Anthropology

361 Social Sciences 1 Building
831) 459- 3320
http://anthro.ucsc.edu/

Program Description

Anthropology studies people throughout the world and through time. Because it covers a wide range of topics—physical evolution, material remains of the past, and the world that humans create through their ideas and practices in present-day societies—anthropology is an especially integrative discipline.

The anthropology program at UCSC offers courses that reflect the diversity of the field.

• Cultural anthropology explores the movements of people, objects, and ideas in diverse societies, including our own. Cultural anthropology courses examine such topics as race and ethnicity, medicine, science, gender, sexuality, the environment, religion, law, popular culture, and politics.
• Archaeology uses the material evidence of human activities to understand past human lives. Archaeology at UCSC focuses on past people’s interactions with one another at the local level and within their wider social and ecological contexts. Faculty research areas include the pre-colonial and early post-colonial history of East Africa and the American Southwest.
• Physical anthropology traces the human journey from its beginnings in Africa over five million years ago. Physical anthropology courses look at fossil evidence, evolutionary theory, human variation, and the behavior of primate relatives in order to analyze biological, social, and cultural changes over time.

UCSC students have the opportunity to do independent library and field research in cultural anthropology, archaeology, and physical anthropology. Laboratory courses in archaeology and physical anthropology offer practical experience in the analysis of biological and cultural materials. Students may use the social science media laboratory to develop technical and creative skills in visual and audio media. In cultural anthropology courses, students learn to carry out anthropological research through interviews, participant observation, surveys, the collection of oral histories, and the interpretation of archives.

Because anthropology is concerned with understanding human interaction, it is a useful major for anyone planning a career that involves working with people, especially those from diverse cultures. Some UCSC anthropology graduates are in social work, many are in teaching, and others pursue careers in law, city planning, politics, medicine, public health, cultural resource management, and journalism. Students intending to specialize in anthropology usually go on to graduate school because professional employment in the field almost always demands an advanced degree.

Most anthropology faculty have their offices in Social Sciences 1 Building. Social Sciences 1 also houses the Visual Culture Research Laboratory and laboratories for archaeology and physical anthropology where space is provided for laboratory and individual studies courses and for collections of mammalian skeletal material, casts of fossil hominids, ceramics, stone tools, and other archaeological artifacts.

The Anthropology Society, a campus club, is open to all students interested in anthropology. The Anthropology Colloquium showcases guest speakers and gives faculty and students an opportunity to discuss new approaches to anthropological questions. Students and faculty interested in archaeology also gather informally at the Archaeology/ Physical Anthropology Forum to share information on fieldwork and employment opportunities.

Undergraduate Handbook

All undergraduate majors should obtain a copy of the Anthropology Department undergraduate handbook at UCSC from the department office (361 Social Sciences I Building). It outlines information on department procedures and requirements, program planning, independent study, faculty interests, and campus resources for anthropology majors.

Major Requirements

The Anthropology Department urges students to seek faculty advice early in planning for the major. Faculty hold regular office hours weekly and encourage students to come in to talk about their program or course work. Peer advisers are also available.

To graduate with an anthropology major, students must take courses 1, 2, 3, and either course 4 or an 80s-level course as background for upper-division courses. They must take a minimum of nine upper-division courses, including at least one course selected from each of these five categories:

Anthropological Theory Courses

100 History and Theory of Physical Anthropology

150 Communicating Anthropology

152 Survey of Cultural Anthropological Theory

170 History of Archaeological Theory

Sociocultural Anthropology Courses

123 Psychological Anthropology

124 Anthropology of Religion

126 Sexuality and Society in Cross-Cultural Perspective

127 Ethnographies of Capitalism

128 Contemporary American Evangelical Culture

131 Women in Cross-Cultural Perspective

132 Photography and Anthropology

133 Narratives of the Popular

134 Medical Anthropology

135A Cities

137 Consuming Culture

138 Political Anthropology

139 Language and Culture

142 Anthropology of Law

145X Special Topics in Socio-Cultural Anthropology

146 Anthropology and the Environment

151 Workshop in Ethnography

154 Multimedia Ethnography

155 Cultural Encounters

157 Modernity and Its Others

159 Race and Anthropology

164 Anthropology of Dance

165 Anthropological Folklore

Ethnographic Area Studies Courses

130A Peoples and Cultures of Africa

130B Brazil

130C Politics and Culture in China

130E Culture and Politics of Island Southeast Asia

130F African Diasporas in the Americas

130G Asian Americans in Ethnography and Film

130H Ethnography of Russia and Eastern Europe

130I Cultures of India

130M Inside Mexico

130L Ethnographies of Latin America

130N Native Peoples of North America

130T Anthropological Approaches to Islam

130X Special Topics in Ethnography

Physical Anthropology and Archaeology Courses

101 Human Evolution

102A Human Skeletal Biology

103 Forensic Anthropology

104 Human Adaptability

106 Primate Behavior and Ecology

107 Human Functional Anatomy

111 Human Ecology

172 Archaeological Research Design

174 Origins of Complex Societies

175A African Archaeology

175B African Archaeology: Development

175C African Diaspora Archaeology

176A North American Archeology

176B Meso-American Archaeology

178 Historical Archaeology: A Global Perspective

180 Ceramic Analysis in Archaeology

183 Introduction to Quantitative Methods in Archaeology

184 Zooarchaeology

185 Osteology of Mammals, Birds, and Fish

Senior Seminar Courses

190A Tropical Forest Ecology

190B Field Methods in Primatology

190C Independent Field Research

194A Community

194B Chimpanzees: Biology, Behavior and Evolution

194F Memory

194C Food and Medicine

194I Consumption and Consumerism

194K Reading Ethnographies

194L Archaeology of the African Diaspora

194M Medical Anthropology

194N Comparison of Cultures

194P Space, Place, and Culture

194S The Anthropology of Sound

194T Poverty and Inequality

194U Environmental Anthropology: Nature, Culture, Politics

194V Picturing Cultures

194X Women in Politics: A Third World Perspective

194Y California Archaeology

196A/B Southwest American Archaeology

Two-credit courses do not count toward the nine upper-division courses required for the major. Only one 5-credit individual studies course (197, 198, or 199) may be counted toward the nine required upper-division courses. Course 107L does not count toward the nine upper-division courses required for the major. Theory courses can only be counted toward the theory requirement or an upper-division elective.

Comprehensive Requirement

Students can fulfill the senior comprehensive requirement in anthropology either by passing an advanced senior seminar (194-series course, 190A-B-C, or 196A-B), by writing an acceptable independent senior thesis, or by passing an approved graduate-level topical seminar in anthropology.

• Senior seminars are small, writing-intensive classes focusing on advanced topics in anthropology. The prerequisite for admission to a senior seminar is successful completion of courses 1, 2, and 3; senior seminars are restricted to anthropology majors.
• Students considering an independent thesis must arrange for the sponsorship and support of a faculty member before beginning research. An independent senior thesis (not written within a senior seminar) should be based on original research and reflect the student’s understanding of fundamental theories and issues in anthropology. The thesis should be comparable in content, style, and length (generally 25–30 pages) to a professional journal article in its subfield. Students writing a senior thesis must complete five, instead of four, upper-division electives.
• Students who intend to satisfy the exit requirement by taking a graduate seminar must first get permission from the department. Not all graduate seminars are appropriate for fulfilling this requirement.

All majors, including double majors, must prepare a program of study in consultation with a member of the Anthropology Department. Students may arrange double majors in anthropology and another discipline by special petition. A combined major in anthropology and Earth and planetary sciences, leading to a B.A. degree, is also offered; for that program description, see Earth and Planetary Sciences. Students going on to graduate school should plan course schedules in close consultation with faculty advisers.

Many anthropology majors whose studies emphasize archaeology have benefited from concurrent study in the Cabrillo College Archaeological Technology Certificate Program. This vocational certification program is sponsored entirely by Cabrillo College, but credit for its summer field survey and excavation component may be transferred for credit at UCSC. Although courses in the Archaeological Technology Certificate Program do not count toward the UCSC anthropology major, students who have obtained the certificate in tandem with their bachelor’s degree in anthropology have expanded their employment and advanced degree program opportunities. Students interested in exploring this possibility are encouraged to consult with UCSC archaeology faculty and to visit the program’s web site at http://www.cabrillo.edu/academics/archtech/.

Transfer Students

If possible, transfer students should complete lower-division requirements for the major before coming to UCSC by taking classes equivalent to courses 1, 2, and 3. Department policy also allows up to 10 quarter credits (equivalent to two UCSC courses) of upper-division transfer credit toward the major requirement. Transfer students should bring a copy of their UCSC Transfer Credit Summary and an unofficial copy of all pertinent transcripts to the undergraduate adviser in the department office (361 Social Sciences 1 Building) as soon as possible after reaching campus so that prerequisites can be verified and course enrollment can proceed smoothly.

Peer Advisers

The Anthropology Department has instituted a peer adviser program as a supplement to academic advising offered by faculty members. The peer advisers are juniors and seniors who have been trained to help students with questions and general guidance through the anthropology major. Peer advisers hold regularly scheduled office hours in the department office.

Honors

The Anthropology Department awards “honors in the major” based on a ranked departmental grade point average that is calculated using all upper-division courses taken in the major with the exception that only one independent-study course can be used in this calculation. For students who have taken multiple independent-study courses in the department, the independent-study course that has the highest grade is used for the calculation. Approximately 15 percent of the graduating class is considered for honors based on their cumulative GPA through the quarter before graduation.

“Highest honors in the major” is determined by faculty review of all the departmental narrative evaluations for all students considered for honors within a particular quarter. The criteria for awarding highest honors in the major are overall superlative performance in the major and general breadth of excellence across the subfields of anthropology as reflected in the narrative evaluations. Receiving honors on the senior exit requirement is also considered as a factor in awarding highest honors, but is not always determinative.

Minor Requirements

Students earn a minor in anthropology by completing all of the requirements for the major with the following differences:

• The number of upper-division courses is reduced from nine to six. Of these, at least one must be from each of the following categories: (1) theory, (2) sociocultural anthropology, (3) ethnographic area studies, and (4) physical anthropology or archaeology.
• Independent study courses cannot be used toward completion of the minor.
• No senior seminar or thesis is required.

For more information regarding department policies, please consult the undergraduate adviser at the Anthropology Department office, 361 Social Sciences 1 Building. A handbook on the anthropology program is available there or on the anthropology web site.

Graduate Program

The anthropology doctoral program at UCSC consists of three tracks: cultural anthropology, anthropological archaeology, and physical anthropology. The majority of students are admitted to the cultural anthropology program. Smaller numbers of students are admitted to the programs in anthropological archaeology and physical anthropology.

Although applicants are accepted only for the Ph.D. program, students may obtain an M.A. degree after fulfilling specific requirements during the first two years.

The theme of emerging worlds—culture and power after progress unites the research interests of many faculty in the cultural anthropology graduate program at UCSC. In recent years, anthropology’s central concept of culture has been subjected to extraordinary ethnographic and theoretical pressures. Across the social sciences, scholars are responding to emergent scientific and social dilemmas by turning to the concept of culture and the ethnographic method. Such disciplinary turns grow from a challenging new set of social configurations, which affect both scholarly and lay understandings of the present, past, and future: the demise of certainties about progress and modernization and the need to understand newly emergent worlds. Nineteenth- and 20th-century ideas of progress and programs of modernization both created the concept of culture and relegated it to a nostalgic role as backward-looking sentiment. Anthropologists studied “vanishing worlds.” In the last 30 years, however, such certainties have been challenged. Grand theories of human behavior that depended on the idea of a universal man have begun to fray around the edges. Heterogeneity and disjuncture have caught the attention of a wide range of social scientists, calling out for ethnographic investigation. In this context, scholarly discussions have turned toward culture, not as “tradition,” but as the world-making networks, geographies, innovations, meanings, and assemblages that are carrying us into the future.

Our concentration on ”emerging worlds” and on the construction of anthropological knowledge is especially well suited for drawing together diverse scholars and specialists in challenging and enriching conversations. Rather than reproduce the boundaries among the traditional subfields of anthropology, we explore how recombinations of these approaches can elucidate specific anthropological problems.

Working with their faculty advisory committee, students in cultural anthropology have considerable freedom to design their own programs of study after completing the two-quarter core course and the ethnographic practice course during the first year. To achieve Ph.D. candidacy, students are expected to pass a first-year review of their written work, take three additional 5-credit courses in anthropology (excluding independent study courses), maintain satisfactory academic progress, satisfy the ethnographic writing requirement and the foreign language requirement, pass a qualifying exam at the end of the third year, and meet the specific requirements of the Division of Graduate Studies. After advancing to Ph.D. candidacy, students carry out a sustained ethnographic fieldwork project and are expected to complete their dissertation within a year after returning from the field.

Graduate students in cultural anthropology may obtain a notation on the anthropology Ph.D. diploma indicating that they have specialized in feminist studies or Latin American and Latino studies (LALS) if they meet requirements spelled out by the individual committee composed of anthropology and feminist studies faculty or the anthropology and faculty from the program awarding the notation.

The Ph.D. program in anthropological archaeology is highly selective, focusing on the archaeology of late precolonial societies in East and West Africa and North America, especially the Southwest and California. The program also features an emerging concentration on the archaeology of colonial encounters among peoples of Europe, Africa, and the Americas. It is distinctive in insisting that theories of power, production and exchange, human ecology, gender, ethnicity, and technological practice be explored through rigorous laboratory and field research methods.

The Ph.D. program in physical anthropology combines a strong emphasis on hard and soft tissue anatomy with a broad evolutionary perspective. This highly selective track is characterized by intense mentoring of students, involvement of students in instruction as well as course work, and interdisciplinary training. Specific training is offered in skeletal biology, comparative primate anatomy, behavior and ecology, forensic anthropology, and evolutionary theory.

Although the areas of study of the archaeology and physical anthropology programs are distinct, their paths toward the Ph.D. are similar. In the first year, students take two foundational theory courses and pass a review of their work. Within the first two years of study, students complete at least two foundational materials/methods courses or laboratory courses in other departments; two advanced laboratory apprenticeship courses or similar courses in other departments; two foundational courses in geographic/temporal areas or, in physical anthropology, topical areas; two graduate seminars with other anthropology or campus faculty; one quantitative methods course; and two terms of supervised teaching experience.

The third-year requirements are three laboratory apprenticeship courses, the grant writing seminar, and tutorials to prepare the student for the qualifying exams. All courses outside the department must be approved by the student’s adviser. After advancing to Ph.D. candidacy, the student carries out a sustained laboratory or fieldwork project and is expected to complete the dissertation within a year after finishing research.