Browse our current semester course offerings.
Reg. #23033
Tuesday, 3:30-6;10pm
261 Academic Center (Paley Library)
Dr. Ana Mariella Bacigalupo
This course will provide students with hands-on training in qualitative, ethnographic methods of research. Students will learn field techniques such as participant observation, interviewing, documentation, and use of media. Students will also learn how to design a research project, write a research proposal, and apply to the human subjects review board for project approval. The course will address research ethics, interpretation and representation of data, and the use of effective writing techniques. It will provide a critical evaluation of the nature of ethnographic research, including the rethinking of site, voice, and ethnographic authority. Students’ final projects can either be an ethnographic interview, an exercise in participant observation, or a research proposal in preparation for an MA or PhD project.
Reg. #123034
Mnday, 12:00-2:40p
261 Academic Center (Paley Library)
Dr. Frederick Klaits
Kinship contributes to the integration of social relations, face-to-face and sight unseen, in deep time and in the present. Yet kin relations may also be fraught with violence, ranging from sacrifice to murder; some would argue that kinship and racism are simply different dimensions of the same phenomenon.
We will focus on the social processes of kinship, gender and sexuality through which people define, create, extend, limit, sever or transform their relatedness with others within and over generations in a range of political-economic contexts. We will explore:
Reg. #23035
Thursday, 4:00-6:40pm
261 Academic Center (Paley Library)
Dr. Lacey Carpenter
Houses and the people we share them with play an integral part of our daily lives, shaping human relationships and identities. The majority of ancient populations lived their lives and performed their daily activities in and around their houses. Household archaeology is the study of the physical house or dwelling as well as individuals, families, and the activities with which people support themselves. This course will outline the ways that archaeologists collect data from houses to better understand the ways families share responsibilities, express ideological beliefs and identity, and produce the necessities of daily life. We will explore a variety of case studies from different regions and time periods. This class presents a critical framework for understanding how houses and daily life are integral to our understanding of human society.
Reg. #17384
Arranged
Dr. Erin Chapman
Primate specialization and taxonomy, fossil history, anatomy and behavior in the primate order, odontology and human origins. Lecture course with some laboratory work.
Course Note:
Students must attend Monday afternoon lecture (12:00-2:40pm, Clemens 322) and one lab section (Wednesday 12:00-3:20 or Friday 12:00-3:20). Please contact instructor Dr. Erin Chapman at ec45@buffalo.edu for more information.
Reg. #23031
Tuesday/Thursday, 2:00-3:20p
354 Academic Center
Dr. Lacey Carpenter
Today, over half the world's population lives in cities, and that number is predicted to grow in the coming years. Cities have independent origins in many different cultural, social, economic, political, and environmental contexts. In this course, we will compare archaeological case studies from around the world to better understand the range of ways that people have built, maintained, and lived in urban environments throughout human history. We will also discuss how the archaeological study of cities from different cultural contexts can contribute to our understanding of cities today including topics such as sustainability, migration, and housing.
Reg. #20524
Thursday, 9:30a-12:10p
261 Academic Center (Paley Library)
Dr. Timothy Chevral
This seminar introduces the critical theoretical issues that are central to Anglo-American archaeology. Using current and classic texts, we will spend the first few meetings developing an understanding of archaeology as a discipline; the various ways practitioners have perceived themselves over time and the historical development of archaeological theory, highlighting significant changes in the direction and nature of archaeological research during the 20th century. Next, we will look at the traditional theoretical approaches that seek to explain culture change, including neoevolutionary, functionalist and ecological approaches, neo-Marxist/materialist perspectives, and multivariate processual theories. After this, we will examine contemporary theories that have roots in various disciplines, involving not only “cultural change” but cultural reproduction and transformations. These include neo-idealist, interpretive and neo-historical/contextual approaches; cognitive approaches, Post-Structuralist ideas like practice, agency, and phenomenology and postcolonial theories of identity.
Throughout this course we will consider the relationship between archaeology and anthropology as well as to the social sciences and humanities in general. We will focus attention on how these perspectives can be combined eclectically to study the complex issues surrounding the interpretation of the human past. While we will examine what some perceive as pernicious conflicts within the discipline, instead of subscribing to these rigid arguments we will try to discover rapprochement between older and newer types of theory.
Reg. #21723
Wednesday, 3:30-6:10p
354 Academic Center
Dr. Stephen Lycett
Humans pass on and receive information, consciously and unconsciously, via social interactions. Some of this information manifests itself in the form of cultural traditions; for example, artifacts spread over time and space or the languages we speak. Using a framework of social transmission theory, many anthropologists have increasingly turned to evolutionary theory and methodology to study cultural traditions in material artifacts, language, or other products of cultural transmission processes.
This course enables students to explore the main theoretical and methodological aspects of using social transmission theory and cultural evolutionary principles to address human behavioral patterns. Case studies will be presented, which will highlight the broad range of data to which such approaches may be applied. We will consider a range of case studies from a diversity of chronological periods and geographic settings 9including contemporary settings). You will also critically consider the concept of "culture," its presence (or otherwise) in animals other than humans, and what this may mean for the study of cultural phenomena. Students will come to see how contemporary applications of this approach differ from previous (and other theoretically erroneous) applications of evolutionary principles to the study of human behavior, which negatively taint evolutionary approaches to humanity to this day.
The course will also help to dispel common misconceptions regarding the use of evolutionary theory to study culture, but be sensitively astute as to the reasons why these issues arise. By the end of the course, students will have an understanding of both the theoretical and practical (methodological) tools involved in this type of work, and be able to conceive of how to apply them to their own work, across carious aspects of anthropological research.
Reg. #23036
Monday, 9:00-11:40a
261 Academic Center (Paley Library)
Dr. Vasiliki Neofotistos
The past several decades have witnessed a massive increase in the generation of norms and laws by global legal institutions, such as the World Bank and the United Nations. Within the context of a rapidly evolving global order, the state often reasserts its authority through renewed legal and extra-legal might, as evinced in expanding regimes of surveillance, control, and punishment. At the same time, we bear witness to what some scholars have termed ¿juridification,¿ the phenomenon whereby people around the world mobilize law for their particular struggles and as a form of protest against the state. This course highlights the intersections between anthropology and law, and investigates the role law plays in the practice of everyday life in various social, political, and economic contexts, in the post-Cold War period.
Reg. #15741
Thursday, 1:00-3:40p
261 Academic Center (Paley Library)
Dr. Meghana Joshi
This graduate seminar examines current theoretical issues in social and cultural anthropology, with a focus on the relationship between ethnography and theory. The overall objective of this course is to provide students with a firm grounding in significant issues and trends in sociocultural anthropology. The course covers the period from the 1990s to the present. Students will gain experience in reading theoretically-informed ethnography and in writing about anthropological theory and practice.
Reg. #23037
Wednesday, 12:30-3:10p
261 Academic Center (Paley Library)
Dr. Douglas Perrelli
Students in this course will learn to use advanced archaeological techniques and methods to produce cultural resource management (CRM) reports in compliance with current New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (OPRHP) standards. Other aspects of compliance-based archaeological research and contracting will be addressed including, local project types, proposal preparation, budgeting, research design, significance assessment and National Register eligibility criteria.
An array of field and lab techniques will be employed in the production of a report that meets or exceeds OPRHP standards. Techniques and methods may include historic map and documentary research, field survey and mapping, site testing and excavation and artifact processing and analysis. Additional discussion topics will include legislative compliance, ethics, interactions between archaeologists and Native American groups, state and federal agencies, and the local community. Case studies from western New York will be used to illustrate common problems and the potential for CRM archaeology to contribute to local and regional archaeological research and public outreach and education.