Anthropology

An introduction to Biological Anthropology and Archaeology. Concentrates on the origins and evolution of human life, including both biological and archaeological aspects, from the ancient past to the present.
Science credit

How does an anthropological perspective enable us to understand cultural difference in an interconnected world? In this course, students will learn about the key concepts of culture, society, and language. Drawing upon illustrations of family, economic, political, and religious systems from a variety of the world's cultures, this course will introduce students to the anthropological approach to studying and understanding human ways of life.

This course examines human-environmental relations from an anthropological perspective. Throughout the semester, we explore how peoples from different parts of the globe situate themselves within culturally constructed landscapes. Topics covered include ethnoecology, conservation, green consumerism, the concept of 'wilderness', and what happens when competing and differentially empowered views of the non-human world collide.

An overview of the range and diversity of African social institutions, religious beliefs and ritual, kinship, political and economic organization, pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial experience.
Same as AFSB05H3
Area course

How is culture represented through visual media, from ethnographic and documentary film, to feature films, television, and new media? How do various communities re-vision themselves through mass, independent, or new media? This course investigates media and its role in the contemporary world from a socio-cultural anthropological perspective.

This course surveys humanity's origin. The synthetic theory of evolution, its principles, processes, evidence and application underlie this course. Lecture topics and laboratory projects include: evolutionary theory, human variation, human adaptability, primate biology, and behaviour, taxonomy and classification, paleontological principles and human origins.
Science credit

Basic to the course is an understanding of the synthetic theory of evolution and the principles, processes, evidence and application of the theory. Laboratory projects acquaint the student with the methods and materials utilized Biological Anthropology. Specific topics include: the development of evolutionary theory, the biological basis for human variation, the evolutionary forces, human adaptability and health and disease.
Science credit
Same as HLTB20H3

This course explores the creation or invention of a Canadian national identity in literature, myth and symbolism, mass media, and political culture. Ethnographic accounts that consider First Nations, regional, and immigrant identities are used to complicate the dominant story of national unity.
Area course

This course addresses Latin American systems of inequality in relation to national and transnational political economy, from colonialism to neoliberalism; how ideas of race, culture, and nation intersect with development thinking and modernization agendas; and how the poor and marginalized have accommodated, resisted, and transformed cultural and political domination.
Area course

This course introduces students to the theory and practice of ethnography, the intensive study of people's lives as shaped by social relations, cultural beliefs, and historical forces. Various topics, including religion, economics, politics, and kinship introduce students to key anthropological concepts and theoretical developments in the field.

How has the global flow of goods, persons, technologies, and capital reproduced forms of inequality? Using ethnography and other media, students examine globalization through topics like migration, race and citizenship, environmental degradation, and increasing violence while also discussing older anthropological concerns (e.g., kinship, religious practices, and authority). This course enhances students’ understanding of ethnography, as a method for studying how actors engage and rework the global forces shaping their lives.

This course will provide students with a general introduction to the behaviour and ecology of non-human primates (prosimians, Old and New World monkeys, and apes), with a particular emphasis on social behaviour. The course will consist of lectures reinforced by course readings; topics covered will include dominance, affiliation, social and mating systems, communication, and reproduction.
Science credit

What makes the Middle East and North Africa unique as a world region? This course considers the enduring impact of the past colonial encounter with the North Atlantic, as well as religious movements, nationalist histories, the impact of new communication technologies, and regional conflicts. Examples are drawn from a variety of contexts.

Around the world, youth is understood as the liminal phase in our lives. This course examines how language and new media technologies mark the lives of youth today. We consider social media, smartphones, images, romance, youth activism and the question of technological determinism. Examples are drawn from a variety of contexts.
Same as MDSB09H3

A cultural and comparative study of apocalyptic thought, practice, and representation around the world. It explores the conditions that inspire end times thinking and the uses it serves. Cases may include: millenarian movements, Revelation, colonialism, epidemics, infertility, deindustrialization, dystopian science fiction, nuclear war, climate change, and zombies.

This course examines the social significance of food and foodways from the perspective of cultural anthropology. We explore how the global production, distribution, and consumption of food, shapes or reveals, social identities, political processes, and cultural relations. Lectures are supplemented by hands-on tutorials in the Culinaria Kitchen Laboratory.

Introduces the cultures and peoples of the Pacific. Examines the ethnography of the region, and the unique contributions that Pacific scholarship has made to the development of anthropological theory. Explores how practices of exchange, ritual, notions of gender, death and images of the body serve as the basis of social organization.
Area course

A comparison of pilgrimage in different religious traditions, including Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu and those of indigenous communities (such as the Huichol of Mexico) will introduce students to the anthropology of religion. We will consider the aspirations and experiences of various pilgrims, while being mindful of cultural similarities and differences.

This course introduces students to the methods, theories, and practices used in Archaeology. Building on the course material presented in ANTA01H3, there will be a focus on important themes in Archaeology as a subfield of Anthropology, including: artefact analysis, dating methods, theories of the origins of social development/complexity, and careers in archaeology today. This course will include lectures and complimentary readings that will expose students to the important ideas within the field. There will also be an experiential component in the form of four hands-on workshops where students will get to interact with artefacts and gain experience using some of the methods discussed in class. There will be an extra workshop for students to get help with their essay outline.

A directed exploration of specific topics in Anthropology, based on extensive investigation of the literature.
These courses are available in exceptional circumstances and do not duplicate regular course offerings. Students are advised that they must obtain consent from the supervising instructor before registering. Individual tutorials, as arranged. A minimum B plus average is normally required to be considered for these courses. May be science credit or area course depending on topic.

A directed exploration of specific topics in Anthropology, based on extensive investigation of the literature.
These courses are available in exceptional circumstances and do not duplicate regular course offerings. Students are advised that they must obtain consent from the supervising instructor before registering. Individual tutorials, as arranged. A minimum B plus average is normally required to be considered for these courses. May be science credit or area course depending on topic.

This course explores the intersection of the social and the material by examining the role of objects in making worlds. We examine the relationship between people, culture, and 'things' through topics such as commodification and consumption, collecting and representation, technology and innovation, art and artifact, and the social life of things. 

This course explores Anthropological approaches to kinship and family arrangements. In addition to examining the range of forms that family arrangements can take cross-culturally, we also examine how kinship configurations have changed within our own society in recent years. Topics to be covered include trans-national adoption, "mail-order-brides", new reproductive technologies and internet dating.

A critical probe of the origins, concepts, and practices of regional and international development in cultural perspective. Attention is paid to how forces of global capitalism intersect with local systems of knowledge and practice.

This course surveys central issues in the ethnographic study of contemporary South Asia (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka). Students will engage with classical and recent ethnographies to critically examine key thematic fault lines within national imaginations, especially along the lines of religion, caste, gender, ethnicity, and language. Not only does the course demonstrate how these fault lines continually shape the nature of nationalism, state institutions, development, social movements, violence, and militarism across the colonial and post-colonial periods but also, demonstrates how anthropological knowledge and ethnography provide us with a critical lens for exploring the most pressing issues facing South Asia in the world today.

Same as GASC12H3

Examines why, when, and how gender inequality became an anthropological concern by tracing the development of feminist thought in a comparative ethnographic framework.

Complements and extends ANTC14H3 by exploring cultural constructions of male and female in a range of societies and institutions.

The study of human origins in light of recent approaches surrounding human evolution. This course will examine some of these, particularly the process of speciation, with specific reference to the emergence of Homo. Fossils will be examined, but the emphasis will be on the interpretations of the process of hominisation through the thoughts and writings of major workers in the field.
Science credit

The study of human origins in light of recent approaches surrounding human evolution. New fossil finds present new approaches and theory. This course will examine some of these, particularly the process of speciation and hominisation with specific reference to the emergence of Homo. Labs permit contact with fossils in casts.
Science credit

The planet today is more urbanized than at any other moment in its history. What are the tools we need to examine urbanization in this contemporary moment? This course explores how urbanization has altered everyday life for individuals and communities across the globe. Students will trace urbanization as transformative of environmental conditions, economic activities, social relations, and political life. Students will thus engage with work on urbanization to examine how urban spaces and environments come to be differentiated along the lines of race, class, and gender. Not only does this course demonstrate how such fault lines play themselves out across contexts, but also provides the critical lenses necessary to tackle the most pressing issues related to urbanization today.

This course examines economic arrangements from an anthropological perspective. A key insight to be examined concerns the idea that by engaging in specific acts of production, people produce themselves as particular kinds of human beings. Topics covered include gifts and commodities, consumption, global capitalism and the importance of objects as cultural mediators in colonial and post-colonial encounters.

What limits exist or can be set to commoditized relations? To what extent can money be transformed into virtue, private goods into the public "Good"? We examine the anthropological literature on gift-giving, systems of exchange and value, and sacrifice. Students may conduct a short ethnographic project on money in our own society, an object at once obvious and mysterious.

Does schizophrenia exist all over the world?  Does depression look different in China than it does in Canada?  By examining how local understandings of mental illness come into contact with Western psychiatric models, this course considers the role of culture in the experience, expression, definition, and treatment of mental illness and questions the universality of Western psychiatric categories. 

How are we to understand the relationship between psychological universals and diverse cultural and social forms in the constitution of human experience? Anthropology's dialogue with Freud; cultural construction and expression of emotions, personhood, and self.

Primates are an intensely social order of animals showing wide variation in group size, organization and structure. Using an evolutionary perspective, this course will focus on why primates form groups and how their relationships with different individuals are maintained, with reference to other orders of animals. The form and function of different social systems, mating systems, and behaviours will be examined.

The nature and logic of ritual. Religious practices and projects; the interface of religion, power, morality, and history in the contemporary world.

Can ethnographic research help us make sense of various political situations and conflicts around the world? In this course we will review different approaches to power and politics in classical and current anthropology. We will consider notions of the state, political agency and power, civil society, authoritarianism and democracy.

Anthropological approaches to the origin and function of religion, and the nature of symbolism, myth, ritual, sorcery, spirit possession, and cosmology, with primary reference to the religious worlds of small-scale societies.

This course considers dimensions of transnationalism as a mode of human sociality and site for cultural production. Topics covered include transnational labour migration and labour circuits, return migration, the transnational dissemination of electronic imagery, the emergence of transnational consumer publics, and the transnational movements of refugees, kinship networks, informal traders and religions.

A consideration of quantitative data and analytical goals, especially in archaeology and biological anthropology. Some elementary computer programming, and a review of program packages suitable for anthropological analyses will be included.
Science credit

An examination of the biological, demographic, ecological and socio-cultural determinants of human and non-human population structure and the interrelationships among them. Emphasis is given to constructing various demographic measures of mortality, fertility and immigration and their interpretation.
Science credit

Human adaptability refers to the human capacity to cope with a wide range of environmental conditions, including aspects of the physical environment like climate (extreme cold and heat), high altitude, geology, as well as aspects of the socio-cultural milieu, such as pathogens (disease), nutrition and malnutrition, migration, technology, and social change.
Science credit

Human adaptability refers to the human capacity to cope with a wide range of environmental conditions. Emphasis is placed on human growth and development in stressed and non-stressed environments. Case studies are used extensively.
Science credit

A "hands-on" Laboratory course which introduces students to analyzing human and nonhuman primate skeletal remains using a comparative framework. The course will cover the gross anatomy of the skeleton and dentition, as well as the composition and microstructure of bone and teeth. The evolutionary history and processes associated with observed differences in human and primate anatomy will be discussed.
Science credit

A "hands-on" laboratory course which introduces students to the methods of analyzing human skeletal remains. Topics and analytic methods include: (1) the recovery and treatment of skeletal remains from archaeological sites; (2) odontological description, including dental pathology; (3) osteometric description; (4) nonmetric trait description; (5) methods of estimating age at death and sex; (6) quantitative analysis of metric and nonmetric data; and (7) paleopathology.
Science credit

Language and ways of speaking are foundational to political cultures. This course covers the politics of language in the age of globalization, including multiculturalism and immigration, citizenship, race and ethnicity, post-colonialism, and indigeneity. Ethnographic examples are drawn from a variety of contexts, including Canadian official bilingualism and First Nations.

How do media work to circulate texts, images, and stories? Do media create unified publics? How is the communicative process of media culturally-distinct? This course examines how anthropologists have studied communication that occurs through traditional and new media. Ethnographic examples drawn from several contexts.
Same as MDSC53H3

This course reflects on the concept of Orientalism and how it informs the fields of Classical Studies and Anthropology. Topics to be discussed include the Orientalization of the past and the origin, role, and significance of ancient representations of the "Other" in contemporary discourses.
Same as CLAC68H3 and HISC68H3

Anthropology studies language and media in ways that show the impact of cultural context. This course introduces this approach and also considers the role of language and media with respect to intersecting themes: ritual, religion, gender, race/ethnicity, power, nationalism, and globalization. Class assignments deal with lecturers, readings, and students' examples.
Same as MDSC21H3

Social and symbolic aspects of the body, the life-cycle, the representation and popular explanation of illness, the logic of traditional healing systems, the culture of North American illness and biomedicine, mental illness, social roots of disease, innovations in health care delivery systems.

The examination of health and disease in ecological and socio-cultural perspective. Emphasis is placed on variability of populations in disease susceptibility and resistance in an evolutionary context. With its sister course, ANTC61H3, this course is designed to introduce students to the basic concepts and principles of medical anthropology. Principles of epidemiology, patterns of inheritance and biological evolution are considered.
Science credit

This course explores the global cultural phenomenon of tourism. Using case studies and historical perspectives, we investigate the complex motivations and consequences of travel, the dimensions of tourism as development, the ways tourism commodifies daily life, the politics of tourism representation, and the intersection of travel, authenticity and modernity.

Epidemiology is the study of disease and its determinants in populations. It is grounded in the biomedical paradigm, statistical reasoning, and that risk is context specific. This course will examine such issues as: methods of sampling, types of controls, analysis of data, and the investigation of epidemics.
Science credit

Colonization, globalization and socio-ecological factors play an important role in origin, maintenance and emergence of old and new infectious diseases in human populations such as yellow fever, cholera, influenza, SARS. Issues of co-morbidity, the epidemiological transition, syndemics and the impact of global warming on the emergence of new diseases are discussed.
Science credit

This course explores key themes, theories, and thinkers that have shaped anthropological thought, past and present. In any given year we will focus on the work of a particular important thinker or a school of thought. As we examine trends and approaches that have been influential to the field, we consider the debates these have generated, the ethnographic innovations they have inspired, and their relevance for core debates in anthropology. Topics and readings will be chosen annually by the instructor.

This course is an exploration of the ongoing significance of the ethnographic method to the practice of research in socio-cultural anthropology. How and why have ethnographic methods become so central to anthropology, and what can we continue to learn with them? Students complement readings and lectures on theories and practices of ethnographic methods, both historical and contemporary, with exercises and assignments designed to provide first-hand experience in carrying out various techniques of ethnographic research. We also consider the unique ethical challenges of ethnographic methods and what it means to conduct ethically sound research.

This course examines the evolution of human-environment systems over deep time as well as the present implications of these relationships. We will examine the archaeological methods used in reconstructing human palaeoecology and engage with evolutionary and ecological theory as it has been applied to the archaeological record in order to understand how humans have altered ecosystems and adapted to changing climates through time and space. Building upon the perspective of humans as a long-term part of ecological systems, each student will choose a current environmental policy issue and progressively build a proposal for a remediation strategy or research program to address gaps in knowledge.

This course explores ideas of race and racist practice, both past and present. Socio-cultural perspectives on race and racism must address a central contradiction: although biological evidence suggests that racial categories are not scientifically valid, race and racism are real social phenomena with real consequences. In order to address this contradiction, the course will examine the myriad ways that race is produced and reproduced, as well as how racism is perpetuated and sustained.

The topics presented in this course will represent a range of contemporary issues in Anthropology. Topics will vary by instructor and term.

This course examines 65 million years of evolutionary history for non-human primates. The primary emphasis will be on the fossil record. Topics covered may include the reconstruction of behaviour from fossil remains, the evolution of modern primate groups, and the origins of the Order.

An ethnographic inquiry into the culturally configured human body as a reservoir of experiential knowledge, focus of symbolism, and site of social, moral, and political control.

This course examines the social life of violence, its cultural production and political effects in a global perspective. It asks how social worlds are made and unmade through, against, and after violent events, how violence is remembered and narrated, and how ethnography might respond to experiences of suffering, trauma, and victimhood.

This course provides students with experience in carrying out ethnographic research in the Greater Toronto Area. Working with the Center for Ethnography, students define and execute individual research projects of their own design. The course provides students with the opportunity to present and discuss their unfolding research, as well as to present the findings of their research. This course is completed over two terms, and culminates in an original research paper.

This course considers the reading and writing of ethnography - the classic genre of socio-cultural anthropology. We examine what differentiates ethnography from other forms of research and how to distinguish ethnographic works of high quality. Also considered are the politics of representation, including how ethnographic writing may reflect unequal relationships of power.

This course allows students to examine particular culture areas at an advanced level. Regions to be covered may include South Asia, East Asia, the Muslim World, Latin America, The Pacific, Europe, Africa, or North America. Specific case studies from the region will be used to highlight theoretical and ethnographic issues.

This course will examine cultural understandings of ‘life’ – What is life? What is a life? How do humans value (or alternatively not value) life in different social and cultural settings? What constitutes a ‘good life’? To what degree are cultural understandings of ‘life’ entangled with those of ‘death’.

An advanced seminar course primarily for majors and specialists in biological anthropology. Topic to be announced annually.

An advanced seminar course primarily for specialists and majors in Anthropology. Topic changes annually and is linked to the theme of our seminar series for the year. Students will attend talks by 2-3 guest speakers in addition to the regular seminar. In previous years, the theme has been Masculinities, Pilgrimage, History and Historicities.

This course is designed for advanced students seeking an intensive examination of specific problems in medical Anthropology. Problems to be discussed include: genetic disorders in families and populations, the interaction of malnutrition and infectious diseases in human populations, chronic non-infectious diseases in populations today, and epidemiology and medical anthropology as complementary disciplines.
Science credit

This seminar course will examine the clinical, epidemiological and public health literature on osteoporosis and other conditions impacting skeletal health. The course will also explore the potential economic impacts of osteoporosis on Canada's health care system given emerging demographic changes.
Science credit

A large percentage of nonhuman primate species are at risk of extinction due mostly to human-induced processes. Relying on theory from Conservation Biology, this course will consider the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that lead to some primate species being threatened, while others are able to deal with anthropogenic influences. Students will critically examine conservation tactics and the uniqueness of each situation will be highlighted.

A field-based research seminar exploring the cultural dimensions of community and sense of place. Partnering with community-based organizations in Scarborough and the GTA, students will investigate topical issues in the immediate urban environment from an anthropological perspective. Yearly foci may include food, heritage, diaspora, and family.

This seminar course will examine contemporary theory and questions in primatology and carefully examine the types of data that researchers collect to answer their research questions.
Science credit

This course will examine the social and cultural contexts of animal-to-human disease transmission globally, and the public risks associated zoonoses present here in Canada. The course will incorporate both anthropological and epidemiological perspectives.
Science credit

Beginning with archaic Homo sapiens and ending with a discussion of how diet exists in a modern globalized cash economy, this course engages an archaeological perspective on changes in human diet and corresponding societal shifts. We will explore paradigmatic discourse around topics such as big game hunting, diet breadth, niche construction, and the Agricultural Revolution, while examining the archaeological record to clarify what "cavemen" really ate, inquire whether agriculture was as "revolutionary" as it has been presented, and delve into evidence of how colonialism, capitalism, and globalization have shaped our modern diet. Discussions will aim to interrogate current theories and contextualize why scientists (and the public) think the way they do about diet in the past and present.

Directed critical examination of specific problems in Anthropology, based on library and/or field research.
These courses are available in exceptional circumstances and do not duplicate regular course offerings. Students are advised that they must obtain consent from the supervising instructor before registering. Individual tutorials, as arranged. A minimum B plus average is normally required to be considered for these courses. May be science credit or area course depending on topic.

Directed critical examination of specific problems in Anthropology, based on library and/or field research.
These courses are available in exceptional circumstances and do not duplicate regular course offerings. Students are advised that they must obtain consent from the supervising instructor before registering. Individual tutorials, as arranged. A minimum B plus average is normally required to be considered for these courses. May be science credit or area course depending on topic.

This course will focus on a new direction in anthropology, exploring the potential of skeletal remains in reconstructing past lifeways. This seminar style class will build upon concepts introduced in Human Osteology courses. Additionally, more advanced methods of reconstructing patterns of subsistence, diet, disease, demography and physical activity.

Taught by an advanced PhD student or postdoctoral fellow, and based on his or her doctoral research and area of expertise, this course presents a unique opportunity to explore intensively a particular Evolutionary or Archaeological Anthropology topic in-depth. Topics vary from year to year.

Taught by an advanced PhD student or postdoctoral fellow, and based on his or her doctoral research and area of expertise, this course presents a unique opportunity to explore intensively a particular Socio-Cultural or Linguistic Anthropology topic in-depth. Topics vary from year to year.

This course provides specialized hands-on training in archaeological laboratory methods. Students will develop their own research project, undertaking analysis of archaeological materials, analyzing the resulting data, and writing a report on their findings. The methodological focus may vary from year to year.

This course provides specialized hands-on experience with field-based archaeology, including planning, survey, testing, and/or excavation, as well as an overview of various archaeological excavation methods and practices. Students may enroll in this course to gain credit for participation in approved off-campus field work. In this case, they will coordinate with the instructor to develop a series of appropriate assignments relevant to their coursework and learning goals.

This research seminar uses our immediate community of Scarborough to explore continuity and change within diasporic foodways. Students will develop and practise ethnographic and other qualitative research skills to better understand the many intersections of food, culture, and community. This course culminates with a major project based on original research.
Same as HISD71H3

This course will examine questions of particular controversy in the study of Primate Evolution. Topics to be covered may include the ecological context of primate origins, species recognition in the fossil record, the identification of the first anthropoids, and the causes of extinction of the subfossil lemurs.
Science credit