Summer 2005 Courses

Summer 2005 Courses

 

 

 

ANTHRO 1: Introduction to Physical Anthropology
Issiah Nengo, 4 units, MTWT, 10-11:30, 174 Barrows
SESSION C: June 20 – August 12

Anthropology is the study of humans from a comparative perspective. 4 major subdisciplines together make up anthropology: linguistics, social, archaeology, and physical anthropology. This introductory course on physical anthropology deals with the biological aspects of humanity. The goal is to provide students with a basic grasp of methods and theory in the biological approaches to understanding human differences and similarities. 1.5 hours of discussion section are required per week, either Monday or Wednesday 12-1:30.
Required Text: Introduction to Physical Anthropology. R. Jurmain, H. Nelson, L. Kilgore and W. Trevathan, 9th edition, 2002; Wadsworth, Belmont, CA.

 

ANTHRO 2: Introduction to Archaeology
Mark Hall, 4 units, MTWT, 9-11, room 101, 2251 College
SESSION A: May 23 – July 1

Thanks to Hollywood, Indiana Jones and Lara Croft are probably the two most well known archaeologists. But what is archaeology, and what do archaeologists really do? And is their life always full of excitement and adventure? Anthropology 2 will help you answer these two questions. The course will provide an introduction to the methods, goals, and theoetical concepts of archaeology. Archaeology attempts to reconstruct the life ways of past human societies through studying their material culture and when available, texts. This social science has a monumental challenge – interpreting past societies from their material remains (artifacts, ecofacts, features, ruins, and sites). In this course we will examine the current theories and methods employed by archaeologists in their study of the material remains recovered in the course of excavation. Lectures will cover the history of archaeology; developing a research design; field methods (survey and excavation); laboratory methods; chronology; and generating interpretations about the past. Case studies will be used to illustrate many of these topics; many will draw on recent or on-going investigations of archeological sites in Europe and East Asia. This course is intended for Anthropology majors and non-majors. There are no previous course requirements. Two hours of discussion section per week are required, either MW or TT 11-12.
Required Text: Archaeology. C. Renfrew and P. Bahn; Thames and Hudson, London and New York.

ANTHRO 3: Introduction to Social/Cultural Anthropology
Linda Coco, 4 units, MTWT, 4-5:30, 174 Barrows
SESSION C: June 20 – August 12

This course is an introduction to the fundamentals of social and cultural anthropology. It explores theories, methods and research central to the discipline. Students study theories which address variability and uniformity in social groups. Students will have an opportunity to engage the tools of participant observation and interview. Students will read several earlier period and contemporary ethnographies discussing and troubling the concept of culture and exploring material and symbolic aspects of human social life: kinship, marriage, language, economic systems, political life and religion. 1.5 hours of discussion section per week are required, either Tuesday or Thursday 2-3:30.

ANTHRO 112: Special Topics in Biological Anthropology “Primate Evolution”
Issiah Nengo, 4 units, MTWT, 8-9:30, 104 Barrows
SESSION C: June 20 – August 12

The diversity and adaptation of living and fossil primates will be surveyed. We will track the evolutionary history of primates, with an emphasis on the origins of the basic characteristics that define humans such as grasping hands, binocular vision, color vision, tool making, and intelligence. The strengths and limitations of using primate models to explain modern human behavior will be examined. This course meets the upper division biological requirement for UC Berkeley anthropology majors.

ANTHRO 115: Introduction to Medical Anthropology
Elizabeth Roberts, 4 units, MTWT, 12-1:30, 109 Wheeler
SESSION C: June 20 – August 12

This course introduces upper division undergraduates to the categories of disease, health, illness and the body, as they have been formulated historically and cross-culturally. In investigating the field of medical anthropology the strategy will be comparison, an exercise in "making the strange familiar and the familiar strange." Throughout the semester we will study how medical anthropologists have used political economic, phenomenological, symbolic, feminist, and bio-cultural approaches to the study of divergent medical systems and disease etiologies. The intention of the course is to critically examine the way these frameworks convey the lived experience and social worlds of bodies, suffering and healing practices. 1.5 hours of discussion section required per week, either Monday or Wednesday 2-3:30.

ANTHRO 124AC: Hawaiian Ethnohistory
Pat Kirch, 4 units, MW, 11:30-3:30, room 101, 2251 College
SESSION A: May 23 – July 1

Developmental foundations of the 20th century multi-cultural society of Hawaii, during the period 1778-1900, explored through an explicitly anthropological perspective. The following ethnic groups are emphasized: Native Hawaiians, British-American whites, Chinese, and Japanese. This course satisfies the American Cultures requirement for UC Berkeley students.

ANTHRO 132A: Analysis of Archaeological Ceramics
Rosemary Joyce, 4 units
TT 12-4 (lecture) room 101, 2251 College
TT 10-12 &W 1-5 (lab) 16 Hearst Gym
SESSION D: July 5 – August 12

When archaeologists trained in ceramic analysis look at a pot, they can tell you when and where it was likely made; what it was used for; and how it was made. Students who take this course will learn just how an archaeologist knows these things. They will learn to produce accurate drawings of pots reconstructed from broken pieces. They will find out how archaeologists study living potters to understand what ancient potters might have done. And they will have an opportunity to try out some of the techniques they learn about and get a first-hand sense of what it took to be a skilled potter in the past. Fulfills the methods requirement for UCB Anthro majors.

ANTHRO 149: Psychological Anthropology
Stefania Pandolfo, 4 units, MTWT, 2-4, 156 Dwinelle
SESSION D: July 5 – August 12

The history of psychological anthropology from the culture and personality school through current constructionist approaches to indigenous psychologies. Topics may include ethnopsychiatry, psychoanalysis, psychiatric approaches to possession and altered states, emotion and culture, gender, sexuality, and erotics. The focus will be on the use of psychology in cultural analysis rather than medical approaches. Is cross-cultural psychological analysis possible, and if so, how?

ANTHRO 160: Forms of Folklore
JoAnn Conrad, 4 units, MTWT, 10-11:30, 140 Barrows
SESSION C: June 20 – August 12

A world-wide survey of the major and minor forms of folklore with special emphasis upon proverbs, riddles, superstitions, games, songs, and narratives.

ANTHRO 162: Topics in Folklore "The Fairy Tale “
JoAnn Conrad, 4 units MTWT 2-3 B56 Hildebrand
SESSION C: June 20 – August 12

This class will investigate and interrogate the many complicated sets of interrelationships and relays between traditional fairy tales from folk material, literary fairy tales, and the film and TV adaptations that have entered our purview and shaped our knowledge of these narratives. Any individual tale exists in a complicated intertextual relationship with all other texts, and the semiotic potency of fairy tales, which is part of their enduring popularity, derives from this intertextuality.
   
The semiotic potential in fairy-tale motifs, which makes them accessible to any number of interpretations, is what makes fairy tales productive sites for cultural analysis. While fairy tales are based on a traditional foundation of narrative themes, the specifics of each retelling are historically and culturally bound, and a comparison of the differences as well as the similarities across tellings and across time and space can reveal complicated discourses on gender and family relationships, class structure, and sexuality.
   
This class will consider the fairy tale from a historical and comparative perspective, exploring the theoretical approaches that have emerged from folkloristics, literary theory, cultural anthropology, and cultural studies, resulting in a complex, layered interpretive scheme through which the multiplicity of meanings available in the tales are contextualized within the sociohistorical moment in which they circulate.

ANTHRO 181: Themes in the Anthropology of the Middle East and Islam
Stefania Pandolfo, 4 units, MTWT, 10-12, room 101, 2251 College
SESSION D: July 5 – August 12

In the aftermath of 9-11 and the geopolitical reorganization that ensued (military, economic, "democratizing" and "secularizing" campaigns still ongoing), debates on Islam and Muslim societies have proliferated, but often case in a reductive and stereotypical style. Political life and emergent social movements in the Middle East have been systematically reduced to the danger of religious authoritarianism, sexuality and gender relations to the oppression and subordination of women, religious experience to the risk of religious violence - on the explicit assumption that the universality of the Western liberal model corresponds to the only equitable definition of human and social life. Such reductionism suggests implicitly that the gravity of the present "world-disorder" does not allow for an appreciation of complexity, for the possibility of listening to other ways of imagining the world, for a critical and historical gaze on the multiple dimensions of cultural, political, and religious experience.

In the spirit of anthropological criticism this course takes a different approach, attempting to provide insights towards a more nuanced understanding of contemporary Middle Eastern and Islamic societies, in their local specificity as in a transnational context. It seeks to create the conditions for an appreciation of dynamism in a time of crisis -- in the realm of religious debate, as well as of artistic and narrative expression. A dynamism and a creativity that are sometimes born and endure in a context of daily violence. The course will be based on lecturing and class discussion around assigned readings and films. Students will be required to write a two page reaction essay on the readings/films at the end of each week.

Readings: Selections from M. Hodgson, T. Asad, A. Hammoudi, C. Hirschkind, S. Mahmood, S. Pandolfo, L. Abu Lughod, Amira Hass and others, as well as excerpts from Ibn Khadoun and the Arabian Nights. Films include "Route 181. Fragments of Journey through Palestine/Israel", by Michel Khaleifi and Eyal Sivan (2003), and many others. Some books are available at the local bookstores. Additional readings will be available on electronic reserve.

ANTHRO N133-1: Archaeological Field Methods "Japan“ --- CANCELLED

ANTHRO N133-2: Archaeological Field Methods "UC Berkeley Conservatory“
Laurie Wilkie, 6 units, M-F, 8:30 – 3:30, Limited to 20 students
SPECIAL SESSION: May 23 - June 17

In 1894, the University of California built a glass conservatory to conduct agricultural experiments and raise seedlings and flowers. By 1923, the building was considered outdated and removed. In 2003, UC archaeologists conducted preliminary excavations at the site and determined that material remains and foundations are still preserved at the site and offer the opportunity to study the practice of agricultural science at the site, as well as to inform us about how campus spaces were used by students and faculty alike. This summer, students will be involved in conducting broad scale excavations at the site, and will learn basic historic materials analysis. Application: Email Professor Wilkie at wilkie@sscl.berkeley.edu for more information.