Fall 2012 Graduate Course Descriptions
Please note that this represents the most accurate listing possible of the course offerings for this semester. It may not match what the HUB currently says. If you have any questions, please contact Sara Eddleman at eddleman@buffalo.edu or (716) 645-3960 for clarification.
APY 512 LEC (dual-listed with APY 488)
Kinship and Social Structure
Dr. David Banks
Reg. #17947
Monday/Wednesday/Friday 12:00 – 12:50 pm
Fillmore 351
A central goal of the course is to enable students to view kinship in this society. We will look at some of the famous contributions to kinship studies of the past and relate these to recent developments. Classes will be divided about equally between lectures and discussions and presentations. We will also discuss problems of the kinship of marriage and of kinship related friendship. Graduates will be asked to write a discussion of one society using two different approaches, that is, from two points of view. They will also have an opportunity to lead the discussion of a related group in class.
APY 543SEM
Cognitive Anthropology
Dr. Barbara Tedlock
Reg. #23868
Wednesday 9:30 am – 12:10 pm
Fillmore 354
Cognitive anthropology investigates the link between cultural and psychological processes demonstrating how people perceive the world based on systems of knowledge embedded in words, stories, actions, and artifacts. In the 1950s researchers mostly applied linguistic methods to ethnographic data, but by the 1990s a new generation took their inspiration from the emerging fields of cognitive science and consciousness studies. In this class we will explore linguistic, cybernetic, cognitive, psychological, computational, and phenomenological ideas about the nature of the human brain-mind and its connection to culture and society. Students will gain proficiency in participating in a theory seminar where they will learn about this rapidly emerging multidisciplinary field which includes linguistics, archaeology, the media arts, biology, medicine, and industrial engineering. It should be fun!
APY 546SEM
Physical Anthropology Topics: Being Human
Dr. Carol Berman
Reg. #TBA (email Sara Eddleman to be put on wait list: eddleman@buffalo.edu)
Thursday 3:30 – 6:10 pm
Spaulding 158
The topic for this graduate seminar concerns the question "What makes us human?", or more precisely "What is the nature and width of the gap that separates humans from other primates and animals?" Our readings and discussions will focus on a recent volume of essays by anthropologists, primatologists, biologists and psychologists, edited by Peter Kappeler and Joan Silk and entitled "Mind the Gap: Tracing the Origins of Human Universals". Kappeler and Silk contend that the gap is largely behavioral and that a series of important discoveries over the last 50 years has led anthropologists to largely abandon approaches based on single uniquely human traits or on unitary explanations. Rather they explore new attempts to explain the nature and origins of human behavior that use comparative cross species and multidisciplinary approaches that integrate insights from evolutionary anthropology, primatology, psychology, and, phylogenetics. Six areas will be discussed: Family and social organization; politics and power; intergroup relationships; foundations of cooperation, thought, language and communication; and innovation and culture.
APY 548SEM (dual-listed with APY 448SEM)
Human Genetics
Dr. Christine Duggleby
Reg. #21235
Wednesday 2:00 pm – 4:40 pm
Spaulding 158
Recent advances in genetic technology have presented the scientific and lay community with ethical and legal problems, yet to be resolved. The objective of this course is to provide an opportunity for informed discussions of such issues relating to contemporary human/medical issues.
APY 549SEM (dual-listed with APY 449SEM)
Maya Civilization
Dr. Barbara Tedlock
Reg. #22078
Tuesday/Thursday 9:30 – 10:50 am
Fillmore 354
This course provides a brief exploration of Maya civilization from its earliest beginnings to the current situation. We will begin with the pre-Classic, move through classic splendor, post- Classic turbulence, the European invasion, and into the current period of ethnic resurgence. There are few parts of the world today where there is such a good match between language and culture so that a line drawn around the area in which Mayan-speaking peoples currently live would contain all the archaeological remains assigned to ancient Maya civilization. This seminar will prepare participants to understand and appreciate the process of cultural historical change by focusing on the techniques of archival, hieroglyphic, and ethnographic field research among the lowland and the highland Maya.
APY 550SEM
Evolution Colloquium
Dr. Howard Lasker and Dr. Carol Berman
Reg. #12866
Tuesday 12:30 – 1:50 pm
Cooke 435
This seminar is a focal point of the Graduate Group in Evolutionary Biology and Ecology.
Students and faculty will review recent research in evolutionary processes by discussing topics in evolutionary theory, ecology, ethology and paleobiology. This will also be a forum for students to present their research ideas and topics.
APY 554SEM
Migration and Culture
Dr. Tilman Lanz
Reg. #24275
Friday 9:30 am – 12:10 pm
Fillmore 354
Description to follow.
APY 567LEC (dual-listed with APY 434)
Advanced Areal Archaeology of Mesoamerica
Dr. Warren Barbour
Reg. #22126
Thursday 3:30 – 6:10 pm
Fillmore 354
This course traces the emergence of Mesoamerican civilization in four major regions: The Valley of Oaxaca, the Mava Lowlands, and West Mexico, devoting time to archaeological, ethnohistoric, and linguistic sources. Issues addressed include the origins of agriculture, the advent of sedentism, trade and exchange, conquest and colonization, ethno genesis, linguistic change, and collapse. The course is in seminar format, and a paper is required.
APY 575SEM
Gender and the Politics of Health in Africa
Dr. Frederick Klaits
Reg. #13635
Monday 3:30 – 6:10 pm
Fillmore 354
This course examines the values, practices, and social conditions that have shaped women’s and men’s experiences of health and illness in sub-Saharan Africa. Through a focus on gender, we will explore how physical illnesses may be experienced as crises of social reproduction. We will discuss how transformations in gender roles brought about by colonial and postcolonial governance have contributed to men’s and women’s illness experiences, and the ways in which diseases, in turn, have driven social changes. We will consider the theoretical and practical contributions anthropologists have made in writing about gender and health in Africa, focusing on the intersections between anthropological, humanitarian, feminist, and a range of local discourses on suffering and healing. Topics will include maternal and child survival; male and female circumcision; contraception and infertility; population control; and HIV/AIDS.
APY 593SEM
Anthropology of Policy
Dr. Vasiliki Neofotistos
Reg. #18551
Tuesday 3:30 – 6:10 pm
Fillmore 354
APY 594SEM (dual-listed with APY 443)
Advanced Physical Anthropology: Paleopathology
Dr. Joyce Sirianni
Reg. #22925
Tuesday 3:30 – 6:10 pm
Spaulding 158
This seminar will address the topic of Human Paleopathology, i.e. the study of disease in ancient populations. After a brief introduction to the history of paleopathology, and to what constitutes pathology vs. Pseudopathology, students will, learn the distinctive features of various infectious diseases which effect bone, skeletal trauma, effect bone, and dental disease. Student presentations and discussion will be the format of the seminar.
APY 601TUT
Individual Readings – Archaeology
variable credit
ARR ARR
PERMISSIONOF INSTRUCTOR
If, after speaking to the Instructor and he/she agrees to work with you, the graduate student must fill out an Independent Study Form (form available outside the Anthropology Graduate Office), have the instructor and the Director of Graduate Studies sign it then give it to Maria to put in your file which becomes part of your Application to Candidacy. Then the student should contact Sara to register for the appropriate number of credit hours.
APY 602TUT
Individual Readings – Cultural Anthropology
variable credit
ARR ARR
PERMISSIONOF INSTRUCTOR
If, after speaking to the Instructor and he/she agrees to work with you, the graduate student must fill out an Independent Study Form (form available outside the Anthropology Graduate Office), have the instructor and the Director of Graduate Studies sign it then give it to Maria to put in your file which becomes part of your Application to Candidacy. Then the student should contact Sara to register for the appropriate number of credit hours.
APY 607TUT
Individual Readings – Physical Anthropology
variable credit
ARR ARR
PERMISSIONOF INSTRUCTOR
If, after speaking to the Instructor and he/she agrees to work with you, the graduate student must fill out an Independent Study Form (form available outside the Anthropology Graduate Office), have the instructor and the Director of Graduate Studies sign it then give it to Maria to put in your file which becomes part of your Application to Candidacy. Then the student should contact Sara to register for the appropriate number of credit hours.
APY 609SEM (dual-listed with APY 421)
Women and Men in Prehistory
Dr. Tina Thurston
Reg. #23864
Monday 9:30 am – 12:10 pm
Fillmore 354
The goal of this course is to understand the problems and potential of gender in archaeological research and explore and critically evaluate recent efforts to incorporate questions about sexual division of labor, social constructions of male, female and other genders, and various theoretical perspectives on gender and how they are integrated into archaeological concepts. We will deal simultaneously with two kinds of topics: 1) what we know and what we don't know, what we can and what we can't learn about women and men and the ideas of male and female in prehistory, and 2) how archaeologists develop and use their array of methods and theories to learn about the past, and how modern politics and social trends influence this process. Course readings will include archaeological and ethnographic case studies from the Old and New Worlds, plus some recent research in biological anthropology and what it tells us about our "gender heritage" from our pre-modern and early modern ancestors. We will specifically devote a portion of our time to historic cultures, since the presence of historical documents for the recent past, combined with our subconscious assumptions about gender, often influences us in ways that might prejudice our work. Class discussion will focus on the problems and potential of explicitly (rather than implicitly) considering gender in an analysis of prehistoric and historic societies, and students will be encouraged to address these issues in their own areas of interest.
APY 651SEM
Graduate Survey of Physical Anthropology
Dr. Christine Duggleyby
Reg. #13742
Monday 1:00 pm – 3:40 pm
Spaulding 158
Comprehensive review of physical anthropology for first year graduate students.
APY 652SEM
Graduate Survey of Archaeology
Dr. Peter Biehl
Reg. #11703
Tuesday 12:30 – 3:10 pm
Fillmore 354
The aims of this course are to provide: 1) a broad overview of the development of human societies in the Old World from ca. 2.5 million years ago to 2000 B.C.; 2) an examination of controversies concerning the subsistence strategies of the earliest humans, the transition to farming, explanations for the transition to farming, the origins of state societies and urbanism, and the explanation of state formation; and 3) main theoretical trends in Anglo-American archaeology: culture history, processual archaeology, and postprocessual explanations.
APY 655SEM
Graduate Survey of Social Anthropology
Dr. Ann McElroy
Reg. #11683
Wednesday 12:30 – 3:10 pm
Fillmore 354
The course is designed to give first year graduate students a solid grounding in social theory developed in Britain and the United States between the mid-19th century and the end of World War I. The course also addresses subsequent trends in social theory, up to and including the 1970's. Throughout the course, our emphasis will be on the ways in which social theory can be used as a tool to help illuminate contemporary issues in anthropology. This course in concert with APY 654, which is offered in Spring 2012, will also help first year Cultural Anthropology graduate students to prepare for the Cultural Qualifying Exam.
APY 700TUT
PhD Dissertation Guidance
variable credit
ARR ARR
PERMISSION OF INSTRUCTOR
Graduate students should register for at least 1 credit hour of their major professor's section of this (every semester until the dissertation is complete) when they are writing their PhD dissertation.
APY 729SEM
Human Impacts on Ancient Environments
Dr. Tina Thurston
Reg. #23870
Tuesday 9:30 am – 12:10 pm
Fillmore 352
For some decades now, people have realized that that human impacts are profoundly changing our earth and its ecosystems, but most neither realize nor understand that present-day ecosystems are not the result of recent activities, but of centuries or millennia of human-environment interactions. Ecosystems are not static. They are merely a current expression of long-term, complex interactions between non-living materials and living creatures, and between humans and many other types of organisms and materials. Thus, modern ecosystems are historically contingent, and part of a complex recursive path extending back into the past and ahead into the future. Some of the stops along this continuum provide positive snapshots of human-environment interactions, while some show unfortunate pictures indeed. More and more case studies indicate that what many have long thought to be 'natural' environments are not natural at all, and archaeologists have discovered that the links between human action and environmental consequence are usually indirect, 'non-linear' and almost impossible to predict.
Using a global array of case studies, with a variety of theoretical perspectives, this course examines both the technical and intellectual ways in which archaeologists, historical geographers, paleoecologists, and geomorphologists, among others, are trying to play a larger role in understanding this complex “history” - first, to answer scholarly questions about the political, economic, social and religious causes and consequences of human-environment interactions (the so-called socio-natural connection)but also to improve current perspectives on the nature of human impacts.
APY 730SEM
Advanced Problems in Areal Archaeology
Dr. Sarunas Milisauskas
Reg. #13609
Wednesday 3:30 pm – 6:10 pm
Fillmore 352
A seminar in European Neolithic and Bronze Age. This is a required course for those students specializing in archaeology. It will be taught in a seminar format; students are expected to be active participants. Requirements: A number of articles or chapters will be assigned for reading on archaeology of the various regions or countries. You are expected to read all the assigned articles or chapters. Class sessions will consist of presentations of assigned articles or chapters and discussion of the material.