Disabled people are considered the "world's largest minority," but does a shared disability experience exist? In this course we examine the diverse ways disability is understood in different social contexts. We use disability studies as a critical lens to examine issues of power and to ask key questions of anthropology, including; What does it mean to have an anthropology of embodied experience? An anthropology of the mind?

Anarchy - organizing society through horizontal relations of free association - has a modern European history contemporary with Anthropology and has Indigenous histories in many places where people decided together to organize society against the state and hierarchy. Readings survey anthropology of non-state societies and engage questions of how non-European anarchies of Black and Indigenous authors and organizers critique anthropological methods.

The study of pidgins and creoles emerged as a subfield of linguistics in the latter half of the 20th century. Its ideas have been borrowed, notably by anthropologists, to analyze the increased diversity and fusion we confront in a globalizing world. Where did such ideas come from? What are their (un)intended consequences? This course will trace the epistemological development of Creole studies and consider its historical and contemporary impacts.

This course will review the history of South America from its earliest population to the Spanish Conquest. Emphasis will be placed on tracing the rise of civilization in the Andes. The Inka empire was only the last of a long sequence of states and empires. Comparison of the Inka state with earlier polities such as the Moche and Tiwanaku will reveal the unique and enduring traditions of Andean political organizations.

This course surveys transformations in the African past, from the Middle Stone Age emergence of modern humans, to the florescence of lifeways in the Late Stone Age, to the broad mosaic of small-, medium-, and large-scale Iron Age societies, to the archaeology of colonial encounters. We also consider how archaeological methods work to produce knowledge in combination with studies of genetics, climate and environment, and historical methods.

This course introduces students to research methodology in medical anthropology by participating in a faculty member's ongoing research project. It will include: formulating research questions, ethical review and IRB approval, partnering and collaboration, data collection, analysis, and presenting project findings. This practice-oriented course emphasizes learning by doing and mentored reflection. The topic and methodological approach will vary according to faculty interests. 

Independent study conducted by the student under the supervision of an instructor of his or her choice.

Independent research, under the supervision of the faculty DMP thesis readers, toward the DMP thesis. Prerequisite: Admission to the Distinguished Majors Program in Anthropology.

Writing of a thesis of approximately 50 pages, under the supervision of the faculty DMP thesis readers. Prerequisite: ANTH 4998.

This graduate seminar, also open to advanced undergraduates, engages interdisciplinary theory, case material, and intersecting knowledge production networks to approach indigenous landscapes as spaces of cultural production, land rights advocacy, and environmental care. It challenges students to examine their assumptions about how dominant values and stories are inscribed in landscapes, as well as the locations and perspectives from which these processes are experienced, narrated, and theorized.