropology of Death

An introduction to anthropological and archaeological concepts and methods through a study of rituals surrounding death, dying, and disposal of the dead. Topics will include the definition of death, remembering and forgetting the dead, grief and mourning, tombs and funerary monuments, human sacrifice, forensic reconstructions.

212: Perspectives on Modern Asia

A team taught interdisciplinary course focusing on the political, social and economic forces that are shaping the lives of the nearly one-half of the world's population that lives in Asia.  Provides a selective in-depth look at certain important areas of East, Southeast and South Asia that reflect larger themes and problems.  Cross-listed with ASIA 212.

280: Anthropology of the Middle East

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

This course provides an introduction to and critical examination of the extensive ethnographic literature written by sociocultural anthropologists on the peoples and cultures of the Middle East (including North Africa). Major themes of this literature are reviewed and analyzed, and current trends are studied by reading recent works.

290: The History and Ethnography of the (To Be Named)

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

This course focuses intensively on the history and ethnography of a single people, the selection of which changes from year to year. Using all available materials, this course provides an introduction to the approaches of the discipline and how they have changed, registered by the different ways anthropologists and others have represented over time, the same subjects.

298: Biotechnology, 1900 to Now

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

The technical manipulation of living matter from humans, animals and plants is both a scientific and a social undertaking. This course is designed for humanities and science students who want to know more about how biotechnology came into existence, and the questions, controversies and changes which come with the ability to engineer living things. A series of case studies of contemporary events in cloning, patenting, genetically modified organisms, and stem cell research will be set in the context of the twentieth century history of biotechnology. http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~anth298/

300: Linguistic Analysis

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

A hands-on, data-oriented approach to how different languages construct words and sentences. Students will develop skills in linguistic problem solving and the foundations for pursuing grammatical description. Topics: word classes, morphology, tense-aspect-modality, clause structure, word order, grammatical relations, existentials/possessives/locatives, voice/valence, questions, negation, relative clauses, complements causatives. Cross-listed with LING 300. Graduate version: ANTH 500, LING 500. Pre-requisite(s): ANTH 200 or LING 200. http.//www.owlnet.rice.edu/~ling300/

301: Phonetics

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Introductory study of sound as it relates to speech and sound systems in the world's languages. Speech sounds are examined in terms of production mechanisms (articulary phonetics), propagation mechanisms (acoustic phonetics), and perception mechanisms (auditory phonetics). Incudes a basic introduction to Digital Signal Processing. Cross-listed with LING 301. Graduate version: ANTH 501,  LING 501. Pre-requisite(s): ANTH 200 or LING 200, or permission of instructor.

302: Anthropological Theory: A Survey

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

A survey of the major theorists and theoretical schools of social-cultural anthropology. Strongly recommended for majors.

304: Urbanization in the Third World

This course will engage in transnational and comparative approaches to urban issues in the Third Wold.  Topics will include migration, shelter struggles, urban informality, violence, social movements, gender, race, and ethnic engagements with public and private spaces of the city and cinematic representations.  Cross-listed with ASIA 304.

305: Historical Linguistics

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Exploration of the nature of language change. Topics covered include sound change syntactic and semantic change, modeling language splits, the sociolinguistics of language change, and the history of European languages. Cross-listed with LING 305. Graduate version: ANTH 505, and LING 505. Pre-requisite(s): ANTH 300, and ANTH 323, or LING 300, and LING 311, or permission of instructor.

308: History as a Cultural Myth

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Explores ideas of history and attitudes toward the past as culturally conditioned phenomena. Emphasizes history as a statement of cultural values as well as conceptualizaions of cause, change, time, and reality. Cross-listed with SWGS 336. Graduate version: ANTH 508.

309: Global Cultures

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

This course will examine specific cultural debates and issues that have "overflowed" national boundaries. Topics will include: student movements, democracy and citizenship, and the internationalization of professional and popular culture. Graduate version: ANTH 509.

310: Contemporary Chinese Culture

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

This introductory course is designed to encourage creative ways of thinking about :Cultural China -- a broad-ranging concept that includes the People's Republic of China, the newly established Special Administrative Region (SAR) of Hong Kong, the Republic of China on Taiwan, and overseas Chinese communities throughout the world.

311: Masculinities

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

This course deals with masculinities in the West, concentrating on concepts of masculine protagonism and personhood. Readings explore identities constructed in realms such as law, politics, finances, art, the home and war. Cross-listed with SWGS 333. Graduate version: ANTH 511/SWGS511.

312: African Prehistory

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Thematic coverage of developments throughout the continent from the Lower Paleolithic to medieval times, with emphasis on food production, metallurgy and the rise of cities and complex societies. Graduate version: ANTH 512.

313: Language and Culture

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Investigates the relation between language and thought, language and world view, language and logic. Cross-listed with Ling 313.  Graduate version: ANTH 513.  www.owlnet.rice.edu/~anth313

314: Genetics: Science and Society

The course uses an interdisciplinary perspective to examine the claims and counterclaims made regarding genetics and new technologies for identifying and manipulating genetic material. The course will cover biological basics of genes, DNA and epigenesis; cultural and historical aspects of approaches to genetics, including eugenics past and present; and ethical issues arising from new genetic technologies. Cross-listed with BIOS 307.

315: Introduction to the Anthropology of Information and Networks

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

History and social study of information in network technologies. Thematic focus on communication, exchange, information/knowledge production and institutions of property and contract law. Empirical topics include networking technologies, money and financial institutions, free software and open source, cryptography, standards bodies, history of the internet, patents, copyright, trademark, and contract law. Includes North America, Europe, and South Asia. Graduate: ANTH 515.

316: Cultural Analysis

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

This course is specifically intended for lower level undergraduates as a means of gaining familiarity with the analytical tradition of cultural anthropology from the beginning of the Twentieth Century. The course is intended to provide students with background for upper level courses in the department.

319: Symbolism and Power

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

This course considers anthropological theories of the state and examines ethnographic accounts of states in some unexpected places-that is, outside the official realm of government bureaucracies and institutionalized politics. Topics include so-called "stateless societies," planning and bureaucratic rationality, violence and power, and ethnographic methods for studying the state. Graduate version: ANTH 519.

320: Public Spheres and Public Cultures

This course will discuss some of the basic issues surrounding civil society and the public sphere. It will look at specific contemporary debates in public culture, such as multiculturalism, identity politics, and the crisis of contemporary liberalism. Graduate version: ANTH 520.

321: Text as Property, Property as Text

Examines forms and norms of authorship and ownership from antiquity to the present. What is an author? Is a text public or private property? What are the licit/illicit forms of rewriting and appropriating a text, and how are those forms defined? This class investigates historically these and other issues. Cross-listed with CLAS 311.

322: Cultures and Identities: Race, Ethnicity and Nationalism

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

How do cultural conceptions of race, ethnicity, and nationalism shape who we think we are? How are these ideas related to Western views of the relations between nature and society, and how do these differ from those in other cultures? Graduate version: ANTH 522.

323: Introduction to Phonology

Introduction to analysis techniques and theory concerning patternings of sounds in the world's languages. The course will involve extensive work with non-English data sets, and development of analytical techniques such as identification of sound alterations or restrictions, and formalization of abstract representations and rules to account for them. Cross-listed with LING 311. Pre-requisite(s): (ANTH 200, LING 200) or (ANTH 301, LING 301) or permission of instructor.

325: Sex, Self, and Society in Ancient Greece

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

An introductory venture into conducting fieldwork in the past. The course treats a wide range of artifacts, from philosophical essays to vase paintings. It derives its focus from a rich corpus of recent research into the ancient problematization of desire and self-control. Cross-listed with SWGS 332. Graduate version: ANTH 525/SWGS525.

326: The Anthropology of Law

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Social conflict and methods of dispute management in Western and non-Western societies. Comparison of legal institutions in band, tribal, early state, and complex industrial societies. 

327: Gender and Symbolism

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Examinations of beliefs concerning men, women, and gender in different cultures, including the West, relating to issues of symbolism, power, and the distribution of cultural models. Cross-listed with SWGS 350. Graduate version: ANTH 527/SWGS527.

328: Violence, Terror and Social Trauma

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

This course addresses the central place of violence in our society and its relations with social and political terror in other cultures. Readings, film, and theater probe every day violence as well as spectacular events of our times. Aftermath, including cross-generational trauma, will be explored. Graduate version: ANTH 528.  

329: Bodies, Sensualities and Art

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Cross-cultural approaches to art and the senses. Students may engage any medium. Emphasis to be placed on issues generated from performance in the arts rather than from academia. Contrasts art and academic knowledge to explore alternative epistemologies and aesthetics. Graduate version: ANTH 529.

331: Art and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East

An in-depth examination of the art and archaeology of ancient Mesopotamia, Syria, Anatolia and Persia. Beginning in the Neolithic period, we will examine the development of Near Eastern art and architecture through the study of ancient sites and their associated material culture. Cross-listed with HART 311.

333: The Material World

335: Anthropology as Cultural Critique

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

The critical assessment and interpretation of Euroamerican social institutions and cultural forms have always been an integral part of anthropology's intellectual project. This course will explain the techniques, history, and achievements of such critique. It will also view the purpose in the context of a more general tradition of critical social thought in the West, especially the U.S. Graduate/version: ANTH 535.

338: Reading Popular Culture

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

The course examines a number of cases from popular genres-romance novels, television sit-coms, tourist sites, movies, rock music-and submits them to a variety of theoretical approaches from disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, literary studies, and philosophy. Graduate version: ANTH 538.

343: New Religious Movements in Africa

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP I

Discusses new religious movements and the religious, sociological, and political factors leading to their rise, also missionary and colonial reactions to them. Examines their relationship to indigenous religions, political and praxis, their focus on this-worldly salvation in the wake of political and economic marginality. Cross-listed with RELI 342.

344: City/Culture

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

The course treats both the theorization and the ethnographic exploration of the urban imaginary; urban spaces and practices; urban, suburban, and post-urban planning; city-states, colonial cities, and capital cities; and the late twentieth-century metropolis. Graduate version: ANTH 544.

345: The Politics of the Past: Archaeology in Social Context

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

An examination of the way that archaeological evidence of the past has been used and viewed by particular groups at different times. Using case studies, the course considers issues of gender, race, Eurocentrism, political domination and legitimacy that emerge from critical anaylsis of representations of the past by archaeologists, museums, and collectors. Graduate version: ANTH 545.

347: The U.S. As A Foreign Country

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

The course looks at selected aspects of American culture and society from an anthropological point of view. Readings derive from the works of both foreign and native observers, past and present. Graduate version: ANTH 547.

349: The Anthropology of Ethics

Philosophical ethics argues over the proper criteria of the definition and the assessment of ethical action.  This course focuses on an emerging and increasingly salient anthropological project: empirical inquiry into the themes and variations of ethical systems and the sociocultural rationale for their existence and reproduction. Graduate version: ANTH 549.

350:  Sexual Medicine

The history and contemporary practice of sexual (bio)medicine will be examined and analyzed.  Course is intended for students from all disciplines.  topics will include: contraception, pain conditions, sexual enhancement drugs and procedures, sexual reassignment, genital surgeries and Texas' unique relationship with the cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil.  Cross-listed with SWGS 355.

351: Cultures of Nationalism

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

This course will examine the cultural dimensions of nationalism, particularly around the creation of forms of "peoplehood" that seem to be presupposed by almost all nation-building projects. Texts to be analyzed will include the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Graduate version: ANTH 551. 

352 - Interscientific Collaboration:  A Research Practicum

In anticipation of the opening of the Rice Collaborative Research Center (CRC) in 2009, this course explores the conditions that facilitate and those that inhibit collaborative research across the disciplines. Readings will address the production of scientific knowledge, disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, styles of scientific reasoning and investigation, the social organization of scientific research and the interaction of sciences with their publics as well as qualitative field methods. Upon qualification, students will also engage in supervised on-site investigations of the agencies and the human subjects, at Rice and at the Texas Medical Center, which the CRC is most likely to engage. Undergraduates will demonstrate their understanding of the themes of the investigative project and produce regular field reports. Graduate students will additionally serve as investigative team supervisors and acquire competency in contemporary methodologies of the qualitative assessment of longitudinal trends. Investigators will receive explicit credit for the data they contribute to any future publications that the project generates. Graduate version: ANTH 552.

353: Cultures of India

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Summary of the prehistory, ethnography, and ethnology of the Indian subcontinent. Special emphasis on Hinduism, Buddhism, and Indian philosophy. Graduate version: ANTH 553.

355: Landscape Archaeology

This course provides an overview of the way archaeologists study landscapes including studies that emphasize their ecological, symbolic, political economic and religious aspects. Recent theoretical work on landscape will be emphasized, as well as archaeological methods of investigation and interpretation, including remote sensing, surveying and GIS. Graduate version: ANTH 555.

356: The Cultural Body

Seminar focuses on the body and bodies (human and non-human) as not only symbolic of culture, but also as culture itself. How do physiology and social processes interact? What is the physical nature of "cultural" categories such as gender, race, class, and sexuality, and (where) do we draw the line between nature and nurture? Enrollment limited to 15. Cross-listed with SWGS 356.

357: Gender and Social Movements in Latin America

Course examines the diverse social movements for rights an resources that have emerged over the past few decades in Latin America, focusing on women's participation, feminism, and gender contestations. Particular attention will be paid to movements for indigenous rights and to issues of transnationalism/globalization. Cross-listed with SWGS 357.

358: The Fourth World: Issues of Indigenous Peoples

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

In contrast with people self-identified within political structures of the First, Second and Third Worlds, Fourth World peoples are, generally speaking, "stateless peoples." In this course we will examine both how this "unofficial" status affects their struggle for self-determination and how native peoples engage traditional beliefs and practices for self-empowerment. Through readings, films and speakers we will examine current conflicts facing indigenous peoples in North and South America, the Soviet Union, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Graduate version: ANTH 558.

361: Latin American Topics

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

This course examines contemporary cultural and political dynamics in Latin America. Topics include: race, ethnicity and indigenousness; borders, migrations and diaspora; genocide and state violence; neo-colonialisms and neo-liberalisms; sexuality, gender and class dynamics; social movements and activism; the politics and practices of medicine and religion; popular culture, media and technology. Graduate version: ANTH 561.

362: Archaeological Field Techniques

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Methods used in fieldwork, laboratory analysis, and interpretation of archaeological data from a local site excavated by the class. Graduate version: ANTH 562. Pre-requisite: Anth 205. Repeatable for credit.

363: Early Civilizations

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

A comparative study of the civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus, China, and the Maya, emphasizing the causes and conditions of their origins. Graduate version: ANTH 563.

364: African Archaeology Field Techniques

In this course, basic field archaeology techniques are taught on-site in an historical archaeology context in Africa with emphasis on excavation methods, artifact recovery, and recording techniques. Students will excavate stone structures and a variety of historical deposits. Fieldwork takes place in Africa, June-July.  Repeatable for credit. Graduate version:  ANTH 564.

366: Science, Local and Global

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

This course explores science as a transnational phenomenon, focusing on the pathways along which it flows around the world. Topics include differences in local styles of reasoning, dynamics of international scientific collaborations, transnational migration of knowledge workers, the role of science in nationalist projects, and the commodification of science. Graduate version: ANTH 566.

367: Human Evolution

Covers the fossil evidence for the evolution of primates and hominids, insights into early homonid behavior from comparative studies in primate ecology and behavior, and how evolution has shaped contemporary human diversity and behavior. Pre-requisite(s): ANTH 203, or BIOS 202, or BIOS 334.

368: Primatology

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

An introduction to primate diversity, ecology and sociality based on what is now known from field studies of wild primate populations.

370: Archaeological Laboratory Techniques and Analysis

Techniques of processing, conserving, and recording archaeological materials are emphasized. Students will become familiar with procedures for pottery, glass, metal, and building materials, in addition to plant and animal remains. Course work includes lectures, hands-on lab work, and informal discussion. Lab takes place in Africa, June-July. Repeatable for Credit.  Graduate version: ANTH 570.

371: Money and Everyday Life

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Money is such a part of everyday modern life that it is hard for us to imagine living without it. Yet in many pre-modern societies, gift-exchange was as important as money is in our own. This course will look at the cultural dimensions of systems of exchange, ranging from gift-giving among Northwest Coast Indians to foreign currency exchanges between financial institutions. Along with the classic work of Marx and Simmel on money and capital, we will also cover some of the anthropological work on gifts and exchange, such as that of Mauss, Levi-Strauss, and Bourdieu, as well as some of the contemporary debates initiated by Bataille and Derrida.  Graduate version: ANTH 571.  

372: Cultures of Capitalism

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Most of us think of capitalism as primarily an economic phenomenon. Yet, it also has a profoundly cultural dimension that includes culturally specific forms of risk taking, speculation, and even money and capital. This course will explore contemporary phenomenon such as speculation, booms and busts, and the stock market, and use them to discuss some of the classic work on the "cultures of capitalism," including Marx, Simmel, Kracauer, and contemporary writers such as Jameson, DeBord and Virillio. This is not an introductory course in economics but will look at how people talk and write about culture and capitalism. Graduate version: ANTH 572.

373: The Linguistic Turn: Language, Narration, and Modernity

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

This course will look at the role of narration and the construction of some of the basic forms of modernity and post-modernity, ranging from nationalism to performative approaches to identity. The first half of the course will introduce the basic linguistic tools necessary to analyze a variety of cultural materials, and the second half will be devoted to analyzing specific texts and student presentations. The course does not presuppose any technical training in linguistic or literary analysis. Cross-listed with Ling 373. Graduate version: ANTH 573.

375: Abracadabra: Language and Memory in Science and Technology

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

The history of language, writing, and formal notational systems in science and technology. Includes ancient and renaissance arts of memory, universal languages and the development of the calculus, secret writing and cryptography, the graphical method, the rise of the 'scriptural' mode of DNA, the development and use of programming languages, psychoanalysis. No technical knowledge is assumed. Graduate version: ANTH 575.

379: Gifts and Contracts

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

This course uses philosophical, literary, and economic approaches to examine the role that gifts and contracts play in everyday life and in constructing society and culture. Authors discussed include: Derrida, Marx, Mauss, David Lewis, Schelling, Von Neumann, and Morgenstern. Graduate version: ANTH 579.

381: Medical Anthropology

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Cultural, ecological, and biological perspectives on human health and disease throughout the world. Graduate version: ANTH 581.

382: Body, Technology, and Enhancement

Seminar on the body and the various technologies that are used to optimize it.  Includes topics such as cosmetic surgery, diet supplementation, pharmaceutical enhancement, and body art.

383: Human Adaptation

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Explanations for the range and patterns of human biological differences in the context of theories of adaptation. Integrates themes from human genetics, physiology, and cultural studies. Graduate version: ANTH 583. 

385: Media, Culture, and Society

386: Medical Anthropology of Food and Health

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Food is increasingly understood and manipulated at the molecular level, and used in therapy or disease-prevention. This course focuses on the fluid intersection of biomedicine and nutrition as changes in agriculture, food safety, and research into the physiological and genetic effects of food alter how Western cultures eat. Graduate version: ANTH 586.

388: The Life Cycle: A Biocultural View

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

The human life cycle from conception to death. Focus is on the interaction between biological processes and culture. Cross-listed with SWGS 335. Graduate version: ANTH 588. 

390: Culture, Narration, and Subjectivity

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

This course examines how linguistic and narrative structures interact to produce specific cultures of interpretation. The focus will be on linguistic and literary representations of subjectivity. This course will use novels by Western authors, such as Virginia Woolf and Dostoevsky, and some Chinese materials as a comparison. Graduate version: ANTH 590.

395: Cultures and Communication

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Investigates the relations between different forms of communication - speech, print, film, and cultural constructions such as audiences, publics, and communities. Graduate version: ANTH 595.

398: Ethnographic Research Methods

Course considers the practice of ethnographic research (design, data collection and analysis).  Topics include the contentious canonization of fieldwork and the ethnographic method, ethics and human subjects, rethinking the field and collaboration.  Projects include participant observation, field notes, interviewing, and analysis of archival, ephemeral and audio/visual materials.  Graduate version: ANTH 598.

403: Analyzing Practice

A critical review of work informed by what has sometimes been deemed the "key concept" of anthropological theory and research since the 1960s. Special attention will be devoted to the analytics of practice developed by Foucault, by Bourdieu, and by de Certeau. Graduate version: ANTH 603.

404: Independent Study

Directed reading and preparation of written papers on anthropological subjects not offered in the curriculum and advanced study of subjects on which courses are offered. Repeatable for credit. Instructor permission required.

406: Cognitive Studies

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Relations between thought, language, and culture. Special emphasis given to natural systems of classification and the logical principles underlying them. Cross-listed with Ling 406. Graduate version: ANTH 606.

407: Lingustic Field Methods

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Techniques and practice in the observation, analysis, and recording of a human language. Cross-listed with LING 407. Recommended pre-requisite(s): ANTH 300, ANTH 301, LING 304, and permission of instructor. Repeatable for Credit.

408: Lingustic Field Methods

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Continuation of ANTH 407 or LING 407. Cross-listed with LING 408. Pre-requisite(s): ANTH 407 or LING 407. Repeatable for Credit.

409: Authorship and Ownership

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

A course on the relations that bind persons to particular things or ideas as property. Looks at forms of ownership as embodied by patents, copyright, brand names and trademark, and explores how such laws, marks and names function as useful anthropological objects. Graduate version: ANTH 609.

410: The Ethnography of Development

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

This course suggests the necessity of a solid ethnographic grounding for both practical development work and for further intellectual growth of the discipline.  Graduate version: ANTH 610.

411: Neurolinguistics

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Study of language and the brain. Includes localization of speech, language and memory functions, hemispheric dominance, pathologies of speech and language associated with brain damage and hypotheses of the representation and operation of linguistic information on the cortex. Cross-listed with LING 411.

412: Rhetoric

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Overview of classical theories. Intensive discussion of contemporary theories and applications in a wide variety of disciplines. Cross-listed with LING 410. Graduate version: ANTH 612.

413: Postsocialism

Examines cultural transformations in the late- and post-socialist societies of East-Central Europe, the former Soviet Union, and Asia. Explores everyday discourses and practices through which new forms of property, selfhood, nationalism, and the state are emerging, and the legacy of cold war politics for ethnographic representations of these societies. Graduate version: ANTH 613.  

414: Hermeneutics and Linguistic Anthropology

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Application of linguistic theory and method in the analysis of cultural materials. Includes discourse analysis and the structure and interpretation of texts and conversation. Cross-listed with LING 414. Graduate version: ANTH 614.

415: Theories of Modernity/Postmodernity

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

An advanced course for graduate students and undergraduate majors with interests in the interdisciplinary field of cultural studies. Readings in the work of Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Saussure, Gadamer, Derrida, Bahktin, Foucault, and others. Graduate version: ANTH 615.

418: Can Humans Think? Anthropos, Humanism and Technology

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

An upper level reading and research seminar that combines readings in the history of humanism with empirical and theoretical issues from the present. Texts and topics from Kant to JCR Licklider on anthropos and humanism, and examples from current debates: genetic engineering, environmentalism, interfaces and networking technololgies, testing technologies, and intellectural property regimes. Emphasis on the three R's. Graduate version: ANTH 618. 

419: Law and Society

In addition to focusing on works associated with critical legal studies and its antecedent legal realism, this course will examine a number of cases in the international domain that challenge concepts of civil society arising with the modern nation-state. Graduate version: ANTH 619.

421: Australian Languages

A course on the structure of Australian languages examining the phonological, morphological, and syncretic systems. Emphasis placed on interaction with original data and making appropriate typological generalizations. Discussion of sociolinguistics, language use, language death and revitalization. Cross-listed with LING 425. Pre-requisite(s):ANTH 200, or LING 200, or permission of instructor.

423: African Myths and Ritual

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP I

Explore and analyze specific myths and rituals which provide legitimation for community ceremonies and that serve as a basis for the negotiation of power and ideology for members within that community. Readings from classic theorists: Durkheim, Levi-Strauss, Edmond Leach, Gennap and Turner; and contemporary theorists: Werbner, Heusch, Comaroff, and Ray. Cross-listed with RELI 423.

425: Advanced Topics in Archaeology

Seminar on selected topics in archaeological analysis and theory. The course will variously focus on ceramic analysis and classification, archaeological sampling in regional survey and excavation, and statistical approaches to data analysis and presentation. Please consult with the department for additional information. Graduate version: ANTH 625. Pre-requisite(s): ANTH 205 and ANTH 362.

429: Activism and Social Movements

430: Experimental Writing

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

 This workshop-style class focuses on ethnographic writing. Through readings that experiment with representation, multiple intensive writing assignments, and editing others' work, students develop their own prose skills. Not a technical writing course, but one that engages the question of representation in anthropology. Graduate version: ANTH 630.

 440: Biology and Culture

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

This course focuses on anthropology of the life sciences. We will examine how this work takes contemporary bioscience as a site for cultural analysis, and also the allied proposals that this represents an opportunity to renovate classic anthropological analyses and categories of kinship, reproduction, the body, life, death and identity. Graduate version: ANTH 640.

442: Museums: Theory and Practice

445: Experts and Cultures of Expertise

Studies of experts and expert knowledge have recently become one of the most vibrant and promising areas of research in social-cultural anthropology today.  This seminar reviews recent anthropological research on experts and their cultures  of expertise and situates it in comparison to theoretical, sociological  and historical engagements of expert cultures. Graduate version: ANTH 645.

 446: Advanced Topics in Biomedical Anthropology

Seminar on contemporary research on the biomedical aspects of human health and disease.  Includes topics from medical ecology and epidemiology.  Graduate version:  ANTH 646.  Pre-requisite(s): ANTH 381 or permission of the instructor.

 447: Modern Ethnography and the Ethnography of Modernity

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

The course explores the strategies of representation, the methodologies, and the diagnostic categories to which anthropologists have resorted in coming to terms with such phenomena as rationalization, economic and informational globalization, and the commodification of culture. Graduate version: ANTH 647.  

449: Cultures of Sexuality

450: Anthropology in the Contemporary World: A Seminar for Majors

This seminar is designed specifically for juniors and seniors who have declared anthropology as a major, and is intended as an opportunity for them to survey the various applications and points of relevance of anthropology in the rapid transformations of contemporary societies and cultures. It is meant to both assess and challenge the forms of knowledge that anthropology has produced since its inception as a discipline.  

454: The Artist as Ethnographer - The Ethnographer as Artist

455: Introduction to Science and Technology Studies

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Introduction to the historical and social aspects of science and technology. Directed towards providing social scientists ways to understand the role of science and technology in their field sites and research projects; with additional emphasis on the use of media and internet technologies for qualitative social science research. Graduate version: ANTH 655. Limited enrollment.  

456:  Heritage Management

This course examines the policies and politics of heritage management from a global perspective. We examine how different nations define, protect, and manage heritage resources. Case studies will present debates over the meaning and interpretation of cultural heritage and illustrate connections between heritage and such issues as nationalism and identity. The graduate level course will engage students at a more advanced theoretical level through additional reading assignments and an additional paper. Graduate version: ANTH 656.

458: Human Osteology

Introduction to the analysis of human skeletal material from archaeological sites. Graduate version: ANTH 658.  

460: Advanced Archaeological Theory

History and analysis of the major currents of archaeological theory from the Encyclopaedist origins of positivism, through cultural evolutionism and historical particularism, to the New Archaeology and current trends. Graduate version: ANTH 660. Pre-requisite: Anth 205.

463: West African Prehistory

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Seminar providing in-depth consideration of the later prehistoric archaeology (late Stone Age and Iron Age) of the West African subcontinent. Graduate version: ANTH 663.  

468: Palaeoclimate and Human Response

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Palaeoscientists have records extending through the Holocene of forcing processes such as climate, that influence humans. We examine these records and their impact on past and present society. We explore the concept of social memory, used to understand how past communities use information about climate change and past responses in long-term adaptive strategies.  Graduate version: ANTH 668. 

474: Advanced Seminar on the Prehistoric Landscape

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

The interaction of human geography (cultural ecology) and the physical landscape (geomorphology and physical geography) as applied to past and present settlement on major floodplains. Graduate version: ANTH 674.  

475: Plio-Pleistocene Climate Change and Hominid Adaptation

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

Junctures in the evolution of the hominids appear to coincide with shifts in the earth's climate record. We will explore the current status of our knowledge of global climate in the Plio-Pleistocene and of the hominid record from the end of the Miocene to the appearance of H.sapiens.sapiens.  Graduate version: ANTH 675.  .  

483: Seminar on Documentary and Ethnographic Film

Overview of the history of documentary and ethnographic cinema from a worldwide perspective. Includes both canonical and alternative films and film movements, with emphasis on the shifting and overlapping boundaries of fiction and nonfiction genres. Cross-listed with HART 483. Graduate version: ANTH 683.  

490: Directed Honors Research

A two-semester sequence of independent research culminating in the preparation and defense of an honors thesis. Open only to candidates formally accepted into the honors program. Instructor's permission required.

491: Directed Honors Research

The second semester: a continuation of ANTH 490.

495: Anthropology Capstone

Required of all anthropology majors who do not enroll in ANTH 490 and ANTH 491. Each student formulates and completes an advanced research project guided by a faculty supervisor and evaluated by a faculty panel. 

Graduate Courses

500: Linguistic Analysis

A hands-on, data-oriented approach to how different languages construct words and sentences. Students will develop skills in linguistic problem solving and the foundations for pursuing grammatical description. Topics: word classes, morphology, tense-aspect-modality, clause structure, word order, grammatical relations, existentials/possessives/locatives, voice/valence, questions, negation, relative clauses, complements causatives. Cross-listed with LING 500. Undergraduate version: ANTH 300, LING 300. Pre-requisite(s): ANTH 200 or LING 200. http.//www.owlnet.rice.edu/~ling300/

501: Phonetics

Introductory study of sound as it relates to speech and sound systems in the world's languages. Speech sounds are examined in terms of production mechanisms (articulary phonetics), propagation mechanisms (acoustic phonetics), and perception mechanisms (auditory phonetics). Incudes a basic introduction to Digital Signal Processing. Undergraduate version: ANTH 301,  LING 301. Pre-requisite(s): ANTH 200 or LING 200, or permission of instructor.

505: Historical Linguistics

Exploration of the nature of language change. Topics covered include sound change syntactic and semantic change, modeling language splits, the sociolinguistics of language change, and the history of European languages. Cross-listed with LING 505. Undergraduate version: ANTH 305, and LING 305. Pre-requisite(s): ANTH 300, and ANTH 323, or LING 300, and LING 311, or permission of instructor.

506: History of Anthropological Ideas

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

An introduction to the history of anthropology, its theories, and methods. The emphasis is upon social and cultural anthropology.

507: Anthropological Directions: From the Second World War to the Present

DISTRIBUTION COURSE: GROUP II

A sequel to ANTH 506, the course explores turns and trends in sociocultural research and critique during the past half-century. Special attention is paid to the rise and fall of structuralism, the problematization of "the primitive," and the proliferation of theories of "practice."

508: History as a Cultural Myth

Explores ideas of history and attitudes toward the past as culturally conditioned phenomena. Emphasizes history as a statement of cultural values as well as conceptualizaions of cause, change, time, and reality. Undergraduate version: ANTH 308.

509: Global Cultures

This course will examine specific cultural debates and issues that have "overflowed" national boundaries. Topics will include: student movements, democracy and citizenship, and the internationalization of professional and popular culture. Undergraduate version: ANTH 309.

511: Masculinities

This course deals with masculinities in the West, concentrating on concepts of masculine protagonism and personhood. Readings explore identities constructed in realms such as law, politics, finances, art, the home and war. Cross-listed with SWGS 511. Undergraduate version: ANTH 311/SWGS 311.

512: African PreHistory

Thematic coverage of developments throughout the continent from the Lower Paleolithic to medieval times, with emphasis on food production, metallurgy and the rise of cities and complex societies. Undergraduate version: ANTH 312.

513: Language and Culture

Investigates the relation between language and thought, language and world view, language and logic. Cross-listed with Ling 513.  Undergraduate version: ANTH 313.  www.owlnet.rice.edu/~anth313

515: Introduction to the Anthropology of Information and Networks

History and social study of information in network technologies. Thematic focus on communication, exchange, information/knowledge production and institutions of property and contract law. Empirical topics include networking technologies, money and financial institutions, free software and open source, cryptography, standards bodies, history of the internet, patents, copyright, trademark, and contract law. Includes North America, Europe, and South Asia. Undergraduate: ANTH 315.

519: Symbolism and Power

This course considers anthropological theories of the state and examines ethnographic accounts of states in some unexpected places-that is, outside the official realm of government bureaucracies and institutionalized politics. Topics include so-called "stateless societies," planning and bureaucratic rationality, violence and power, and ethnographic methods for studying the state. Undergraduate version: ANTH 319.

520: Public Spheres and Public Cultures

This course will discuss some of the basic issues surrounding civil society and the public sphere. It will look at specific contemporary debates in public culture, such as multiculturalism, identity politics, and the crisis of contemporary liberalism. Undergraduate version: ANTH 320.

522: Cultures and Identities: Race, Ethnicity and Nationalism

How do cultural conceptions of race, ethnicity, and nationalism shape who we think we are?  How are these ideas related to Western views of the relations between nature and society, and do these differ from those in other cultures?  Undergraduate version:  ANTH 322

523: Introduction to Phonology

Introduction to analysis techniques and theory concerning patternings of sounds in the world's languages. The course will involve extensive work with non-English data sets, and development of analytical techniques such as identification of sound alterations or restrictions, and formalization of abstract representations and rules to account for them. Cross-listed with LING 511. Pre-requisite(s): (ANTH 200, LING 200) or (ANTH 301, LING 301) or permission of instructor.  Undergraduate version:  ANTH 323.

525: Sex, Self, and Society in Ancient Greece

An introductory venture into conducting fieldwork in the past. The course treats a wide range of artifacts, from philosophical essays to vase paintings. It derives its focus from a rich corpus of recent research into the ancient problematization of desire and self-control. Cross-listed with SWGS 525. Undergraduate version: ANTH 325/SWGS 325.

527: Gender and Symbolism

Examinations of beliefs concerning men, women, and gender in different cultures, including the West, relating to issues of symbolism, power, and the distribution of cultural models. Cross-listed with SWGS 527. Undergraduate version: ANTH 327/SWGS 327.

528: Violence, Terror and Social Trauma

This course addresses the central place of violence in our society and its relations with social and political terror in other cultures. Readings, film, and theater probe every day violence as well as spectacular events of our times. Aftermath, including cross-generational trauma, will be explored. 
Undergraduate version: ANTH 328.  

529: Bodies, Sensualities, and Art

Cross-cultural approaches to art and the senses. Students may engage any medium. Emphasis to be placed on issues generated from performance in the arts rather than from academia. Contrasts art and academic knowledge to explore alternative epistemologies and aesthetics. Undergraduate version: ANTH 329.

533: The Material World

This course explores the mutually constructive relationship between humans and objects; it asks how objects are made meaningful and active by humans, and how, in turn, people acquire meaning, relations, and agency through material culture.  Topics include:  commoditization, consumption, gift exchange, subjects and objects, identity, fashion, collecting, art and authenticity. Undergraduate version: ANTH 333.

535: Anthropology as Cultural Critique

The critical assessment and interpretation of Euroamerican social institutions and cultural forms have always been an integral part of anthropology's intellectual project. This course will explain the techniques, history, and achievements of such critique. It will also view the purpose in the context of a more general tradition of critical social thought in the West, especially the U.S. Undergraduate/version: ANTH 335.

538: Reading Popular Culture

The course examines a number of cases from popular genres-romance novels, television sit-coms, tourist sites, movies, rock music-and submits them to a variety of theoretical approaches from disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, literary studies, and philosophy. Undergraduate version: ANTH 338.

544: City/Culture

The course treats both the theorization and the ethnographic exploration of the urban imaginary; urban spaces and practices; urban, suburban, and post-urban planning; city-states, colonial cities, and capital cities; and the late twentieth-century metropolis. Undergraduate version: ANTH 344.

545: The Politics of the Past: Archaeology in Social Context

An examination of the way that archaeological evidence of the past has been used and viewed by particular groups at different times. Using case studies, the course considers issues of gender, race, Eurocentrism, political domination and legitimacy that emerge from critical anaylsis of representations of the past by archaeologists, museums, and collectors. 
Undergraduate version: ANTH 345.

547: The U.S. as a Foreign Country

The course looks at selected aspects of American culture and society from an anthropological point of view. Readings derive from the works of both foreign and native observers, past and present. Undergraduate version: ANTH 347.

549: the Anthropology of Ethics

Philosophical ethics argues over the proper criteria of the definition and the assessment of ethical action.  This course focuses on an emerging and increasingly salient anthropological project: empirical inquiry into the themes and variations of ethical systems and the sociocultural rationale for their existence and reproduction. Undergraduate version: ANTH 349.

551: Cultures of Nationalism

This course will examine the cultural dimensions of nationalism, particularly around the creation of forms of "peoplehood" that seem to be presupposed by almost all nation-building projects. Texts to be analyzed will include the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Undergraduate version: ANTH 351. 

552:  Interscientific Collaboration: A Research Practicum

In anticipation of the opening of the Rice Collaborative Research Center (CRC) in 2009, this course explores the conditions that facilitate and those that inhibit collaborative research across the disciplines. Readings will address the production of scientific knowledge, disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, styles of scientific reasoning and investigation, the social organization of scientific research and the interaction of sciences with their publics as well as qualitative field methods. Upon qualification, students will also engage in supervised on-site investigations of the agencies and the human subjects, at Rice and at the Texas Medical Center, which the CRC is most likely to engage. Undergraduates will demonstrate their understanding of the themes of the investigative project and produce regular field reports. Graduate students will additionally serve as investigative team supervisors and acquire competency in contemporary methodologies of the qualitative assessment of longitudinal trends. Investigators will receive explicit credit for the data they contribute to any future publications that the project generates. Undegraduate version: ANTH 352.

553: Cultures of India

Summary of the prehistory, ethnography, and ethnology of the Indian subcontinent. Special emphasis on Hinduism, Buddhism, and Indian philosophy. Undergraduate version: ANTH 353.

555: Landscape Archaeology

This course provides an overview of the way archaeologists study landscapes including studies that emphasize their ecological, symbolic, political economic and religious aspects. Recent theoretical work on landscape will be emphasized, as well as archaeological methods of investigation and interpretation, including remote sensing, surveying and GIS. Undergraduate version: ANTH 355.

558: The Fourth World: Issues of Indigenous Peoples

In contrast with people self-identified within political structures of the First, Second and Third Worlds, Fourth World peoples are, generally speaking, "stateless peoples." In this course we will examine both how this "unofficial" status affects their struggle for self-determination and how native peoples engage traditional beliefs and practices for self-empowerment. Through readings, films and speakers we will examine current conflicts facing indigenous peoples in North and South America, the Soviet Union, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Undergraduate version: ANTH 358.

561: Latin American Topics

562: Archaeological Field Techniques

Methods used in fieldwork, laboratory analysis, and interpretation of archaeological data from a local site excavated by the class. Undergraduate version: ANTH 362. Pre-requisite: Anth 205. Repeatable for credit.

563: Early Civilizations

A comparative study of the civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus, China, and the Maya, emphasizing the causes and conditions of their origins. Undergraduate version: ANTH 363.

564: African Archaeological Field Techniques

In this course, basic field archaeology techniques are taught on-site in an historical archaeology context in Africa with emphasis on excavation methods, artifact recovery, and recording techniques. Students will excavate stone structures and a variety of historical deposits. Fieldwork takes place in Africa, June-July.  Repeatable for credit. Undergraduate version:  ANTH 364.

566: Science, Local and Global

This course explores science as a transnational phenomenon, focusing on the pathways along which it flows around the world. Topics include differences in local styles of reasoning, dynamics of international scientific collaborations, transnational migration of knowledge workers, the role of science in nationalist projects, and the commodification of science. Undergraduate version: ANTH 366.

570: Archaeological Laboratory Techniques & Analysis

Techniques of processing, conserving, and recording archaeological materials are emphasized. Students will become familiar with procedures for pottery, glass, metal, and building materials, in addition to plant and animal remains. Course work includes lectures, hands-on lab work, and informal discussion. Lab takes place in Africa, June-July. Repeatable for Credit.  Undergraduate version: ANTH 370.

571: Money and Everyday Life

Money is such a part of everyday modern life that it is hard for us to imagine living without it. Yet in many pre-modern societies, gift-exchange was as important as money is in our own. This course will look at the cultural dimensions of systems of exchange, ranging from gift-giving among Northwest Coast Indians to foreign currency exchanges between financial institutions. Along with the classic work of Marx and Simmel on money and capital, we will also cover some of the anthropological work on gifts and exchange, such as that of Mauss, Levi-Strauss, and Bourdieu, as well as some of the contemporary debates initiated by Bataille and Derrida.  Undergraduate version: ANTH 371.  

572: Cultures of Capitalism

Most of us think of capitalism as primarily an economic phenomenon. Yet, it also has a profoundly cultural dimension that includes culturally specific forms of risk taking, speculation, and even money and capital. This course will explore contemporary phenomenon such as speculation, booms and busts, and the stock market, and use them to discuss some of the classic work on the "cultures of capitalism," including Marx, Simmel, Kracauer, and contemporary writers such as Jameson, DeBord and Virillio. This is not an introductory course in economics but will look at how people talk and write about culture and capitalism. Undergraduate version: ANTH 372.

573: The Linguistic Turn: Language, Narration and Modernity

This course will look at the role of narration and the construction of some of the basic forms of modernity and post-modernity, ranging from nationalism to performative approaches to identity. The first half of the course will introduce the basic linguistic tools necessary to analyze a variety of cultural materials, and the second half will be devoted to analyzing specific texts and student presentations. The course does not presuppose any technical training in linguistic or literary analysis. Undergraduate version: ANTH 373.

575: Abracadabra: Language and Memory in Science and Technology

The history of language, writing, and formal notational systems in science and technology. Includes ancient and renaissance arts of memory, universal languages and the development of the calculus, secret writing and cryptography, the graphical method, the rise of the 'scriptural' mode of DNA, the development and use of programming languages, psychoanalysis. No technical knowledge is assumed. Undergraduate version: ANTH 375.

579: Gifts and Contracts

This course uses philosophical, literary, and economic approaches to examine the role that gifts and contracts play in everyday life and in constructing society and culture. Authors discussed include: Derrida, Marx, Mauss, David Lewis, Schelling, Von Neumann, and Morgenstern. Undergraduate version: ANTH 379.

581: Medical Anthropology

Cultural, ecological, and biological perspectives on human health and disease throughout the world. Undergraduate version: ANTH 381.

583: Human Adaptation

Explanations for the range and patterns of human biological differences in the context of theories of adaptation. Integrates themes from human genetics, physiology, and cultural studies. Undergraduate version: ANTH 383. 

 585: Media, Culture, and Society

This course offers a theoretical and ethnographic overview of past, current, and future anthropological research on media. Topics rotate but can include: cultural conservation among indigenous peoples, spectacle and sexuality, nationalism, advertising, journalism, and news-making, political communication and activism, technology and social change.  Undergraduate version: ANTH 385.

Food is increasingly understood and manipulated at the molecular level, and used in therapy or disease-prevention. This course focuses on the fluid intersection of biomedicine and nutrition as changes in agriculture, food safety, and research into the physiological and genetic effects of food alter how Western cultures eat. Undergraduate version: ANTH 386.

588: The Life Cycle: A Biocultural View

The human life cycle from conception to death. Focus is on the interaction between biological processes and culture. Cross-listed with SWGS 335. Undergraduate version: ANTH 388. 

590: Culture, Narration and Subjectivity

This course examines how linguistic and narrative structures interact to produce specific cultures of interpretation. The focus will be on linguistic and literary representations of subjectivity. This course will use novels by Western authors, such as Virginia Woolf and Dostoevsky, and some Chinese materials as a comparison. Undergraduate version: ANTH 390.

595: Culture and Communication

Investigates the relations between different forms of communication - speech, print, film, and cultural constructions such as audiences, publics, and communities. Undergraduate version: ANTH 395.

598:  Ethnographic Research Methods

Course considers the practice of ethnographic research (design, data collection and analysis).  Topics include the contentious canonization of fieldwork and the ethnographic method, ethics and human subjects, rethinking the field and collaboration.  Projects include participant observation, field notes, interviewing, and analysis of archival, ephemeral and audio/visual materials.  Undergraduate version: ANTH 398.

600: Independent Study

Repeatable for credit.

601: Graduate Proseminar in Anthropology

Mapping the current fields of anthropological discourses, examining the debates in and between each of these fields, and discussing how these debates are conducted in the domains of fieldwork, ethnographic writing, and in the construction of careers in anthropology. 

602: Anthropology Proposal Writing Seminar

This seminar prepares anthropology graduate students to write a successful grant proposal. Basic elements of proposal writing, including problem conceptualization, literature reviews, and methods will be covered. 

603: Analyzing Practice

A critical review of work informed by what has sometimes been deemed the "key concept" of anthropological theory and research since the 1960s. Special attention will be devoted to the analytics of practice developed by Foucault, by Bourdieu, and by de Certeau. Undergraduate version: ANTH 403.

604: Archaeological Research Design

 Uses case studies to examine how research questions, methods, theory, fieldwork, and analytical approaches are integrated into the design of archaeological research.

 605: Fieldwork

Fieldwork -- In which students pursue ethnographic research, learn to manage information and create presentations using a variety of tools and technologies. Topics and themes change. 

606: Cognitive Studies

Relations between thought, language, and culture. Special emphasis given to natural systems of classification and the logical principles underlying them. Undergraduate version: ANTH 406. 

609: Authorship and Ownership

A course on the relations that bind persons to particular things or ideas as property. Looks at forms of ownership as embodied by patents, copyright, brand names and trademark, and explores how such laws, marks and names function as useful anthropological objects. Undergraduate version: ANTH 409.

610: The Ethnography of Development

This course suggests the necessity of a solid ethnographic grounding for both practical development work and for further intellectual growth of the discipline. Undergraduate version: ANTH 410.

612: Rhetoric

Overview of classical theories. Intensive discussion of contemporary theories and applications in a wide variety of disciplines. Cross-listed with LING 410. Undergraduate version: ANTH 412.

613: Postsocialism

Examines cultural transformations in the late- and post-socialist societies of East-Central Europe, the former Soviet Union, and Asia. Explores everyday discourses and practices through which new forms of property, selfhood, nationalism, and the state are emerging, and the legacy of cold war politics for ethnographic representations of these societies. Undergraduate version: ANTH 413.

614: Hermeneutics and Linguistic Anthropology

Application of linguistic theory and method in the analysis of cultural materials. Includes discourse analysis and the structure and interpretation of texts and conversation. Cross-listed with LING 414. Undergraduate version: ANTH 414.

615: Theories of Modernity/Postmodernity

An advanced course for graduate students and undergraduate majors with interests in the interdisciplinary field of cultural studies. Readings in the work of Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Saussure, Gadamer, Derrida, Bahktin, Foucault, and others. Undergraduate version: ANTH 415.

616:  Classical Social Theory and Its Ecologies

 This seminar explores classical texts, problems, and arguments in western social theory from the mid 18th century until the 1920s. The course approaches social theory from the perspective of the anthropology of knowledge, investigating both key documents (drawn from Vico, Herder, Montesquieu and Smith to Marx, Durkheim, Freud, and Peirce, among others) as well as the historical, social, and institutional conditions that enabled, shaped, and specialized the intellectual project of social theory during this period. We will also pay attention to how the analytics and problems of classical social theory continue to inform contemporary research in semiotic, praxiological, phenomenological and psychoanalytic anthropology.

 618: Can Humans Think: Anthropos, Humanism and Technology

An upper level reading and research seminar that combines readings in the history of humanism with empirical and theoretical issues from the present. Texts and topics from Kant to JCR Licklider on anthropos and humanism, and examples from current debates: genetic engineering, environmentalism, interfaces and networking technololgies, testing technologies, and intellectural property regimes. Emphasis on the three R's. Undergraduate version: ANTH 418.

619: Law and Society

In addition to focusing on works associated with critical legal studies and its antecedent legal realism, this course will examine a number of cases in the international domain that challenge concepts of civil society arising with the modern nation-state.  Undergraduate version: ANTH 419.

625: Advanced Topics in Archaeology

Seminar on selected topics in archaeological analysis and theory. The course will variously focus on ceramic analysis and classification, archaeological sampling in regional survey and excavation, and statistical approaches to data analysis and presentation. Please consult with the department for additional information. Undergraduate version: ANTH 425. Pre-requisite(s): ANTH 205 and ANTH 362.

629: Activism and Social Movements

Movements to alleviate inequalities constitute important cultural and political interventions globally. This course examines advocacy practices to create and sustain social movements and political struggles. Cases included grassroots advocacy, NGOs, transnational and technological activism; environmental justice; human rights; gender, ethnic and sexual rights; consumption and globalization; democratization and neoliberalism.  Undergraduate version: ANTH 429.

630: Experimental Writing 

This workshop-style class focuses on ethnographic writing. Through readings that experiment with representation, multiple intensive writing assignments, and editing others' work, students develop their own prose skills. Not a technical writing course, but one that engages the question of representation in anthropology Undergraduate version: ANTH 430. Repeatable for credit.

640: Biology and Culture

This course focuses on anthropology of the life sciences. We will examine how this work takes contemporary bioscience as a site for cultural analysis, and also the allied proposals that this represents an opportunity to renovate classic anthropological analyses and categories of kinship, reproduction, the body, life, death and identity. Undergraduate version: ANTH 440. 

642: Museums: Theory and Practice

This course combines readings and lectures exploring the representation of anthropological and archaeological materials in museum exhibits with an internship at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Undergraduate version:  ANTH 442.

645: Experts and Cultures of Expertise

Studies of experts and expert knowledge have recently become one of the most vibrant and promising areas of research in social-cultural anthropology today.  This seminar reviews recent anthropological research on experts and their cultures  of expertise and situates it in comparison to theoretical, sociological  and historical engagements of expert cultures. Undergraduate version:  ANTH 445.

646: Advanced Topics in Biomedical Anthropology

Seminar on contemporary research on the biomedical aspects of human health and disease.  Includes topics from medical ecology and epidemiology.  Pre-requisite(s): ANTH 381 or permission of the instructor. Undergraduate version: ANTH 446.

647: Modern Ethnography and the Ethnography of Modernity

The course explores the strategies of representation, the methodologies, and the diagnostic categories to which anthropologists have resorted in coming to terms with such phenomena as rationalization, economic and informational globalization, and the commodification of culture. Undergraduate version: ANTH 447.

649: Cultures of Sexuality

What is "sexuality" across cultural milieux? This course analyzes understandings and practices of sexuality from a global, comparative perspective, including different social configurations of gender and intimacy, reproduction, sensuality and the erotic. Case studies explore the complex relationships between sexuality and gender, ethnicity, nationalism, globalization, commodification, politics, media, health and medicine. Undergraduate version:  ANTH 449.

650: Pedagogy

Training in the basic elements of teaching in anthropology to be taken in conjunction with applied graduate student training. Recommended prerequisite: third year and above graduate students. 

652: Research Design

 An exploration of the process of conceptualization and concrete design of dissertation-linked research. Recommended for third- or fourth-year graduate students.

655: Introduction to Science and Technology Studies

Introduction to the historical and social aspects of science and technology. Directed towards providing social scientists ways to understand the role of science and technology in their field sites and research projects; with additional emphasis on the use of media and internet technologies for qualitative social science research. Undergraduate version: ANTH 455. Limited enrollment.

656:   Heritage Management

This course examines the policies and politics of heritage management from a global perspective. We examine how different nations define, protect, and manage heritage resources. Case studies will present debates over the meaning and interpretation of cultural heritage and illustrate connections between heritage and such issues as nationalism and identity. The graduate level course will engage students at a more advanced theoretical level through additional reading assignments and an additional paper. Undergraduate version:  ANTH 456

658: Human Osteology

Introduction to the analysis of human skeletal material from archaeological sites. Undergraduate version: ANTH 458.

660: Advanced Archaeological Theory

History and analysis of the major currents of archaeological theory from the Encyclopaedist origins of positivism, through cultural evolutionism and historical particularism, to the New Archaeology and current trends. Pre-requisite: Anth 205. Undergraduate version: ANTH 460.

663: West African Prehistory

Seminar providing in-depth consideration of the later prehistoric archaeology (late Stone Age and Iron Age) of the West African subcontinent. Undergraduate version: ANTH 463.

668: Palaeoclimate and Human Response

Palaeoscientists have records extending through the Holocene of forcing processes such as climate, that influence humans. We examine these records and their impact on past and present society. We explore the concept of social memory, used to understand how past communities use information about climate change and past responses in long-term adaptive strategies.   Undergraduate version: ANTH 468.

674: Advanced Seminar on the Prehistoric Landscape

The interaction of human geography (cultural ecology) and the physical landscape (geomorphology and physical geography) as applied to past and present settlement on major floodplains. Undergraduate version: ANTH 474.

675: Plio-Pleistocene Climate Change and Hominid Adaptation

Junctures in the evolution of the hominids appear to coincide with shifts in the earth's climate record. We will explore the current status of our knowledge of global climate in the Plio-Pleistocene and of the hominid record from the end of the Miocene to the appearance of H.sapiens.sapiens.  Undergraduate version: ANTH 475.

683: Documentary and Ethnographic Film

 Overview of the history of documentary and ethnographic cinema from a worldwide perspective. Includes both canonical and alternative films and film movements, with emphasis on the shifting and overlapping boundaries of fiction and nonfiction genres. Cross-listed with HART 683. Undergraduate version: ANTH 483. 

800: Research and Thesis