Anthropology 1786: Cultures of the Pacific

The South Pacific has a certain romantic appeal in popular imagination: swaying palm trees, mild tropical breezes, unspoiled, uninhibited people. Is this true? What are the people of this region really like? How do they feel about these popular images of themselves? What can we learn about human nature by studying the cultures of the South Pacific?

This class uses information about the peoples and cultures of the South Pacific as a vehicle for exploring basic anthropological ideas and concepts. By examining the customs of traditional Pacific peoples, we will probe the ranges of human diversity and increase our understanding of what it means to be human. By learning about contemporary Pacific patterns of courtship and marriage, social organization, political and economic systems, conflict and violence, etc., we will better understand the relationship between Pacific Island societies and ourselves in a globalizing world. Students in this class will also gain a greater appreciation of anthropology as a profession as they read firsthand the " field experiences" of several anthropologists.

The course examines the traditional and contemporary cultures of the three major areas of the Pacific: Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia. It includes a geographical and historical introduction to the Pacific as well as an examination of the current social and political status of the region. Anthropological films and visual presentations supplement lectures.

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Anthropology 1764 -- Cultures and Societies of India

India is one of the world's great civilizations, with an ancient culture that was the source of Buddhism as well as Hinduism. The caste system is one of the most complex social systems in the world. India was also ruled by Muslims and British, both of which have left their mark on the culture and society. Yet India is also the world's largest democracy, and one of the dominant intellectual and industrial powers in Asia. This course considers all of these aspects of India. The first part of the course deals with the classical civilization and its modern manifestations. The remainder of the course considers contemporary culture and society in India, focusing in part on the interaction between the majority Hindus and the minority Muslims. Attention is also paid to issues of class, gender and caste, all in the context of India's vibrant democratic system. The course aims at acquainting students with India as a complex modern nation that has devised a workable democratic system on a very non-western cultural foundation. At the same time, students will learn about that non-western cultural tradition, and about the patterns of conflict and accommodation between the various social and religious communities in India. In so doing, students will learn a great deal about social conflict and cohesion in modernizing societies throughout the world.

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Anthropology 1770: Kinship and the Family

Undergraduate seminar. In this course Western and non-Western forms of kinship, family, and marriage will be discussed and analyzed with some special reference to materials from the Pacific region. Attention will be given to family organization, group structure and to gender relations.

The relationship of kinship theory to contemporary anthropological theory in general will be explored. Attention will be paid to the topics of change in kinship relations and the relationship of change to wider historical processes, in the Pacific and elsewhere.

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Anthropology 1793:  Asian Medical Systems

Using scholarly texts, ethnographic studies and historical documents, this seminar will focus on the medical systems of India, China and Japan. The primary objective of the course is to understand various Asian medical systems on their own terms, both in theory and in contemporary practice. Primary attention will be given to Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine. Our approach to the study of medical systems will be cultural, critical and interpretive. The object is not to define Asian medical systems as static and immutable. Rather, our goal will be to understand how these systems exist through change. We will look, therefore, at how so-called traditional medicine in Asia is being modernized in response to political, economic, social, and cultural transformations. Our purpose in this course is to gain a comparative perspective on medicine in Asia. We will not, however, compare Asian medicine with Western biomedicine. Rather we will try to discern commonality and difference between Indian, Chinese and Japanese medical systems by looking both at their historical forms and at the way in which they have responded to common patterns of change.

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Anthropology 2784: Pacific Prehistory and Ethnographic Analogy

The course provides a basic survey of Pacific prehistory. Its primary purpose is to use prehistoric and ethnohistoric cultural sequences of the Pacific Islands (including Polynesia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Australia) as a framework for examining problems of general interest to both prehistorians and ethnographers. These include such issues as the origins of agriculture, the nature and development of social stratification, the interrelationships between people and the natural environment, maritime adaptations, trade and exchange, the nature of prestige-based economies, etc. These and other issues are explored through lectures, class discussions, and readings.

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Anthropology 2740: Pacific Ethnology

The course employs ethnographic studies of the Pacific Islands (including Polynesia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Australia) as a framework for examining contemporary social and political problems of general anthropological interest. These may include such themes as colonial and postcolonial change, ethnicity and nationalism, conflict and violence, Pacific diasporas and remittance economies, the "invention" of tradition, political ecology, cultural constructions of gender, etc. The course includes a general ethnographic survey of Pacific Island societies as well as an examination of contemporary problems in the region.

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Anthropology 2765: Tribal Societies and Anthropological Theory

Much of "classic" anthropological theory is a direct outgrowth of research on "tribal" societies. This course uses tribal societies (including what many have called "chiefdoms") as a backdrop for the examination of classic and contemporary anthropological theory. We will investigate the nature of tribes as compared with other forms of social life, ethnographically survey the world's tribes (with special emphasis on the Pacific Islands and insular Southeast Asia), and consider the place of tribes/ethnic groups in the contemporary world. Readings consist of classic and contemporary ethnographic monographs from different world regions together with theoretically-oriented articles.

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Anthropology 2731: Medical Anthropology II

This course offers a study of selected topics in contemporary theory and its application in medical anthropology. Topics to be covered include cross-cultural and biocultural approaches to the study of sickness and healing, critical approaches to the study of biomedicine, interpretive approaches to ethno-medical systems, meaning-centered approaches to understanding the experience of suffering and pain, and the social construction of illness and healing. Special topics investigated include the anthropology of the body and sexuality, and physician-patient communication. Other topics can be added in accordance with student interests.

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Anthropology 2750: Contemporary Anthropological Theory

In the last decade or so, significant theoretical shifts have occurred within cultural anthropology, leading to and beyond the so-called post-modernist approaches. There was first a decline of encompassing "grand theories," followed by a stress on local forms of knowledge and practice as the object of our investigations. Later there have been a series of attempts at reconstructive theorizing either generally or in specific arenas, for example, in political anthropology and in historical anthropology. This course will explore and assist students critically to evaluate some of these trends. Attention will be paid to current issues of globalization and the creation or assertion of new forms of identity in geopolitical contexts; as well as to reconstructive theories in general, for example in the sphere of religion and ritual. Material from the Indo-Pacific region are regularly chosen as case-histories in this course.

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Anthropology 2753: Conflict and Violence

This seminar considers problems relating to the analysis of violence on a cross-cultural basis, situating itself within classic and contemporary debates in political anthropology. The topics to be covered include: (1) the analysis of feuding, revenge practices, and warfare in non-state societies; (2) the historically mutual impact of tribes and states in the context of warfare, expansion, and containment; (3) the widespread emergence of ethnicity as an ideological basis for violent conflict in the contemporary world; and (4) theories from political and legal anthropology that bear on these phenomena and may suggest trajectories of violence or conditions for overcoming violence as a transactional mode of interaction. Ethnographic examples will be drawn to a considerable extent from the Pacific region, especially Papua New Guinea, but essentially the focus of the course is global and students will be encouraged to draw on their own areas of interest in their course work.

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