Anthropology

This course situates migration within broader social and economic contexts. To understand human mobility, it conceives migration as an intrinsic part of wider processes of economic and social change, rather than as a “problem to be solved”. Drawing on empirical and theoretical work, it demonstrates the contradictions and continuities in how migration has been understood in social science scholarship and explores how migration affects key areas of the economy and society, including implications from a public health perspective. By examining historical and contemporary examples, the course shows how migration patterns evolve in response to shifting economic demands, political decisions and social transformations.

This introductory course fosters an evolutionary understanding of the human body, thought, emotion, behavior, society, and culture, and it is offered as a basic class open to students from any academic background.  

“Evolution” is the key concept for scientifically investigating the characteristic patterns of human thought, emotion, and behavior, as well as sociocultural phenomena. 
Drawing on intriguing findings from anthropology, cognitive neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, and behavioral ecology, we address a wide range of issues in individual lives and sociocultural contexts from an evolutionary perspective. 

Topics include Evolutionary inquiries for humans, Foundations of evolutionary theory, Overview of human evolutionary history, Evolutionary approaches to mind and behavior, Sex and mating, Family and kinship, Group life and sociality, Culture and religion.

This course examines the diverse roles Aboriginal women have played in Indigenous and Settler societies and investigates historical and contemporary issues and the activism and leadership that Aboriginal women have undertaken. It covers activism and leadership, agency, and power from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous standpoints. It looks at Aboriginal women in contemporary times as well as from early colonial days and on the missions, Aboriginal women feminism and the making of a nation, Aboriginal women’s literature and roles in higher education, Indigenous women in sport, social and emotional wellbeing, as well as Aboriginal women and criminal justice.

Stonehenge is the world's most famous stone circle, dating from the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. An iconic symbol of mystery and counter-culture, it has attracted attention from enthusiasts around the world who have come up with myriad and often bizarre interpretations of who built it, how and why. This course explores Stonehenge and other monumental constructions within their social, cultural, and landscape context, allowing Stonehenge to be understood within the world of prehistoric Britain and Europe from the adoption of farming to the development of copper and bronze metallurgy. The course examines the history of archaeological research on Stonehenge, and the nature of social change from the Neolithic to the Bell Beaker period and the Early Bronze Age. With many recent investigations of Stonehenge and its wider context producing a wealth of new evidence, this course brings students up to date on our knowledge of this fascinating period in prehistory.

This course provides an examination of the cultural frameworks and social aspects of gender roles, personhood, human sexuality, and kinship systems, analyzed through ethnographic examples from a diverse range of settings. It equips students with the analytical tools to engage in theoretical debates concerning core concepts such as gender, sexuality, kinship, marriage, and the relationship between nature and culture, as well as exploring how the experiences of gender, sexuality, and kinship vary according to the regimes of politics, law, and materiality in which they are embedded. 

This course examines the role of knowledge and technical skill in human society. It looks at the concepts of technology and science; knowledge and worldviews; scientific culture, and technological culture and knowledge. The course covers the following topics: social, axiological and epistemic problems of science, technology, and technoscience from an information society to a knowledge society, as well as reflections and challenges for Mexico and Latin America.

This course explores specialized areas of contemporary anthropology, including the anthropology of health, illness, and misfortune; social worlds in transition; and the anthropology of everyday life. Through selected ethnographic case studies, it engages with key theories, concepts, and methodologies used to analyze contemporary social experience.

This course explores the origins of the modern museum and trace the development of the Oxford collections as a paradigm for the assembly of a material analog for every kind of historic and scientific record. It considers the museum as an instrument for the promotion of national and racial ideologies and asks how we can constructively confront a past that has often embodied ideas that are deeply at odds with 21st century sensibilities. Most importantly, classes will be taught among the peerless collections of the Ashmolean. Students will handle and examine objects ranging from Palaeolithic hand axes to 19th century silver and from neo-Assyrian sculpture to Renaissance drawings by Michelangelo and Raphael, considering fundamental questions of sources, research, and what it is truly possible to know.

The course explores a range of representational practices, their relationship to power, and their contemporary legacy. It offers an introduction to key debates about the visual aspects of power and how postcolonial theory can illuminate these dynamics. Combining empirical ethnographic case studies with theories from anthropology, postcolonial and subaltern studies, as well as philosophy and visual culture studies, the course extends the discussion beyond colonialism's original geographic boundaries to address hierarchy, desire, agency, and imagination in asymmetrical political contexts. 

This course examines the composition of the cultural heritage of Mexico drawing from the material characteristics of the objects and sites to distinguish between tangible heritage and cultural practices that permit the identification of intangible heritage.