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Anthropology CoursesAnthropology offers Social Science and Science Courses; below are first, Social Science courses, then Science courses. |
Anthropology Social Science CoursesSSC199H1/Y1 Undergraduate seminar that focuses on specific ideas, questions, phenomena or controversies, taught by a regular Faculty member deeply engaged in the discipline. Open only to newly admitted first-year students. It may serve as a distribution requirement course; see page 45. ANT100Y1 Society and culture from various anthropological perspectives: socio-cultural, biological, archaeological, and linguistic. ANT200Y1 Cultures in the Old and New Worlds from an archaeological perspective. Principles of prehistoric research are applied to archaeological information, from the Early Pleistocene to the beginning of written history. ANT204Y1 Basic approaches to the understanding of social and cultural organization in societies of varying complexity. Comparative social institutions: economic, political, familial, and ritual. Belief systems and symbolic thought, the individual in society, sources of stability and change in socio-cultural systems. Anthropological perspectives on current social issues. ANT253H1 This course introduces linguistic analysis with a view towards its application to the study of the relation between culture and social structure. The interplay of pronunciation, grammar, semantics, and discourse with rituals, ideologies, and constructions of social meaning and worldview are discussed in tandem with the traditional branches of linguistic analysis—phonology, morphology, grammar, syntax, and semantics. The objective of the course is to provide a broad framework for understanding the role of language in society. ANT299Y1 Credit course for supervised participation in faculty research project. See page 45 for details. ARH305H1 See Archaeology ANT311Y1 Practical field training through six weeks of excavation on an archaeological site. Basic principles of artifact handling and classification. (Offered only in Summer Session) ARH312Y1 See Archaeology ANT315H1 Archaeology and ethnohistory of Arctic cultures. Emphasis is on variation in social organization, settlement pattern, economy, ideology, and interaction with the expanding European world-system.
This course provides an introduction to the cultures of Mesoamerica,
from the first arrival of indigenous peoples to the appearance of the Spaniards
in
the sixteenth century. Students will become acquainted with cultures including
Olmec, Zapotec, Teotihuacan, Maya, and Aztec, while also considering issues
of method and evidence.
This course examines the precontact and early contact period culture history
of eastern North America, including Ontario, through archaeological evidence.
Topics covered include the earliest peopling of the region at the end of
the Ice Age, diversity of hunter-gatherer societies, introduction of agriculture,
and the development of the dynamic First Nations societies who eventually
met
and interacted with Europeans. ANT319Y1 This course examines human prehistory in North America, North of Mexico, from the time of earliest occupation to European contact. Special topics include Paleoindian and Archaic adaptations, the rise of complex hunter-gatherers, origins of farming and the evolution of complex chiefdoms. ANT322H1 This course will present various perspectives on the nature and dynamics of youth culture. It will discuss the research accumulated over the past quarter century on youth lifestyles, from fashion and music to the formation and spread of slang. It will also look at the various critical and controversial aspects of adolescence in contemporary culture. ANT323Y1 Theories of culture and society, with examples from North America and global popular culture. ANT325Y1 The Southern African peoples before, during, and after their domination by colonial regimes. Reserve systems, migratory labour, farm labour, urban life and social stratification. JAL328H1 Introduction to writing systems; their historical development, their relationship to language, and their role in culture and society. (Given by the Departments of Anthropology and Linguistics) ANT329Y1 The role of language and symbolism in the representation and manipulation of ideology and power structure. Case materials drawn from the study of verbal arts, gender, law, ethnic relations, consumption patterns, advertising, and politics with a focus on North America. ANT340H1 Provides a framework for understanding current anthropological issues in the different geo-political regions of Latin America. Special attention will be paid to historical/conceptual development of the discipline in the region, and the course will introduce a debate about the dealth and “resurgence” of area studies. ANT 341Y1 This course offers a general introduction to contemporary China in a
global context from an anthropological perspective. This year-long course covers
four major aspects of Chinese culture and society: Political Economy, Social
Relations, Modernities and Modernization, and Overseas Chinese. ANT342H1 Interrogation of definitions of “sex” and “sexuality” employed within public health science arenas that confront three overlapping areas of global concern: HIV/AIDS, fertility and family planning, and sex-trade work. Draws on contributions in medical anthropology, gay and lesbian studies, and postcolonial studies. ANT343Y1 Social anthropological perspectives on variations in gender roles and systems. Examines, through comparison of ethnography, the relationship of gender to social organization, economic and political processes, belief systems and social change. ANT344Y1 Pre-industrial sociocultural types and their transformation in the national development of Southeast Asia. ANT346H1 Social anthropological perspective on the nature and meaning of food production, culinary cultures, industrial food, food as metaphor, and famine and hunger. ANT347Y1 The role of culture, cultural diversity, space and performance in urban institutions and settings. The cultural context and consequence of urbanization. ANT348Y1 Aspects of health and disease in cross-cultural perspective. Critical views on the interface between conventional “western” medicine and alternative, indigenous, and traditional therapeutic systems. ANT349H1 The contribution of ethnographic study to the understanding of regional disparities within Western and Third World nations. The inter-relationship between persistent economic underdevelopment, expressions of regional identity and class formation by reference to comparative ethnographic examples. ANT350H1 The course uses ethnographic material to examine the ways in which global forces have changed the nature of work in different sites since World War Two - North America, Europe, and the countries of the South are selectively included.
This course examines key themes in the constitution of South Asia
as an area for ethnographic analysis. The first half analyzes canonical texts
in the anthropology of South Asia, examining the rise of gatekeeping concepts
such as caste, the village, collectivity, and patriarchal social organization.
The second half focuses on ethnographies of political mobilizations, popular
culture, and global South Asia.
This course examines how what we know as Japan and its culture has been
constructed through various types of global interactions. The course uses popular
culture,
travel encounters and transnational capitalism as lenses for analyzing the
dynamics of Japanese society. Topics include gender and sexuality, race and
ethnicity,
social and family life, work and leisure, and Japanese identity amid changing
global power relations. The focus will be on cultural politics: how competing
ideas of Japanese society are expressed through particular cultural practices,
and how people engage with these practices in order to negotiate their positions
in the world. JAL355H1 Ways in which women and men differ in their use of language and in their behaviour in conversational interaction; ways in which language reflects cultural beliefs about women and men. (Given by the Departments of Anthropology and Linguistics) ARH360Y1 See Archaeology ARH361H1 See Archaeology ANT362Y1 This course examines the growing field of U.S. anthropology through ethnographic studies focusing on state institutions and patterns of social inequality. Particular emphasis is placed on research examining local models of governance, policing, immigration reform, unionization and social assistance programs in the context of shifting governmental policies. ANT363Y1 Origins, history and internal dynamics of early and modern state societies, examined with a view to placing our own system in an historical and comparative perspective. Case studies include material from Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe. ANT364Y1 This course will examine the relationships between humans and the environment in the context of contemporary efforts to ‘develop’ within or in opposition to the political economy of neoliberal globalization. We will critically examine the discourses of progress and environment within a broader theoretical inquiry of structure/agency and power. ANT365H1 Culture areas and types existing in precontact and early contact times in North America; problems arising out of contacts between North American Indians and Euroamericans. ANT366H1 Explores how anthropologists have traditionally studied social movements and how new social movements have challenged anthropologists to rethink some of their ethnographic methods and approaches. Some specific movements covered include those related to indigenous rights, environmentalism, refugees, gay and lesbian issues, biotechnology, new religions, and globalization. ANT367Y1 This course focuses upon religion and spirituality amongst peoples with a direct, experiential relationship to the world. The first term examines case studies from Australia, Native North America and Africa; the second term examines aspects of the “world religions’. ANT368H1 This course focuses on ethnographic studies of social movements produced both by anthropologists and social movement activists. By analyzing several case studies, the course explores the particular difficulties and rewards of working with social movements as well as some of the intellectual, ethical and political dilemmas that result of an engaged anthropology. ANT395Y0/396Y0 Studies in anthropology taken abroad. Areas of concentration vary depending on the instructor and year offered. ANT398H0/399Y0 An instructor-supervised group project in an off-campus setting. See page 45 for details. JAL401H1 Practice in language analysis based on elicited data from a native speaker of a foreign language, emphasizing procedures and techniques. (Given by the Departments of Anthropology and Linguistics) ANT406H1 Core reduction strategies, replication, experimental archaeology, use-wear, design approaches, ground stone, inferring behaviour from lithic artifacts. ANT409H1 The survey and spatial analysis of archaeological evidence over territories larger than individual camps, villages or towns. Settlement systems, regional exchange and communication, rank-size analysis, nearest neighbour analysis etc. ANT410H1 Examines the diversity of recent hunter-gatherer societies, as a source of analogues for understanding the archaeological record of past foraging peoples. ANT411H1 Seminar in the critical examination of major schools of archaeological thought. ANT412H1 Introduces the problems, methods and some of the material culture of colonial and industrial archaeology with emphasis on Canada and colonial America. Covers the use of documentary evidence, maps, architecture, and a variety of artifact classes. ANT415Y1 Examination and interpretation of faunal material from archaeological sites as evidence for culture. ANT417H1 Methods for studying the socio-spatial aspects of the archaeological evidence for households and communities. ANT419H1 Current research in Palaeolithic Archaeology reflecting emerging issues. ANT420H1 How social complexity is manifested in the archaeological record. Origins and evolution of prehistoric complex societies, from small-scale chiefdoms to large-scale states.
This course examines the institution of the royal court in the ancient
New World as a nexus for negotiation of power and assertion of cultural identity.
Case studies concentrate on the Maya; Aztec and Inca cultures provide important
comparative contexts. We also explore the integration of textual and material
evidence in investigating ancient cultures. ANT425H1 How ideas about language fit into the overall views of humankind as expressed by selected anthropologists, linguists, sociologists, and philosophers. ANT426H1 Language and imagery representing the “oriental” in the West. Emphasis on representations of the “Semites”, the Islamic peoples of North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, as well as the Jews from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. ANT427H1 The role of language in the reproduction and transformation of ideology and political economy. Readings include linguistic analyses of gender and class relations in local and global contexts, as well as seminal works in linguistics and other social sciences. ANT431H1 Death is the only rite of passage that leaves frequent archaeological traces, through burial and mortuary rituals. It provides us with a rare opportunity to move beyond material culture and look into the cognitive, ritual and ideological aspects of a past human group, bringing archaeology closer to addressing anthropological questions. As we learn how to examine cultural identity, represented through burial and ancestral ritual, and biological reality of demographic, occupational and pathological conditions, the course will provide students with an understanding of the interpretative potential of the human skeleton as a central feature of any burial. The course is of interest to archaeological and biological anthropology students but is not limited to these two fields.. ANT440H1 An exploration of the conceptual tools used to understand reflexive modernity. Focus on the articulated web of global and local networks that produce simultaneously inequalities and potentially new identities and collectivities. ANT442H1 The relationship between technology and culture through a focus on reproductive, genetic and communications technologies.
Since ancient times, travel has been central to human interaction. The
course explores theories about travel, translation, and tourism (and anthropology’s
relationship to all of these) and helps students critically examine a particular
travel encounter. Main topics include cultural representation, authenticity,
economic development, social inequality, identity, gender, ethnicity, nationality,
postcolonialism, and globalization. ANT444Y1 Social and linguistic anthropological approaches to research in urban settings. Methodology, field techniques and research ethics. Students must formulate and complete a field research project. ANT445H1 This course examines science and technology from an anthropological perspective. Throughout the course, in addition to introducing major concepts of science studies, we will examine multiple “concrete things,” like computers as cultural artifacts, connected to wider social, political, economic, ideological, and cultural contexts. ANT446Y1 The extent to which the conventional methods of ethnography can be helpful in understanding the European Union and its member states, is examined. European history and the ethnographic study of fieldsites take up the first term; current European social/cultural ideas and political movements are addressed in the second term. ANT447H1 The course investigates the nature and significance, in history and the history of ideas, of the ways of life of the Australian Aborigines. The emphasis is on the influence of religion and music on the economic, political and social organization of the people. ANT448H1 An examination of theories and critique of ethnicity and nationalism from an anthropological perspective. The problem of the cultural context of ethnicity. Case studies. ANT450H1 Comparative examination of human ecological adaptations, livelihood strategies, spiritual and cultural values and their relation to environmental maintenance or degradation. Explores contemporary “grass roots” environmental movements and ideologies. ANT452H1 The concept of human rights in its universal claims rises fundamental questions for anthropology as it challenges a central value of the discipline: cultural relativism. Students are asked to consider epistemological and theoretical questions and case studies (e.g. claims of rights by ethnic collectivities). ANT453H1 Major issues in the history and development of Sub-Arctic Native people of Canada: Indian social structure, European/Native interaction, land tenure, politics and religion. ANT454H1 This course investigates the connection between religion, music and society from an anthropological point of view. The primary focus is on societies where music is seen by people as the principal vehicle for religious expression. Examination of religions and musics of Australian aboriginal, Melanesian, Native North America, African societies, others. ANT455Y1 This course examines international health, focusing on the health problems of “third world” populations and the contributions and critiques provided by medical anthropology. Topics include: the political ecology of infectious disease, disease eradication campaigns, population policy and reproductive health, the AIDS pandemic, and the quest for culturally appropriate interventions.
This course explores key questions and directions from within the transnational
turn of queer anthropology. It will examine how anthropological theories of
globalization, gender, and sexuality have been, and can be, rethought through
attention to transnational
queer practices. Simultaneously, the course explores how those very political
and sexual practices have been enabled and delimited by transnational flows
of capital, people, and ideas. ANT457H1 The course examines the responsibilities and positionality of professional anthropologists vis a vis politics and society by juxtaposing their concerns with the history of politically engaged intellectuals over the past century. ANT458H1 Theoretical and methodological approaches to the anthropological study of crime, law, and order with case studies from around the world. ANT459H1 A study of the cross-cultural meaning of two-dimensional representations of space and the socio-political relevance of place.
This fourth-year seminar examines how female gender shapes health and
illness. Using case studies of sexual health, fertility and its management,
substance
use/abuse, mental health, and occupational/labor health risks, the course
investigates the material, political, and socio-cultural factors that can
put women at risk for a range of illness conditions. ANT461Y1 History and development of theories which underlie contemporary anthropology. ANT471H1 Approaches from various sub-fields within anthropology are combined with others from zoology, ecology, community nutrition, and global health to enrich our understanding of the evolved nutritional needs of humans across time and space and their changing relationship to culture. Through intensive reading and discussion of a wide range of recent primary research articles, we explore ways in which the study of foodways, food systems, and human ecology can help us design better strategies for improving health in different settings. ANT480H1 Unique opportunity to explore a particular anthropological topic in-depth. Topics vary from year to year. ARH482H1 See Archaeology ANT483H1 This course will focus on an advanced topic in Linguistic Anthropology. Topic will vary from year- to-year. ANT497Y1/498H1/499H1 Supervised independent research on a topic agreed on by the student and supervisor before enrolment in the course. Open in exceptional circumstances to advanced students with a strong background in Anthropology. Application for enrolment should be made to the Department in the preceding term. A maximum of one year of Independent Research courses is allowed per program. Anthropology Science CoursesANT203Y1 Introduction to Biological Anthropology, investigating various lines of evidence for human evolution including our primate relatives and an exploration of the relevance of human origins to contemporary human biology and variability. JPA305H1 Introduction to methods for remote sensing of buried archaeological remains, dating, and analysis of ancient materials. Application of methods and interpretation of results in archaeological contexts. (Offered in alternate years) (Given by the Departments of Physics and Anthropology) JPA310H1 Introduction to the principles behind archaeometric methods for remote sensing, dating, and analysis of archaeological materials, and interpretation of results. Offered in conjunction with JPA305H1. (Offered in alternate years) (Given by the Departments of Physics and Anthropology) ANT326Y1 A detailed examination of human musculo-skeletal anatomy from the comparative and evolutionary perspectives. Allometry, basic biomechanics, functional anatomy, and the structure and function of human mastication, the brain, the forelimb and bipedalism. Labs make use of the large collection of primate skeletal material and fossil human casts. ANT330Y1 This course provides background in the practical and theoretical aspects of fieldwork in Paleoanthropology. Students are trained in the treatment and analysis of fossil vertebrates, plant macro- and micro-fossils and sediments. Excursions to paleoanthropological localities of Homo erectus and Homo sapiens, and excavation at a hominoid site. (Joint undergraduate-graduate) ANT333Y1 A survey of living primates, this lab-oriented course describes and compares the diverse behavioural and anatomical adaptations that are characteristic to this order of mammals. The understanding of the biological diversity and evolutionary history of primates is important for further understanding of human adaptation and evolution. ANT334Y1 Exploration of the development and maintenance of the human skeleton and dentition, with emphasis on application to archaeological, forensic and biomedical sciences. ANT337Y1 Discussion of biological diversity of human populations according to climatic, nutritional, disease and demographic variables. From an ecological perspective, emphasis on evaluating the role of various factors (genetic, environmental and cultural) influencing population biology and on understanding the significance of human population variation. JPA400Y1 An introduction to research in archaeometry and archaeological prospecting. Possible projects: magnetic and resistivity surveying of archaeological sites; thermoluminescence measurements; neutron activation analysis and x-ray fluorescence analysis of artifacts; radiocarbon dating by atom counting; lead isotope analysis. (Offered in alternate years) (Given by the Departments of Physics and Anthropology) ANT415Y1 Examination and interpretation of faunal material from archaeological
sites as evidence for culture. ANT429H1 Method and theory in paleoanthropology focusing on reconstructions of human evolutionary history and the behaviour of fossil hominids. Identification and analysis of fossil human material and hominid systematics. Includes an extensive lab component using a large collection of primate skeletons and fossil human casts. ANT430H1 The focus of this course is on the science of primate conservation biology in an anthropological context. Topics will include primate biodiversity and biogeography, human impacts, and conservation strategies/policies. The effects of cultural and political considerations on primate conservation will also be discussed. ANT431H1 Death is the only rite of passage that leaves frequent archaeological
traces, through burial and mortuary rituals. It provides us with a rare opportunity
to
move beyond material culture and look into the cognitive, ritual and ideological
aspects of a past human group, bringing archaeology closer to addressing anthropological
questions. As we learn how to examine cultural identity, represented through
burial and ancestral ritual, and biological reality of demographic, occupational
and pathological conditions, the course will provide students with an understanding
of the interpretative potential of the human skeleton as a central feature
of any burial. The course is of interest to archaeological and biological anthropology
students but is not limited to these two fields.. ANT434H1 Advanced exploration of the life histories of past populations, through the application of palaeodietary analyses, palaeopathology and other appropriate research methods. ANT436H1 This course will provide an overview of the ecology and social behavior of extant nonhuman primates. Topics will include socioecology, conservation biology, biogeography, aggression and affiliation, community ecology, communication, and socio-sexual behavior. There will also be extensive discussions of methods used in collecting data on primates in the field.
Approaches from various sub-fields within anthropology are combined with
others from zoology, ecology, community nutrition, and global health to enrich
our
understanding of the evolved nutritional needs of humans across time and
space and their changing relationship to culture. Through intensive reading
and discussion of a wide range of recent primary research articles, we
explore ways in which the study of foodways, food systems, and human ecology
can
help us design better strategies for improving health in different settings. ANT481H1 Unique opportunity to explore in-depth a particular topic in Biological Anthropology. Topics vary from year to year. |
ANT316H1