2009 Courses

Courses for January Term 2009

ANTH 255: Anthropology of Music: Music and Race in the U.S. [3]

Sherrilynn Colby-Bottel, Instructor

In this course students are asked to think critically about music as a mode of cultural production. Music is a medium that is often unquestioningly marked as racialized. Exploring the ways in which race is constructed through music in the United States, this course aims to challenge student assumptions about racial stereotypes and musical genres. American multicultural examples drawn from music, film, and text will be used to study the construction of race in performance and representation. Student assessment will be based on participation in class discussions, article presentations, 2 quizzes, and the production of an individual critical music portfolio.

ANTH 257: Africa Through Film [3]

Felistas Njoki Osots, Instructor

This course provides an introduction to the peoples, cultures and histories of various African societies through an examination of a variety of ethnographic and commercial films, ethnographies and literature.  The course focuses on how Africa has been represented, and explores issues that are relevant to an understanding of contemporary African societies.  We will start with representations of Africa and Africans I the pre-colonial period, and how it impacted anthropological knowledge.  We will then explore economic and social effects of colonialism, rural-urban migrations, self-representations, gender, and the use of film as a medium for cultural critique in African societies.  In conjunction with short readings, we will explore how popular views have influenced and continue to shape anthropological knowledge, Western representations of Africa, and Africans’ representations of themselves.

 

ANTH 272: Ecopolitics and Culture in the Amazon [3]

Matthew Meyer, Instructor

Ecopolitics is an expression of the need to make economic development sustainable by balancing it with the preservation of cultural and ecosystem diversity. The Amazon basin, because it is the world's largest rainforest and is threatened by the development programs of the poor nations in which it lies, is one of the most important arenas for the elaboration of ecopolitical debates. In the past 20 years concepts of sustainability and deference to local knowledge have been important Amazonian contributions to global development policy debates, and have become familiar terms to politicians and farmers alike in the region. But have the projects developed using these ideas made a difference? In the Amazon, such projects face multiple challenges, given the increasing international interest in the region's potential for producing cash crops like soy, biodiesel fuels derived from sugarcane, and hydroelectric energy. This course will examine indigenous and folk ways of relating to the environment that have informed Amazonian development discourse, and will critically assess their effects on policy. What impact have efforts to use cultural diversity to produce sustainable development had on policy initiatives? To what degree has local environmental knowledge actually been incorporated into development projects? How successful have projects been, and who decides what success means?

 

ANTH 289: Unearthing the Past [3]

Rachel Most, Associate Professor

This course will introduce students to the field of archaeology — the study of past cultures through their material remains. Students will learn that archaeology is a complex multi-disciplinary field that is part humanities, part social science and part science. They will learn how archaeologists use material culture to reconstruct past lifeways. The goal of the class is to provide students with an understanding of how archaeologists reconstruct the rise and fall of ancient civilizations as well as the everyday lives of the people who lived in these societies. The methods of the science of archaeology will be reviewed to demystify the process of reconstructing the past. The course will also provide an appreciation for some of the major developments in prehistory such as the origins of modern humans, the rise of the first villages and cities and the emergence of ancient civilizations in North America.

To this end, we will begin with an introduction to the history and methodology of archaeology discussing the various methods archaeologists use to piece together the past. Topics will include artifact analysis (what is an artifact and how are they recognized in the field), classification (how materials are grouped together in meaningful ways), dating methods, and how sites are found and recorded (through both archaeological survey and excavation).

Following these discussions of the method and theory behind the discipline we will move to a discussion of the first human ancestors, the first tools and the origins of culture, and the emergence of Homo sapiens-the first humans. From there, discussions will focus on the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture and sedentism. We'll look at the emergence of complex societies in various parts of the world and conclude with a brief overview of North American archaeology and the topics that result in the most debate:

  • When and how did humans enter the New World?
  • Who were the mound builders and pueblo dwellers of North America?
  • What happened to the great early cultures of North America?

Daily work over the ten class days will include a combination of readings, pop quizzes, class presentations and the submission of questions on assigned readings. The last class day will be devoted to individual presentations.

There are no prerequisites for this course. It is both an excellent introduction to the field of archaeology, and/or to ANTH 280 (Introduction to Archaeology). This course will also provide the background students need to participate in an archaeological field school either at U.Va. or elsewhere.