updated: August 3, 2022
Timetable subject to change or modification. Anthropology graduate students will be able to enrol into Fall & Winter session graduate courses starting August 4, 2022. Students from other departments should follow instructions for enrolment on the Graduate Course Description and Timetable page.
(*) : denotes a CORE COURSE – see 2022-23 Anthropology Graduate Handbook for program specific course requirements.
(1): strongly recommended for SCL doctoral students in year 2.
(2): Please note the following changes in graduate course requirements for Master’s students in Archaeology: Incoming Master’s students are now required to enrol in ANT 4010: Archaeology in Contemporary Society and no longer required to enrol in ANT 4020: Archaeological Theory. PhD students are still required to enrol in ANT 4020: Archaeological Theory, and are not required to take ANT 4010.
(*) : denotes a CORE COURSE – see 2021-22 Anthropology Graduate Handbook for program specific course requirements.
(1): strongly recommended for SCL doctoral students in year 2.
(2): Please note the following changes in graduate course requirements for Master’s students in Archaeology: Incoming Master’s students are now required to enrol in ANT 4010: Archaeology in Contemporary Society and no longer required to enrol in ANT 4020: Archaeological Theory. PhD students are still required to enrol in ANT 4020: Archaeological Theory, and are not required to take ANT 4010.
2022-23 Graduate Course Descriptions
ANT 1096H F- Quantitative Methods I (L. Schroeder) (return to timetable)
This course will provide students with the basic analytic background necessary to evaluate quantitative data in biological anthropology and archaeology. Students will be introduced to foundational statistical concepts and research methods suitable for anthropological exploration. The focus will be on analysing univariate and bivariate data using both nonparametric and parametric statistical techniques, hypothesis testing, and methods of data collection. The goal of this course is for students to learn how to manipulate simple datasets, ask and answer theoretically relevant questions, and choose the appropriate statistical test for a given research problem. Students will have access to a number of biological anthropology and archaeology datasets for class assignments. No prior knowledge of statistics and mathematics is required.
ANT 3005H S - Advanced Topics in Paleoanthropology (D. Begun) (return to timetable)
Paleoanthropology is a cornerstone of Evolutionary Anthropology. An up-to-date awareness of current ideas and recent developments is essential for any Evo ANTH graduate student, whether they plan a career in Paleoanthropology or another area. It is especially relevant today in the context of increasing awareness and action regarding the past contributions of anthropology to racism, intellectual colonialism and white supremacy. In this course we begin with an exploration of the historical racism in Paleoanthropology and current efforts at decolonization and move on to a survey of the state-of-the-art in the field. The topics will be customized based on the interests of students. Potential topics include but are not limited to method and theory (e.g. environmental reconstruction, paleodiet, functional morphology, systematics), hominid origins, Pliocene hominins, origin of Homo, Pleistocene hominins, modern human origins and the origin of living human biological diversity. The goal is to familiarize you with the broad sweep of paleoanthropology. Students will be assessed based on participation (leading and contributing to discussion), preparation of an AAPA-style abstract and a final AAPA-style presentation. Topics will be of your choosing with my guidance.
ANT 3031H F- Advanced Research Seminar I: Sleep and Primate Evolution (D. Samson) (return to timetable)
This course is an overview of our current understanding of primate sleep ecology and function with particular focus on how these elements drove the evolution of human sleep. Specifically, the aim of the class will be to provide students with a strong, theoretical background of the function of sleep in the animal kingdom with particular attention paid to primate lineages. This will serve as a springboard for the application of several innovative methods measuring the spectrum of behaviors on the inactive-active continuum.
As an overview, the course will be presented in four sections: (i) Sleep: descriptions, functions, and mechanisms from eukaryotes to humans, (ii) The evolution of primate sleep, (iii) Methods: measuring sleep and activity in primates, and (iv) Evolution’s legacy on human sleep. The first section provides students with an overview of the mechanisms and functions of sleep and circadian rhythms, as well as a historical approach that fills in the context for which most of these fundamental discoveries were made. The second section presents a phylogenetic perspective on how sleep is expressed in extant species, in both human and non-human primates. The third section, departs from presenting background information and will focus on the application of the current scientific methods used to measure sleep-wake behavior throughout mammals. Finally, the fourth section provides the most up to date evolutionary narrative of the major transitions of human sleep and the consequences of these derived characteristics to our understanding of modern sleep disorders within an evolutionary mismatch framework. The course will conclude with a forward thinking series of predictions on how science and technology will fundamentally alter the way humans sleep in the 21st century and beyond.
ANT 3034H S- Advanced Research Seminar IV: Anthropology of Infectious Disease (M. Mant) (return to timetable)
Contemporary society is obsessed with killer germs, epidemics, and pandemics. This course will consider the origins, antiquity, biology, and impact of infectious disease on human societies from an anthropological, biosocial perspective. We will explore the models and general principles of infectious disease to establish a framework for understanding plagues. Students will discuss specific diseases and plagues, both historic and contemporary, with a view to understanding why they emerge (and potentially re-emerge), how their occurrence is intimately linked to human behavior, how they affect the human body, and how they transform societies.
This seminar will meet weekly. In the first meeting students will sign up to lead upcoming seminars (responsibilities include selecting additional readings to those assigned, preparing discussion questions, facilitation discussion). Each student will prepare weekly one-page responses to the week’s topic. Students will undertake academic and public-facing writing projects and present their final analyses during the last class meeting in a conference-style presentation.
ANT 3047H F* - Evolutionary Anthropology Theory (B. Viola) (return to timetable)
This course is an intensive exploration of the ideas that form the foundation of evolutionary anthropology. We will read historically important theoretical texts and critically examine leading concepts in the field. Through guest lectures by scholars in our department we will discuss topics such as molecular clocks, species concepts, signatures of selection, niche construction, genetic drift, sexual selection, human behavioural ecology, epigenetics, and population genetics. We will actively engage with historical and current issues of diversity and decolonization in the discipline of Evolutionary Anthropology throughout each weekly discussion.
ANT 4010H S* - Archaeology in Contemporary Society (A. Hawkins) (return to timetable)
This course will explore the role of archaeology in modern society. Its primary goal is to get students to think about how their research affects, and is affected by, the world around them. For both ethical and practical reasons, it is critical that archaeology graduate students (and faculty!) understand the relationship between their research and the broader society with which it articulates. Seminars will draw papers from diverse regions of the globe based around weekly themes, and will attempt to keep discussions at a “practical” level – how does archaeology actually work “on the ground” in relation to a range of contemporary issues and interest groups? This course will offer a broad-ranging overview of relevant topics, intended to be useful as students frame their research questions, apply for funding, pursue fieldwork, interpret data, contribute to policy discussions, and interact with the public. During the second meeting, students will be polled re. specific topics to be covered this year.
ANT 4020H F* - Archaeology Theory (J. Jennings) (return to timetable)
This seminar offers an in-depth examination of the history of archaeological theory and the major theoretical approaches defining the discipline today. Students explore competing schools of archaeological thought concerned with the study of material culture, past social formations, and historical process. From functionalist and natural science-focused positions to poststructural and postmodern inquiries into meaning, representation, and politics to more recent archaeological attempts to de-center humans in hopes of liberating things, this seminar covers a diverse set of perspectives. Emphasis is placed on how shifting positions on human nature, social organization, alterity, gender, and power directly shape archaeological reconstructions and representations of the past. Ultimately, the seminar should provide students with a rich understanding of the theoretical frameworks that underpin contemporary archaeological research and the unique problems inherent in archaeological efforts to represent and interpret the material record.
ANT 4059H S - Cultural Transmission (L. Xie) (return to timetable)
Cultural transmission (CT) is the reproduction of information and practices in the forms of ideas, behaviours, and/or materials through social learning among intra-generational individuals, between societies, and from one generation to the next. Therefore, CT is fundamental to human experience. The topic of CT has received increasing interest in many disciplines, such as biology, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and education. Anthropologists in all subfields are well-equipped with rich data to contribute to methodological and theoretical building in this field.
The exact contents of this course are tailored to the interest and needs of the students enrolled, thus vary from year to year. Whenever possible, we use case studies from multiple disciplines to help students develop a better understanding of the biological, cognitive, and social foundations for the diversity, continuity and changes in our cultures over generations.
ANT 4060H F - Specific Problems I: Current Issues in East Asian Archaeology (L. Janz) (return to timetable)
Each archaeological landscape in East Asia is as culturally and ecologically distinct as its intellectual trajectory of scientific discourse. As a collective, the region has generated new research agendas and contributed richly to major global themes, while recent discoveries have shaken traditional narratives around issues such as human origins, adaptation to northern latitudes, the longevity of hunting and gathering, the origins and spread of domestication and production, and the nature of institutional complexity. This course is therefore of value to students interested in both East Asia and other world regions. We will address issues of concern to archaeologists working in East Asia with a primary focus on prehistory. Student research interests will help determine the exact issues covered. Case studies will be drawn from eastern Siberia, Mongolia, China, Korea and Japan to address major theoretical issues from the diverse perspectives within East Asian archaeology.
ANT 4060H S - Specific Problems I: Culture Contact and Colonialism (L. Montgomery) (return to timetable)
What is colonialism and how have archaeologists used material culture to uncover the lives of the colonized? How were these colonial encounters mediated by shifting notions of race, gender, class and capital, and by technologies of communication and translation? What were and are some of the ways by which colonized people respond to their colonization, for example by way of collaboration, resistance, escape, or persistence? What role can archaeologists play in contemporary reckonings with the traumatic history of Western colonialism and its systemic effects? In addressing these questions, this course will examine a variety of archaeological, historical, ethnohistorical works investigating colonialism in North America and the Caribbean. Throughout the course, we take a critical approach, drawing on post-colonial and feminist frameworks to examine colonialism as a world historical event whose effects continue to be felt and whose power needs to be addressed.
ANT 4065H F - Specific Problems II: Visual Communication in Archaeology (M. Chazan) (return to timetable)
Archaeology relies heavily on the visual communication. The shift to digital media has profoundly changed visual communication and made mastery of relevant skills essential for archaeological researchers. This course will take a workshop format to develop student skills and familiarity with a range of software applications. One might think of this as the equivalent of a writing workshop where all participants contribute towards improving student work. Among the topics to be covered will be the history and ethics of visual communication, drawing by hand, digital imagery and processing with Photoshop, creating figures with Powerpoint and Illustrator, creating maps in ARC GIS Pro, incorporating video into visual communication, and effective construction of graphs. Each student will prepare a project based on their own research that will be developed with class input. This course is designed for archaeologists but might be relevant for some other students in anthropology whose research has a visual component.
ANT 4068H F - Archaeology of Technology (H. Miller) (return to timetable)
In this course, participants will learn to examine technologies both from the perspective of the modern scholar and (as best we can) from the perspective of the ancient craftsperson. Final hands-on projects for the course will employ these perspectives to carry out experimental or replicative studies. Many past students have been able to use their projects as portions of their PhD or Masters research, or as the basis for publications unrelated to their main focus of research.
We will explore various themes and approaches in the archaeological study of technology, such as organization and control of production and consumption, material culture, style of technology, the value of objects, and reasons for the development and adoption of new technologies, as well as techniques that archaeologists and others have used to study ancient technology. The course is designed to allow discussion of additional themes of interest to participants related to their research foci, and to be flexible in the particular crafts examined by the class as a whole. (Resign yourselves to stone tools and pottery, but additional craft or technology groups covered are usually quite varied: food, metals, textiles, transportation, etc.) Typical sources of information for these explorations include archaeological and other papers on major theoretical topics; ethnographic readings, videos and interviews with experts; analysis of archaeological data; and hands-on reconstruction, experimentation and analysis by participants.
In Fall 2022, this course will be offered at UTM, to allow use of the teaching labs and equipment needed for hands-on work. Individual lab access for specific projects can also be arranged as needed. The course is scheduled for 9 am to 12 noon, but most weekly meetings will be able to start somewhat later to accommodate transit schedules. Potential participants are requested to contact Heather Miller (heather.miller@utoronto.ca) as soon as possible during the summer to discuss possible themes of interest and/or course projects; participation during the summer is not required, however, to successfully enrol and complete this fall course. Please also email Heather with any questions or concerns about transit to UTM.
Click here for directions to UTM.
ANT 5144H S - Foundations in Linguistic Anthropology (J. Sidnell / S. Hillewaert) (return to timetable)
Contemporary linguistic anthropology approaches the study of language in relation to other sign systems and socio-cultural life more generally. This course offers a graduate-level introduction to the field through a chronological survey of key works, discussion of central themes and theories, and an exploration of multiple intellectual genealogies.
The purpose of this course is to develop a framework for viewing language as a social, cultural, and political matrix, and as incorporating forms of practice through which social relations, cultural forms, ideology, and consciousness are constituted. Our historical approach provides insights into the foundations of linguistic anthropology as we know it today, offering in-depth understandings of core concepts and how these were developed. The inclusion of more recent works in linguistic anthropology provides understandings of how these core ideas may have changed, developed, or given new life in contemporary debates within anthropology. Topics covered include among others: theories of signs and sign relations; meaning and intentionality; the role of language in political economy, and vice versa (the political economy of linguistic forms); the relation of language to social formations and institutions; metalanguage, ideology, and consciousness; the organization of conversation and other linguistic activities; performance and poetics.
ANT 6003H F* - Critical Issues in Ethnography I (J. Boddy) (return to timetable)
‘Ethnography’ is at once a (relatively disciplined) practice of interpersonal engagement, a way of thinking about the world, and the results of such practices conveyed and transformed through writing. In this reading intensive course we examine books published between 1940 and 2021 (yet skewed towards recent decades) that are variously positioned within anthropological ‘ethnography’ in an effort to become more familiar with the scope and elasticity of the genre. The selected texts are diverse but thematically linked by concerns for place, time, subject/person, power, and subordination. Each provides a point of departure for exploring a range of research methods and theoretical models. We examine issues such as research design, collaboration and sole-authorship, authorial positioning and voice, narrative style, use of ‘plot’, characterization, and representation, all the while attending to how each ethnography was produced within its historical and intellectual context.
ANT 6006H S* - Genealogies of Anthropological Thought (W. Butt / C. Krupa) (return to timetable)
This course introduces graduate students to some of the major thinkers and traditions in, and for, the discipline of anthropology. While this course establishes strong familiarity with canonical texts, it also demands a critical reflexivity about discipline formation itself and the normalization of ideas. As such, this course aims to situate contemporary anthropological thought within past and ongoing debates among a range of social and political theorists.
ANT 6014H F - Media and Mediation (A. Paz) (return to timetable)
This reading-intensive seminar focuses on anthropological approaches to the process of mass mediation, with specific reference to critical theories of technology and semiotics. The course combines “classic” theoretical texts drawn from a range of disciplines with more empirical accounts of how communicative processes are integral to large-scale social formations, and how such processes influence our current understanding of mass politics, publicity, “big data,” racialization, militarization, digitalization. This year, the course will focus in particular on considering the information regime of imperial and colonial formations. Placing our understanding of media technologies within the more encompassing concept of mediation, this course asks what ethnographic or cultural accounts can offer to the interdisciplinary field of media studies.
ANT 6019H F - Anthropology of Neoliberalism (J. Song) (return to timetable)
This course will focus on problematics of decolonialization in the world history perspective tracing back from the post-independence era. It will underline the significance of the 70s to 80s for the recent decade (again). Examples of such problematics include so-called primitive accumulation, (inter)nationalism, (non)sovereignty, financialization. It is crucial to understand the earlier moment of anti-imperialism efforts in relation to how neoliberal architecture in the late capitalism became ascending in the world scale. By world scale it does not mean that every part of world became neoliberalized in equal extent. It is most conventionally known as Washington Consensus or financialization that became most immediately manifest in the transatlantic world. Less known about those decades is that those are days of height for the Third/Fourth World project in the backdrop of Cold War era -- the most formidable challenge to capitalist empires’ control over the colonies (whether former or on-going) -- up to a point of the sharp decline along with the fall of Berlin Wall and giving in to the free-market forces. We will read texts produced by anthropologists, historians, journalists, economists, and philosophers that help us figuring out conditions of decolonization efforts in juxtaposition to current conditions and debates.
ANT 6031H F- Advanced Research Seminar I: Anthropology of the Otherwise (N. Dave) (return to timetable)
Another title for this course could be Anthropology of the Possible. Taking a concept popularized by Elizabeth Povinelli (2011), this seminar on the anthropology of the otherwise examines the world as it is, as it is becoming, and might also be. The course combines anthropology, philosophy, and literature to theorize ecological catastrophe, dreams and dreamworlds, art and creativity, and the fashioning of political and moral alternatives to the world we know
ANT 6032H S- Advanced Research Seminar II: Anthropology of Global Europe (I. Kalmar) (return to timetable)
The course explores current and historical trends in study of Europe by anthropologists and other social scientists. The focus is on the countries and regions of the European Union as well as prospective members such as Ukraine. Major topics include core-periphery relations between the more and less powerful regions of Europe; race and racialization within Europe and in Europe’s geopolitical relations, especially with its former colonies; migration and other demographic issues; and anthropological approaches to challenges to democratic governance.
ANT 6056H F - Decolonizing Diversity Discourse (G. Daswani) (return to timetable)
This course takes a comparative and critical approach to discourses and policies surrounding “Diversity” and other related terms such as “Multiculturalism” and “Multiracialism”. How are practices and histories of colonialism, settler-colonialism and post-colonialism interacting with and impacting expressions of “Diversity”? How do they affect Indigenous, racialized, or minority groups in several countries across North America, Asia, and Africa differently? Decolonization as a method and practice will also be addressed in this course – can we truly decolonize the institutions that claim to study or practice “Diversity” including Anthropology? What does it mean to want to “decolonize” institutions, universities, and research methods in academia? How can anthropologists learn to do better?
ANT 6061H S - Anthropology of Sexuality and Gender (A. Allen) (return to timetable)
This graduate research seminar explores the core genealogies of feminist anthropology and anthropology of sexuality, with a focus on how scholarly conversations which emerged in 20th century anglophone sociocultural anthropology reverberate in the discipline today. We will examine the theoretical and methodological innovations that scholars enacted in the shift from “women anthropologists” to an “anthropology of women” to feminist and transfeminist ethnography. We will also analyze the production on anthropological texts within colonial and postcolonial contexts as they connect with local and transnational understandings of sexuality and gender. In doing so, we will ask: How has the field as a whole responded to feminist critiques of knowledge production? Moreover, how has anthropology contributed to the emergence of today’s robust, transnational gender and sexuality studies? What is an anthropological approach to gender and sexuality? How ought anthropologists reconcile the prescriptivism of gender and sexual identity politics with the descriptivism of the ethnographic project? How does the anthropological perspective challenge assumptions about human gender and sexuality across culture and over time? What theoretical underpinnings hold together the core logics of the anthropological approach to gender and sexuality? Throughout, we will problematize normative cultural paradigms of: biological sex, social gender, and sexual attraction; kinship & marriage; masculine and feminine divisions of labor; and sexuality and gender in racializing and colonizing projects. Texts include works by scholars such as: Jafari Allen, Ruth Benedict, Tom Boellstorff, Dána-Ain Davis, Claude Levi-Strauss, Ellen Lewin, Martin Manalansan, Margaret Mead, Esther Newton, Elizabeth Povinelli, Gayle Rubin, Kamala Visweswaran, Gloria Wekker, Sasha Su-Ling Welland, Tiantian Zheng, and others. While the focus of this course is on sociocultural anthropology, the course is appropriate for graduate students from across the discipline, and students are invited to integrate related scholarly conversations in archaeology and biological anthropology into discussions and coursework.
ANT 6066H S - More-than-Human Ethnography (S. Satsuka) (return to timetable)
The aim of this graduate seminar is twofold: (1) to examine the potential and challenges of “more-than-human” approaches to ethnography; and (2) to explore what more-than-human ethnographies could offer to the social debates about the Anthropocene that demand a critical and fundamental rethinking of the position of the human in the world.
More-than-human approaches to ethnography have received growing attention in the last two decades as a critical response to anthropocentric frameworks in documenting and analyzing culture and society. Based on the realization that human exceptionalism has contributed to abrasive resource extraction and industrialization, colonialism, planetary scale environmental degradation and a variety of injustices associated with the above, more-than-human ethnographies start from the premise that the human is inseparable from what is called “the environment”. Various strategies have been experimented with in order to focus on the “entanglement” of various actors, including humans, and to examine how specific entanglements shape social relations and politics. In this seminar, we will read ethnographies that highlight the entangled relationship between humans and other beings–such as animals, plants, insects, fungi, microorganisms, land, water, wind, technological devices–that together shape the world.
ANT 6100H F* - History of Anthropological Thought (O. Ozcan) (return to timetable)
As an introduction to the history of anthropological thought, this MA-level core course aims to familiarize students with the key thinkers, theoretical approaches, and ethnographic innovations that shaped the discipline in the twentieth century. It likewise considers the kinds of knowledge, ethics, and modes of both representation and analysis these different approaches have demanded. An understanding of the historically situated character of our discipline is a crucial component of our contemporary practice, and this includes taking seriously the intellectual genealogies out of which–and often against which—contemporary thought has emerged.
ANT 6150H Y - Proposing Ethnographic Research (K. Kilroy-Marac / J. Taylor) (return to timetable)
This seminar aims to assist doctoral students in the socio-cultural and linguistic field to develop thesis and research grant proposals. Throughout the seminar, the participants will be guided step by step to produce effective proposals for anthropological fieldwork. The seminar is designed as an intensive writing workshop that is based on timely sharing of work and peer-discussion. Run in workshop style, the seminar will help participants to develop skills of giving and receiving constructive comments on each other’s writing.