Courses Offered

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)

• Required for all Anthropology 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 aims to help you identify and strengthen your marketable skills and learn to present yourself effectively to prospective employers both within and outside of academia. These skills include time management, oral communication, grant writing, teaching, leadership, research, project management, editing, interpersonal skills, and an appreciation of ethical and civic responsibility. As a group, we will decide which ones to focus on developing this term. The course emphasizes peer and participatory learning and includes a series of collaborative and individual exercises that will not only serve to enrich your skills, but also provide you with concrete experiences to add to your CV.

Open to students in all fields of Anthropology

Zombies are good to think with. As one of the most popular monsters in film, they speak to us about our own desires and fears. This course locates the contemporary figure of the zombie in cultural and historical perspective, with specific focus on the zombie in Haitian and American cultures. We will use a seemingly simple trope — the figure of the zombie — to explore the deep layers of history that have shaped the Atlantic world. The primary focus will be on the meaning of the zombie in Haitian culture, in relation to the experience of the transatlantic slave trade and the Haitian revolution (the only successful slave revolution in modern history). We will then look at how the zombie migrated to American popular culture during the US military occupation of Haiti from 1915–1934. During this period, the American use of the zombie has much to tell us about race and gender relations amid US imperialism. The course will then explore how the figure of the zombie took on new meaning in American cinema, in light of the tensions around race, gender, and class in US society. The contrast between the zombie in Haiti (a figure that should be saved by “raising” its consciousness) and the zombie in the United States (a dead body that consumes endlessly until it is killed again) will be used as the basis of a broader comparison between two very different but related experiences of modernity and capitalism within the broader Atlantic world.

(Cross-listed with Anthro 3355F)

This is a course about intersections. Disability cuts across age, gender, class, caste, occupation, religion- or does it? By some measures, people with disabilities are the largest minority group in the world today. In this course, we critically examine both the experiences of people with experiences with disability or chronic health conditions as well as the politics and processes of writing about such experiences through an anthropological lens. Indeed, questions of representation are perhaps at the core of this course. Is there such a thing as an international or universal disability experience? What does it mean to be disabled or have a chronic health condition in different social, economic, and political contexts in today’s world.

• Required for all Anthropology students

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.

This course takes a cross-cultural and deep temporal perspective on how different societies have dealt with the loss of one or more of their members. Mortuary archaeology draws on many different threads in Anthropology, including ethnography, cultural theory, bioarchaeology, archaeological theory, forensic analysis to name only a few. It also reaches beyond the bounds of Anthropology to draw on research in Sociology, Biology and other disciplines to take a truly interdisciplinary approach to how societies deal with death.

(Cross-listed with Anthropology 4426G)

Material culture encompasses the relationships between people and their material world (e.g., objects, landscapes, written records, architecture). This course offers a hands-on approach to the archaeological theorization, identification, recordation, and analysis of material culture of the 19th and 20th centuries. Students will work with real collections to complete term projects. We will begin by exploring conceptual frameworks for thinking through artifacts, built landscapes, and archives. What are materials and how do they shape our lives, and vice versa? How do people mobilize things to create meaning, make places, negotiate identities, remember and forget, or simply go about their daily lives – and how do archaeologists make sense of the material remains of these processes decades or centuries later? With this theoretical foundation, we will examine diagnostic and methodological approaches to historical material culture. Students will learn to identify, catalog, analyze, conserve, and curate historic materials including glass, ceramic, and metal, as well as practice methods like photogrammetry for recording objects and buildings. Partnering with local organizations like TMHC Inc and the Museum of Ontario Archaeology, students will work with real historic collections from Ontario to complete term projects, which include a public-facing exhibit design and a research essay/material culture analysis. 

(Cross-listed with Anthro 4418G)

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)

This course examines linkages between linguistic practices and relations of power, drawing primarily on tools and methodologies of Linguistic Anthropology and Discourse Analysis. Topics such as racism, disability, migration will be addressed.