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.Topics for 2024-2025 may include:TitleInstructorFWS: Canoe Cultures in America: Commerce, Conquest, ContradictionsA. ArcadiFWS: Historytelling as RitualJ. LuriaFWS: Culture on TourC. RechtzigelFWS: Becoming Indigenous in AsiaY. Liang

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

The evolution of humankind is explored through the fossil record, studies of the biological differences among current human populations, and a comparison with our closest relatives, the primates. This course investigates the roots of human biology and behavior with an evolutionary framework.

Full details for ANTHR 1300 - Human Evolution: Genes, Behavior, and the Fossil Record

This course critically examines the politics and ethics of knowledge production across the humanities and social sciences. It poses an expansive and complex question: how, by whom, and for whom is knowledge produced and to what ends? We will explore quantitative and qualitative research methods, theories of the archive and curation, and artistic and creative work as forms of knowledge production while centering questions of access across a range of categories, including but not limited to disability, language, geopolitical positioning, and neurodivergence. In a semester-long active learning project, students and faculty will collaboratively produce knowledge and disseminate it via the in-progress, open-access digital humanities platform Palestinian Pedagogy Network. (HC)

Full details for ANTHR 2352 - How Do You Know? The Ethics and Politics of Knowledge

This course will introduce students to the meaning and significance of forms of cultural diversity for the understanding of contemporary issues. Drawing from films, videos, and selected readings, students will be confronted with different representational forms that portray cultures in various parts of the world, and they will be asked to examine critically their own prejudices as they influence the perception and evaluation of cultural differences. We shall approach cultures holistically, assuming the inseparability of economies, kinship, religion, and politics, as well as interconnections and dependencies between world areas such as Africa, Latin America, the West. Among the issues considered: political correctness and truth; nativism and ecological diversity; race, ethnicity, and sexuality; sin, religion, and war; global process and cultural integrity.

Full details for ANTHR 2400 - Cultural Diversity and Contemporary Issues

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

What is money? How do people use money in the real world? How are technological innovations changing people's perceptions of money? This course introduces anthropological perspectives on economy and society through a variety of ethnographic studies of money and finance. Topics of discussion include primitive money and colonial currencies, the uses of money in religious and ritual practices, social and cultural meanings of numbers, mobile money, crypto-currency and other alternative currency systems, and the social life of finance.

Full details for ANTHR 2440 - The Social Life of Money

Medicine has become the language and practice through which we address a broad range of both individual and societal complaints. Interest in this medicalization of life may be one of the reasons that medical anthropology is currently the fastest-growing subfield in anthropology. This course encourages students to examine concepts of disease, suffering, health, and well-being in their immediate experience and beyond. In the process, students will gain a working knowledge of ecological, critical, phenomenological, and applied approaches used by medical anthropologists. We will investigate what is involved in becoming a doctor, the sociality of medicines, controversies over new medical technologies, and the politics of medical knowledge. The universality of biomedicine, or hospital medicine, will not be taken for granted, but rather we will examine the plurality generated by the various political, economic, social, and ethical demands under which biomedicine has developed in different places and at different times. In addition, biomedical healing and expertise will be viewed in relation to other kinds of healing and expertise. Our readings will address medicine in North America as well as other parts of the world. In class, our discussions will return regularly to consider the broad diversity of kinds of medicine throughout the world, as well as the specific historical and local contexts of biomedicine.

Full details for ANTHR 2468 - Medicine, Culture, and Society

Who lived in the Ithaca area before American settlers and Cornell arrived? Where do these indigenous peoples reside today? This class explores the history and culture of the Gayogoho:no (Cayuga), which means people from the mucky land. We will read perspectives by indigenous authors, as well as archaeologists and historians, about past and current events, try to understand reasons why that history has been fragmented and distorted by more recent settlers, and delve into primary sources documenting encounters between settlers and the Gayogoho:no. We will also strive to understand the ongoing connections of the Gayogoho:no to this region despite forced dispossession and several centuries of colonialist exclusion from these lands and waters.

Full details for ANTHR 2720 - From the Swampy Land: Indigenous People of the Ithaca Area

The course will investigate all aspects of non-human primate life. Based on the fundamentals of evolutionary theory, group and inter-individual behaviors will be presented. In addition, an understanding of group structure and breeding systems will be reached through an evaluation of ecological constraints imposed on primates in different habitats. Subjects include: primate taxonomy, diet and foraging, predation, cooperation and competition, social ontogeny, kinship, and mating strategies.

Full details for ANTHR 3390 - Primate Behavior and Ecology with Emphasis on African Apes

Social Justice highlights refugee-led organizing and its intersections with un/documented and Indigenous beyond borders activism. We will work with and learn from refugee and asylum seekers led organizations that are started by and run by members of formerly displaced groups. These organizations build collectives and coalitions to organize communities across identities and legal categories and advocate for access to mobility and social justice. We will closely collaborate with these organizations and work on joint research projects.

Full details for ANTHR 3402 - Social Justice: Special Topics

This course approaches the study of religion, symbols, and myth from an anthropological perspective. The centrality and universality of religion and myth-making in social and symbolic life has been fundamental in the development of cultural theory. Our aim is to understand with this is so. We begin by examining the classic theories of religion in the works of Durkheim, Marx, Weber, Mauss, and Freud, among others, followed by an exploration of how these theories have been influential in anthropological studies of symbolism, cosmology, ritual, selfhood, myth, sorcery, witchcraft, and pilgrimage. We conclude by examining the apparent persistence, revival and transformation of religious and magical beliefs and practices within modern, modernizing, and postcolonial states. We ask whether an increasing politicization and globalization of religious ideology through technological mediation poses significant challenges to the anthropological analysis of religion. In so doing, we also try to understand better the human experience of and identification with the spiritual, mythical, and religious in the contemporary moment. This, in turn, leads us to investigate the inherent volatility of such identifications and experiences within the larger national and global framework of cultural politics.

Full details for ANTHR 3420 - Myth, Ritual, and Symbol

This course examines the cultures and histories of the circumpolar North. The primary emphasis is on the North American Arctic and Subarctic with some attention to northern Eurasia for comparative purposes. The focus is on the indigenous peoples of the region and the socio-political and ecological dimensions of their evolving relationships with southern industrial societies.

Full details for ANTHR 3422 - Culture, Politics, and Environment in the Circumpolar North

This course offers an anthropological perspective on the global rise of authoritarianism, in the context of growing inequality, racism, misogyny, nationalism, genocide and war. In particular, it links macro-scale and historical theories regarding global processes (e.g., "world systems," "globalization"), on the one hand, and the closer correlates of these macro forces shaping individual experience, on the other. Drawing from anthropology as well as from cognate disciplines (history, psychology, political economy, etc.), the course surveys case studies from the US, Germany, China, and other countries, on topics such as the self-delusion of the oppressed, the narcissism of dictators, the politics of gender, as well as how the remaking of social identities relate to world economic cycles. Course readings highlight how fantasy, imagination, fear and hope, as well as propaganda and AI, intervene in the contemporary global trends.

Full details for ANTHR 3437 - 21st Century Authoritarianism

Museums are places where academic research meets the public. Though they remain among the most trusted types of institutions, they have increasingly come under critical scrutiny. Questions around museums' perceived neutrality, the ethics of collecting, displaying, and interpreting cultural heritage, and whether they are welcoming to all audiences have made headlines and led to new developing practices. This class offers an introduction to the field of museum studies, pairing interactive lectures on museum history and theory with site visits to local and campus museums where students will learn from a variety of professionals about practical challenges.

Full details for ANTHR 3490 - Museum Studies: Histories, Problems, and Practices

This seminar provides a higher-level general introduction to, and survey of, contemporary theories, methods, and approaches in the archaeology of the Mediterranean world. Rather than focusing on a specific geographical sub-region or chronological period, this course examines and critically assesses the practice and distinctive character of Mediterranean archaeology more broadly.

Full details for ANTHR 4254 - Themes in Mediterranean Archaeology

This production seminar is for students with basic documentary filmmaking skills who want to work with previously collected footage and/or are in production on a project in or around Ithaca. Over the course of the semester, students complete a documentary film based on an immersive engagement with their selected subject matter. Alongside watching and discussing relevant texts and films, students will complete exercises to help them focus their projects, build a cohesive narrative, learn script writing, brainstorm scene ideas, overcome narrative challenges, discover their aesthetic, and develop a film circulation plan. Students will regularly present new footage and scenes and explain their work in terms their goals for the final project. The course culminates in a public screening of students' independent video projects.

Full details for ANTHR 4401 - Advanced Documentary Production

This seminar explores the history and theory of ethnographic film. Keeping in mind broader issues of cross-cultural representation, we consider the evolution of ethnographic film as a genre for representing reality, embodied practices, and anthropological concepts. Students will examine ethnographic authority, the production of otherness, and the sensory dimensions of knowledge production. The course charts out various approaches to ethnographic film, ranging from the mobilization of the camera as a tool for storytelling, scientific record and analysis, empowerment and political advocacy, and arts and aesthetics. We will theorize the role and status of ethnographic film as a signifying practice, form of meaning-making, and mode of anthropological theory building. We will pay close attention to the ethical and political concerns of cross-cultural communication and representation.

Full details for ANTHR 4424 - Ethnographic Film Theory and History

This course examines theories of subjectivity and self-formation from a comparative, ethnographic perspective. We begin by examining classic and contemporary phenomenological, psychodynamic, semiotic, structuralist, and post-structuralist theories of self and subject formation. Moving into the ethnographic literature, we assess the utility of these models for understanding the selves of others, particularly in critical juxtaposition to multiple and alternate theories of the self and person as understood in different cultures. By examining debates in the anthropology of emotion, cognition, healing, and mental health we bring into sharper focus the particular theoretical and empirical contributions, as well as the failures, of anthropologists towards developing a cross-cultural psychology.

Full details for ANTHR 4467 - Self and Subjectivity

Race is but one of many ways that we classify ourselves and others as we navigate the world. But what role has science, technology, and medicine played in shaping our understanding of race as both a concept and aspect of our personal identity? This course investigates how ideas about race have been constructed and deployed at various scales in both social and scientific contexts. Students will trace the historical production of racial meaning from the 18th century to the present, exploring topics such as: individual projects of racial self-fashioning, national projects of technological racial surveillance, and even global networks of genomic data. Rather than focusing solely on scientific authority, this course will underscore how marginalized communities have challenged scientific scrutiny and engaged as co-producers of racial knowledge.

Full details for ANTHR 4713 - Scaling Race: Race-Making in Science in Society

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

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

Final write-up of the thesis under the direct supervision of the thesis advisor, who will assign the grade for this course.

Full details for ANTHR 4984 - Honors Thesis Write-Up

Course will consist of weekly, seminar-style meetings of all thesis writers until mid-semester, under the direction of the honors chair. This second semester concentrates on preparation of a full draft of the thesis by mid-semester, with ample time left for revisions prior to submission. Group meetings will concentrate on collective reviewing of the work of other students, presentation of research, and the like.

Full details for ANTHR 4992 - Honors Workshop II

This course explores advanced topics in anthropological theory and practice. It builds on the history of the discipline that students will have examined in the preceding course ANTHR 6020, and seeks to immerse students in major contemporary theoretical developments and debates and the discipline's most pressing concerns. Coursework will proceed mainly by way of reading, writing, and discussion.

Full details for ANTHR 6025 - Proseminar in Anthropology

This studio-style seminar provides an in-depth examination of the principles and practices of archaeological research design. We will examine all aspects of the research process, from concept formation, to methodology, to ethical practice and data management. Over the course of the semester, students will undertake a series of projects that will build incrementally into a research proposal. We will focus on developing the skills vital to designing archaeological research, starting with the formulation of a question and continuing through the exploratory process of defining proper sites, assemblages, analytical techniques, and presentation of findings. Class sessions will focus on designing research projects examining case studies drawn from world archaeology and student research projects.

Full details for ANTHR 6250 - Archaeological Research Design

This course examines the cultures and histories of the circumpolar North. The primary emphasis is on the North American Arctic and Subarctic with some attention to northern Eurasia for comparative purposes. The focus is on the indigenous peoples of the region and the socio-political and ecological dimensions of their evolving relationships with southern industrial societies.

Full details for ANTHR 6422 - Culture, Politics, and Environment in the Circumpolar North

This course offers an anthropological perspective on the global rise of authoritarianism, in the context of growing inequality, racism, misogyny, nationalism, genocide and war. In particular, it links macro-scale and historical theories regarding global processes (e.g., "world systems," "globalization"), on the one hand, and the closer correlates of these macro forces shaping individual experience, on the other. Drawing from anthropology as well as from cognate disciplines (history, psychology, political economy), the course surveys case studies from the US, Germany, China, and other countries, on topics such as the self-delusion of the oppressed, the narcissism of dictators, the politics of gender, as well as how the remaking of social identities relate to world economic cycles. Course readings highlight how fantasy, imagination, fear and hope, as well as propaganda and AI, intervene in the contemporary global trends.

Full details for ANTHR 6437 - 21st Century Authoritarianism

This seminar focuses on preparing a full-scale proposal for anthropological fieldwork for a dissertation. Topics include identifying appropriate funding sources; defining a researchable problem; selecting and justifying a particular fieldwork site; situating the ethnographic case within appropriate theoretical contexts; selecting and justifying appropriate research methodologies; developing a feasible timetable for field research; ethical considerations and human subjects protection procedures; and preparing appropriate budgets. This is a writing seminar, and students will complete a proposal suitable for submission to a major funding agency in the social sciences.

Full details for ANTHR 6440 - Proposal Development

Museums are places where academic research meets the public. Though they remain among the most trusted types of institutions, they have increasingly come under critical scrutiny. Questions around museums' perceived neutrality, the ethics of collecting, displaying, and interpreting cultural heritage, and whether they are welcoming to all audiences have made headlines and led to new developing practices. This class offers an introduction to the field of museum studies, pairing interactive lectures on museum history and theory with site visits to local and campus museums where students will learn from a variety of professionals about practical challenges.

Full details for ANTHR 6490 - Museum Studies: Histories, Problems, and Practices

Race is but one of many ways that we classify ourselves and others as we navigate the world. But what role has science, technology, and medicine played in shaping our understanding of race as both a concept and aspect of our personal identity? This course investigates how ideas about race have been constructed and deployed at various scales in both social and scientific contexts. Students will trace the historical production of racial meaning from the 18th century to the present, exploring topics such as: individual projects of racial self-fashioning, national projects of technological racial surveillance, and even global networks of genomic data. Rather than focusing solely on scientific authority, this course will underscore how marginalized communities have challenged scientific scrutiny and engaged as co-producers of racial knowledge.

Full details for ANTHR 6713 - Scaling Race: Race-Making in Science in Society

Full details for ANTHR 7010 - Engaged Anthropology

Headline-making archaeological narratives using methods drawn from STEM fields have become increasingly common, yet how archaeological narratives are constructed from paleogenomics, organic residue analysis, or X-ray fluorescence spectrometry can often seem like an inscrutable “black box.” This hands-on course unpacks the methods, theoretical frameworks, and contributions of STEM techniques to archaeology and the study of heritage materials. Through weekly readings, lectures, data analysis, labs, and a final science communication project, students will gain practical experience in chronometric dating, organic residue analysis and paleodiet reconstruction, and analysis of inorganic archaeological and heritage materials.

Full details for ANTHR 7201 - Scientific Analysis of Archaeological and Heritage Materials

This seminar provides a higher-level general introduction to, and survey of, contemporary theories, methods, and approaches in the archaeology of the Mediterranean world. Rather than focusing on a specific geographical sub-region or chronological period, this course examines and critically assesses the practice and distinctive character of Mediterranean archaeology more broadly.

Full details for ANTHR 7254 - Themes in Mediterranean Archaeology

This production seminar is for students with basic documentary filmmaking skills who want to work with previously collected footage and/or are in production on a project in or around Ithaca. Over the course of the semester, students complete a documentary film based on an immersive engagement with their selected subject matter. Alongside watching and discussing relevant texts and films, students will complete exercises to help them focus their projects, build a cohesive narrative, learn script writing, brainstorm scene ideas, overcome narrative challenges, discover their aesthetic, and develop a film circulation plan. Students will regularly present new footage and scenes and explain their work in terms their goals for the final project. The course culminates in a public screening of students' independent video projects.

Full details for ANTHR 7401 - Advanced Documentary Production

This seminar explores the history and theory of ethnographic film. Keeping in mind broader issues of cross-cultural representation, we consider the evolution of ethnographic film as a genre for representing reality, embodied practices, and anthropological concepts. Students will examine ethnographic authority, the production of otherness, and the sensory dimensions of knowledge production. The course charts out various approaches to ethnographic film, ranging from the mobilization of the camera as a tool for storytelling, scientific record and analysis, empowerment and political advocacy, and arts and aesthetics. We will theorize the role and status of ethnographic film as a signifying practice, form of meaning-making, and mode of anthropological theory building. We will pay close attention to the ethical and political concerns of cross-cultural communication and representation.

Full details for ANTHR 7424 - Ethnographic Film Theory and History

This course examines theories of subjectivity and self-formation from a comparative, ethnographic perspective. We begin by examining classic and contemporary phenomenological, psychodynamic, semiotic, structuralist, and post-structuralist theories of self and subject formation. Moving into the ethnographic literature, we assess the utility of these models for understanding the selves of others, particularly in critical juxtaposition to multiple and alternate theories of the self and person as understood in different cultures. By examining debates in the anthropology of emotion, cognition, healing, and mental health we bring into sharper focus the particular theoretical and empirical contributions, as well as the failures, of anthropologists towards developing a cross-cultural psychology.

Full details for ANTHR 7467 - Self and Subjectivity

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

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

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 7540 - Problems in Himalayan Studies

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

A 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

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

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

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

This introductory course surveys the archaeology of the ancient Greek and Roman world. Each week, we will explore a different archaeological discovery that transformed scholars' understanding of the ancient world. From early excavations at sites such as Pompeii and Troy, to modern field projects across the Mediterranean, we will discover the rich cultures of ancient Greece and Rome while also exploring the history, methods, and major intellectual goals of archaeology.

Full details for ARKEO 1702 - Great Discoveries in Greek and Roman Archaeology

Why did the ancient Egyptians build pyramids, and why did they stop building them? Why did they depict things in ways that seem stiff and unnatural? Is ancient Egyptian art “art”? These are some of the questions explored in this course, which spans late prehistory (c. 3500 BCE) to the Roman period (early centuries CE). We will take a thematic approach, progressing chronologically and introducing key genres where appropriate. First, we will explore central issues of symbolism, landscape, and materials through the architecture and furnishings of temples and royal tombs. Next come the social worlds of art. Can we speak of artists? How were gender, class, and ethnicity represented? Finally, we will survey the legacies of Egyptian visual culture in antiquity and the modern West.

Full details for ARKEO 2433 - The Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt

In this course we will study the technologies - aqueducts, automata, catapults, concrete and more - that allowed the Roman Empire to prosper and expand. Technical and historical background will accompany hands-on work and discussion of philosophy of technology.

Full details for ARKEO 2641 - The Technology of Ancient Rome

The art of Ancient Greece and Rome has a complex legacy within western culture that is inseparable from ideas about power, beauty, identity, and knowledge. As such, 'Classical' art has been appropriated for all kinds of ends, many of them deeply problematic. But what did ancient statues, paintings, vessels, or buildings mean for the cultures that originally created, viewed, and lived alongside them? How were they embedded within political and social structures, religious practices, and public or domestic spaces? What can they tell us about practices of representation and story-telling? How might they help us access ancient attitudes to gender, ethnicity, or social status? And why is any of this still relevant today? This course on Greek and Roman art and archaeology will address all these questions. Covering the time span from the Bronze Age (3rd millennium BCE) to the late Roman Empire (4th century CE), we will focus on one object or monument each lecture, considering how it can be considered exemplary for its time. Where possible, we will engage with artefacts in our collections at Cornell, including the plaster-casts, as we develop skills in viewing, analyzing, and contextualizing material evidence.

Full details for ARKEO 2700 - Introduction to the Classical World in 24 Objects

Who lived in the Ithaca area before American settlers and Cornell arrived? Where do these indigenous peoples reside today? This class explores the history and culture of the Gayogoho:no (Cayuga), which means people from the mucky land. We will read perspectives by indigenous authors, as well as archaeologists and historians, about past and current events, try to understand reasons why that history has been fragmented and distorted by more recent settlers, and delve into primary sources documenting encounters between settlers and the Gayogoho:no. We will also strive to understand the ongoing connections of the Gayogoho:no to this region despite forced dispossession and several centuries of colonialist exclusion from these lands and waters.

Full details for ARKEO 2720 - From the Swampy Land: Indigenous People of the Ithaca Area

An introduction to the history and theory of writing systems from cuneiform to the alphabet, historical and new writing media, and the complex relationship of writing technologies to human language and culture. Through hands-on activities and collaborative work, students will explore the shifting definitions of writing and the diverse ways in which cultures through time have developed and used writing systems. We will also investigate the traditional divisions of oral vs. written and consider how digital technologies have affected how we use and think about writing in encoding systems from Morse code to emoji.

Full details for ARKEO 2812 - Hieroglyphs to HTML: History of Writing

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

Contemporary commentary and scholarship is rife with warnings of Democratic decline in the United States and around the world. This course addresses similar themes through a very different lens by examining the factors that contributed to the collapse of the Roman Republic and the establishment of the principate. Students will engage with primary source material, secondary historical analyses of this period, and political science scholarship on democratic decline and political revolution to better understand this pivotal period in Roman history.

Full details for ARKEO 3172 - How "Democracies" Die: The Collapse of the Roman Republic

Museums are places where academic research meets the public. Though they remain among the most trusted types of institutions, they have increasingly come under critical scrutiny. Questions around museums' perceived neutrality, the ethics of collecting, displaying, and interpreting cultural heritage, and whether they are welcoming to all audiences have made headlines and led to new developing practices. This class offers an introduction to the field of museum studies, pairing interactive lectures on museum history and theory with site visits to local and campus museums where students will learn from a variety of professionals about practical challenges.

Full details for ARKEO 3490 - Museum Studies: Histories, Problems, and Practices

The figure of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh looms large in the modern imagination, whether as awesome demigod or awful despot. But how did these fabled kings portray themselves, and how were they seen by their subjects? To probe the ideology of Egyptian kingship and examine how it was celebrated and questioned, we will read a selection of ancient Egyptian texts in translation: royal dream visions and birth legends; records of tomb robberies and an assassination conspiracy; and tales of cantankerous monarchs and squabbling gods. Skepticism, humor, and historical memory abound in these writings, which will introduce nonspecialists to one of the world’s earliest literary traditions.

Full details for ARKEO 3778 - Pharaohs and Fables

Topics Rotate: Spring 2026 topic: Olympia. Few sites of Greek antiquity enjoy a global resonance as large as that of Olympia, origin of the Olympic games. And yet, with its monumental archaeological traces reaching from the Bronze Age to late Antiquity, Olympia was more than a venue for athletic competitions. Besides those, the seminar focuses on the development of the site from an early hero cult to panhellenic sanctuary, its embeddedness in the landscape, its various political affiliations and mediterranean networks, its artistic productions, but also on Olympia as tourist destination in antiquity and today. Moreover, the site has been a laboratory of archaeological methods and negotiations of cultural heritage which we will revisit, beginning with the French and German excavations in the 19th century and continuing to this day with the involvement of a larger international community. Nazi Germany (Berlin 1936), Western Germany (Munich 1972), Greece (Athens 2004), and Cornell (Temple of Zeus Café) will serve as case studies on the modern reception of Olympia.

Full details for ARKEO 4233 - Greek and Roman Art and Archaeology

This seminar provides a higher-level general introduction to, and survey of, contemporary theories, methods, and approaches in the archaeology of the Mediterranean world. Rather than focusing on a specific geographical sub-region or chronological period, this course examines and critically assesses the practice and distinctive character of Mediterranean archaeology more broadly.

Full details for ARKEO 4254 - Themes in Mediterranean Archaeology

Several Bronze Age kingdoms situated around the Eastern Mediterranean underwent a violent collapse around 1175 BCE. Archaeological and textual evidence suggest that two major socioeconomic processes played a part: the creation of the first known international system, and climate change. In our class we explore how ancient leaders reacted (or not) to these processes and what their reactions teach us about more current events. Charismatic leaders, fascism, colonialism, sexism, racism, capitalism, globalism, climate change, famine, migration, militarism, and collapse—all have correlates or origins in the Bronze Age that we study through a variety of textual sources, including the Amarna Letters, Ramesside papyri and cuneiform documents from Syria and Turkey. We also become familiar with several archaeological sites, including the Uluburun shipwreck and Ugarit, offering unique windows onto the transformative times at the end of the Bronze Age.

Full details for ARKEO 4644 - Globalism and Collapse in the Late Bronze Age World

Independent work under the close guidance of a faculty member.

Full details for ARKEO 4981 - Honors Thesis Research

The student, under faculty direction, will prepare a senior thesis.

Full details for ARKEO 4982 - Honors Thesis Write-Up

Graduate students pursue advanced topics of particular interest under the guidance of faculty member(s).

Full details for ARKEO 6000 - Graduate Independent Study in 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

Topics Rotate: Spring 2026 topic: Olympia.

Full details for ARKEO 6233 - Greek and Roman Art and Archaeology

This studio-style seminar provides an in-depth examination of the principles and practices of archaeological research design. We will examine all aspects of the research process, from concept formation, to methodology, to ethical practice and data management. Over the course of the semester, students will undertake a series of projects that will build incrementally into a research proposal. We will focus on developing the skills vital to designing archaeological research, starting with the formulation of a question and continuing through the exploratory process of defining proper sites, assemblages, analytical techniques, and presentation of findings. Class sessions will focus on designing research projects examining case studies drawn from world archaeology and student research projects.

Full details for ARKEO 6250 - Archaeological Research Design

Museums are places where academic research meets the public. Though they remain among the most trusted types of institutions, they have increasingly come under critical scrutiny. Questions around museums' perceived neutrality, the ethics of collecting, displaying, and interpreting cultural heritage, and whether they are welcoming to all audiences have made headlines and led to new developing practices. This class offers an introduction to the field of museum studies, pairing interactive lectures on museum history and theory with site visits to local and campus museums where students will learn from a variety of professionals about practical challenges.

Full details for ARKEO 6490 - Museum Studies: Histories, Problems, and Practices

Several Bronze Age kingdoms situated around the Eastern Mediterranean underwent a violent collapse around 1175 BCE. Archaeological and textual evidence suggest that two major socioeconomic processes played a part: the creation of the first known international system, and climate change. In our class we explore how ancient leaders reacted (or not) to these processes and what their reactions teach us about more current events. Charismatic leaders, fascism, colonialism, sexism, racism, capitalism, globalism, climate change, famine, migration, militarism, and collapse—all have correlates or origins in the Bronze Age that we study through a variety of textual sources, including the Amarna Letters, Ramesside papyri and cuneiform documents from Syria and Turkey. We also become familiar with several archaeological sites, including the Uluburun shipwreck and Ugarit, offering unique windows onto the transformative times at the end of the Bronze Age.

Full details for ARKEO 6644 - Globalism and Collapse in the Late Bronze Age World

Headline-making archaeological narratives using methods drawn from STEM fields have become increasingly common, yet how archaeological narratives are constructed from paleogenomics, organic residue analysis, or X-ray fluorescence spectrometry can often seem like an inscrutable “black box.” This hands-on course unpacks the methods, theoretical frameworks, and contributions of STEM techniques to archaeology and the study of heritage materials. Through weekly readings, lectures, data analysis, labs, and a final science communication project, students will gain practical experience in chronometric dating, organic residue analysis and paleodiet reconstruction, and analysis of inorganic archaeological and heritage materials.

Full details for ARKEO 7201 - Scientific Analysis of Archaeological and Heritage Materials

This seminar provides a higher-level general introduction to, and survey of, contemporary theories, methods, and approaches in the archaeology of the Mediterranean world. Rather than focusing on a specific geographical sub-region or chronological period, this course examines and critically assesses the practice and distinctive character of Mediterranean archaeology more broadly.

Full details for ARKEO 7254 - Themes in Mediterranean Archaeology

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

Full details for ARKEO 8902 - Master's Thesis