Courses Offered

Regular attendance at four terms of the Graduate Research Seminar 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 Graduate Research Seminar is scheduled on Friday afternoons to facilitate attendance in terms when students are taking the two required graduate courses (Anthro 9100A and 9101B/9102B) 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 Research Seminar. 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 the Research Seminar 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 students in all streams
  

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.

• Required for Intensive Applied Archaeology students
  

The Directed Research and Writing courses are intended to focus students on their thesis topic, and allow them to generate content for their thesis as part of the course requirement. These courses will be taught by the student's supervisor or by an instructor if the cohort in a given year is large enough. Regular meetings and blocks of time for writing are part of the course content. Successful completion of these courses is determined through a pass/fail evaluation.

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

Both heritage and landscape hold interconnected, deeply meaningful, and often conflicting meanings for communities. How do we approach contested sites and stories as anthropologists? In this course, we will consider theoretical, interdisciplinary, and community-based approaches to contested landscapes, as well as the ethics of working at sites of heritage and memory.

Open to students in all fields of Anthropology.

This course will provide students with a foundation to think critically about occupying and decolonizing health and disability and to use an anthropological lens to provide students with skills to critically evaluate health- occupation- and disability-related experiences both locally and globally.

Cross-listed with Anthro 3345F - 200.

In this course we will read a variety of ethnographies to understand how language is employed. The goal will be to see: 1) how language is used effectively in ethnographic research and writing; 2) what role language-based data has; 3) how research about language is presented.

Cross-listed with Anthro 4413F. 

• Required for all Archaeology/Biological Anthropology and Applied Archaeology 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.

• Required for all Sociocultural and Linguistic Anthropology students
  

This course offers an introduction to a range of issues related to the practice of anthropological and ethnographic research. Among the topics we will be addressing 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 in teams.

• Required for Intensive Applied Archaeology students

The Directed Research and Writing courses are intended to focus students on their thesis topic, and allow them to generate content for their thesis as part of the course requirement. These courses will be taught by the student's supervisor or by an instructor if the cohort in a given year is large enough. Regular meetings and blocks of time for writing are part of the course content. Successful completion of these courses is determined through a pass/fail evaluation.

This course takes a cross-cultural and deep temporal perspective on how different societies have dealt with the loss of one 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

Humans have been indirectly and directly biohacking ourselves for millennia. This course considers the evidence for human ‘self-engineering’ throughout human evolution, the archaeological record, and today, focusing on broad comparative perspectives on cultural influences on human anatomy, physiology, genetics, and the history, ethical, and social context of conscious human self-modification.

Cross-listed with Anthro 3379G.

Discourse analysis provides empirical grounding for explanations and interpretations of culture, society and social behaviour. Attention to discourse (language in use as talk or text) reveals the diversity of perspectives within cultural and social groups, reminding us to be critical of generalizations we make, while deepening our understanding of issues. In this course, we will explore how discourse is shaped by many things including the world as we know it, the structures of language itself, socio-political relations, prior discourses, the limitations and possibilities of the medium, and various interactional goals. Examples of discourse features include: discourse markers, slang, stance, style, framing, register, genre, language choice, and reported speech.

In this course we will use anthropology as a lens to analyze, evaluate and interpret embodiment and bodymind. In the style of an emerging topics course -- weekly readings will be designed to reflect the particular interests of course participants. Possible topics might include: Surveillance and management of bodies in life and death (prisons, hospitals and graveyards etc.); Sex, Gender, and Sexuality; Pregnancy; Performance/Athleticism; Race; Disability; Food Access (choices, barriers); Obesity vs. Fat Pride; Body modification (tattoos, adornment, orthotics, prostheses, assistive technologies), and more. This is a course that welcomes the exploration of borders and boundaries of embodiment as emerging within students' own diverse research interests.  

The course will be hybrid synchronous and asynchronous. Students will take turns as discussion leaders (both synchronous and asynchronous components), assignments will include weekly reflections and responses to each others' reflections (OWL discussion Forum), one essay and either another essay or an alternative format assignment.

Cross-listed with Anthro 3356G.

State borders, especially in North America and Europe are increasingly barring entry for many people considered undesirables, and for the relatively few who succeed in entering, asylum and citizenship are treated as a privilege not a right. Ironically, the same borders controlling human mobility have become more permeable for commodities and military interventions overseas, the latter in disregard of the principle of state sovereignty established as early as 1648 AD. Spaces such as airports, borders and harbors are today decked with cameras, detectors, and various kinds of mechanisms to restrain and deter, much of it under the banner of the “war on terror”. National “security” and a culture of fear became blanket pretexts to deport or detain individuals without due process, to change laws at the expense of civil liberties, and to render entry or citizenship much harder for people fleeing conflicts, persecution, or natural disasters. The course involves a critical examination of this changing world by examining some of the literature on refugees and forced migration. Although the course will be slightly modified to respond to students’ areas of research and interests, it will include core readings on the topics we cover. We will read and discuss articles that deal with the global context, and the shifts that led to the rise and erosion of refugee rights, and by implication rights to citizenship. We will discuss borders and perilous sea journeys, "illegal migrants", gender issues, indigenous displacements, camps, and refugee children and youth. 

Eligible for credit towards the MER Collaborative Graduate Program.