Anthropology
Where and when are the origins of Japanese culture? In this seminar we will examine the archaeology of the Japanese archipelago from the introduction of paddy rice agriculture through the end of the 8th century with an eye toward this question. Examining excavated materials and early textual accounts, we will confront myths—both ancient and modern—of Japanese origins, and interrogate the framing of these time periods. Students will explore the interplay between event and process; and between local developments and outside influence through topics including the arrival of immigrant populations...
This course explores the role of memory as a social, cultural, and political force in contemporary society. How societies remember difficult pasts has become a contested site for negotiating the present. Through the lens of memory, we examine complex roles that our relationships to difficult pasts play in navigating issues we face today. The course explores the politics of memory that takes place in the realm of popular culture and public space. It asks such questions as: How do you represent difficult and contested pasts? What does it mean to enable long-silenced victims’ voices to be heard...
An introduction to the legal systems of the Roman and post-Roman states and Han- and Tang-dynasty China. Emphasis on developing collaborative partnerships that foster comparative history research. Readings in surviving law codes (in the original or English translation) and secondary studies on topics including slavery, trade, crime, and family.
Methods such as participant observation, interviews, surveys, and ethnography are based on the assumption of access to a field. This course looks at whether and how one can understand a society if access is restricted and dangerous for local participants. We study the cluster of concepts known as “remote ethnography”—studying on-the-ground conditions from a distance—through the case of Xinjiang, China. It looks critically at methods used by journalists, social scientists, governments, corporations and others in situations where access is not possible, including open-source research, close...
This course explores the role of memory as a social, cultural, and political force in contemporary society. How societies remember difficult pasts has become a contested site for negotiating the present. Through the lens of memory, we examine complex roles that our relationships to difficult pasts play in navigating issues we face today. This course explores this politics of memory that takes place in the realm of popular culture and public space. The class asks such questions as: How do you represent difficult and contested pasts? What does it mean to enable long-silenced victims’ voices to...
This course introduces students to contemporary Japan, examining how its defeat in the Second World War and loss of empire in 1945 continue to shape Japanese culture and society. Looking especially at the sphere of cultural production, it focuses on the question of what it means to be modern as expressed through the tension between resurgent neonationalism and the aspiration to internationalize. The course charts how the legacy of Japan’s imperial failure plays a significant role in its search for renewal and identity since 1945. How, it asks, does the experience of catastrophic failure—and...
Historical and contemporary movements of people, goods, and cultural meanings that have defined Asia as a region. Reexamination of state-centered conceptualizations of Asia and of established boundaries in regional studies. The intersections of transregional institutions and local societies and their effects on trading empires, religious traditions, colonial encounters, and cultural fusion. Finance flows that connect East Asia and the Indian Ocean to the Middle East and Africa. The cultures of capital and market in the neoliberal and postsocialist world.
Archaeology of China, one of the world’s oldest and most enduring civilizations, from the era of early humans to early empires. Methods of interpreting remains from prehistoric and historic period sites.
This seminar critically explores how anthropologists use contemporary social theories to formulate the junctures of meaning, interest, and power. It thus aims to integrate symbolic, economic, and political perspectives on culture and social process. If culture refers to the understandings and meanings by which people live, then it constitutes the conventions of social life that are themselves produced in the flux of social life, invented by human activity. Theories of culture must therefore illuminate this problematic of agency and structure. They must show how social action can both...
This seminar critically explores how anthropologists use contemporary social theories to formulate the junctures of meaning, interest, and power. It thus aims to integrate symbolic, economic, and political perspectives on culture and social process. If culture refers to the understandings and meanings by which people live, then it constitutes the conventions of social life that are themselves produced in the flux of social life, invented by human activity. Theories of culture must therefore illuminate this problematic of agency and structure. They must show how social action can both...
Analysis of urban life in historical and contemporary societies. Topics include capitalist and postmodern transformations; class, gender, ethnicity, and migration; and global landscapes of power and citizenship.
An exploration of the Chinese identity as it has been reworked over the centuries. Major works in Chinese anthropology and their intellectual connections with general anthropology and historical studies. Topics include kinship and marriage, marketing systems, rituals and popular religion, ethnicity and state making, and the cultural nexus of power.
Peoples of the steppe zone, stretching from Eastern Europe to Mongolia, have played a pivotal role in Old World prehistory, though much about their societies and lifeways is still shrouded in mystery. The archaeology of this macro-region has developed rapidly since the 1990s, and this course presents an overview of major topics and debates in the region based on what archaeologists currently know about Eurasian steppe societies of the past.
An exploration of the Chinese identity as it has been reworked over the centuries. Major works in Chinese anthropology and their intellectual connections with general anthropology and historical studies. Topics include kinship and marriage, marketing systems, rituals and popular religion, ethnicity and state making, and the cultural nexus of power.
Historical and contemporary movements of people, goods, and cultural meanings that have defined Asia as a region. Reexamination of state-centered conceptualizations of Asia and of established boundaries in regional studies. The intersections of transregional institutions and local societies and their effects on trading empires, religious traditions, colonial encounters, and cultural fusion. Finance flows that connect East Asia and the Indian Ocean to the Middle East and Africa. The cultures of capital and market in the neoliberal and postsocialist world.
Examination of peoples of the steppe zone that stretches from Eastern Europe to Mongolia. Overview of what archaeologists know about Eurasian steppe societies, with emphasis on the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron, and medieval ages. Attention both to material culture and to historical sources. Topics range from the domestication of the horse to Genghis Khan’s world empire, including the impact these events had on neighboring civilizations in Europe and Asia.
