Instructor: Dr. Carole Blackburn
Term 2
Mondays 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Description:
ANTH 540G: Beyond Human: Multi-Species Ethnography
Instructor: Dr. Shaylih Muehlmann
Term 2
Mondays 9:30 am – 12:30 pm
Description:
This course will explore the complex relationships between humans and other life forms, with a strong emphasis on developing ethnographic writing skills. We will focus on how human existence is intertwined with other species in shared environments, examining topics such as how our relationships with other species affect our health, economy, food, and ultimately our understanding of ourselves as humans.
The course will engage with literature from multi-species, decolonial and feminist perspectives, providing students with a diverse and critical framework for understanding these interspecies relationships. Weekly field trips to nearby sites on campus will elucidate various aspects of interspecies relationships, allowing students to apply ethnographic methods and refine their writing skills through hands-on experiences.
ANTH 540E: Fiction, Literature, and Ethnography
Instructor: Dr. Millie Creighton
Term 1
Wednesdays 11:00 am – 2:00 pm
Description:
This course will explore ways in which fiction from cultures is written into ethnographic work, and fiction works focused on a culture that apply ethnographic approaches. The attempt is not to blur boundaries between nonfiction ethnography and fiction, but sense interconnections between the two. Discussions will look at whether and when fiction can be appropriately analyzed in nonfiction ethnography. Cases in which fiction works have given rise to nonfiction texts and films such as documentaries will be discussed. The course will explore fiction novels from a culture or those featuring a culture, and other literary fiction genres. Readings will at times pair a fiction selection with a nonfiction ethnography showing similar insights about a culture and the human condition. Students will engage in a project allowing them to explore their chosen fiction (novels, short stories, films, dramas, anime, plays, poetry, etc.) in relationship to ethnography.
ANTH 495A: ZooArchaeology
Instructor: Dr. Aleksa Alaica
Term 2
Mondays 9:00 am – 12:00 pm
Description:
An essential method in the study of past human society is through the remains of animals. Animal bodies hold primary and secondary resources like meat, milk and wool, but their companionship also shaped human behaviour. Fundamentals of zooarchaeology, or the study of animal bones, to expand perspectives on human-animal interactions.
ANTH 475: Racial and Sexual Politics of (Im)mobility
Instructor: Dr. Elif Sari
Term 2
Tuesdays and Thursdays
11:00 am to 12:30 pm
Description:
Combined anthropological approaches with interdisciplinary theories to explore varying experiences of mobility (such as migration, asylum, tourism, and travel) and immobility (such as border control, waiting, detention, and deportation) at their intersections with gender, sexuality, race, and class. By focusing on the concept of “(im)mobility,” students will learn how to analyze the complex and intimate relation between mobility and immobility and identify the discourses, practices, and policies that create both movement and stuckness in racialized and sexualized border-crossers’ lives.
ANTH 376: Diasporas and Belonging: Anthropological Perspectives
Instructor: Dr. Helena Zeweri
Term 1
Tuesdays and Thursdays
9:30 am to 11:00 am
Description:
This course examines how migrants and refugees create community and identity in the aftermath of displacement. What new cultural formations emerge when a community is dispersed throughout the world? Through an anthropological perspective, students will learn about different communities’ experiences rediscovering their cultural identities, finding a sense of home, and building new communities across generations and places throughout the world. Students will explore case studies that unsettle fixed notions of belonging, thereby transcending nationalist imaginaries of citizenship, assimilation, and integration. We will explore these themes through oral histories, film, and ethnographies.
ANTH 303J: Medical Anthropology and Global Health in the Anthropocene
Instructor: Dr. Vinay Kamat
Term 1
Mondays and Wednesdays
9:30am to 11:00 am
Description:
This course explores how medical anthropologists have recently reconfigured their theoretical and methodological approach to global health in light of the on-going debates regarding the Anthropocene – a geological and historical epoch marked by humanity’s role in accelerating ecological destruction of our planet. The course will cover topics such as the effects of climate change on health, microbial insurgency, new and re-emerging infectious diseases, eco-risks, human vulnerability, resilience, and well-being in the Anthropocene.
ANTH 303I: Archaeology of the Eastern Arctic
Instructor: Dr. Samantha Walker
Term 2
Tuesdays and Thursdays
2:00 pm to 3:30 pm
Description:
This course introduces students to the study of ancient and historic societies in the North American Arctic and Greenland, with emphasis on Pre-Dorset and Dorset (Paleo-Inuit), ancestral Inuit (Thule), and historic Inuit peoples. Students will emerge from the course with an understanding of the region’s culture history, how diverse societies emerged in challenging environments, and the analytical challenges specific to northern archaeological research. We will also consider emerging research directions in Arctic studies, including advancements in community-based participatory research, archaeological engagement with Inuit ways of knowing, ancient DNA and isotope analyses, climate change research, and the management of at-risk sites.
ANTH 303H: Ethnography of Australia
Instructor: Dr. Helena Zeweri
Term 2
Mondays and Wednesdays
3:30 pm to 5:00 pm
Description:
This course introduces students to Australia as a site for rich anthropological inquiry. Students will engage with ethnographies of migration, Indigeneity, multiculturalism, social policies, race, and settler colonialism in Australia. Students will also learn about Australia’s unique history as a site where liberal ideals of multiculturalism clash with the ongoing violence of racism and settler colonialism. Ethnographies of Australia will serve as lenses to understand broader anthropological debates on power, culture, and colonialism in the contemporary world.
ANTH 303G: Ethnography of the Mediterranean
Instructor: Dr. Sabina Magiliocco
Term 2
Mondays and Wednesdays
12:30 pm to 2:00 pm
Description:
How do you think of the Mediterranean: vacation paradise, romantic destination, food mecca, cradle of Western civilization – or underdeveloped, conflict-riven area dominated by religion and violence? Come examine these conflicting portraits of the modern Mediterranean, an area in which many Canadians have cultural roots. While some anthropologists have treated the Mediterranean as a single culture area, others have emphasized its diversity, seeing it as a border in which many different cultures have historically come into contact, and, at times, conflict. Thus one of the course’s central questions will concern the nature and extent of the unity of the Mediterranean as constructed by both anthropologists and Mediterraneans themselves. Focusing on concepts such as honor and shame, hospitality, festivals and celebrations, gender, and conflict in the comparative study of Mediterranean cultures, we will explore the realities and representations of the peoples whose homes border on the Mediterranean Sea through a series of ethnographies, articles, films, and foods (yes, you read that right: get ready learn to cook and eat Med food!).
Prof. Magliocco is an Italian native who has conducted fieldwork in and published on the Mediterranean since 1986.