Regular attendance at four terms of the Graduate Research & Development Sessions (GRaDS) is a requirement of our programs. It will appear as a completed milestone on your transcript.

• Full-time MA and PhD students are expected to enroll in and attend this seminar for a total of four terms during their programs. Part-time students are only required to enroll for two terms (in recognition of their other commitments and time constraints). The GRaDS are scheduled on Friday afternoons to facilitate attendance in terms when students are taking the two required graduate courses (Anthro 9100 and 9101/9102) which are offered on Friday mornings.  We ask part-time students to attend as many additional sessions of the Research Seminar as feasible, in addition to their two terms of formal enrolment.
• Once they have research results, all graduate students must make a research presentation to their peers in the GRaDS. This normally occurs in the second half of their programs–year 2 for full-time MA students, year 3 or 4 for part-time MA students and full-time PhD students.
• Formal meetings of GRaDS occur approximately six times each term (roughly every other week). On alternate weeks there may be other kinds of presentations in this time slot, such as workshops on specific issues or guest speakers.  While attendance is not required at those optional sessions, we encourage students to take part.

• Four terms attendance required for all full-time students (two terms for part time students)

This course introduces students to the significance and uses of theory in anthropological thinking and practice today. Instead of attempting a comprehensive overview of the history and/or current state of anthropological theory, we will focus on selected readings related to several broad themes of common interest in an attempt to illustrate theory’s place in anthropological thinking and practice. As the course progresses, students will be encouraged to look beyond assigned readings and begin amassing eclectic reading lists that fit best with their own research interests and proposals in development. These reading lists will ultimately inform students’ final papers.

This course involves the in-depth study of human skeletal and dental remains. Human skeletal biology, or osteology, is essential for research in biological or forensic anthropology. This course will cover several topics including bone and tooth biology and histology, skeletal and dental growth and development, metrics and non-metric traits, estimation of core osteobiographical characteristics such as age-at-death, sex, and stature, data collection techniques and written reporting, taphonomy, and paleopathology, and ethical considerations. At the completion of this course students will be expected to have mastered techniques for conducting, interpreting, and reporting upon human osteological analyses.

(Cross-listed with Anthro 4428F)

Humans have been indirectly and directly biohacking our bodies and minds for millennia. We are all, as Donna Haraway writes, "chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism: in short, we are all cyborgs." This course considers the evidence for human 'self-engineering' throughout human evolution, the archaeological record, and today. Throughout the course, we will incorporate broad comparative perspectives on cultural influences on human anatomy, physiology, genetics, and the history, ethical, and social context of human self-modification. The course begins by considering cybernetics, cyborgs and the evolutionary and archaeological evidence for human and self-domestication. We then consider historic attempts to engineer our species, such as Eugenics and Social Darwinism, and the social context of technology, including cyborg dystopias and techno-optimism. Within this framework, we then consider how changes in technology throughout the 20th century have influenced human social dynamics, bodies and minds, and how they reflect societal perspectives on the future of our species. Themes in the latter half of the course include the 'ascent of information', the rise of biomedicine and chemical biohacking, genetic modification and synthetic biology, replacement organs and body parts, nanomedicine, neural hacking and 'cyborg minds', artificial intelligence, aging and immortality, and the future of human-technology interactions, such as techno symbiosis or the 'singularity'.

 (Cross-listed with Anthro 3379F)

We are standing on the shoulders of giants – some of anthropology’s most brilliant minds have grappled with how to understand social organization. In this course we will explore the history of some important anthropological theories about social organization, analyzing how anthropological concepts and categories have been constructed and reconstructed over time. We will do so by examining the work and lives of some foundational figures in anthropology from the late-19th to mid-20th centuries. We will read examples of their original (primary) work, in order to understand how particular kinds of anthropological questions or perspectives emerged out of the intersection of specific life circumstances and interests, intellectual networks and formation of schools of thought, and particular ethnographic circumstances in specific political and historical contexts. The intention is not to try to cover all major figures – many are left out! – but rather to turn an anthropological eye on anthropology itself, exploring both a series of anthropological concepts and the social processes through which anthropological perspectives are actively produced.

Some of the questions that guide this course are: How do the scholars studied understand what constitutes “society,” and how it relates to “culture”? How do they conceptualize the causes of social or cultural patterning? What are the implicit or explicit boundaries of their units of study? And ultimately, what do they consider to be the proper scope of anthropology?

(Cross-listed with Anthro 3350F)

This course offers an introduction to a range of issues related to the practice of anthropological research. Among the topics we will address through readings, presentations, and discussions are research design, ethics, and the advantages and limitations of different approaches to data collection, analysis, and presentation of results. Assignments will require students to conduct an original research project.

(Cross-listed with Anthro 3395G)

(Cross-listed with Anthro 3311G)

(Cross-listed with Anthro 3260G)

Anthropologists are trained with a unique set of knowledge and research skills that can be applied to urgent issues facing people and communities around the world. This course will examine the ethics, theories, and methods of applied anthropology and the range of topics and issues that anthropologists can address. 

(Cross-listed with Anthro 3372G)