Courses

Courses by semester

Courses for

Complete Cornell University course descriptions are in the Courses of Study .

Course ID Title Offered
ANTHR1101 FWS: Culture, Society, and Power
This First-Year Writing Seminar is devoted to the anthropological study of the human condition.  Anthropology  examines all aspects of human experience, from the evolution of the species to contemporary challenges of politics, environment, and society.  The discipline emphasizes empirically rich field research informed by sophisticated theoretical understandings of human social life and cultural production. The diversity of anthropology's interests provides a diverse array of stimulating opportunities to write critically about the human condition. Topics vary by semester.

Full details for ANTHR 1101 - FWS: Culture, Society, and Power

Fall, Spring.
ANTHR1200 Ancient Peoples and Places
A broad introduction to archaeology-the study of material remains to answer questions about the human past. Case studies highlight the variability of ancient societies and illustrate the varied methods and interpretive frameworks archaeologists use to reconstruct them. This course can serve as a platform for both archaeology and anthropology undergraduate majors.

Full details for ANTHR 1200 - Ancient Peoples and Places

Fall.
ANTHR1400 The Comparison of Cultures
An introduction to cultural anthropology through ethnographies, or the descriptive accounts of anthropologists. Through readings and lectures, students acquaint themselves with a number of cultures from several parts of the world. The cultures range in form from those of small-scale tribal societies to those of state societies. Throughout the course, we attempt to make sense of exotic cultures in their own terms. Attention is focused on variation in cultural patterns as they are expressed in social, economic, and ritual practices. In this encounter, the principles of anthropology, as a comparative enterprise that poses distinct cultural systems in relief, will be developed. Fiction, films, and exercises supplement the formal anthropological materials.

Full details for ANTHR 1400 - The Comparison of Cultures

Fall.
ANTHR1700 Indigenous North America
This course provides an interdisciplinary introduction to the diverse cultures, histories and contemporary situations of the Indigenous peoples of North America. Students will also be introduced to important themes in the post-1492 engagement between Indigenous and settler populations in North America and will consider the various and complex ways in which that history affected - and continues to affect - American Indian peoples and societies. Course materials draw on the humanities, social sciences, and expressive arts.

Full details for ANTHR 1700 - Indigenous North America

Fall.
ANTHR1900 Global Engagements: Living and Working in a Diverse World
The path to global citizenship begins with a facility for navigating cultural difference. How might we engage with communities, whether here in Ithaca or across the globe, whose pasts and present understandings are fundamentally different than our own? This course is designed to help students bring global engaged learning into their Cornell education. It introduces skills that are vital for intercultural engagement, including participant-observation research, ethnographic writing, and the habits of critical reflexivity. Students will complete projects with service learning placements in the Ithaca community. They will also begin an ePortfolio as they explore their identity and engage with the international community on campus.

Full details for ANTHR 1900 - Global Engagements: Living and Working in a Diverse World

Fall.
ANTHR2245 Health and Disease in the Ancient World
The history of humankind is also a history of health and disease; the rise of agricultural societies, ancient cities, and colonial empires had wide-ranging effects on diet and nutrition, the spread of infectious diseases, and occurrence of other health conditions. This history has also been shaped by complex interactions between environment, technology, and society. Using archaeological, environmental, textual, and skeletal evidence, we will survey major epidemiological transitions from the Paleolithic to the age of European conquest. We will also examine diverse cultural experiences of health, illness, and the body. How do medical practices from "pre-modern" societies, such as the medieval Islamic world and the Inca Empire, challenge dominant narratives of scientific development? The implications of past health patterns for modern-day communities will also be explored.

Full details for ANTHR 2245 - Health and Disease in the Ancient World

Fall.
ANTHR2310 The Natural History of Chimpanzees and the Origins of Politics
This course will examine the natural history of wild chimpanzees with an eye toward better understanding the changes that would have been necessary in human evolutionary history to promote the emergence of human culture and political life. After an overview of early research and preliminary attempts to apply our knowledge of chimpanzee life to social and political theory, the class will focus on our now extensive knowledge of chimpanzees derived from many ongoing, long-term field studies. Topics of particular interest include socialization, alliance formation and cooperation, aggression within and between the sexes, reconciliation, the maintenance of traditions, tool use, nutritional ecology and social organization, territorial behavior, and the importance of kin networks. The question of whether apes should have rights will also be explored.

Full details for ANTHR 2310 - The Natural History of Chimpanzees and the Origins of Politics

Fall.
ANTHR2410 South Asian Diaspora
This interdisciplinary course (with an emphasis in anthropology) will introduce students to the multiple routes/roots, lived experiences, and imagined worlds of South Asians who have traveled to various lands at different historical moments spanning Fiji, South Africa, Mauritius, Britain, Malaysia, United States, Trinidad, and even within South Asia itself such as the Tamil-speaking population of Sri Lanka. The course will begin with the labor migrations of the 1830s and continue up to the present period. The primary exercise will be to compare and contrast the varied expressions of the South Asian Diaspora globally in order to critically evaluate this transnational identity. Thus, we will ask what, if any, are the ties that bind a fifth-generation Indo-Trinidadian whose ancestor came to the New World as an indentured laborer or "coolie" in the mid-19th century to labor in the cane fields, to a Pakistani medical doctor who migrated to the United States in the late 1980s. If Diaspora violates a sense of identity based on territorial integrity, then could "culture" serve as the basis for a shared identity?

Full details for ANTHR 2410 - South Asian Diaspora

Fall.
ANTHR2420 Nature/Culture: Ethnographic Approaches to Human-Environment Relations
One of the most pressing questions of our time is how we should understand the relationship between nature (or "the environment") and culture (or society) - and/or whether these should be viewed as separate domains at all.  How one answers this question has important implications for how we go about thinking and acting in such diverse social arenas as environmental politics, development, and indigenous-state relations.  This course serves as an introduction to the various ways anthropologists and other scholars have conceptualized the relationship between humans and the environment and considers the material and political consequences that flow from these conceptualizations.

Full details for ANTHR 2420 - Nature/Culture: Ethnographic Approaches to Human-Environment Relations

Fall.
ANTHR2421 Worlding Sex and Gender
An introduction to the anthropology of sex, sexuality and gender, this course uses case studies from around the world to explore how the worlds of the sexes become gendered.  In ethnographic, ethnohistorical and contemporary globalizing contexts, we will look at: intersexuality & 'supernumerary' genders; physical & cultural reproduction; sexuality; and sex- & gender-based violence & power. We will use lectures, films, discussion sections and short field-based exercises.

Full details for ANTHR 2421 - Worlding Sex and Gender

Fall.
ANTHR2433 Anthropology of Law and Politics
The need to monitor human behavior and regulate order among individuals and groups is inherent to the human condition. This course is a basic introduction to the ways in which anthropology has examined legal and political processes across diverse societies and cultures. Students will learn foundational anthropological and legal principles and how they are applied among specific sociocultural groups.

Full details for ANTHR 2433 - Anthropology of Law and Politics

Fall.
ANTHR2470 Islam and Gender
This course explores the role of gender and sexuality in shaping the lives of Muslims past and present. Through a close examination of ethnographies, intellectual histories, and religious treatises, we will analyze the key debates and discourses surrounding the intersection of gender and Islam. We begin by investigating Quranic revelations and hadith concerning gender and sexual ethics, female figures of emulation in early Islam, and feminist exegeses of the Quran. Continuing onward, we focus upon the everyday lives of Muslim women and non-binary individuals in medieval, colonial, and post-colonial contexts, highlighting the ways in which people negotiate and respond to the sexual politics of the times in which they live as we ask what, if anything, is specifically "Islamic" about the situations under discussion? Following this, we embark upon a history of sexuality within Islam, tracing the ways in which the categories of "homosexuality" and "heterosexuality" came to exist in the Muslim world, as well as the history and positionality of trans communities past and present. We then continue with an exploration of Islamic feminism as it exists today, looking to the ways in which Muslim feminists have critically engaged both religious texts as well as Western feminist theory. Finally, the course concludes by analyzing the relationship between the study of Islam, gender, and empire.

Full details for ANTHR 2470 - Islam and Gender

Fall.
ANTHR2546 South Asian Religions in Practice: The Healing Traditions
This course offers an anthropological approach to the study of religious traditions and practices in South Asia (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Nepal). The course begins with a short survey of the major religious traditions of South Asia: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Islam. We look to the development of these traditions through historical and cultural perspectives. The course then turns to the modern period, considering the impact of colonialism, nationalism, and globalization upon religious ideologies and practices. The primary focus of the course will be the ethnographic study of contemporary religious practices in the region. We examine phenomena such as ritual, pilgrimage, possession, devotionalism, monasticism, asceticism, and revivalism through a series of ethnographic case studies. In so doing, we also seek to understand the impact of politics, modernity, diasporic movement, social inequality, changing gender roles, and mass mediation upon these traditions and practices.

Full details for ANTHR 2546 - South Asian Religions in Practice: The Healing Traditions

Fall.
ANTHR3000 Introduction to Anthropological Theory
This seminar course is designed to give anthropology majors an introduction to classical and contemporary social and anthropological theory and to help prepare them for upper-level seminars in anthropology. The seminar format emphasizes close reading and active discussion of key texts and theorists. The reading list will vary from year to year but will include consideration of influential texts and debates in 19th-, 20th-, and 21st-century anthropological theory especially as they have sought to offer conceptual and analytical tools for making sense of human social experience and cultural capacities.

Full details for ANTHR 3000 - Introduction to Anthropological Theory

Fall.
ANTHR3901 Going Global: Preparing for Engaged Learning
So you're enrolled in an upcoming study abroad program! Now what? How can you make the most of your experience? This half-semester course is designed to prepare students departing for any study abroad or domestic engaged learning programs. This course provides the opportunity to refine the skills necessary for cross-cultural encounters, including participant-observation research, ethnographic writing, and the habits of critical reflexivity. Students will research the culture and history of their destination and develop an ePortfolio to capture their experiences. They will also consider how to succeed in a foreign academic environment by engaging with the international community on campus.

Full details for ANTHR 3901 - Going Global: Preparing for Engaged Learning

Fall (weeks 8-15).
ANTHR3902 Coming Home: Making the Most of Engaged Experiences
How has your study abroad experience shaped you and your perspective on the world? What does it mean to be a global citizen? This half-semester course is designed for students returning from study abroad or other engaged learning programs. Students will reflect on topics such as identity, difference, and navigating cross-cultural encounters by writing narratives based on their experience and revising their ePortfolio. In doing so, they will grapple with "culture shock" and share moments of personal growth. They will also have the opportunity to contribute to the international community on campus.

Full details for ANTHR 3902 - Coming Home: Making the Most of Engaged Experiences

Fall (weeks 1-7).
ANTHR4013 Textual Ethnography
This course explores the implications and significance of using textual materials as anthropological evidence. While participant observation remains the cornerstone of ethnography, literary, archival, and other written works are increasingly being utilized as primary sources within the anthropological project. This course will hence offer an overview of anthropological works that trace the intersections between cultural production and the literary imagination. Rather than consider the literary elements of ethnography itself, we will strive to understand the disparate forms of social phenomena—both knowledge and practices—that arise from texts and textual practices specifically. Examples include analyses of literary cultures, media forms and non-traditional textual sources, bureaucratic structures, the use of archives, and more. Particular attention will be paid to works based in the Middle East and the Islamic world. By examining the different theoretical, political, and ethical considerations of using the written word as ethnographic evidence, we will be able to shed light on the anthropological project as a whole.

Full details for ANTHR 4013 - Textual Ethnography

Fall.
ANTHR4041 What is (an) Epidemic? (Infectious Diseases in Historical, Social, and Political Perspective)
The term "epidemic" travels widely and wildly in contemporary worlds.  But, what, when and where is "the epidemic"? How and why does epidemic unfold? This senior seminar offers an interdisciplinary exploration of infectious diseases.  Our investigations take us from medieval Europe's "Black Plague," to Tuberculosis in early twentieth century United States and its global resurgence at the turn of the twenty-first, to Ebola and its ongoing, periodic outbreaks today. We consider the consequences epidemics have for how we live and imagine shared ecological futures.  Examining work from the life sciences, social sciences, and arts & humanities, we explore the ways in which life and death, disease and survivability, health and thriving are shaped by infectious microbes, embodied eco-social forces, and contingent regimes of knowledge-power. 

Full details for ANTHR 4041 - What is (an) Epidemic? (Infectious Diseases in Historical, Social, and Political Perspective)

Fall.
ANTHR4139 Global Currents: Immobility and Multi-Sited Ethnography
Ever-increasing global interconnection drives some of the most pressing political and ethical questions of our time. This seminar centers on two intersecting areas of inquiry. The first deals with the nature of global movements: how people, ideas, arts, and capital move through world. Engaging postcolonial theory and scholarship on contemporary migration and transnationalism, we will interrogate the idea of borders and nations as well as those categories—like diaspora—that surpass or circumvent them. The second addresses how and why we might study these processes ethnographically. Here we will consider the potential and limitations of multi-sited and global ethnography, and question the possibility of an activist ethnography of global interconnection. For longer description and instructor bio, visit societyhumanities.as.cornell.edu/courses

Full details for ANTHR 4139 - Global Currents: Immobility and Multi-Sited Ethnography

Fall.
ANTHR4246 Human Osteology
This is an intensive laboratory course in the study of human skeletal remains. A detailed knowledge of skeletal anatomy is fundamental to forensic anthropology, bioarchaeology, and the medical sciences. This course teaches students how to identify all 206 bones and 32 teeth of the human skeleton, in both complete and fragmentary states. Students will also learn osteological methods for establishing a biological profile (age-at-death, sex, stature, and biological affinity) and documenting skeletal trauma and pathological lesions. Hands-on laboratory training will be supplemented by case studies that demonstrate the importance of human osteology for criminal investigations in the present and the study of health and violence in the past. The ethics of working with human remains are also discussed.

Full details for ANTHR 4246 - Human Osteology

Fall.
ANTHR4256 Time and History in Ancient Mexico
An introduction to belief systems in ancient Mexico and Central America, emphasizing the blending of religion, astrology, myth, history, and prophecy. Interpreting text and image in pre-Columbian books and inscriptions is a major focus.

Full details for ANTHR 4256 - Time and History in Ancient Mexico

Fall.
ANTHR4330 How Do We Know Nature? Language, Knowledge and the Environment
How do we perceive and know the world around us? Which are the multiple ways in which we negotiate this knowledge into language and embodied practice? Does one's position in society matter? Is the thing reducible to its representation? This senior seminar proposes to confront the production of knowledge on nature through the lenses of our (and others') ways of wording it. Towards the end of the semester, we will focus on the concept of adaptation: how do we cope with an increasingly difficult environment? This course includes an engaged research component and experiential learning—we will prepare an art/research installation called "The Flood Room: Environmental Knowledge, Disaster Preparedness, Community Resilience and Climate Change Communication in Ithaca, New York" in collaboration with local community organizations.

Full details for ANTHR 4330 - How Do We Know Nature? Language, Knowledge and the Environment

Fall.
ANTHR4390 Primate Conservation: Cross-cultural Perspectives on Wilderness Preservation and Animal-Human
Primate species are going extinct. The goal of this seminar is to examine a variety of issues related to conservation in general, and to the conservation of primates in particular. For example, what is "wilderness"? Is there cross-cultural variation in how wild nature is valued? Can ethics be extended beyond humans? Is consumerism the real culprit in the global ecological crisis? How do human and nonhuman primate ecologies intersect, and how can understanding these intersections be integrated into conservation efforts? How, in practice, does one develop and implement a real-world conservation action plan? Discussions will focus both on theoretical issues and on the analysis of a new generation of real-world conservation initiatives that depend on interdisciplinary collaboration.

Full details for ANTHR 4390 - Primate Conservation: Cross-cultural Perspectives on Wilderness Preservation and Animal-Human

Fall.
ANTHR4403 Ethnographic Field Methods
This course will provide students with practical understanding about what anthropologists actually do in the field. We will examine problems that emerge in conducting fieldwork that raise ethical, methodological, theoretical, and practical issues in the observation, participation in, recording, and representation of culture(s). Students will be expected to develop a semester-long, local research project that will allow them to experience fieldwork situations.

Full details for ANTHR 4403 - Ethnographic Field Methods

Fall.
ANTHR4437 Ethnographies of Development
This seminar develops an ethnographic approach to projects aiming to improve the human condition. Our object of study - development, humanitarianism, and the will to improve - is defined capaciously to allow for the study of projects ranging in orientation from politically conservative to progressive and revolutionary; from religious to secular; and from the global South to the global North. Whether we are studying construction megaprojects or hygiene lessons, programs for preserving tradition or introducing modernity, climate change mitigation efforts or truth commissions, we will explore ethnographically the actors, targets, explicit motives, practical techniques, and intended and unintended consequences. Our aim will be to link the micropolitics of lived experience and intersubjective relations to the macropolitics that structure and enable improvement projects.

Full details for ANTHR 4437 - Ethnographies of Development

Fall.
ANTHR4468 Jewish Ethnography: Jewish Communities Yesterday and Today
The anthropology of Jews, Jewishness and Judaism is a wonderful laboratory for studying vital issues in the study of culture and society: textuality and orality; gender, reproduction and the cycle of generations; tradition, modernity and postmodernity; diaspora and the state; genetics and the politics of identity; forms of difference in the metropole and in colonialism. Until recent decades, there were almost no serious ethnographies of Jewish communities. Today there is a rich new literature in this field.  We will read widely to become familiar with this new literature, exploring the politics of ethnography; memoir as an ethnographic source; reflexive and auto-Jewish ethnographies; traditionalist and modernist communities; and communities spread widely through Europe, North America, North Africa and the Middle East.  

Full details for ANTHR 4468 - Jewish Ethnography: Jewish Communities Yesterday and Today

Fall.
ANTHR4513 Religion and Politics in Southeast Asia
This course explores how religious beliefs and practices in Southeast Asia have been transformed by the combined forces of colonialism, nationalism, and globalization. By examining both diversity and resurgence in one of the world's most rapidly modernizing regions, we aim to understand the common economic, social, and political conditions that are contributing to the popularity of contemporary religious movements. At the same time, we also consider the unique ideological, theological, and cultural understandings behind different religions and movements. Through this process we also rethink conceptions of modernity.

Full details for ANTHR 4513 - Religion and Politics in Southeast Asia

Fall.
ANTHR4910 Independent Study: Undergrad I
Independent reading course in topics not covered in regularly scheduled courses. Students select a topic in consultation with the faculty member who has agreed to supervise the course work.

Full details for ANTHR 4910 - Independent Study: Undergrad I

Fall, Spring.
ANTHR4920 Independent Study: Undergrad II
Independent reading course in topics not covered in regularly scheduled courses. Students select a topic in consultation with the faculty member who has agreed to supervise the course work.

Full details for ANTHR 4920 - Independent Study: Undergrad II

Fall, Spring.
ANTHR4983 Honors Thesis Research
Research work supervised by the thesis advisor, concentrating on determination of the major issues to be addressed by the thesis, preparation of literature reviews, analysis of data, and the like. The thesis advisor will assign the grade for this course.

Full details for ANTHR 4983 - Honors Thesis Research

Fall.
ANTHR4991 Honors Workshop I
Course will consist of several mandatory meetings of all thesis writers with the honors chair. These sessions will inform students about the standard thesis production timetable, format and content expectations, and deadlines; expose students to standard reference sources; and introduce students to each other's projects. The chair of the Honors Committee will assign the grade for this course.

Full details for ANTHR 4991 - Honors Workshop I

Fall.
ANTHR6015 Teaching Anthropology/Teaching Culture
This course is a systematic engagement with issues in teaching anthropology to undergraduate students.  Where there is broad agreement in other social sciences about what should be taught in undergraduate courses, no such common understanding exists in the field of anthropology.  This course will explore the history of the teaching of anthropology, pedagogical issues unique to anthropology, and the pragmatics of teaching anthropology, especially the problems of teaching across cultures.

Full details for ANTHR 6015 - Teaching Anthropology/Teaching Culture

Fall.
ANTHR6020 History of Anthropological Thought
This course examines the history and development of anthropology as a discipline with emphasis on British social anthropology and American cultural anthropology.  The course will trace major schools of thought -- Evolutionism, Functionalism, and Structuralism-- leading to the post-structural "critique of culture." The latter part of the course will examine a range of  debates around anthropology's method and claims to theory beginning with the reflexive turn.  Specifically, this part of the course will address how the recognition by anthropologists of the operations of power both in the "world out there" and "within anthropology" has led to diverse methodologies and theories that define contemporary anthropology.

Full details for ANTHR 6020 - History of Anthropological Thought

Fall.
ANTHR6102 Political Culture
This course will explore the relationship between popular belief, political action, and the institutional deployment of social power. The class will be roughly divided in three parts, opening with a discussion of how the material world influences the culture of a society. The middle section will connect culture to political ideology, including symbolism and the construction of group identity. The last part of the course will consider ways in which cultural symbols and ideology can be manipulated in order to legitimate government authority. We will then, coming full circle, trace how political regimes can influence the social practices from which culture originates.

Full details for ANTHR 6102 - Political Culture

Fall.
ANTHR6403 Ethnographic Field Methods
This course will provide students with practical understanding about what anthropologists actually do in the field. We will examine problems that emerge in conducting fieldwork that raise ethical, methodological, theoretical, and practical issues in the observation, participation in, recording, and representation of culture(s). Students will be expected to develop a semester-long, local research project that will allow them to experience fieldwork situations.

Full details for ANTHR 6403 - Ethnographic Field Methods

Fall.
ANTHR7013 Textual Ethnography
This course explores the implications and significance of using textual materials as anthropological evidence. While participant observation remains the cornerstone of ethnography, literary, archival, and other written works are increasingly being utilized as primary sources within the anthropological project.  This course will hence offer an overview of anthropological works that trace the intersections between cultural production and the literary imagination. Rather than consider the literary elements of ethnography itself, we will strive to understand the disparate forms of social phenomena—both knowledge and practices—that arise from texts and textual practices specifically. Examples include analyses of literary cultures, media forms and non-traditional textual sources, bureaucratic structures, the use of archives, and more. Particular attention will be paid to works based in the Middle East and the Islamic world. By examining the different theoretical, political, and ethical considerations of using the written word as ethnographic evidence, we will be able to shed light on the anthropological project as a whole.

Full details for ANTHR 7013 - Textual Ethnography

Fall.
ANTHR7139 Global Currents: Immobility and Multi-Sited Ethnography
Ever-increasing global interconnection drives some of the most pressing political and ethical questions of our time. This seminar centers on two intersecting areas of inquiry. The first deals with the nature of global movements: how people, ideas, arts, and capital move through world. Engaging postcolonial theory and scholarship on contemporary migration and transnationalism, we will interrogate the idea of borders and nations as well as those categories—like diaspora—that surpass or circumvent them. The second addresses how and why we might study these processes ethnographically. Here we will consider the potential and limitations of multi-sited and global ethnography, and question the possibility of an activist ethnography of global interconnection. For longer description and instructor bio, visit societyhumanities.as.cornell.edu/courses

Full details for ANTHR 7139 - Global Currents: Immobility and Multi-Sited Ethnography

Fall.
ANTHR7246 Human Osteology
This is an intensive laboratory course in the study of human skeletal remains. A detailed knowledge of skeletal anatomy is fundamental to forensic anthropology, bioarchaeology, and the medical sciences. This course teaches students how to identify all 206 bones and 32 teeth of the human skeleton, in both complete and fragmentary states. Students will also learn osteological methods for establishing a biological profile (age-at-death, sex, stature, and biological affinity) and documenting skeletal trauma and pathological lesions. Hands-on laboratory training will be supplemented by case studies that demonstrate the importance of human osteology for criminal investigations in the present and the study of health and violence in the past. The ethics of working with human remains are also discussed.

Full details for ANTHR 7246 - Human Osteology

Fall.
ANTHR7250 Time and History in Ancient Mexico
Explores the ways Mesoamericans understood the world and their place in it, and the ways they constructed history as these are reflected in the few books that have survived from the period before the European invasion. Examines the structure of writing and systems of notation, especially calendars, and considers their potential for illuminating Mesoamerican world views and approaches to history.  Primary focus is detailed analysis of five precolumbian books: Codex Borgia, a central Mexican manual of divinatory ritual; Codex Boturini, a history of migration in central Mexico; Codex Nuttall, a Mixtec dynastic history; and two Maya books of astrology and divination, Codex Dresden and Codex Madrid.

Full details for ANTHR 7250 - Time and History in Ancient Mexico

Fall.
ANTHR7437 Ethnographies of Development
This seminar develops an ethnographic approach to projects aiming to improve the human condition. Our object of study - development, humanitarianism, and the will to improve - is defined capaciously to allow for the study of projects ranging in orientation from politically conservative to progressive and revolutionary; from religious to secular; and from the global South to the global North. Whether we are studying construction megaprojects or hygiene lessons, programs for preserving tradition or introducing modernity, climate change mitigation efforts or truth commissions, we will explore ethnographically the actors, targets, explicit motives, practical techniques, and intended and unintended consequences. Our aim will be to link the micropolitics of lived experience and intersubjective relations to the macropolitics that structure and enable improvement projects.

Full details for ANTHR 7437 - Ethnographies of Development

Fall.
ANTHR7468 Jewish Ethnography: Jewish Communities Yesterday and Today
The anthropology of Jews, Jewishness and Judaism is a wonderful laboratory for studying vital issues in the study of culture and society: textuality and orality; gender, reproduction and the cycle of generations; tradition, modernity and postmodernity; diaspora and the state; genetics and the politics of identity; forms of difference in the metropole and in colonialism. Until recent decades, there were almost no serious ethnographies of Jewish communities. Today there is a rich new literature in this field.  We will read widely to become familiar with this new literature, exploring the politics of ethnography; memoir as an ethnographic source; reflexive and auto-Jewish ethnographies; traditionalist and modernist communities; and communities spread widely through Europe, North America, North Africa and the Middle East.  

Full details for ANTHR 7468 - Jewish Ethnography: Jewish Communities Yesterday and Today

Fall.
ANTHR7513 Religion and Politics in Southeast Asia
This course investigates the extent to which religious beliefs and practices in Southeast Asia have been transformed by the combined forces of colonialism, nationalism, and globalization.  By examining diversity, difference, and resurgence in one of the world's most rapidly changing regions, we aim to understand the economic, social, and political conditions contributing to the popularity and resurgence of religious ideologies and contemporary movements.  At the same time, we also consider closely the unique ideological, theological, and cultural understandings that shape different religions and movements.  Through this process we also rethink conceptions of modernity as both a cultural and social force.  One key aim of this course will be to analyze the relationships between state-sponsored "official nationalisms," religious ideologies and practices, and changing socioeconomic conditions.  In doing so, we also aim to better understand the forces behind and implications of heightened ethnic sentiments and violence in the region, as well as changing gender ideologies.

Full details for ANTHR 7513 - Religion and Politics in Southeast Asia

Fall.
ANTHR7520 Southeast Asia: Readings in Special Problems
Independent reading course on topics not covered in regularly scheduled courses. Students select a topic in consultation with the faculty member who has agreed to supervise the course work.

Full details for ANTHR 7520 - Southeast Asia: Readings in Special Problems

Fall, Spring.
ANTHR7530 South Asia: Readings in Special Problems
Independent reading course in topics not covered in regularly scheduled courses. Students select a topic in consultation with the faculty member who has agreed to supervise the course work.

Full details for ANTHR 7530 - South Asia: Readings in Special Problems

Fall, Spring.
ANTHR7550 East Asia: Readings in Special Problems
Independent reading course in topics not covered in regularly scheduled courses. Students select a topic in consultation with the faculty member who has agreed to supervise the course work.

Full details for ANTHR 7550 - East Asia: Readings in Special Problems

Fall, Spring.
ANTHR7900 Department of Anthropology Colloquium
A bi-weekly series of workshops and lectures on a range of themes in the discipline sponsored by the Department of Anthropology. Presentations include lectures by invited speakers, debates featuring prominent anthropologists from across the globe, and works in progress presented by anthropology faculty and graduate students.

Full details for ANTHR 7900 - Department of Anthropology Colloquium

Fall, Spring.
ANTHR7910 Independent Study: Grad I
Independent reading course in topics not covered in regularly scheduled courses. Students select a topic in consultation with the faculty member who has agreed to supervise the course work.

Full details for ANTHR 7910 - Independent Study: Grad I

Fall, Spring.
ANTHR7920 Independent Study: Grad II
Independent reading course in topics not covered in regularly scheduled courses. Students select a topic in consultation with the faculty member who has agreed to supervise the course work.

Full details for ANTHR 7920 - Independent Study: Grad II

Fall, Spring.
ANTHR7930 Independent Study: Grad III
Independent reading course in topics not covered in regularly scheduled courses. Students select a topic in consultation with the faculty member who has agreed to supervise the course work.

Full details for ANTHR 7930 - Independent Study: Grad III

Fall, Spring.
ARKEO1200 Ancient Peoples and Places
A broad introduction to archaeology-the study of material remains to answer questions about the human past. Case studies highlight the variability of ancient societies and illustrate the varied methods and interpretive frameworks archaeologists use to reconstruct them. This course can serve as a platform for both archaeology and anthropology undergraduate majors.

Full details for ARKEO 1200 - Ancient Peoples and Places

Fall.
ARKEO2245 Health and Disease in the Ancient World
The history of humankind is also a history of health and disease; the rise of agricultural societies, ancient cities, and colonial empires had wide-ranging effects on diet and nutrition, the spread of infectious diseases, and occurrence of other health conditions. This history has also been shaped by complex interactions between environment, technology, and society. Using archaeological, environmental, textual, and skeletal evidence, we will survey major epidemiological transitions from the Paleolithic to the age of European conquest. We will also examine diverse cultural experiences of health, illness, and the body. How do medical practices from "pre-modern" societies, such as the medieval Islamic world and the Inca Empire, challenge dominant narratives of scientific development? The implications of past health patterns for modern-day communities will also be explored.

Full details for ARKEO 2245 - Health and Disease in the Ancient World

Fall.
ARKEO2666 Jerusalem the Holy in Judaism, Christianity and Islam
Jerusalem is a holy city to the adherents of the three great monotheistic faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. For most of its existence it has also been a national capital or major provincial center for the many states and empires which vied for control of the vital land bridge connecting Africa, Europe and Asia. Thus many of the pivotal events which shaped western civilization were played out in the streets and structures of Jerusalem. This class will explore the history, archaeology, natural topography and role of Jerusalem throughout its long life, from its earliest remains in the Chalcolithic period (ca. 4000 B.C.E.) to the 19th century, including Jebusite Jerusalem, Jerusalem as the capital of the Davidic dynasty, the Roman era city of Herod and Jesus, the Crusaders and medieval Jerusalem, and Ottoman Jerusalem as the city entered the modern era. Students will examine the original historical sources (e.g. the Bible, Josephus, the Madeba map, etc.) which pertain to Jerusalem. PowerPoint lectures will be used to illustrate the natural features, man-made monuments, and artifacts which flesh out the textual material, providing a fuller image of the world's most prominent spiritual and secular capital.

Full details for ARKEO 2666 - Jerusalem the Holy in Judaism, Christianity and Islam

Fall.
ARKEO3000 Undergraduate Independent Study in Archaeology and Related Fields
Undergraduate students pursue topics of particular interest under the guidance of a faculty member.

Full details for ARKEO 3000 - Undergraduate Independent Study in Archaeology and Related Fields

Fall, Spring.
ARKEO3090 Introduction to Dendrochronology
Introduction and training in dendrochronology (tree-ring dating) and its applications in archaeology, art history, climate and environment through lab work and participation in ongoing research projects using ancient to modern wood samples from around the world. Supervised reading and laboratory/project work. Possibilities exists for summer fieldwork in the Mediterranean, Mexico, and New York State.

Full details for ARKEO 3090 - Introduction to Dendrochronology

Fall.
ARKEO3600 Pre-Industrial Cities and Towns in North America
Various American Indian civilizations as well as diverse European cultures have all exerted their influences on the organization of town and city living. The course considers how each culture has altered the landscape in its own unique way as it created its own built environments.

Full details for ARKEO 3600 - Pre-Industrial Cities and Towns in North America

Spring.
ARKEO3661 Sumerian Language and Culture I
This course is an intense introduction for undergraduate and graduate students to the earliest written language, Sumerian, and its cuneiform script. Each week will feature grammar lessons and a reading of an important Sumerian historical or literary work in English translation. Through lecture and discussion, the class will explore the deep roots of the Sumerian historical memory, the origins of Mesopotamian civilization, and the role of the central government in the development of writing.

Full details for ARKEO 3661 - Sumerian Language and Culture I

Fall.
ARKEO3738 Identity in the Ancient World
Have you ever been asked 'who are you' or 'which group do you belong to'? You would have noted how the answer shifts according to who is asking, in which context, etc. While everyone is unique, the possible replies in any one situation are largely defined at the level of society. What is less often realized, however, is that identity shows in particular in ways of doing: what and how one eats; what one wears and when; how one moves in a space. Archaeology is in a unique position to investigate these questions, and the Greek and Roman worlds offer a fruitful test ground, both because of their varied evidence, and because of their peculiar echoing in the modern world and its manifold identities. This course will address current theories about identity and its formation, discuss the various facets of identity (e.g. gender, religion, ethnicity) in the Greek and Roman worlds, and introduce tools for studying identity in the past.

Full details for ARKEO 3738 - Identity in the Ancient World

Fall.
ARKEO4020 Designing Archaeological Exhibits
Students will learn method and theory on museum design and curation. The course also provides hands-on experience in designing and building exhibits for State Parks in the Finger Lakes. For the outreach component, students will work with staff from State Parks and Friends of the Parks.

Full details for ARKEO 4020 - Designing Archaeological Exhibits

Fall.
ARKEO4246 Human Osteology
This is an intensive laboratory course in the study of human skeletal remains. A detailed knowledge of skeletal anatomy is fundamental to forensic anthropology, bioarchaeology, and the medical sciences. This course teaches students how to identify all 206 bones and 32 teeth of the human skeleton, in both complete and fragmentary states. Students will also learn osteological methods for establishing a biological profile (age-at-death, sex, stature, and biological affinity) and documenting skeletal trauma and pathological lesions. Hands-on laboratory training will be supplemented by case studies that demonstrate the importance of human osteology for criminal investigations in the present and the study of health and violence in the past. The ethics of working with human remains are also discussed.

Full details for ARKEO 4246 - Human Osteology

Fall.
ARKEO4256 Time and History in Ancient Mexico
An introduction to belief systems in ancient Mexico and Central America, emphasizing the blending of religion, astrology, myth, history, and prophecy. Interpreting text and image in pre-Columbian books and inscriptions is a major focus.

Full details for ARKEO 4256 - Time and History in Ancient Mexico

Fall.
ARKEO4354 Byzantine Archaeology
A seminar on the archaeology of the Byzantine Empire, from the late Roman through to the early modern periods. Topics to be covered include: long-term changes in settlement patterns and urban development; the material traces of state and monastic control over productive landscapes; the idea of the border and the nature of its defense; and the fraught relationship between "Byzantine" and "classical" archaeologies.

Full details for ARKEO 4354 - Byzantine Archaeology

Fall.
ARKEO4981 Honors Thesis Research
Independent work under the close guidance of a faculty member.

Full details for ARKEO 4981 - Honors Thesis Research

Fall, Spring.
ARKEO4982 Honors Thesis Write-Up
The student, under faculty direction, will prepare a senior thesis.

Full details for ARKEO 4982 - Honors Thesis Write-Up

Fall, Spring.
ARKEO6000 Graduate Independent Study in Archaeology
Graduate students pursue advanced topics of particular interest under the guidance of a faculty member(s).

Full details for ARKEO 6000 - Graduate Independent Study in Archaeology

Fall, Spring.
ARKEO6020 Designing Archaeological Exhibits
Students will learn method and theory on museum design and curation. The course also provides hands-on experience in designing and building exhibits for State Parks in the Finger Lakes. For the outreach component, students will work with staff from State Parks and Friends of the Parks.

Full details for ARKEO 6020 - Designing Archaeological Exhibits

Fall.
ARKEO6100 The Craft of Archaeology
This course engages students in Archaeology and related fields in a semester-long discussion of the craft of archaeology with the faculty of the Cornell Institute of Archaeology and Material Studies. Each week, a different faculty member will moderate a conversation on the professional skills vital to the modern practice of archaeological research and the tools key to professionalization. Seminar topics include developing a research project and working with museum collections to matters of pedagogy and career development.

Full details for ARKEO 6100 - The Craft of Archaeology

Fall.
ARKEO6354 Byzantine Archaeology
A seminar on the archaeology of the Byzantine Empire, from the late Roman through to the early modern periods. Topics to be covered include: long-term changes in settlement patterns and urban development; the material traces of state and monastic control over productive landscapes; the idea of the border and the nature of its defense; and the fraught relationship between "Byzantine" and "classical" archaeologies.

Full details for ARKEO 6354 - Byzantine Archaeology

Fall.
ARKEO6660 Pre-Industrial Cities and Towns in North America
Various American Indian civilizations as well as diverse European cultures have all exerted their influences on the organization of town and city living. The course considers how each culture has altered the landscape in its own unique way as it created its own built environments.

Full details for ARKEO 6660 - Pre-Industrial Cities and Towns in North America

ARKEO6661 Sumerian Language and Culture I
This course is an intense introduction for undergraduate and graduate students to the earliest written language, Sumerian, and its cuneiform script. Each week will feature grammar lessons and a reading of an important Sumerian historical or literary work in English translation. Through lecture and discussion, the class will explore the deep roots of the Sumerian historical memory, the origins of Mesopotamian civilization, and the role of the central government in the development of writing.

Full details for ARKEO 6661 - Sumerian Language and Culture I

Fall.
ARKEO6755 Archaeological Dendrochronology
An introduction to the field of Dendrochronology and associated topics with an emphasis on their applications in the field of archaeology and related heritage-buildings fields. Course aimed at graduate level with a focus on critique of scholarship in the field and work on a project as part of the course.

Full details for ARKEO 6755 - Archaeological Dendrochronology

Fall.
ARKEO7000 CIAMS Core Seminar in Archaeological Theory and Method
Archaeology studies the past through its material remains. In doing so, it builds on wide-ranging theories and methods to develop its own disciplinary toolbox. This graduate seminar explores this toolbox, treating a topic of broad theoretical and/or methodological interest such as emerging topics in archaeological thought, the history of archaeological theory, key archaeological methods, themes that tie archaeology to the wider domain of the humanities and social sciences, or some combination of the above. The seminar is taught by various members of the Archaeology faculty, each of whom offers their own version of the seminar. The seminar is required for incoming CIAMS M.A. students, and needed for CIAMS membership for Ph.D. students.

Full details for ARKEO 7000 - CIAMS Core Seminar in Archaeological Theory and Method

Fall.
ARKEO7246 Human Osteology
This is an intensive laboratory course in the study of human skeletal remains. A detailed knowledge of skeletal anatomy is fundamental to forensic anthropology, bioarchaeology, and the medical sciences. This course teaches students how to identify all 206 bones and 32 teeth of the human skeleton, in both complete and fragmentary states. Students will also learn osteological methods for establishing a biological profile (age-at-death, sex, stature, and biological affinity) and documenting skeletal trauma and pathological lesions. Hands-on laboratory training will be supplemented by case studies that demonstrate the importance of human osteology for criminal investigations in the present and the study of health and violence in the past. The ethics of working with human remains are also discussed.

Full details for ARKEO 7246 - Human Osteology

Fall.
ARKEO7250 Time and History in Ancient Mexico
Explores the ways Mesoamericans understood the world and their place in it, and the ways they constructed history as these are reflected in the few books that have survived from the period before the European invasion. Examines the structure of writing and systems of notation, especially calendars, and considers their potential for illuminating Mesoamerican world views and approaches to history.  Primary focus is detailed analysis of five precolumbian books: Codex Borgia, a central Mexican manual of divinatory ritual; Codex Boturini, a history of migration in central Mexico; Codex Nuttall, a Mixtec dynastic history; and two Maya books of astrology and divination, Codex Dresden and Codex Madrid.

Full details for ARKEO 7250 - Time and History in Ancient Mexico

Fall.
ARKEO7736 Aesthetics of the Sacred in Classical Antiquity
This course will explore archaeological and literary evidence for the production, display, ritual treatment, and cultural reception of sacred images in ancient Greece. We will focus on some of the most fertile and problematic themes relating to the representation of divine beings in material form, such as the potential and limitations of anthropomorphism; the use of alternative modes of material manifestation such as aniconism and theriomorphism (the representation of gods as animals); the relationship between "cult" and "votive" images; the replication and adaptation of cult statues to new contexts of display; and shifting attitudes to image-worship within polytheistic and monotheistic traditions. Students in Classics, Art History, Religious Studies and Anthropology should find this course of particular interest.

Full details for ARKEO 7736 - Aesthetics of the Sacred in Classical Antiquity

Fall.
ARKEO8901 Master's Thesis
Students, working individually with faculty member(s), prepare a master's thesis in archaeology.

Full details for ARKEO 8901 - Master's Thesis

Fall.
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