298. Experimental Course
Peoples and Cultures of the Himalaya
The Himalayan region provides extraordinary opportunities for pursuing fascinating issues that interest anthropologists everywhere, including the relationship between ecology and culture, the politics of gender, negotiating ethnic identity, religious diversity and interaction, and globalization. This region is also home to some of the most widely known fantasies about the ideal society, usually called Shangrila. This course uses intimate, detailed portraits of cultures and societies that the best of anthropology provides in order to examine these issues (and fantasies) in Himalayan contexts, while at the same time providing a broad overview of the enormous diversity to be found in the region and the challenges that those who live there share.
(Bruce Owens)
Archaeology-American Southwest
This course will provide an overview of the archaeology and Native Peoples of the American Southwest.
The archaeological record will define the major prehistoric culture groups of the Southwest: the Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi), Mogollon, and Hohokam. Students will discover how material culture is used to infer what life was like in the desert Southwest, from the arrival of the first humans into the area to the coming of the Spanish. Some areas of focus will be prehistoric environmental adaptation, technology, art, architecture, and socioeconomic structures. Controversial topics, such as cannibalism, warfare, and archaeoastronomy will also be discussed.
After a review of the archaeology of the American Southwest, the class will concentrate on the current Native Peoples of the area. Besides a cultural overview, we will discuss the ethical issues related to archaeological and anthropological research, and their impact on modern Pueblo (the nineteen modern tribes) and Athabaskan (Navajo/Apache) peoples in the Southwest. Special topics will include repatriation of Native American cultural materials (NAGPRA), the casino phenomenon, and the "exhibition" of Native Peoples.
(Alex Trayford)