The anthropological approach to the study of culture and human society. Case studies from ethnography are used in exploring the universality of cultural categories (social organization, economy, law, belief system, art, etc.) and the range of variation among human societies.

Discussion Section Required.

How have cultures been represented through film? This course offers a selective introduction to the past and present of ethnographic and documentary filmmaking. It also considers Hollywood depictions of "other" cultures and the growing number of films by directors working within their own communities. Film & Culture joins scholarly and filmmaking sensibilities to examine the relation of cultural identity to portrayal in film.

Social organization and social change in China from late imperial times to the present. Major topics include family, kinship, community, stratification, and the relationships between the state and local society.

As literary, cinematic, and musical trope, the Road bears the weight of both transcendent American aspirations and banal evocations of national ethos. Engaging popular literature, film, and music, this course examines the figurative and literal Road as a medium that both reveals and constructs senses of American identity and place.

An examination of religion and society not limited to the Middle East. A series of Muslim societies of various types and locations will be approached historically and contextually to understand their family resemblances and their differences, their distinctive mechanisms of coherence and their patterns of contestation.

In the past thirty years, disciplines across the social sciences and humanities -- from philosophy to history to sociology to political science to geography to cultural studies -- have undergone a "greening" as the social aspects of nature have come to be seen as a legitimate, even sexy subject of scholarly investigation. In a very real sense, anthropology has always been environmental. Given nature's tremendous capacity to shape nearly every facet of our existence, both physiological and cultural, the self-proclaimed "science of humanity" could hardly be otherwise. This course provides a critical introduction to environmental anthropology, beginning with a brief exploration of its historical roots and examining its various iterations (including cultural, historical, and human ecology) but concentrating especially upon anthropology's contributions to the interdisciplinary field of political ecology, with a particular emphasis on issues of environmental justice. Although the readings for the course are discipline-specific, I will attempt to contextualize the anthropological take on particular environmental topics within the broader cross-disciplinary framework noted above in lectures and class discussions.

This class examine the social, cultural and political life of African postcolonies. Drawing on a wide range of disciplines it examines the political and cultural forces that condition the everyday experience of contemporary Africans.

Prerequisite: 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. (This course is open to anthropology majors; others require advanced permission of the instructor)

Started in antiquity, practiced as ideology in the 19th century, but acquiring a discourse in the 1960s, urban guerrilla movements became emblematic of political praxis of the youth. In this course we will address issues that are to do first with the conceptualization of youth as a category, the political and cultural movements that made such a conceptualization possible, the ideologies that inform such political action, and the development of these ideologies as youth become middle-aged. Material drawn from literature, political theory, anthropology from Europe (Greece, France, Germany, Spain, UK, Italy), Latin America (Chile, Argentina, Guatemala, Peru), the Middle East, and the current international anti-globalization movement.

Through a careful exploration of the argument and style of three vivid anticolonial texts, C.L.R. James� The Black Jacobins, Aim� C�saire�s Discourse on Colonialism, Albert Memmi�s Colonizer and Colonized, and Frantz Fanon�s The Wretched of the Earth, this course aims to inquire into the construction of the image of colonialism and its projected aftermaths established in anti-colonial discourse.

Prerequisites: at least one course in anthropology or social theory.

How do new media technologies affect social worlds? What is the relationship between mass mediation and modernity? Explores the force of media technology, its relationship to transnational forms of capital, to the development of new subjectivities, and to the rise of new networks of power and social relations.

Prerequisites: Enrollment limit 20. Permission of the instructor. Junior or senior standing.

This course considers mental disturbance and its relief by examining historical, anthropological, psychoanalytic and psychiatric notions of self, suffering, and cure. After exploring the ways in which conceptions of mental suffering and abnormality are produced, we look at specific kinds of psychic disturbances and at various methods for their alleviation.

Pursues the spectral effects of culture in the modern. Traces the ghostly remainders of cultural machineries, circuitries of voice, and representational forms crucial to modern discourse networksthrough a consideration of anthropologically significant, primarily nonwestern sites and various domains of social creation--performance, ritual practice, narrative production, technological invention. Instructor's permission required.

Examines the figure of the child in modernity. Study of children and the delineation of a special time called childhood have been crucial to the modern imagination; for example, the child tended to be assimilated to the anthropological notion to the "primitive" (and vice versa), with repercussions ranging from psychoanalysis to painting, from philosophy to politics. Engages the centrality of the child through interdisciplinary readings in anthropology, history, children's literature, art criticism, educational theory, and psychology.

This course is an interdisciplinary survey of the literature and issues that comprise Native American and Indigenous Studies. Readings for this course are organized around the concepts of indigeneity, coloniality, power and "resistance" and concomitantly interrogate these concepts for social and cultural analysis. The syllabus is derived from some of the "classic" and canonical works in Native American Studies such as Custer Died for Your Sins but will also require an engagement with less canonical works such as Red Man's Appeal to Justice in addition to historical, ethnographic and theoretical contributions from scholars that work outside of Native American and Indigenous Studies. This course is open to graduate students and advanced undergraduates.

Prerequisite: instructor's permission. Individual research and tutorial in social and cultural anthropology for advanced graduate students.

Prerequisite: instructor's permission. Individual research in all divisions of anthropology and in allied fields for advanced graduate students

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 thefoundations of social inequality. Designed for anyone who happens to be human..

This class explores the ways in which archaeologists use the dead body to explore past beliefs and social practices, critically assessing these approaches from the broader perspective of anthropological and sociological theories of the body�s production and constitution. We�ll look at the ways in which social status, gender and personhood are expressed through the dead body and through practices of body modification and display. In this context we�ll also consider the social relations of archaeological exhumation, the conflict that can arise over the excavation of human remains, and their treatment as courtroom evidence in forensic archaeology.

Recommended for archaeology, physical anthropology, premedical, and biology students interested in the human skeletal system. Intensive study of human skeletal materials, using anatomical and anthropological landmarks to assess sex, age, and ethnicity of the bones. Other primate skeletal material and fossil casts are used for comparative study.

The anthropological approach to the study of culture and human society. Case studies from ethnography are used in exploring the universality of cultural categories (social organization, economy, law, belief system, art, etc.) and the range of variation among human societies.

Discussion Section Required.

This class investigates magic and witchcraft, in addition to spirit mediums and ghosts in the shadow of technology, industry, and rational science. Beginning with the simple and open-ended definition of magic as a means to control and make sense of events that cannot be explained, the course is a journey through uncanny convergences and apparitional events that are at once sensual, yet ghostly. Course material ranges from baseball players who employ magical practices to deal with mathematical uncertainties of the game, to more challenging case studies on witchcraft, spirit possession, shamanism, and other forms of magic as healing. Alongside contemporary readings on the topic, students will also read classic anthropological texts on magic and witchcraft.

Practices like veiling that are central to Western images of women and Islam are also contested issues throughout the Muslim world. Examines debates about Islam and gender and explores the interplay of cultural, political, and economic factors in shaping women's lives in the Muslim world, from the Middle East to Southeast Asia.

Examines four major aspects of contemporary South Asian societies: nationalism, religious reform, gender, and caste. Provides a critical survey of the history of and continuing debates over these critical themes of society, politics and culture in South Asia. Readings consist of primary texts that were part of the original debates and secondary sources that represent the current scholarly assessment on these subjects.

Critiques the many ways the great Red Island has been described and imagined by explorers, colonists, social scientists, and historians�as an Asian-African amalgamation, an ecological paradise, and a microcosm of the Indian Ocean. Religious diasporas, mercantilism, colonization, enslavement, and race and nation define key categories of comparative analysis.

One of the most conspicuous changes in South Asia in the last decades has been the enormous growth of cities across the region. The rate of urbanization in South Asia has historically been relatively modest. Today more than sixty five cities in South Asia have more than a million people, and there are hundreds of smaller cities around 300.000 to half a million people across the wider region. The World Bank projects that in less than a decade, India alone will have around half a billion people living in cities. Of these at least a third and possibly more will be living in slums. Urban slums in India and elsewhere in the subcontinent are the most highly politicized places with more people voting and taking to the streets than anywhere else. The future of particularly India but also other countries in the region is undoubtedly urban, political power is urban, new technologies and new cultural phenomena are all decidedly urban. This course has two aims: Firstly, to give the participants a strong overview of the historical development of cities and urban culture across the South Asian region from the pre-colonial cities until today. Secondly, the participants will be given a broad and sensitive introduction to many aspects of contemporary urban cultures, conflicts, identities and experiential frames in South Asian cities. The readings will be work by critical historians and social theorists of South Asia; recent ethnographies of many aspects of contemporary urban life in South Asia�s cityscapes; popular novels, short stories and films that address various aspects and mythologies of urban life in the region.

This course begins by investigating the impact of colonialism, racialized notions of difference, and Freud�s Jewish identity on key psychoanalytic theories and concepts. Further, it examines the ramifications when psychoanalytic theory and practice were imported into colonial settings. The course then considers the ways in which legacies of colonialism and racism remain embedded in psychoanalysis. After interrogating psychoanalytic precepts Freud viewed as universal, it looks at recent work in relational and intersubjective psychoanalysis that seek to undo classical understandings of mental structure, psychopathology, and analytic interaction. The course concludes by examining clinical case examples in cross-racial psychoanalysis. Enrollment limit to 20 plus instructor's permission required.

This course seeks to understand the relationship between secular and religious forms of authority in the modern world. Among topics to be considered include the rise of religiosity in the public and political spheres, tolerance and pluralism, and the legal organization of religious practices. Course enrollment is limited to 20 students.

Seminar-workshop on field research in New York City. Exploration of anthropological field research methods followed by supervised individual field research on selected topics in urban settings.

This course addresses the ways that we can understand the variety of issues and challenges facing individuals, organizations, and nations as we come to understand and combat anthropogenic climate change. Drawing on work in anthropology, sociology, geography, and other disciplines, this course will examine how climate change is affecting and will continue to affect communities worldwide, concepts of risk and vulnerability, the role of science and local knowledge, and the social contexts of policies and actions.

Reading of selected ethnographies of China from among the many published since 1990. In the context of rapid social and economic change in China during this period, the seminar will critically consider how each ethnography represents the observations, interpretations, and field techniques of the anthropologist who is its author. Also discussed will be the shared themes and contesting perspectives emerging from a comparison of these works, as well as the overall contribution of this ethnographic research to our understanding of China as an emerging world power.

This course examines various approaches to the study and representation of natural and humanly caused disasters. Course readings include eyewitness accounts of calamities, personal memoirs of genocide, and ethnographic reports of the aftermath of floods, earthquakes, political violence, and nuclear reactor explosions. The course also considers conventional patterns of disaster response, as well as shifting notions of disaster preparedness that have emerged since 9/11. It concludes with an examination of post-disaster reconstruction, looking at the ways social divisions, economic conditions and political interests invariably affect the cultural, public health, and psychological repercussions of disasters.

Addresses mass culture and its relationship to Japan at the end of the 20th century. Approaches the themes of millennial anxiety and wishfulness in such domains as everyday life, technology, criminality, gender and sexuality, and consumption.

Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.

An examination of text and performance, as informed by magic and related articulations of power. Topics explored include: prophetic writing, historical inscription; divine kingship, cosmology, divination; colonial fiction, nationalist figuration; spirit possession, ritual sacrifice; mask performance, music, shadow theater. The course draws principally on Southeast Asian sources. Key concerns are subjectivity and repetition.

Before registering, student must sign-up in the anthropology department. If list is full, sign waiting list. Field course and seminar considering the aesthetic, political, and sociocultural aspects of selected city museums, public spaces, and window displays.

Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor via email at: mec3. Must state year and major and why you with to join the class.

Priority given to upper class anthropology and music majors. Submit e-mail "Request for Admittance Form" obtained from mec3@columbia.edu. Students must attend operas outside class time. Drawing on theories of Bakhtin and Eco, analyzes the production logic of three opera performances in terms of communication media utilized; the class, status and gendered perspectives mobilized; and the devices used to engage or distance the audience. Performance rather then musicological angles stressed.

The recent proliferation of writings on the social significations of the human body have brought to the fore the epistemological, disciplinary, and ideological structures that have participated in creating a dimension of the human body that goes beyond its physical consideration. The course, within the context of anthropology, has two considerations, a historical one and a contemporary one. If anthropology can be construed as the study of human society and culture, then, following Marcel Mauss, this study must be considered the actual, physical bodies that constitute the social and the cultural.

Focusing on the Anglo-Creole Caribbean, examines some aspects of popular culture, literary expression, political change, and intellectual movements over the past thirty years.

Analyzes global, national, and local environment issues from the critical perspectives of political ecology. Explores themes like the production of nature, environmental violence, environmental justice, political decentralization, territoriality, the state, and the conservation interventions. Instructor's permission

An introductory survey of the history and contents of the Shari'a combined with a critical review of Orientalist and contemporary scholarship on Islamic law. In addition to models for the ritual life, we will examine a number of social, economic and political constructs contained in Shari`a doctrine, including the concept of an Islamic state, and we also will consider the structure of litigation in courts. Seminar paper.

This course focuses on one expressive form(cinema) in one predominantly Arab Muslim region(the Maghreb, comprising the nations of Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria), as part of an anthropological effort to explore the ways in which films taken individually and a nation�s cinema as a whole can help us understand society. The discussion of films and filmmakers will be set in the historical, political, cultural, and social contexts of the individual countries and of the region. The approach will combine historical and thematic perspectives, highlighting differences and similarities from country to country, from film to film, and from filmmaker to filmmaker.

Prerequisite: instructor's permission. Individual research and tutorial in social and cultural anthropology for advanced graduate students.

Prerequisite: instructor's permission. Individual research in all divisions of anthropology and in allied fields for advanced graduate students

The rise of major civilization in prehistory and protohistory throughout the world, from the initial appearance of sedentism, agriculture, and social stratification through the emergence of the archaic empires. Description and analysis of a range of regions that were centers of significant cultural development: Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus River Valley, China, North America, Mesoamerica.

Lab Required.

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to archaeology. We start with a critical overview of the origins of the discipline in the 18th and 19th centuries, and then move on to consider key themes in current archaeological thinking. These include ?time and the past: what is the difference? What are archaeological sites and how do we 'discover' them? How is the relationship between the living and the dead negotiated through archaeological practice? What are the ethical issues? How do we create narratives from archaeological evidence? Who gets written in and out of these histories? Archaeology, film and media.

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to archaeology. We start with a critical overview of the origins of the discipline in the 18th and 19th centuries, and then move on to consider key themes in current archaeological thinking. These include "time and the past: what is the difference"; What are archaeological sites and how do we "discover" them? How is the relationship between the living and the dead negotiated through archaeological practice? What are the ethical issues? How do we create narratives from archaeological evidence? Who gets written in and out of these histories? Archaeology, film and media.

Training in general archaeological methods. Data recording techniques, preparation of reports and illustration, etc.

Recommended for archaeology, physical anthropology, premedical, and biology students interested in the human skeletal system. Intensive study of human skeletal materials, using anatomical and anthropological landmarks to assess sex, age, and ethnicity of the bones. Other primate skeletal material and fossil casts are used for comparative study.