Recent work in anthropology that problematizes ethnographic research and writing. Exploration of the impact of feminist and critical theory, postcolonial and developmentalism critiques, cultural studies, globalization and transnationalism on ethnographic projects. Readings drawn from cultural anthropology, cultural geography, art history, and social theory. Assessment based on weekly essays, participation, and final project. A history of cultural anthropology as revealed in the writings on major theoretical problems beginning in the 1850s, the disputes, the solutions, and final appraisal of where we stand today.
Seminar introduces major post-enlightenment debates on social life and modernity.
Selections of Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Freud as well as major responses, revisions and critiques in critical and subaltern theory, cultural studies, structuralism and poststructuralism. Close readings of primary texts emphasized. Topics may vary with each professor. Interdepartmental research practicum in evolutionary psychology, biology, and anthropology for students and faculty planning or working on evolutionary research projects. Focus on experimental design, cross-cultural methods, organism design theory, new adaptationist hypotheses, and the criteria for testing them.