THE ORIGINS OF HUMAN SOCIETY

An archaeological perspective on the evolution of human social life from the first bipedal step of our ape ancestors to the establishment of large sedentary villages. While traversing six million years and six continents, our explorations will lead us to consider such major issues as the development of human sexuality, the origin of language, the birth of “art” and religion, the domestication of plants and animals, and the foundations of social inequality. Designed for anyone who happens to be human.

• TR 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Camilla Sturm
  CULPA: 2 Info
• 3 points

THE ORIGINS OF HUMAN SOCIETY-DISC

• R 10 a.m.-10:50 a.m.
• R 2 p.m.-2:50 p.m.
• F 10 a.m.-10:50 a.m.
• F 2 p.m.-2:50 p.m.
• W 10 a.m.-10:50 a.m.
• W 11 a.m.-11:50 a.m.
• Instructor: Emily Frances Bailey
  Info
• 0 points

ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEORY

Prerequisites: an introductory course in anthropology. Institutions of social life. Kinship and locality in the structuring of society. Monographs dealing with both literate and nonliterate societies will be discussed in the context of anthropological fieldwork methods. Required of all Anthropology majors (and tracks) within the Barnard Department. As of Fall, 2018, UN 3040 replaces the two semester sequence of 3040/4041 Anthropological Theory I/II). Intended only for Barnard majors and minors.

• MW 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Brian Larkin
  CULPA: 16 Info
• 4 points

The City Jail

Municipal jails are one of the most impactful institutions of criminal justice in the United States; and yet many Americans do not even know the difference between a prison and a jail.  This course will investigate the conditions of mass incarceration in America by centering the municipal jail. Taking as objects of study both the jail itself and the practice of incarcerating people in local jails, this course will combine scholarly work on U.S. criminal justice with a variety of non-academic texts including legal decisions, contemporary journalism, and documentary film. The course is focused on jails writ large,  but as we are living in New York City, we will pay particular attention throughout the semester to our own municipal jail system.

• R 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Kaya N Williams
  Info
• 4 points

Disability

This course centers
disability
in its many manifestations and meanings – as an embodied, social, and cultural experience, as an organizing discourse in local and global contexts, as an analytic framework, and as a position from which to approach, think about, and engage in the world. Together, we will seek to understand disability in diverse settings and contexts through ethnographic texts, autobiography, documentary film, and essays, drawing primarily from works in anthropology but also more broadly from the interdisciplinary traditions known as (Critical) Disability Studies.

Throughout the semester, we will move between considering disability in more and less specific and categorical terms. We will ask what the stakes are – intellectually, socially, politically -  for different ways of doing, thinking, and representing disability. What becomes apparent when we consider, say, the experiences of deaf young adults in India working together to learn Indian Sign Language, or physically disabled adults in the United States whose disabilities must be situated within histories of racialized poverty and urban neglect? What happens – what are the resonances and the tensions – when we put these settings into conversation? Through our engagements with materials analyzing these and many other instances, we will think together about what it means to study and think with disability from different disciplinary perspectives, different methods, and different media.

• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Elizabeth M Green
  CULPA: 2 Info
• 4 points

INFRASTRUCTURES

Infrastructures are the built networks moving goods, commodities, people, energy, waste organizing human action in modern societies. This course critically examines the work of infrastructures globally. It examines issues of urbanism, racial infrastructures, infrastructural breakdown and emergency, postcolonial infrastructures, climate change, and extraction.

• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Brian Larkin
  CULPA: 16 Info
• 4 points

The Ancient Table: Archaeology of Cookin

ANCT TBL: ARCH COOKING &

Prerequisites: None Humans don’t just eat to live. The ways we prepare, eat, and share our food is a complex reflection of our histories, environments, and ideologies. Whether we prefer coffee or tea, cornbread or challah, chicken breast or chicken feet, our tastes are expressive of social ties and social boundaries, and are linked to ideas of family and of foreignness. How did eating become such a profoundly cultural experience? This seminar takes an archaeological approach to two broad issues central to eating: First, what drives human food choices both today and in the past? Second, how have social forces shaped practices of food acquisition, preparation, and consumption (and how, in turn, has food shaped society)? We will explore these questions from various evolutionary, physiological, and cultural viewpoints, highlighted by information from the best archaeological and historic case studies. Topics that will be covered include the nature of the first cooking, beer-brewing and feasting, writing of the early recipes, gender roles and ‘domestic’ life, and how a national cuisine takes shape. Through the course of the semester we will explore food practices from Pleistocene Spain to historic Monticello, with particular emphasis on the earliest cuisines of China, Mesoamerica, and the Mediterranean.

• W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Camilla Sturm
  CULPA: 2 Info
• 4 points

Punishment Culture

What is punishment, and what might attention to punitive practices teach us about the cultures in which they are used? Modern American culture is so saturated with punishment that it is difficult to know where to begin such an investigation. From childhood education to mass incarceration and from the crafting of financial futures to the training of horses and dogs, punishment is ubiquitous and often unquestioned. In many cases, punishment is the thread that connects allegedly disparate institutions and produces allegedly unforeseen forms of violence. In this course we will question both the practice and its prevalence, combining a genealogy of the concept with case studies in its modern use.

• F 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Kaya N Williams
  Info
• 4 points

ANTHROP OF THE ANTHROPOCENE

This course focuses on the political ecology of the Anthropocene. As multiple publics become increasingly aware of the extensive and accelerated rate of current global environmental change, and the presence of anthropogenesis in ever expanding circumstances, we need to critically analyze the categories of thought and action being developed in order to carefully approach this change. Our concern is thus not so much the Anthropocene as an immutable fact, inevitable event, or definitive period of time (significant though these are), but rather for the political, social, and intellectual consequences of this important idea. Thus we seek to understand the creativity of The Anthropocene as a political, rhetorical, and social category. We also aim to examine the networks of capital and power that have given rise to the current state of planetary change, the strategies for ameliorating those changes, and how these are simultaneously implicated in the rhetorical creation of The Anthropocene.

• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Paige West
  CULPA: 41 h-index: 23 Info
• 4 points

SENIOR THESIS SEMINAR I

Prerequisites: Limited to Barnard Anthropology Seniors. Offered every Fall. Discussion of research methods and planning and writing of a Senior Essay in Anthropology will accompany research on problems of interest to students, culminating in the writing of individual Senior Essays. The advisory system requires periodic consultation and discussion between the student and her adviser as well as the meeting of specific deadlines set by the department each semester. Limited to Barnard Senior Anthropology Majors.

• M 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• 4 points

THE MEDICAL IMAGINARY

How might we speak of an imaginary within biomedicine? This course interrogates the ideological underpinnings of technocratic medicine in contexts that extend from the art of surgery to patient participation in experimental drug trials. Issues of scale will prove especially important in our efforts to track the medical imaginary from the whole, fleshy body to the molecular level. Key themes include everyday ethics; ways of seeing and knowing; suffering and hope; and subjectivity in a range of medical and sociomedical contexts. Open to anthropology majors; non-majors require instructor’s permission. Enrollment limit is 15.

• T 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Lesley Sharp
  CULPA: 22 Info
• 4 points

SOCIAL CONTEXTS IMMIGRATN LAW

Examines the historical and contemporary social, economic, and political factors that shape immigration law and policy along with the social consequences of those laws and policies. Addresses the development and function of immigration law and aspects of the immigration debate including unauthorized immigration, anti-immigration sentiments, and critiques of immigration policy.

• M 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: J.C. Salyer
  CULPA: 1 Info
• 4 points

CLIM CHNG/GLOBAL MIGR/HUM RGT

While the existence of processes of anthropogenic climate change is well established, predictions regarding the future consequences of these processes are far less certain. In no area is the uncertainty regarding near and long term effects as pronounced as in the question of how climate change will affect global migration. This course will address the issue of climate migration in four ways. First, the course will examine the theoretical and empirical literatures that have elucidated the nature of international migration in general. Second, the course will consider the phenomena of anthropogenic climate change as it relates to migration. Third, the course will consider how human rights and other legal regimes do or do not address the humanitarian issues created by anthropogenic climate change. Fourth, the course will synthesize these topics by considering how migration and climate change has arisen as a humanitarian, political, and economic issue in the Pacific. Human Rights elective.

• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: J.C. Salyer
  CULPA: 1 Info
• 4 points

INDIVIDUAL PROJECTS

Research projects and internships are planned in consultation with members of the department and work is supervised by the major’s adviser.

• Instructor: Lesley Sharp
  CULPA: 22 Info
• Instructor: Nadia Abu El-Haj
  CULPA: 13 Wikipedia Info
• Instructor: Elizabeth M Green
  CULPA: 2 Info
• 1-4 points