Professor Francesca Merlan, MA PhD NewMexico, FAHA
Archaeology and Anthropology are both concerned with discovering and analysing the variety of human cultural adaptations and societies -- the one in the past, the other in the present. The School has three discipline-based Programs: Archaeology, Anthropology and Biological Anthropology, and also coordinates the cross-disciplinary Aboriginal Studies Program and the Development Studies Program.
Graduate students participate in the Graduate Programs in Anthropology and in Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology. The Archaeology and Biological Anthropology Programs form part of the cross-campus Centre for Archaeological Research (CAR).
Archaeology may be briefly defined as the study of the human past from its material remains. As a body of theory and associated techniques it may, of course, be applied to many different periods and aspects of the human past. So we have many archaeologies, e.g. prehistoric, classical, historical, maritime, just to mention a few. In this School we have a major focus on the archaeology of the prehistoric past. However, the comprehensive range of courses offered in prehistory and archaeology will equip students to specialise later in any branch of the discipline. The archaeology of culture contact, together with courses, which focus on the politics of the past and gender in archaeology and archaeological theory provide a framework for the consideration of how archaeology intersects with the contemporary world.
Anthropology is the study of human evolution, biology, society and culture. In the context of the School, most anthropology is socio-cultural; biological anthropology forms a separate program (see below). The anthropology program aims to describe, analyse and account for the similarities and differences among human populations and is, therefore, comparative and cross-cultural in outlook. It is also holistic, seeking to integrate knowledge about the whole range of human behaviours. In the past anthropologists were mainly interested in small-scale non-western societies. Today they also work in the first world and concern themselves with issues of change and empowerment in the relations between west and non-west, earlier and later "developed" parts of the world, as well as with description and analyses of particular cultures, both western and non-western. Historical anthropology, the interface between history, anthropology and archaeology is another recent focus.
Biological anthropology is concerned with human evolution in all its aspects and with the biology of present-day human populations (genetics, physiology, ecology, demography and growth), viewed comparatively and synthetically. It is also concerned with the non-human primates, and with current debates on the biological bases of human social behaviour.
The Indigenous Australian Studies Program enables students with an interest in Indigenous Studies to take a set of interrelated courses in different disciplines without the normal prerequisite required in each course. The major in Indigenous Australian Studies is an interdisciplinary program in which it is possible to combine anthropology, archaeology, art, English, history, linguistics, and music for a broadly based understanding of Indigenous Australian societies and cultures.
The Development Studies major is an interdisciplinary major designed to provide a broadly based understanding of theories of development processes through the "core" courses which are drawn from various social science disciplines. The "area" courses, designed to provide recent experience in at least one major geographical area, include Central Asia and the Middle East, China, Oceania, Southeast Asia, and South Asia.
The pass degree courses within the School are not planned to provide specialised professional training, but to present students with an understanding of the past and the role of archaeology in its reconstruction, as well as a comparative view of the nature of human social organisation and culture. Honours courses offer specialist technical training and examine the theoretical bases of each discipline. Students considering the possibility of entering careers as professional social or biological anthropologists or archaeologists should plan their courses with a view to taking the degree with Honours. Special honours work begins in third year. As a School, comparable streams are offered in anthropology, archaeology and biological anthropology. A combined honours course may be arranged within the School.
The School offers graduate coursework and research degrees at the level of Graduate Diploma (coursework) Master of Arts (coursework and research), MPhil (research) and PhD (research).
For general enquiries contact the School Administrator Ms Susan Fraser on (02) 6125 3309 (telephone), 6125 2711 (fax) or on email Susan.Fraser@anu.edu.au
Further details about the School can be found at:
http://www.anu.edu.au/AandA/home.htm
Further archaeological information can be found on the "Archaeology World" web site:
http://artalpha.anu.edu.au/web/arc/arcworld.htm
The Centre for Archaeological Research web site (incorporating monthly news of archaeology at the ANU) is at:
http://car.anu.edu.au
Archaeology: Dr Peter Hiscock <Peter.Hiscock@anu.edu.au>
Biological Anthropology: Professor Colin Groves
<Colin.Groves@anu.edu.au>
Development Studies: Dr Patrick Guinness
<Patrick.Guinness@anu.edu.au>
Indigenous Australian Studies: Dr Ian Keen
<Ian.Keen@anu.edu.au>
Convener of the Graduate Program in Anthropology: to be advised
Convener of the Graduate Program in Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology: To be advised
Anthropology is the study of societies and cultures throughout the world. It explores ways of describing, analysing and accounting for the similarities and differences among human populations and is, therefore, comparative in outlook. It is also holistic, seeking to integrate knowledge about the whole range of human behaviours. A central assumption is that there is little that is inevitable in the way in which people anywhere live and conduct their lives. Rather the variety of human social practices and beliefs is a measure of our creativity and flexibility as a species. Our realities are socially constructed and because of this anthropology pays considerable attention to the creation of meaning, the power of symbolism, ritual and religion. These domains of human activity and thought are interwoven with economic and political circumstances, which they in turn influence, giving rise to complex interactions and constantly changing ways of life.
In the past anthropologists were mainly interested in small-scale non-western societies; today they also work in the first world and are as much concerned with issues of development, change and empowerment as they had been previously with social organisation and the exotic. Despite the great diversity of interests and approaches found amongst anthropologists, all are committed to the centrality of the concept of culture and to the belief that socially just relations among people must be based on understanding their divergent constructions of everyday reality.
The pass degree courses are not planned to provide specialised professional training, but to present students with a comparative view of the nature of human social organisation and culture. Some major themes represented within courses include:
Honours courses offer specialist technical training and examine the theoretical bases of each discipline
Students considering the possibility of entering careers as professional social anthropologists should plan their courses with a view to taking the degree with honours. Special honours work begins in third year.
(a) First year Anthropology courses to the value of 12 units: Introducing Anthropology ANTH1002 and Global and Local ANTH1003. Normally these are taken in sequence; plus
(b) Later-year courses to the value of 30 units, chosen from the following courses. In some circumstances, the major may consist of 48 units at later-year level.
Analytical Methods for Anthropology and Archaeology ARCH2126 (3 units)
Animals, Plants and People: Ethnobiology and Domestication ARCH2108
Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Social Life ANTH2053
Anthropology and the Urban Experience ANTH2054
Anthropology C Honours (Honours only) ANTH3013
Anthropology of Emotion ANTH2034
Anthropology of Emotion: Further Studies ANTH3034 (3 units)
Anthropology of Modernity and Post Modernity ANTH2055
Anthropology of New Guinea and Melanesia ANTH2006
Belonging, Identity and Nationalism ANTH2056
Contemporary Australian Cultures -- An Anthropological View ANTH2058
Culture and Development ANTH2009
Culture and Development: Further Studies ANTH3009 (3 units)
Culture and Person: Further Studies ANTH3057 (3 units)
Culture, Biology and Population Dynamics BIAN2120
Culture Matters: An Interdisciplinary Approach GEND2000
Cultures of Reproduction ANTH2001
Drugs in a Changing World Order ANTH2063
Exploring Youth Cultures ANTH2061
Filming Cultures: Further Studies ANTH3049 (3 units)
Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective ANTH2025
Genes, Memes and Cultural Difference ANTH2127
Human Society and Animal Society: Comparisons and Relationships BIAN2124
Indigenous Australians and Australian Society ANTH2017
Indigenous Australian Societies and Cultures ANTH2005
Indigenous Australian Societies and Cultures: Further Studies ANTH3005 (3 units)
Medical Anthropology: Further Studies ANTH3026 (3 units)
Nutrition, Disease and the Human Environment BIAN2119
Origins and Dispersals of Agricultural Populations ARCH2039
`Race' and Human Genetic Variation BIAN2115
Regional and Thematic Topics in Demographic Anthropology BIAN3120 (3 units)
Regional Topics in Human Genetic Variation BIAN3115 (3 units)
Regional Topics in Nutrition, Disease and the Human Environment BIAN3119 (3 units)
Religion and Society in India ANTH2033
Religion, Ritual and Cosmology ANTH2004
Southeast Asia: Contemporary Issues in Anthropological Perspective ANTH2060
Supervised Research in Anthropology ANTH3010
Technology Culture and Evolution ANTH2125
Themes in Anthropology I ANTH2050
Themes in Anthropology II ANTH2051
Two lecture hours and one tutorial hour each week. Repeat evening lectures will be given.
Syllabus: Anthropology is the study of different ways of life, focusing on the similarities between them as much as the differences. In this course, students will be introduced to a range of cultures from around the world, and in the process will develop an informed and critical perspective on their own lives and those of other people. We will explore core concepts such as 'nature', 'culture' and 'society', and critically examine the basic approaches, theories and debates found within anthropology. We will cover a range of issues including race and racism, sex and gender, magic and myth, symbolism and representation, and the role of knowledge as power within anthropology. In the process students will learn how to apply anthropological understanding to the world around them.
Students taking this course are advised to combine it with the course Global and Local ANTH1003.
Two lecture hours, one film hour and one tutorial hour each week. Repeat evening lectures will be given.
Syllabus: The emergence of global industrialisation and consumer cultures, world political and religious forces, and international migration have posed a new challenge to anthropology. Anthropologists from their `traditional' viewpoint of the small rural community now apply their insights to the nature and impact of global forces, particularly in their local context, whether that be a remote village or a cosmopolitan city. In this course we will examine just how relevant anthropology is to contemporary issues. We will examine a range of issues including the articulation of local production within the world economy, consumerism in its local forms, world religions and local religious revitalisation, industrial and urban subcultures and contemporary ethnic (including indigenous) identities, international tourism and labour force movement in their local impact, world health and population concerns and local responses, development and local poverty, and global and local environmental movements. This course will introduce students to the theories, concepts and practices anthropologists have developed to address problems of inequality, discrimination, and cultural and economic imperialism in the world today.
Students taking this course are advised to combine it with Introducing Anthropology ANTH1002
Prerequisites: One first year course to the value of 6 units in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology; (ARCH, ANTH or PREH) or permission of the lecturer.
Syllabus: After an examination of the characteristics of different kinds of anthropological and archaeological observations, we look at procedures for recording and storing information. Methods of quantitative analysis are described, using examples from archaeology, biological anthropology, and social anthropology.
Normally offered in alternate years
26 hours lectures, 7 hours tutorials
Lecturer: Mr Farrington and Professor Groves
Prerequisites: Two first year courses in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology (ARCH, ANTH or PREH) or Evolution, Ecology and Heredity BIOL1003; Human Biology BIOL1008.
Syllabus: The course examines the relationships between the human and the plant and animal worlds. Particular attention will be given to the concept of domestication, to the wild precursors of domesticates, and to the exploitation, manipulation and transformation of selected plant and animal species.
22 hours lectures, 11 hours tutorials
Prerequisites: Two first year courses to the value of 12 units in Anthropology
Syllabus: The course surveys the variety of approaches to the description and analysis of human social life in social/cultural anthropology through lectures and the close examination of selected readings. It does so by tracing the development of anthropological theory through the twentieth century, and with reference to its intellectual origins. It begins with the emergence of the idea of society as an object of study, outlines and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the main paradigms and problematics structure and function, transactionalism, structuralism, the concept of culture, ecological approaches, neo-marxist anthropology, practice theory and post-structuralism, feminist anthropology, history and anthropology, and post-modernism.
22 hours lectures, 11 hours tutorials
Prerequisites: Two first year courses to the value of 12 units in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology (ARCH, ANTH or PREH); or History; or Political Science or Sociology
Syllabus: In this course, we will conduct a survey of social science writings on cities, focusing on the evolution of various theoretical perspectives and identifying key elements of these perspectives. These perspectives include the cultural analysis of urban communities, scenes and subcultures, comparative urbanism, the rural/urban dichotomy, social network analysis, situational analysis, cultural geography, symbolic interactionism and political economy. In examining this history, we will be seeking to distil those elements that will be of most use in shaping an anthropological view of cities, especially those that will aid us in understanding how identities and social relations are constructed in contemporary urban life. Ethnographic accounts from diverse cultures (eg, those in Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, North America) will provide the material through which the course will analyse identities and social relations based on ethnicity, lifestyle, social class, gender, occupation, kinship and residence.
Prerequisites: Permission of the lecturer.
Syllabus: This is a required course for intending honours students. Please see Honours School in Anthropology for further information, or enquire at the School Administration Office.
Normally offered in alternate years
22 hours lectures, 11 hours tutorials
Prerequisites: Two first year courses to the value of 12 units in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology (ARCH, ANTH or PREH) or Art History.
Syllabus: The course sets the anthropology of art in a wider sociological and historical context, with a focus on the appropriation of objects and forms from colonised and post-colonial peoples into the western category of art, the invention of the categories primitive art and tribal art, and processes of commoditisation. There will be some emphasis on Aboriginal art. A major theme of the course will be the plurality of significance accorded to the same object as it moves from one cultural context to another. In order to appreciate this movement we begin with an analysis of the institution of art in western societies, and then examine the creation and significance of visual forms in a range of cultures, drawing on perspectives in the anthropology of art, the sociology of art, and related disciplines.
22 hours lectures, 11 hours tutorials
Prerequisites: Any two first year courses to the value of 12 units in any Faculty or permission of the lecturer.
Syllabus: examination of key sources on emotion in the social sciences. Topics covered include components of emotion, the cultural construction of emotion, the social ontology of emotion, and the role of emotion in the agency of the body in society. Includes discussion of individual emotions such as love, shame and envy. Also discussed are the place of emotion in the analysis of religion, politics, and health and illness.
Offered in the same semester as the prerequisite unit.
Prerequisite: Current enrolment in ANTH2034, or previous completion of ANTH2034 Anthropology of Emotion.
Syllabus: The course offers the opportunity to pursue in greater depth topics in the anthropology of emotion through guided reading and research. Attendance and work in the prerequisite is required, as well as 3-4 hours extra tutorials, extra reading and submission of a 3,000-word research essay.
This course may be counted towards an Anthropology or Biological Anthropology major.
22 hours lectures, 11 hours tutorials
Prerequisites: Two first year courses to the value of 12 units in Anthropology or Sociology
Syllabus: How may social change best be understood? In this course we will consider socially and culturally specific examples of change in people's relationship to places, the social organisation of time, and relationships between generations. These issues will be considered in relation to western ideas of modernity, the set of concepts through which many philosophers and social analysts have attempted to capture the dynamism of western history and social experience, and which form an increasingly important part of ordinary peoples self-understanding, both in the West and elsewhere.
22 hours lectures, 11 hours tutorials
Prerequisites: Two first year courses to the value of 12 units in Anthropology.
Syllabus: Few regions of the world can match Melanesia in the diversity and richness of the cultures it encompasses. This course, through a mixture of general characterisations and intensive study of particular contexts, seeks to provide students with an understanding of the range of cultures found in Melanesia.
We will also consider just what that variation encompasses in terms of subsistence, exchange, social organisation, cosmology, conceptions of personhood and historical transformations.
The region has also been a crucial part of the theoretical developments within the discipline of anthropology. Not only does the course aim to give the student a deeper appreciation of the various peoples who live so close to Australia, but it also highlights the debates that the ethnography of Melanesia has given rise to and the contributions these have made to the broader field of anthropology.
11 hours lectures, 22 hours workshop
Prerequisites: Two first year courses to the value of 12 units in Anthropology; or Archaeology; or Geography; or Sociology; or Political Science, or permission of lecturer.
Syllabus: This course will introduce students to a number of employment possibilities for anthropologists outside academia: working in or for business or industrial corporations, development agencies, government departments, mining companies, non-government organisations, land councils, cooperatives, health organisations. We will examine the range of possible political positions, from cooperation with state planners to advocacy, client oriented research and radical anthropology, and examine the ethical issues involved. Where possible anthropologists involved in such work will be invited to share their knowledge and experience with us.
With these applications in mind we will address the practical and methodological skills that anthropology offers. Practical skills include how to gather both quantitative and qualitative data, how to conduct interviews, how to work within time frames and agenda set by commissioning agencies, how to manage fieldwork relations, how to present findings in appropriate forms. We will put these skills into practice by undertaking a class project.
22 hours lectures, 11 hours tutorials
Prerequisites: Two first year courses to the value of 12 units in Anthropology; or Sociology; or one first year ANTH or SOCY course and another in a cognate discipline
Syllabus: This course aims to introduce students to concepts of identity and belonging, and the complexity and flexibility, but also strength, of forms of identity at a variety of levels. The course will place some emphasis upon identities at the national level, and practices of nationalism; but also, upon the question why and how other forms of ethnic, sub-national and indigenous identity have gained strength over the last several decades.
22 hours lectures, 11 hours tutorials
Prerequisites: Two first year courses in Anthropology or Sociology
Syllabus: Anthropologists have traditionally pursued research in 'small-scale', 'non-Western' societies and, in doing so, have created a distinction between 'Us' and the 'Exotic Other'. In recent decades, however, anthropologists have increasingly begun to collapse this distinction, partly by conducting anthropology 'at home'. This course will address the theoretical and methodological issues arising from the conduct of ethnography at home, and will consider how anthropological approaches to a culturally and socially complex society such as Australia may differ from, complement and supplement some of the approaches commonly employed by scholars from other social sciences. In this course, these issues will be considered in the light of anthropological and other social science research on various aspects of 'settler' (i.e. non-indigenous) Australia. (Aspects of contemporary indigenous Australian cultures are examined in ANTH2017). These aspects include 'mateship', rural and urban communities, the Anzac Day commemorations, youth subcultures, the use of alcohol and other drugs, and ethnicity. The substantive material will be used to explore a range of approaches to the study of Australian cultures. The move from primarily geographically based concepts of 'community' to those developed in order to examine social relations in urban settings, the influence of Cultural Studies, and the recent postmodernist turn, will all be considered.
22 hours lectures, 11 hours tutorials
Prerequisites: Two first year courses to the value of 12 units in the Arts Faculty or the Centre for Asian Societies and Histories, or Economics or Economic History.
Syllabus: This course examines mainstream and alternative concepts of development by focusing on development issues and case studies located in so-called Third World countries. It examines the historical background to development ideas and practices, and the cultural presuppositions and assumptions on which they are consequently based, as well as the ways in which they impact on different cultures throughout the world. Of particular interest will be alternative concepts of development, such as people-centred development, gender and development, equity in development, local knowledge and values, sustainable development, and participation and empowerment in development.
Proposed assessment: one tutorial paper, one essay and one in-class test.
Offered in the same semester as the prerequisite unit.
Prerequisite: Concurrent enrolment in, or previous successful completion of ANTH2009 Culture and Development.
Syllabus: This course offers the opportunity to research a topic relevant to Culture and Development in depth through guided reading and research. Attendance and work in the prerequisite is required, as well as 3-4 hours extra tutorials (at beginning and end of semester), extra reading, work-in-progress seminar presentation, and submission of a 3000-word research essay
This course may be counted towards an Anthropology or Development Studies major.
Normally offered in alternate years
22 hours lectures, 11 hours tutorials
Prerequisites: Two first year courses to the value of 12 units in Anthropology or Gender Sexuality and Culture.
Syllabus: This course explores conceptions of the person across a wide range of cultural and historical settings. It pays particular attention to the differences that occur between contemporary Western understandings and experiences of personhood and those found in other settings, and to the consequent contingency of much of what we take to be natural products of our humanity. Case studies used include sexuality and sexual identity, witchcraft, madness and time/space. A primary aim of the course is to problematise many of the givens of conventional anthropological practice and to raise the question as to the ethnocentric character of a range of key anthropological concepts (including individual, society, culture, autonomy, agency, private/public) and their consequent utility in cross-cultural research. The work of a number of theorists including Mauss, Foucault, Bourdieu and Strathern is considered, as well as a large body of cross-cultural ethnographic material.
This course may be counted towards an Anthropology or Gender, Sexuality and Culture major.
Offered in the same semester as the selected prerequisite unit
Prerequisite: Current enrolment in ANTH2057, or previous completion of ANTH2057 Culture and Person.
Syllabus: The course offers the opportunity to research in depth a topic relevant to issues examined in the prerequisite unit. Attendance and work in the prerequisite is required, as well as 3-4 hours extra tutorials (at beginning and end of semester), extra reading, work-in-progress seminar presentation, and submission of a 3000-word research essay.
This course may be counted towards an Anthropology or Gender, Sexuality and Culture major.
30 hours in lectures and tutorials
Lecturers: Professor F. Merlan and Dr R. Kennedy (Humanities)
Prerequisites: Two first year courses to the value of 12 units in Anthropology or Gender, Sexuality and Culture.
Syllabus: The modern concept of culture, which was developed out of earlier intellectual currents, is one of the most important concepts in the humanities and social sciences today. It is also widely used in non-academic contexts. We hear, for example, of global culture, consumer culture, high and low culture, organisational culture, enterprise culture and even police culture.
This course will consider the origins and development of the concept in the social sciences and the humanities. After introducing some foundational theories of culture, the course will survey the relatively new fields of cultural studies, postcolonial theory and globalisation theory. The course will also consider changing divisions of intellectual labour, both outside the academy and within it, through an examination of the social position of the main producers and consumers of contemporary images of culture and difference.
Normally offered in even-numbered years
Up to 26 hours lectures and 10 hours tutorials
Prerequisites: Two first-year courses to the value of 12 units in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology (ANTH, ARCH or PREH) and/or the Division of Botany and Zoology, or enrolment in the Population Studies major.
Syllabus: The potential of human populations to grow, stabilise or decline is realised through events, which are often strongly marked culturally and always crucial for individuals: birth, migration and death. The prospects and hazards of survival, mobility, marriage and raising a family vary greatly between populations, and are often related to sociocultural factors including religion, education, gender roles, valuation of children, political organisation and economy. Yet if sociocultural factors are to influence the dynamics of fertility and mortality, they must do so through their effects on those very biological events, such as giving birth and dying. This course explores in an anthropological context the complex interplay between culture and biology in producing population dynamics of different kinds, as well as the implications of those population dynamics for the societies in question.
Course topics include: population size and structure in the past and present; the biology of natural fertility; social factors controlling fertility; mortality and the impact of varying life expectancies; population pressure on resources and consequences for migration; marital mobility, marriage practices, kinship systems and sex ratios; the demography of small-scale societies; health, nutrition and the demographic effect of epidemics; demographic implications of warfare; change, development and demographic transitions. Quantitative demographic techniques are introduced but not pursued in depth. Examples are drawn mainly from the mass societies of Asia and the small-scale indigenous societies of the Australia-Pacific region.
The course is designed on the premise that what is distinctive about the anthropological (in the broad sense) approach to population is its concern with the processes that lie behind population numbers more than the numbers themselves, and its comparative perspective across cultures and from the distant past to the present.
Incompatibility: PRAN2020 Culture, Biology and Population Dynamics
This course may be counted towards an Anthropology, Biological Anthropology, Archaeology, Human Sciences or Population Studies major.
22 hours lectures, 11 hours tutorials
Prerequisites: Two first-year courses to the value of 12 units in Anthropology
Syllabus: It is a truism in anthropology that kinship has a central place in the social life of small scale societies because it plays a key role in the organisation of social activities. Frequently everybody in a person's social universe is defined as a relative, so that people work, marry, play and fight with kin. Kinship is also crucial to personhood and identity, the allocation of rights and resources, and their transmission from one generation to another. But what makes someone a kinsperson is a question to which the world's cultures have given many answers. Significantly, it is also a question posed in the west by the advent of new reproductive technologies, which have given rise to several celebrated legal cases. Is the biological or surrogate mother the 'real' mother, and what are their respective rights in the child? What are the implications of sperm donorship for the child's sense of identity? Can parents both be of the same sex/gender? With reference to a range of past and present cultures, this course will examine concepts of and beliefs about sexuality and reproduction; different forms of social relations and modes of organisation of social life; marriage, incest avoidance, identity and the structure of groups, residence, inheritance, and gender differentiation. The changing role of kinship in industrialising and urbanising societies will also be explored.
Two hours of lecture per week, biweekly workgroup sessions.
Prerequisites: Any two first year courses to the value of twelve units in any faculty or permission of the lecturer.
Syllabus: The course will use pharmaceuticals as an arena in which to examine critically global social and economic change. Aside from a consideration of patterns of use of substances of all sorts (`legal', `illegal', prescription, `over-the-counter'; tonics, herbals, etc.), and topics such as the cultural interpretation of medicines in various cultural settings, the course will also take up issues related to pharmaceutical behavior in the context of global transformation, that is, how the examination of pharmaceutical use and the pharmaceutical industry enables one to explore the emergence of transnational processes in local social, political, economic, and cultural forms. Examples of issues to be explored are medications as vehicles of ideology, the proliferation of medications as part of changing labour practices world-wide, market forces in the local organisation and control of drug production and supply, the technology of drug production as central to processes of penetration of global forms, drugs and medicines as `technologies of rule', the role of medications in the construction of new pathological categories, and how drugs are part of the very fabric of new social, political, and economic formations as well as new forms of selfhood. In addition to a set of core readings, students will have the opportunity to pursue topics of special interest.to them.
Proposed assessment: In-class midterm and final exam, and one research essay.
There is no preliminary reading. Those interested in further information can consult the following sources:
This course may be counted towards an Anthropology or Development Studies major.
22 hours lectures, 11 hours tutorials
Prerequisites: Two first-year courses to the value of 12 units in Anthropology and/or Sociology.
Syllabus: This course explores conceptions of youth across a range of cultural and historical settings. In doing so, the course examines differences between contemporary Western understandings and definitions of youth and those found in other cultural and historical contexts. Case studies from twentieth-century Great Britain, North America and Australia (eg, teddy boys, bodgies and widgies, mods, skinheads, hippies, punks, ravers, ferals and assorted other 'folk devils'), Papua New Guinea (Sambia puberty rites), Nepal ('teenagers' in Kathmandu), Africa (Masai age sets), preindustrial Europe (the 'discovery' of childhood in the seventeenth century) and classical Europe (the absence of 'adolescence' in Greco-Roman society) will be employed to illustrate course themes. The central aim of the course will be to problematise many of the taken-for-granted assumptions about youth that exist in contemporary Western academic, state and popular discourses (eg, 'delinquency', 'deviance, 'resistance') through cross-cultural and historical comparison.
20 hours lectures, 11 hours film, 11 hours tutorials
Prerequisites: Two first-year courses to the value of 12 units.
Syllabus: What can we learn about other cultures through film? What can the camera do that the pen cannot? How has the digital revolution changed this? How have anthropologists and film-makers responded to these changes? What are the implications for the future?
This course will address these questions and others by means of an examination of some films by leading ethnographic filmmakers. We will study films from a variety of cultures, the contrasting modes of representation employed by various filmmakers, and the debates they have given rise to.
Proposed assessment: one essay, tutorial work and tutorial participation.
Offered in the same semester as prerequisite course.
Prequisite: Current enrolment in, or previous completion of ANTH 2049 Filming Cultures.
Syllabus: The course offers the opportunity to research in depth a topic relevant to issues examined in the prerequisite course. Attendance and work in the prerequisite is required, as well as 3-4 hours extra tutorials (at the beginning and end of semester), extra reading, work-in-progress seminar presentation, and submission of a 3,000-word research essay.
Preliminary reading: see under ANTH2049
This course may also be counted towards an Anthropology or Film Studies major.
22 hours lectures, 11 hours tutorials
Prerequisites: Two first-year courses to the value of 12 units in Anthropology; or Sociology; or Gender Sexuality and Culture.
Syllabus: Anthropology is uniquely situated to look into concepts and theories of gender, sex and sexuality through its concern with the culturally-specific character of human categories and practices. This course explores gender, sex and sexuality across a range of cultural settings seeking, in the process, to question most of what we -- including most theorists of sex/gender -- take for granted about the gendered and sexed character of human identity and difference. Topics explored include: the saliency of the categories man and woman; the relationships between race and gender; the role of colonialism and neocolonialism in the representation of gender, sex and sexuality; the usefulness of the notion of oppression; the relationship between cultural conceptions of personhood and cultural conceptions of gender; and the ethnocentricity of the concepts of gender, sex and sexuality themselves. To assist these explorations we will make use of cross-cultural case studies in a number of areas including rape, prostitution, work and domesticity, the third sex and homosexuality.
Normally offered in alternate years
26 hours lectures, 10 hours tutorials
Prerequisites: Two first year courses to the value of 12 units in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology (ANTH, ARCH or PREH), or other appropriate Arts first year subject, or relevant Science Faculty first year courses.
Syllabus: The course will consider the issues and controversies surrounding attempts to introduce into the social sciences concepts and theoretical perspectives developed in evolutionary biology. Its aim is to make recent perspectives and the arguments for and against available to students of the social and the biological sciences, as well as to those with more general methodological interests.
Although a naturalistic strand has always been present in the social sciences, it is fair to say that most of the more influential social theorists have seen a basic discontinuity between the biological and the social sciences. Recent ethological and sociobiological research has posed questions of the view that there are fundamental differences between human social behaviour and that of animals. This approach, however, has been augmented by the extension of certain evolutionary concepts to human cultural life itself, and it is predominantly with these that this course is concerned. Here, the suggestion is that evolutionary processes operate in cultural life not only through 'descent with modification' as it applies to genes, but through a comparable process that operates on cultural elements. The 'second form of evolution' that Dawkins' notions of memes (cultural representations that are subject to selection pressure) is thought to entail has led some to proclaim the social sciences to be a sub-category of the life sciences. Other scholars, who take their lead from a cognitive psychology grounded in evolutionary perspectives, dispute the memetic viewpoint, but nevertheless argue that there are no longer any grounds for separating the biological and the social sciences.
Normally offered in even-numbered years
26 hours lectures, 7 hours tutorials
Prerequisites: Two first-year courses to the value of 12 units in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology (ANTH, ARCH or PREH); or Evolution, Ecology and Heredity BIOL1003; or Human Biology BIOL1008.
Syllabus: The place of humans among the primates, the mechanisms of evolution, and the evolution of humans and other primates. The main part of the course details the fossil record of the evolution of the human line since its separation from other primates.
Normally offered in odd-numbered years
Up to 26 lectures, 10 tutorials and 13 film/videos
Prerequisites: Two first-year courses to the value of 12 units in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology ANTH, ARCH or PREH); or the School of Botany and Zoology. Students are also recommended to include at least one other later-year course in Archaeology and Anthropology or Life Sciences in their studies before or alongside this one: for example, ANTH2001, 2011, 2034, 2053, 2125, 2127, BIAN2012, 2013, 2115, BIOL3133, 3132, 3131, LANG2015, LING2015, PRAN2015, 2027, PREH2011, PSYC2007.
Syllabus: What continuities are there between human and animal social lives? How did characteristically human social arrangements emerge over the course of hominid evolution? Is there, despite human cultural diversity, a genetically based human nature that can be contrasted with, e.g. chimpanzee nature? What might the human social sciences learn from the zoological disciplines -- ethology, sociobiology, behavioural ecology -- that study animal social behaviour?
The long-standing social-science orthodoxy has been that radical differences between us and other animals render such questions fruitless, even dangerous, to pursue. But recent developments in the study of animal behaviour have challenged this view. Biological perspectives on human social life are attracting a fresh interest and research effort, though they remain controversial. This course examines the resulting debates.
Communication, conflict, altruism, kinship, sex, parenthood, social organisation, language and culture are amongst the topics covered. These will be discussed in three main contexts: the evolutionary past of hominid social characteristics; child development and child-rearing; and adult interactions, relationships and social structures. The main empirical base will be present-day and ethnographically described human societies, with some discussion of evidence on the undocumented past, and some use of animal examples.
The aim will be to present the biological approaches and the criticisms they have attracted in a balanced way, and to identify both the strengths and the weaknesses of these approaches. Students will be encouraged to form their own views on the material studied, and on its status in the natural and social sciences.
22 hours lectures, 11 hours tutorials
Prerequisites: Two first-year courses in Anthropology or enrolment for the major in Indigenous Australian (Aboriginal) Studies.
Syllabus: Aborigines are severely disadvantaged in terms of poverty, poor health, over-representation in the prisons, employment opportunities, and access to the political system. This course examines the dimensions of this disadvantaged position and the varied patterns of life of Aboriginal people, from reserves and cattle stations to major cities. Their ways of life have been radically transformed throughout the continent by European colonisation. The cultures of people living in remote areas show the greatest continuities with the past, but many Aboriginal people in the southern part of the continent also have a mode of life distinct from the cultures of people of European origin.
22 hours lectures, 11 hours tutorials
Prerequisites: Two first year courses to the value of 12 units in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology; (ARCH, ANTH or PREH) or enrolment for a major in Indigenous Australian (Aboriginal) Studies.
Syllabus: From the moment of Australia's discovery by Europeans the history, life and culture of Aboriginal people has been a subject of intellectual fascination. In the nineteenth century their social and cultural practices were widely believed to open up a window onto the origins of religion and European social institutions. More recently they have become a sociological, evolutionary and ecological prototype of the hunting and gathering way of life. This course will examine the details of traditional life, including subsistence economy, land ownership, social organisation, marriage arrangements, religion, magic, art and totemism and consider its impact on the European imagination and the production of social theory.
Offered in same semester as prerequisite.
Prerequisite: Current enrolment in, or previous completion of ANTH2005 Aboriginal Societies and Cultures.
Syllabus: This course offers the opportunity to research an area of indigenous anthropology in depth through guided reading and research. Attendance and work in the prerequisite is required, as well as 3-4 hours extra tutorials (at beginning and end of semester), extra reading, a work-in-progress seminar presentation, and submission of a 3,000-word research essay.
Preliminary reading: See under ANTH2005.
This course may also be counted towards an Anthropology, Biological Anthropology, Archaeology or Indigenous Australian (Aboriginal) Studies major.
22 hours lectures, 11 hours tutorials
Lecturer: Professor Wierzbicka
Prerequisites: Open to students who will normally be expected to have completed Introducing Anthropology ANTH1002 and/or Global and Local ANTH1003 and Introduction to the Study of Language LING1001, or who have completed Cross-Cultural Communication LING1021, or the Ethnography of Communication LING3026.
Syllabus: This course focuses on problems that define the intersection between anthropology and linguistics. See Linguistics entry for further information.
Incompatibility: LANG2015 Language and Culture
This course may also be counted towards an Anthropology, Human Sciences or Linguistics major.
22 hours lectures, 11 hours tutorials
Prerequisites: Any two first-year courses from any Faculty or permission of the lecturer.
Syllabus: Medical Anthropology looks at health and illness in phenomenological, cultural, and social contexts. It encompasses Western bio-medicine as well as non-Western medical systems. The course examines topics such as the anthropology of the body, the notion of illness as metaphor, the variety and nature of explanations for sickness, healers and their roles, the interaction between medical systems within and between societies, and institutional conflict and change. The major theoretical perspectives for comparing medical systems will be examined along with the notion of disease theories as cultural products.
There is no required preliminary reading. However, those interested in further information on the area can consult the following sources:
This course may also be counted towards an Anthropology, Biological Anthropology or Human Sciences major.
Usually offered in the same semester as the prerequisite unit, may not be offered in 2002.
Prerequisite: Current enrolment in, or previous completion of ANTH2026 Medical Anthropology.
Syllabus: The course offers the opportunity to pursue in greater depth topics in the area of medical anthropology through guided reading and research. Attendance and work in the prerequisite is required, as well as 3-4 hours extra tutorials, extra reading and submission of a 3,000-word research essay.
This course may also be counted towards an Anthropology, Biological Anthropology or Human Sciences major.
Normally offered in even-numbered years
Up to 26 hours lectures, 10 hours tutorials and 13 hours films
Prerequisites: Two first-year courses in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology (ANTH, ARCH or PREH) and/or the School of Botany and Zoology.
Syllabus: Our species has a capacity for flexible biological response to environmental conditions within a lifetime, as well as specific adaptations acquired over the long span of evolution. Pre-industrial human populations, sharing a similar range of physiological capacities, succeeded in occupying much of the globe and a wide diversity of environments. This course examines this adaptability and its limits in an anthropological context, with particular attention to nutrition, the physical environment, and disease.
The main sections of the course will be: on nutritional ecology, discussing the adequacy of the diet (especially in energy and protein) for health and growth, and environmental and social influences on nutrition; on environmental physiology, especially responses to physical factors (e.g. climate), also psychosocial factors (e.g. stress); on disease ecology, contrasting patterns of disease occurrence in traditional and developing societies with those in developed societies, and considering the processes involved in selected cases; and finally on the critical assessment of arguments that interpret aspects of culture as adaptations to biological variables, such as protein needs, population pressure or nutrient flows in the ecosystem.
Throughout, examples for study will be selected on a cross-cultural basis, with a focus on indigenous traditional and developing societies, but with some attention to developed societies and where possible to evidence on the undocumented past.
Normally offered in alternate years
22 hours lectures, 11 hours tutorials
Prerequisites: One first-year courses to the value of 6 units in Archaeology (ARCH or PREH). Students without one of these courses should consult the lecturer.
Syllabus: Without agricultural production, civilisation as we know it today could never have come into existence. Nor could any of the great civilisations of history. This course will examine the role of agricultural subsistence at a crucial stage in human history, when post-hunter-gatherer populations in various regions began to lay the foundations of the present distributions of peoples, cultures and languages across the tropical and temperate latitudes of the earth. The course will examine both archaeological and linguistic data.
Normally offered in odd-numbered years
26 hours lectures, 13 hours films, 6 hours tutorials
Prerequisites: Two first-year courses in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology (ANTH, ARCH or PREH) and/or the School of Botany and Zoology.
Syllabus: The Primates, our closest animal relatives: their classification, evolution, diet, locomotion, reproduction and social relations.
The theme will be the primates in their place in the natural world, with their diversity and adaptability, setting the stage for the comparison with human biology and social behaviour.
Normally offered in odd-numbered years
Up to 26 hours lectures, 10 hours tutorials and 13 film/videos over the semester
Prerequisites: Two first-year courses in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology (ANTH, ARCH or PREH) and/or the School of Botany and Zoology. This course is intended to complement 'Advances in Human Genetics' BIOL2152. Biological Anthropology students are recommended to take both.
Syllabus: 'Race' was once thought capable of explaining a great deal about both human biology and society. That is no longer true, either in anthropology or in human biology; but biological variation between individuals and between populations is real and remains to be explained. This course is about human biological variation, especially variation amongst populations in physical traits, blood genetics and DNA. Through case studies rather than comprehensively, variation amongst peoples of the world will be viewed as an outcome of evolution and biogeography, and as a reflection of ancestry, interrelationships and population histories.
Principles of genetic inheritance will be introduced. General human genetics topics selected for discussion may include: genetic disease; heredity-environment interaction; social implications of genetic issues, and forensic genetics. The main emphasis, however, will be on human population diversity and anthropological genetics, including: the 'race' concept; principles of population genetics; the geography of biological variation; the explanation of biological variation in terms of micro-evolution; and inferences from biological evidence about population origins and affinities, compared with inferences from archaeology and linguistics.
Normally offered in the same semester as the pre-/co-requisite course BIAN2120
Attendance in the pre-/co-requisite unit plus 3-4 hours extra tutorials.
Prerequisite: Concurrent enrolment in, or previous completion of BIAN2120 Culture, Biology and Population Dynamics.
Syllabus: This course is designed to be taken in conjunction with Culture, Biology and Population Dynamics, and builds on that unit's subject matter. Special attention in tutorials and written work will be given to developing a focus on a specific region or theme within the broader scope of Culture, Biology and Population Dynamics.
Proposed assessment: tutorial work (including oral presentation) and a 3,000-word essay.
Preliminary reading: see under BIAN2120.
Incompatibility: PRAN3020 Regional and Thematic Topics in Demographic Anthropology
This course may be counted towards an Anthropology, Biological Anthropology, Archaeology, Human Sciences or Population Studies major.
Normally offered in the same semester as the pre-/co-requisite unit
Attendance in the pre-/co-requisite course plus 3-4 hours extra tutorials
Prerequisite: Concurrent enrolment in BIAN2115, or previous completion of PRAN2015 `Race' and Human Genetic Variation.
Syllabus: This course is designed to be taken in conjunction with `Race' and Human Genetic Variation, and develops the theme of that course. Special attention in tutorials and written work will be given to developing a focus on a specific region or population group. The course is open to pass and intending honours students and the latter are especially encouraged to take it.
Proposed assessment: tutorial work (including oral presentation) and a 3,000-word essay.
Preliminary reading: see under BIAN2115.
Incompatability: PRAN3015 Regional Topics in Human Genetic Variation
This course may be counted towards an Anthropology, Biological Anthropology or Archaeology major.
Normally offered in the same semester as the pre-/co-requisite unit.
Attendance in the pre-/co-requisite unit plus 3-4 hours extra tutorials
Prerequisite: Concurrent enrolment in BIAN2119, or previous completion of PRAN2019 Nutrition, Disease and the Human Environment
Syllabus: This course is designed to be taken in conjunction with Nutrition, Disease and the Human Environment, and develops the theme of that course. Special attention in tutorials and written work will be given to developing a focus on a specific region or population group, and/or on the human biology of poverty, underdevelopment and marginalisation. The course is open to pass and intending honours students and the latter are especially encouraged to take it.
Proposed assessment: tutorial work (including oral presentation) and a 3,000-word essay.
Preliminary reading: see under BIAN2119.
Incompatibility: PRAN3019 Regional Topics in Nutrition, Disease and the Human Environment
This course may be counted towards an Anthropology, Biological Anthropology or Archaeology major.
Prerequisites: Any two first year courses to the value of 12 units from the Faculty of Arts or Faculty of Asian Studies.
Syllabus: The course will consider anthropological approaches to the analysis of religion and society in India. It will examine contemporary ethnographic studies of village and urban life giving particular attention to caste, gender and family relations. It will also examine the manner in which the religious ideology of the subaltern classes complements and contradicts that of the Brahmanic elite through a close examination of oral traditions and popular religious practices. Finally, students will be introduced to some to the contemporary debates about approaches to the analysis of Indian society and culture.
Proposed assessment: One essay, tutorial work and tutorial participation.
22 hours lectures, 11 hours tutorials
Prerequisites: Two first year courses to a value of 12 units in Anthropology; or Sociology; or Religious Studies.
Syllabus: What is religion? What is the place of ritual in religious practice? Does religious symbolism involve a distinctive mode of thought about the world?
Anthropologists have extensively studied the religious beliefs, rituals and symbolism of different societies; their findings present challenges to conventional understandings of religion. Further, the specificities of contemporary western cosmologies -- religious and secular -- are thrown into relief and questioned by the lives of people in circumstances very different from our own.
The course presents ethnographic data, on small- and large-scale religions, from different parts of the world within the framework of anthropological theories of religion.
This course may be counted towards an Anthropology or Religious Studies major.
22 hours lectures, 11 hours tutorials
Lecturer: Dr Guinness or Dr Lyon
Prerequisites: Any two first-year courses in the Faculty of Arts or Asian Studies or permission of the lecturer.
Syllabus: Lectures will provide a critical review of selected issues in the anthropological study of Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia is a region of rich social and cultural diversity. It is also an area of rapid social, political, and economic change. Forces of economic globalisation have had an enormous impact on the articulation of national, ethnic, and religious identities. This course will explore the impact of state and global patterns of production and consumption on indigenous patterns of social, political, religious, and economic organisation. Selected themes will be explored from year to year.
Offered each semester commencing 2002
Supervised research and project report
Lecturer: Staff supervision, to be agreed between student and staff member, with School approval
Prerequisites: 12 later-year units in Anthropology
Syllabus: Conduct of an agreed program of research, prescribed readings and final project report.
Proposed assessment: Research proposal and oral presentation of final research paper.
22 hours lectures, 11 hours tutorials
Prerequisites: Any two first year courses to the value of 12 units in Anthropology, Archaeology (ARCH or PREH) Geography, Sociology or Political Science.
Syllabus: In the course of our history, human beings have developed very varied and enormously powerful technologies which have transformed not only our relations with nature, but our relations with each other and the ways in which we have organised ourselves. The course begins with the treatment of technology in social theory, examines the analysis of socio-technical systems, and the interaction of technology, social relations and social organisation. Case studies will consider socio-technical systems in a variety of societies of different times and places, as well as the impact of major technological developments from language to the information revolution.
22 hours lectures, 11 hours tutorials
Lecturer: Subject to staff availability
Prerequisites: Two first year courses in Anthropology or permission of the lecturer.
Syllabus: Intensive study of a particular theme in anthropology, through a combination of lectures, tutorials and prescribed readings.
22 hours lectures, 11 hours tutorials
Lecturer: Subject to staff availability
Prerequisites: Two first year courses in Anthropology or permission of the lecturer.
Syllabus: Intensive study of a particular theme in anthropology, through a combination of lectures, tutorials and prescribed readings.
Normally offered in the same semester as the pre-/co-requisite unit and run by the same teacher
Attendance in the pre-/co-requisite unit plus 3-4 hours extra tutorials
Prerequisite: Concurrent enrolment in BIAN2013 Human Evolution, or previous completion of PREH2011 Human Evolution.
Syllabus: The course consists of a series of tutorials taken while ARCH2011 Human Evolution is in progress. It treats selected themes in palaeoanthropology, or other topics in the field of human evolution, in critical detail.
Proposed assessment: by practical presentations and a final 3,000-word essay.
Preliminary reading: see under BIAN2013.
Incompatibility: PREH3011 Topics in Human Evolution.
This course may be counted towards an Anthropology, Biological Anthropology or Archaeology major.
Normally offered in the same semester as the pre-/co-requisite unit and run by the same teacher
Attendance in the pre-/co-requisite course plus 3-4 hours extra tutorials
Prerequisite: Concurrent enrolment in BIAN2012 Primates, or previous completion of ANTH2011 Primates
Syllabus: The course consists of a series of tutorials taken while BIAN2012 Primates is in progress. It treats selected themes in primatology in critical detail.
Proposed assessment: by tutorial presentations and a final 3,000-word essay.
Preliminary reading: see under BIAN2012.
Incompatibility: ANTH3011 Topics in Primatology.
This course may be counted towards an Anthropology, Biological Anthropology or Archaeology major.
Honours Coordinator: Professor Merlan
Intending honours students should first read the general statement 'The degree with honours' in the introductory section of the Faculty of Arts entry and consult the honours coordinator
Completion of the Bachelor of Arts pass degree including a minimum of ten courses to the value of sixty units of anthropology are required to enter 4th year, the Anthropology to be made up as follows:
(a) Twelve units of first year, Introducing Anthropology ANTH1002 and Global and Local ANTH1003 (normally taken in sequence in the first year of study).
(b) In the second and third years, Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Social Life ANTH2053 (obligatory); Anthropology C Honours ANTH3013 (always offered in Semester Two, and normally taken in the second semester of the third year of study); and 6 other Anthropology courses (which may include LANG2015 or LING2015). The Honours Convener may be contacted for advice on choice of courses.
To enter 4th year Honours, you must normally have achieved a distinction average over later-year ANTH courses.
(c) Anthropology C Honours ANTH3013 is run as a two-hour seminar each week. This seminar will focus on epistemological issues in Anthropology.
(d) Anthropology IV: As prescribed from year to year by the Head, School of Archaeology and Anthropology.
There will be three components:
(i) Two thirteen-week seminar courses, each of two hours a week: Methods and Analysis in Anthropology, and Contemporary Issues in Anthropology.
These will run concurrently in the first semester.
(ii) A research thesis of some 12,000 words.
(iii) A thesis-writing seminar.
Convener: Dr Peter Hiscock, BA ANU PhD Qld
The program in Archaeology provides students with an understanding of all periods of the human past and an insight into the application of archaeological techniques, especially those of excavation, and the analysis of material evidence. Studying archaeology can form an interesting 'bridge' for many students across the divide between the 'two cultures' of science and the humanities. Courses in the Archaeology major are designed to give students a secure grounding in archaeological theory, methods and techniques as well as in studies of particular regions of the world. There are several courses that involve practical and field components. In these courses students learn techniques of site recording, description and mapping, and the analysis of bones and artefacts from archaeological sites.
First year archaeology courses give an introduction to archaeology and a survey of the ancient world, from the origins of humans to the emergence of civilisations. In later-year courses there is an emphasis on the archaeology of Australia and adjacent regions in the Pacific and Asia. European and Latin American archaeology are further areas of concentration at this level. Thematic later-year courses include the archaeology of culture contact, archaeological studies of gender, the organisation of ancient and modern agricultural and hunter-gatherer societies, the processes that form the archaeological record, environmental archaeology, understanding early technologies, landscape archaeology, the history of archaeology, and field and laboratory methods.
Students considering the possibility of entering careers as professional archaeologists should plan their courses with a view to taking the degree with honours. Special honours work begins in third year.
(a) First year Archaeology courses to the value of 12 units: ARCH1111 and ARCH1112; plus
(b) Later-year courses to the value of 30 units chosen from the following courses:
Analytical Methods for Anthropology and Archaeology ARCH2126 (3 units)
Ancient Israel: History, Religion and Archaeology HIST2137
Animals, Plants and People: Ethnobiology and Domestication ARCH2108