Course Descriptions

This course examines the practice of ethnography by integrating a discussion of ethnographic research methods with training in the critical reading of ethnography and skills development in writing ethnography. Specific techniques are explored, with an emphasis on qualitative approaches. The relationship of ethnographic theory and methodology is highlighted.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 111.3 or permission of instructor.
Note: Students who have credit for ANTH 430 may not take ANTH 302 for credit.

Supervised research (literature, laboratory, or field-based) course in a particular aspect of one of anthropology not offered in lecture form in this department. A detailed research program will be designed on an individual basis and will be guided by regular consultation with one or more faculty members. The student is required to consult with prospective faculty member(s) to plan a research project and make arrangements for supervision. The student may register in the course only after a detailed course syllabus has been approved by the Department Head.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 24 credit units ARCH or ANTH courses; and permission of department.
Note: This course is available for graduate credit. Students may take this course more than once for credit, provided the topic covered in each offering differs substantially. Students must consult the Department to ensure that the topics covered are different. There may be costs additional to tuition fees.

Supervised reading course in a particular aspect of anthropology not offered in lecture form in this department. A detailed reading program will be designed on an individual basis and will be guided by regular consultation with one or more faculty members. The student is required to consult with prospective faculty member(s) to plan the reading course and make arrangements for supervision. The student may register in the course only after a detailed course syllabus has been approved by the Department Head.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 24 credit units ARCH or ANTH courses; and permission of department.
Note: This course is not available for graduate credit. Students may take this course more than once for credit, provided the topic covered in each offering differs substantially. Students must consult the Department to ensure that the topics covered are different.

This seminar course explores anthropological approaches to the human experience of disaster, disruption, and dislocation. Adopting perspectives primarily from medical and environmental anthropology, the course examines social and cultural responses to natural and human-made disasters, forced resettlement, and other forms of population disruption.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units 200-level ANTH, or permission of instructor.
Note: Students who have received credit for ANTH 405.3 may not receive credit for ANTH 306.3. Also, students who have received credit for ANTH 498.3: Anthropology of Disaster and Disruption may not take this course for credit.

Introduces students to the anthropological approaches to gender, looking specifically at the gendered norms of collective behaviours and identities. The course centers on two questions: How is gender understood in different cultural contexts? What are the processes by which people learn to identify themselves as gendered and sexual citizens?

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 111.3 or WGST 112.3 or permission of instructor.

Coverage of specialized areas of anthropological and/or ethnographic analysis.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Permission of instructor is required.
Note: Students may take this course more than once for credit, provided the topic covered in each offering differs substantially. Students must consult the Department to ensure that the topics covered are different. Some sections of this course will have additional lab hours.

Critically examines various approaches to the study of religion and religious symbolism. Different ways of interpreting myth, ritual, and symbol are considered through a survey of the works of both early social scientists and contemporary scholars. The role of symbols and rituals in social communication is examined.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units of 200-level ANTH or permission of instructor.

Applications of anthropological concepts to contemporary cultural and social issues. There is a focus on anthropology as a policy science including research and non-academic practice. Applied methods and domains are emphasized, including needs and social impact assessment, program evaluation, rapid assessment, participatory-action, and advocacy. Discussion focuses on anthropological contributions to community and economic development, environmental impact and sustainability, business and industry, cultural and natural resource management, education, immigration, Indigenous issues, technology transfers, and health.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units of 200-level ANTH or permission of instructor.

Examines the variety of cultural adaptations that both large-scale and small-scale societies make to local and, increasingly, global environments. Illustrates how the principles of general ecology apply to humans in their environmental relations, while also applying ethnographic perspectives to new political manifestations of environmentalism.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units 200-level ANTH or permission of instructor.

This course illustrates how humans have been an integral and active component of earth’s ecology for many thousands of years. This history of interaction between humans and their environments has had both deleterious and positive impacts, for us and other species. By studying how humans impacted their environments in the past, we gain a better appreciation of the potential effects of our own activities and their environmental consequences. Many of the processes affecting the planet today are rooted in our past, as many of the actions we see today were produced by and had impacts upon past societies. Similarly, past societies were forced to deal with the effects of climate change, a problem with which our current society is struggling. A better understanding of how these situations arose in the past may help us to better discern general principles that continue to operate today, and thus plan toward our future.

Weekly hours: 1 Lecture hours and 2 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s):ANTH 250.3 or ANTH 251.3 or permission of the instructor
Note:Students with credit for ARCH 330 or ARCH 398 Special Topics: The Archaeology of Human Environmental Impact may not take this course for credit.

Offers a biocultural anthropological perspective on infectious diseases, epidemics, syndemics, and pandemics. The course focuses primarily on gendered and racialized experiences of infectious disease.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 111.3 or WGST 112.3 or permission of instructor.
Note: Students with credit for WGST 353.3 may not take this course for credit.

Surveys anthropological theories that relate to change, from classical ones (such as neo-evolutionism, acculturation and assimilation, innovation, and diffusion) through more contemporary approaches to urbanization, social movements and networks, development, and globalization, to complexity and emergence theories. The tensions between the capacity for people to direct their futures and the limiting of external determinants are discussed through this course.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 3 credit units 200-level ANTH or permission of instructor.

An introduction to the archaeology of the boreal forest region stretching from Quebec to the northern prairie provinces, and including southern Keewatin and adjacent southeastern Mackenzie. The archaeological cultures will be discussed in detail and the methodological and theoretical approaches to the archaeology of this region.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 250.3 or 251.3
Note: Students with credit for ARCH 350 may not receive credit for this course.

A survey of the prehistory of the Plains region of North America with emphasis on the recognition and examination of archaeological problems.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 250.3 or 251.3
Note: Students with credit for ARCH 353 may not receive credit for this course.

Examines the nature and consequences of early contacts between indigenous peoples and Europeans by utilizing the archaeological record, supplemented by ethnohistorical and historical sources. The primary focus will be North America north of Mexico with comparative case studies from interactions in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

Prerequisite(s): ANTH 250 or 251.
Note: Students with credit for ARCH 354 may not receive credit for this course.

A study of the development of complex cultures in the eastern Mediterranean and Near Eastern regions from the hunting and gathering societies of the Upper Palaeolithic period to the establishment of complex urban cultures during the Early Bronze Age, with an emphasis on the geographical areas of ancient Syria and Israel.

Weekly hours: 2 Lecture hours and 1 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): One of ANTH 244.3, ANTH 250.3 or ANTH 251.3.
Note: Students with credit for ARCH 356 may not receive credit for this course.

This course is designed to expose you to the basic elements of zooarchaeology, which is the study of faunal remains from archaeological sites. It will focus on specimen identification, quantification, taphonomy, modification, age and sex estimations, seasonality, and other contemporary techniques in this discipline. You will be exposed to a wide variety of animal taxa from large and small-bodied ungulates, to carnivores, fishes, and birds. The presentation of course material is based on lectures, laboratory activities, and discussions of methods, approaches, and case studies. A heavy emphasis is placed on learning through hands-on experience and developing practical skills in working with large faunal assemblages. Please note that this is NOT a course in comparative vertebrate or invertebrate anatomy, nor this is a course in human or non-human mammalian anatomy.

Prerequisite(s): ANTH 250.3 or ARCH 250.3.
Note: Students with credit for ARCH 458 or ANTH 457 may not take this course for credit. This course was formerly half of ARCH 458.6. There will be costs in addition to tuition fees.

This course is designed as an introduction to the archaeology of the Northwest Coast and Plateau culture areas of North America, which stretches from coastal Alaska to northern California. This will include the pivotal role this region played in the peopling of the New World and the rise of social complexity in hunter-fisher-gatherer societies. It will question the concept of complexity, and how the term has shaped research in the region. It covers from Time Immemorial and the First Peopling into the Colonial Period. It contextualizes the role archaeologists have in re-interpreting the past and how Reconciliation affects our work.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 250.3 or ANTH 251.3
Note: Students with credit for ARCH 359 or ARCH 398.3 Archaeology of the North West Coast and Plateau may not take this course for credit.

This course provides a theoretical and methodological introduction to the management and conservation of archaeological sites and materials. We will examine the various facets of cultural resource management on international, national and provincial levels with detailed examination of regulations, procedures, realities and weaknesses of what is essentially applied archaeology in western Canada. Important developments within CRM including increasing involvement of First Nations and the Duty to Consult; concerns regarding sacred objects, sites, and landscapes; human remains; professional ethics; conservation of sites and curation of collections and other topics will be addressed.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 250.3 or ANTH 251.3.
Note: Students with credit for ARCH 360 may not receive credit for this course.

Six weeks of field experience in archaeological research techniques including site survey, excavation, and laboratory analysis. The field location will depend on areas of departmental projects. Offered only in Spring and Summer Session.

Weekly hours: 60 Practicum/Lab hours
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 250.3 or 251.3
Note: There will be costs in addition to tuition fees. Students with credit for ANTH 261.3 may not take this course for credit.
Note: Students with credit for ARCH 361 may not receive credit for this course.

In this study abroad course, students will travel to Turin, Italy, to learn about museology and Egyptian material culture, working primarily at the Museo Egizio (Egyptian Museum). Students will gain hands-on experience working with ancient objects, databases, and learning from museum professionals. They will receive lectures and demonstrations from many experts, learning not only about objects and display choices, but also about the different professions connected to the museum in order to consider diverse career opportunities. Field trips to other museums, cultural heritage sites, archaeological sites, and conservation laboratories provide further opportunities to understand the many different means of communicating space and object histories to diverse audiences, and ways to participate in the museum field. Throughout these different approaches, students will be asked to consider the ethics of collecting and displaying objects and human remains, particularly taking into consideration a European, colonial viewpoint.

Prerequisite(s): 30 credit units of university coursework including at least 6 credit units of ARCH/ANTH, CMRS, or HIST courses; or by permission of the instructor.
Note: Costs in addition to tuition will apply to this course. Please contact the department for details.

A comprehensive investigation of the human skeleton. Primary emphasis involves preparing students for archaeological fieldwork and advanced research in biological anthropology.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours and 3 Practicum/Lab hours
Prerequisite(s): 48 credit units of university courses including ANTH 270.3 or ARCH 270.3.
Note: Students with credit for ARCH 470 may not receive credit for this course. There will be costs in addition to tuition fees.

Explores the interaction between archaeological theory, excavation methods, and modes of analysis, and various computer applications, such as databases, computer assisted mapping and drawing programs, and geographic information systems utilized in archaeological research.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours and 1 Practicum/Lab hours
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 250.3 or ARCH 250.3; and ANTH 251.3 or ARCH 251.3; and an additional 6 credit units of Archaeology or Anthropology at the 200/300 level or permission of the department.
Note: Students with credit for ARCH 385 may not receive credit for this course.

This course takes an anthropological life course approach to examine cultural and historical dynamics of birth, sex, and death cross-culturally. These three universal facts of human life are experienced, valued, and undertaken in in vastly different ways across cultural contexts and throughout time. Major topics include fertility, political and cultural determinants of birth and infant survival, emergent sexualities, sexual citizenships, sexual agency, aging, documenting death, and funerary rites.

Weekly hours: 2 Lecture hours and 1 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): ANTH 111.3; and 30 credit units of university-level courses or permission of the instructor.
Note: Students who have taken ANTH 311: Selected Topics - Birth and Sex and Death may not take this course for credit.

Offered occasionally by visiting faculty and in other special situations to cover, in depth, topics that are not thoroughly covered in regularly offered courses.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours

Offered occasionally by visiting faculty and in other special situations to cover, in depth, topics that are not thoroughly covered in regularly offered courses.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours