PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
ANTHROPOLOGY COURSES
FALL 2014-2015
FRS Self to Selfies (EC)
Instructor: John Borneman
NEW
In 2013 the Oxford Dictionaries declared “selfie” the Word of the Year. It grows out of new forms of technologically
enabled communication, which includes new games such as chat roulette, and new forms of public exposure such as
sexting. What is this about? How have we arrived here? This course explores transformations in understandings of the
self in science and popular culture. In many cultural traditions, from Buddhism in Asia to psychoanalysis in the West,
the “self” is an important object of speculation, analysis, and power. From anthropological and psychoanalytic
perspectives, it examines three questions: How is the self formed? Under what conditions can the self change? What is
the self’s relationship to culture, society, politics, and economy? It will explore these questions with literature from
ethnography, literature, television serials, and film. Most of the focus will be on American culture, but the course will
also include material from other culture areas.
ANT 207 The American Family in Law and Society (SA)
Instructor: Lawrence Rosen (na, npdf)
MW, 8:30-9:50 am lecture/class
The course will focus on the conflicts occasioned by changing family patterns, the role of technology in conflicts over
procreation and rights of the fetus, the meaning of property and its impact on divorce settlements, and the comparative
development of laws of inheritance and incest. Multicultural issues will also figure prominently in the course.
ANT 208 / REL 208 Religion and Media (SA)
Instructor: Carolyn Rouse
TuTh, 11:00 am-12:20 pm lectures
This course explores how religious media in the United States shapes cultural and social identities. From televangelism
to religious radio programming, the mass marketing of faith is contributing to how people understand themselves as
gendered, raced, and classed subjects. But are these programs helping to sustain a fragile consensus within and between
religious communities, or are they threatening religious pluralism? This course examines what is at stake politically in
this religious war of symbols generated within mediascapes.
ANT 215/ EEB 315 Human Adaptation (STL)
Instructor: Janet Monge (no audit)
MW, 11:00 am–12:20 pm lectures & Lab TBA
Human adaptation focuses on human anatomy and behavior from an evolutionary perspective. Lectures and weekly
laboratory sessions focus on the evolution of the human brain, dentition and skeleton to provide students with a practical
understanding of the anatomy and function of the human body and its evolution, as well as some of its biological
limitations. No science background is required on the part of the student.
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ANT 300A/B Ethnography, Evidence and Experience (SA)
Instructor: Carol Greenhouse
W, 1:30-4:20 pm seminar
This seminar relates key concepts in anthropology (e.g., culture, society, power, meaning) to everyday experience, with
the aim of fostering students' ability to think analytically across diverse cultural fields. We alternate between classic
theoretical texts and "dossiers" of highly current readings about issues both familiar to students (from experiences at
home or abroad) and relevant to ethnographic research and writing. For example: digital media, embodied knowledge,
language, ritual and symbols, textual interpretation, and modern forms of power and inequality. ANT 300A is open to all
students. ANT 300B is required for Anthropology juniors and includes the ANT Junior Seminar. ANT 300A and 300B
are otherwise the same, and meet together.
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ANT 234 The Anthropology of Crime and Punishment (SA)
Instructor: Susan Ellison
MW, 1:30–2:50 pm lecture/ class
How is crime politicized? How is the figure of The Criminal socially constructed? What concerns about disorder and
illegality drive (trans)national governance agendas, and with what consequences? How do anthropologists treat crime
and punishment? We will examine the politics and practices of criminalization, securitization, and efforts to impose the
rule of law as they occur in local communities, along national borders, and in transnational efforts aimed at policing
disorderly worlds. We will read ethnographic accounts ranging from the life-worlds of drug traffickers to international
customs regimes seeking to regulate contraband economies.
Princeton University, Department of Anthropology, 3/31/2014
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
ANTHROPOLOGY COURSES
FALL 2014-2015
ANT 321 Ritual, Myth, and Worldview (SA)
Instructor: Isabelle Clark-Decès (na, npdf)
TuTh, 8:30-9:50 am lecture/class
How do rituals work, and for whom? What do myths reveal, and how do we know? How do worldviews conjure up
pictures of the universe and ways of behaving in it? This course examines these questions and the relations between
them by surveying major anthropological interpretations of the function, structure, meaning and role of agency in myth
and ritual.
EAS 225/ ANT 323 Japanese Society and Culture (SA)
Instructor: Amy Borovoy
MW, 2:30–3:20 pm lectures & precept TBA
During the decades after World War II, Japan became the world's second largest economy and a highly educated,
technologized society. While Americans once regarded Japan as a land of "corporate warriors," today Japan has become
known for its popular cultural critiques of environmental destruction and for a gentler variety of capitalism that has
weathered economic downturns while preserving a high quality of life for its people. We explore key social issues in
Japan today: the contemporary "birth strike," gender and popular culture, civil society, medical ethics, difference and
disability, adolescence and education.
ANT 324 The Anthropology of Art (LA)
NEW
Instructor: Lawrence Rosen (na, npdf)
Tu, 1:30-4:20 pm seminar
We will consider the relation of art to magic, religious ritual, and hierarchy and power within particular cultures. How
have broad theories of ‘primitive’ art reflected our own culture’s concern with analyzing human nature, evolutionary
theory, and the articulation of presumed psychological universals? How are such representations connected to ideas of
time, narrative style, storytelling, political propaganda in specific cultures for which the holdings of the university
museum are particularly appropriate? We will use materials from the Northwest Coast of North America, Australia,
New Zealand, the Arctic, and early modern Europe.
ANT 329 Doing Good, Doing Well: The Political Lives of NGOs (SA)
NEW
Instructor: Susan Ellison (no audit)
Th, 1:30-4:20 pm seminar
From de-mining countries to rehabilitating child soldiers, from channeling donations for AIDS orphans to coordinating
relief efforts in the wake of natural disasters, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are ubiquitous. They provide
essential services once thought to be the purview of the state, and increasingly champion entrepreneurial approaches to
poverty reduction. NGOs are also the subject of heated debate. This seminar brings a critical anthropological lens to
bear on the work of NGOs, connecting global trends, donor platforms, and aid workers to the everyday experiences of
people targeted by NGO projects.
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THR 300/COM359/ENG 373/ANT 359 Acting, Being, Doing, and Making: Introduction to Performance Studies
(LA)
Instructor: Jill Dolan & Stacy Wolf (na, npdf)
Tu, 1:30 – 4:20 pm class
A hands-on approach to this interdisciplinary field. In addition to key readings in performance theory, we will attend
theatre and concerts and sporting events, visit museums, attend community celebrations, observe people’s behaviors in
restaurants and on the street. We will analyze live performance, adapting techniques applied to written texts to spaceand time-based events. We will also practice ethnographic methods to collect stories to adapt for performance and
address the role of the participant-observer as a corollary to the scholar-artist, which requires thinking about ethics and
the inherent social responsibilities of this work.
Princeton University, Department of Anthropology, 3/31/2014
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
ANTHROPOLOGY COURSES
FALL 2014-2015
ANT 360 Ethics in Context: Uses and Abuses of Deception and Disclosure (EM)
Instructor: Rena Lederman
MW, 11:00 am -12:20 pm seminar
Stage magic delights us with expert illusions; biomedicine and other fields use deception as a research tool (e.g.,
placeboes); and everyday politeness may obscure painful truths. With deception and disclosure as springboards, this
course explores the contextual complexity of personal and professional ethical judgment, with special but not exclusive
attention to knowledge circulation. Topics include: social fictions in daily life across cultures; the tangled histories of
science and stage magic; ethically controversial cases from popular culture ("reality" TV, journalism), the arts (fictive
memoirs), academia (sharing/plagiarizing), and more.
ANT 368 Ethnography of Schools and Schooling (SA)
Instructor: Jason Klugman (na, npdf)
Tu, 7:30 –10:20 pm seminar
Social scientists use ethnographic methods to describe and analyze the range and variation of daily interactions in
schools. Ethnographic study allows researchers the opportunity to examine power dynamics that influence the daily life
of students, teachers, administrators and parents. Vivid, critical ethnography helps us discover how cultural traditions,
expectations, and opportunities are passed down to the next generation and how they impact school outcomes. This
class will explore educational ethnography and students will complete observations hours in local schools and prepare a
descriptive, mini-ethnography of a school community. Not open to freshmen.
GHP 350 / WWS 380 / ANT 380 Critical Perspectives in Global Health (SA)
Instructor: João Biehl (na, npdf)
MW, 11:00 am -12:20 pm lectures & precept TBA
This course introduces students to pressing disease and health care problems worldwide and examines efforts currently
underway to address them. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the course identifies the main actors, institutions,
practices, and forms of knowledge production at work in the ‘global health system’ today, and explores the
environmental, social, political, and economic factors that shape patterns and variations in disease and health across
societies. We will scrutinize the value systems that underpin specific paradigms in the policy and science of global
health and place present-day developments in historical perspective. Open to juniors and seniors only.
EAS 306 / ANT 386 Sexuality, Public Culture and Medicine in East Asia (SA)
Instructor: Everett Zhang (na, npdf)
Tu, 1:30-4:20 pm seminar
This course addresses “sexuality” in relation to public culture and medical practices in contemporary East Asia (China,
Japan and Korea). While discussing important theories, this course emphasizes social, cultural and historical contexts of
sexual practices, such as China’s post-Mao sexual revolution, Japan’s emerging new femininity and masculinity,
Korean aspiration for love. In showing the construction of normality/abnormality, this course highlights the centrality of
sexual desire to one’s subjectivity and continuous endeavors for the wellbeing of the population, communities and
individuals, and for the value of difference.
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ANT 390 History of Anthropological Theory (HA)
Instructor: Elizabeth Davis (na, npdf)
TuTh, 11:00 am–12:20 pm lectures
This course is an introduction to fundamental theories and debates in social/cultural anthropology. We will examine the
national and colonial origins of anthropology, considering how western encounters with non-western peoples in the
19th-20th centuries opened questions about human kinship, history, economy, religion, language, sexuality, and
personhood that continue to shape the horizons of our thought today. We will study this inheritance critically, exploring
the changing concepts, methods, and ethics of anthropological research and writing, and evaluate their bearing on
questions of power, justice, and identity in the present. Required for concentrators.
Princeton University, Department of Anthropology, 3/31/2014
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
ANTHROPOLOGY COURSES
FALL 2014-2015
ANT 425 Post-War French Social Theory (SA)
Instructor: Abdellah Hammoudi (npdf)
Tu, 1:30-4:20 pm seminar
Using the works of thinkers such as Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Aron, Ricoeur, Lévi-Strauss, Foucault and Bourdieu, the
course will present students with some of the conflicting images of Western society as viewed by these thinkers. This
course will introduce students to these authors with emphasis on their departure from traditional schools of thought and
the consequences of their ideas on the reproduction of knowledge about societies. Topics will include: relation of social
thought to literary criticism and theories of social description. Not open to freshmen.
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ANT 450 / GSS 450 / SOC 450 The Revolution will not be Televised (SA)
NEW
Instructor: John Borneman (npdf)
M, 1:30-4:20 pm seminar
What is revolutionary change today? Present discontents have been attributed to heightened inequality and worker
exploitation, expanded global trade and permeable national borders, increased circulation of ideas through new media,
and the undermining of forms of traditional authority. Revolutionary programs (e.g., as led by Marx, Lenin, Mao) exist
as social projects of political and sexual emancipation, but they tend not to be informed by theories of ritual and
everyday culture. In this course we will consider these theories as we explore revolutionary impulses from the Arab
Spring, Ukraine, and the 1960's Americas.
Princeton University, Department of Anthropology, 3/31/2014
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
ANTHROPOLOGY COURSES
FALL 2014-2015
ANT 501 Proseminar in Anthropology
Instructor: Abdellah Hammoudi
W, 9:00–11:50 am seminar
First term of a two-term survey of major anthropological writings, primarily for first-year graduate students. This
seminar will focus on some major figures who have influenced anthropological theory and shaped our ideas of what
anthropology is or should be. Historical formulations of some issues which are currently revisited and hotly debated
such as rationalization and unreason, science and communication, subjectivity and dialogic encounters, and the status of
knowledge and truth in the social sciences will be examined. Not open to freshmen.
ANT 541 Topics in Social Anthropology: States in Crisis
Instructor: Elizabeth Davis (no audit)
W, 1:30–4:20 pm seminar
This seminar explores states in various kinds of crisis: their "weakness" and "failure," their borders and margins, their
porosity and dysfunction, their proxies and pawning, their disasters and debts, their violence, their corruption - as well
as opposition and threats to state power: dissidence, social movements, paramilitary organizations, communal and
corporate sovereignty. Readings tack between theories of what the state is, and is not, and recent ethnographies that
propose critiques, re-imaginations, and oblique visions of the state - opening new avenues to examine agency, justice,
economy, and social ties.
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EAS 586 / ANT 586 Biopolitics in China and Beyond
Instructor: Everett Zhang (na, npdf)
Th, 1:30-4:20 pm seminar
Biopolitics has been one of the most heated topics of inquiry in the past two decades in social sciences and humanities.
This course traces its origins and discusses its important anthropological implications. While engaging with its major
Euro-American thinkers and interlocutors in global context, this course introduces the practices of biopolitics in China
to examine its non-Western roots and historical conditions unique to the discussion of biopolitics: China’s modernity
under the influences of its long dynasties, its semi-colonial experience, and most importantly, its communist revolution,
Maoist socialism, and post-Mao reform.
Princeton University, Department of Anthropology, 3/31/2014