Graduate Courses 2011-12

Dr. Ellen Badone.  Tuesday 3:30-5:30pm in CNH-607.

        Term 1 start date:    Tuesday, September 13, 2011

        Term 2 start date:    Tuesday, January 10, 2012

The graduate workshop is a student-focused bi-weekly workshop that is defined for and by graduate students.  We began this workshop because many graduate students felt it was important to have a forum for intellectual and practical discussion for incoming students. It focuses on 1) Professional training such as proposal-writing and preparing for conference presentations, 2) Discussions of intellectual debates on topics defined by the attending students, and, 3) Student research presentations.  Students enrolled each year jointly define the content of the workshop in consultation with the faculty facilitator.  It is twinned with the departmental visiting speakers’ series so that each week (Tuesdays at 3:30) we have a collective forum for discussion outside of specific course-work.  The graduate workshop is mandatory in year one and until December of year two for all graduate students.

Can be taken in Terms 1, 2 and 3

Term 1 Courses

Dr. Wayne Warry.    Thursday, September 8 at 1:30-4:30 in CNH-307.

This course examines theory, ethics, advocacy and methods in medical anthropology.  Medical anthropology is an established and growing subfield of anthropology, employing critical theory to examine health, illness and healing in a cross-cultural perspective.  We examine biomedicine and health systems in Canada as well as indigenous medicine and alternative or complementary systems of health and healing.  The course is designed to introduce students to medical ethnography and the social and cultural construction of specific illnesses through the life course.  We examine interpretive and critical medical anthropology theory, and the practice of medical anthropology.  Students are able to purse such topics as explanatory models of illness in clinical and community settings and the social and cultural determinants of health that influence health status and health care in Canada and the developing world.

The course is student-driven, and its focus varies from year to year depending on students interests.  Students are free to pursue their interests and may focus, for example, on specific illnesses and patient experience (for example, cancer and cancer care, the cultural construction of dementia).  Students might also pursue critical issues related to health policy, clinical practice, cultural competence or medical education.  The seminar is inquiry based with weekly discussion of readings, many of which students identify themselves.  Class time will be set aside for students to articulate and explore their individual or collaborative research projects.

 721:    ANCIENT BIOMOLECULES AND BIOARCHAEOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY
Drs. Hendrik Poinar and Tracy Prowse.   Thursdays, September 8 at 10:30-1:30 in CNH-307.

Chemical analysis of archaeological material and human skeletal remains is now a standard component of bioarchaeological research. This course will introduce graduate students to the use of biochemical methods in archaeological research and provide them with intensive lab-based training in various methods. The course is designed primarily for biological anthropologists, but is also broadly applicable to archaeologists who are interested in the application of biochemical techniques to archaeological questions.

The first section of the course (Anth 721) will focus on an overview of theory and methods in bone chemistry and biomolecular analysis. Students will complete background research on a specific topic and will develop a research proposal for a lab-based project. Students will present their proposals to the seminar for peer-review.

Dr. Ann Herring.  Tuesday, September 13 at 9:30-12:30 in CNH-307.

The anthropology of infectious disease is an emerging area of inquiry situated at the nexus of the microcosmos and human behaviour.  What place does infectious disease occupy in anthropological thinking?  How do anthropologists study infectious disease?  How have formulations of the role of epidemics influenced the way anthropologists think and write about people and human history?  What do anthropologists have to say about one of the central concerns of 21^st century western society?   This course considers the place occupied by infectious disease in contemporary anthropological research and explores what anthropologists contribute to the discussion.

One of my goals for this course is to encourage a rich, respectful and productive dialogue about infectious disease from the perspective of the various branches of anthropology, and beyond.  I want to provoke a healthy creative dialogue between students whose research focuses on interpretive, critical, and metaphorical standpoints with others more interested in biomedical or archaeological approaches to infectious disease.  I want us to explore and develop a distinctive anthropological discourse about infectious disease and epidemics, past and present, not conventional to epidemiology or the history of medicine.

I also want this course to have a strong element of experiential education, and thereby contribute to your development as professional, practising anthropologists.  To this end, the main purpose of the course will be for each student to write a paper for publication or presentation at a scholarly meeting on a topic of interest in the anthropology of infectious disease.  This project will help you apply your knowledge in a practical way and also help to build your curriculum vitae.

Dr. Petra Rethmann.   Wednesday, September 14 at 1:30-4:30 in CNH-307.

This course seeks to address and open up the question of "the future" through a series of political, theoretical, and anthropological excursions.  Starting from the hypothesis that many of us today experience the present as extremely cynical and politically unpromising and closed, we will examine practical, theoretical, and affective openings to the problem of futurity and political possibility - openings that might help us to understand this present in different ways.  To this effect, the materials assigned for this course address the question of "possibility", "the future", and "horizons" by way of thinking through a set of inter-related terms:  "liberalism", "neoliberalism", "democracy", "identity", "the left", "collectivity", and "sovereignty".  The goal of this course is not to arrive at a determined idea of what a socially and politically just future might look like, but rather to ask about alternative cultural and political formations.

799:  DEATH:  RITUALS AND MEANINGS IN CROSS-CULTURAL CONTEXT
Dr. Ellen Badone.  Monday, September 12 at 1:30-3:30 in UH-122.

This course surveys cultural constructions of death, dying and bereavement in a variety of  social contexts.  Drawing upon theoretical perspectives from anthropology, sociology and religious studies, the course considers death as a social process, a rite of passage, and an occasion for the creation and/or contestation of social and individual meanings.  The course will be conducted as a seminar.  Readings will be assigned for discussion each week and every student will be responsible for preparing a 4-5 page (typed double-spaced) commentary on the readings listed in the syllabus every week.  For each article, or book section, the commentary should summarize and critically evaluate the author's argument and formulate questions to be raised during seminar discussion.  Secondary sources need not be consulted, but can be referenced where relevant.  These commentaries will be handed in weekly, and will be evaluated together with seminar participation as the basis for the course grade (30% participation, 70% commentaries).   Readings for the course are available online through Mills Library (journal articles) or through Titles.

Term 2 Courses

702:    CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS IN ANTHROPOLOGY:  Democracy Uprising and the Ravages of Economic Rationality. 
Dr. Kee Yong.  Start Date: Tuesday, January 4, 2012 at 11:30-2:30 in CNH-307.

This course provides a review of some contemporary issues since the onslaught of neoliberal capitalism and the democracy uprising in parts of the Middle East and Africa (and the majority of Latin America).  We will address the question of "democracy".  Is democracy an ideology, even propaganda when in reality elite dislike of democracy is the norm and supported democracy only when it contributes to their economic self-interest?  If so, will the so-called Western powers support an authentic democracy in the Arab world?  This leads us to the question of the "market".  Are markets rational or motivated by self interest?  How do the privatization of national and international economies affect local producers and consumers?  Essentially, what is a luxury?  What is a necessity?  How useful are the concepts of exploitation and alienation in analyzing the relationship between production and exchange?  What is the connection between fat and global warming?  What about wars?  What have anthropologists and others to say about winners and losers in recent conflicts?  Does the term "forced migration" have analytic value?  Is it paradoxical that most development schemes, including fair trade displace and impoverish people within or close to the schemes?  We will address these issues contextually.  In all our readings and discussions, we want to ask if there are better conceptual frameworks that could help us make sense of and respond to the current madness that threatens us all.

704:   INTRODUCTION TO THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF RELIGION
Dr. Celia Rothenberg.  Start Date:  Tuesday, January 3, 9:30-11:30 in UH-122

This course introduces the study of religion from the standpoint of anthropology.  Course materials provide a historical overview of theoretical developments in this field.  Current ethnographies focusing on religion will be covered, and students will receive an introduction to ethnographic methodology.

711:    ADVANCED TOPICS IN PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY - ANCIENT BIOMOLECULES AND BIOARCHAEOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY II
Drs. Tracy Prowse and Hendrik Poinar.   Start Date: Wednesday, January 4, at 10:30-1:30 in CNH-307.

Chemical analysis of archaeological material and human skeletal remains is now a standard component of bioarchaeological research. This course will introduce graduate students to the use of biochemical methods in archaeological research and provide them with intensive lab-based training in various methods. The course is designed primarily for biological anthropologists, but is also broadly applicable to archaeologists who are interested in the application of biochemical techniques to archaeological questions.

The second part of this course (Anth 711) will focus on the completion of lab-based research projects and the preparation of a final research paper of sufficient quality for publication. Students will be required to maintain a laboratory notebook that will form part of their evaluation. Students will also present the results of their research at the end of term in the format of a conference presentation.

740: BIOCULTURAL SYNTHESIS
Dr. Tina Moffat.   Thursday, January 5 at  10:30-1:30 in CNH-307.

This seminar is an examination of the ways that anthropologists have attempted to bridge the gap between the studies of human biology and socio-culture.  In particular we will critically evaluate recent attempts by anthropologists to bring political-economic perspectives to bear on issues of biology and culture.  Course readings will include theoretical perspectives and particular anthropological case studies that use biocultural theory as a framework for examining issues of health, disease and environment in past and contemporary settings.

 
787:    OBJECT WORLDS:  THE CIRCULATION AND VALUE OF MATERIAL CULTURE
Dr. Tristan Carter   Start Date: Monday, January 9, at 10:30-1:30 in CNH-307.

This course critically engages with a number of major debates in material culture studies, focusing particularly on circulation/exchange, value and materiality.  Central to this course is the theme of people-object relations, their dialectical constitution and such concepts as object agency, entanglement and distributed personhood.
 

The class deals with some fundamental issues concerning the construction of value, the significance of object circulation and the relationship between social identity and material culture?  To investigate these topics we will draw upon a rich body of anthropological and archaeological literature on 'the gift', alienability, biography, landscape and the 'natural' world, technology and materiality, including sensorial archaeologies.
Keywords:  exchange, circulation, value, social biography, production, materiality