2025-26 Edition

Department of Anthropology

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Justin Richland, Department Chair
3203 Social & Behavioral Sciences Gateway
949-824-7602
http://www.anthropology.uci.edu/

Anthropology is the comparative study of past and present human societies and cultures. The Department of Anthropology at UCI is at the forefront of addressing issues in contemporary theory and ethnographic methods within the discipline. The Department has a strong interdisciplinary bent, with research and teaching interests in economic anthropology, political and legal anthropology, the anthropology of finance, social history and social change, the anthropology of science, technology and medicine, identity and ethnicity, gender and feminist studies, urban anthropology, modernity and development, religion, visual anthropology, and the arts and expressive culture.

The Department also has a strong emphasis on the study of contemporary issues, especially those concerned with emergent, fluid, and complex global phenomena such as international flows of goods, peoples, images, and ideas; the relationship between global processes and local practices; immigration, citizenship, and refugees; population politics; violence and political conflict; ethnicity and nationalism; gender and family; food, health, and technological innovation; law; development and economic transformation; urban studies; and environmental issues. Geographic regions of expertise include China, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Oceania, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, East Africa, Latino communities of the United States, and diasporic and transnational communities in the United States and abroad.

Faculty

Samar Al-Bulushi, Ph.D. Yale University, Assistant Professor of Anthropology (surveillance, policing, and militarized urbanisms; Islam, Africa, and the racialized geopolitics of the war on terror; elites, diplomacy, and transnational governance)
Victoria Bernal, Ph.D. Northwestern University, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology; Culture and Theory; Gender and Sexuality Studies; Religious Studies
Thomas D. Boellstorff, Ph.D. Stanford University, Professor of Anthropology (virtual worlds, sexuality, postcoloniality, HIV/AIDS, mass media and popular culture, language and culture, Indonesia, Southeast Asia)
John P. Boyd, Ph.D. University of Michigan, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology
Michael L. Burton, Ph.D. Stanford University, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology
Leo Chavez, Ph.D. Stanford University, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology
Benjamin N. Colby, Ph.D. Harvard University, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology
Kim Fortun, Ph.D. Rice University, Professor of Anthropology (environmental problems and science, science and technology, environmental health, disaster, India)
Michael Fortun, Ph.D. Harvard University, Professor of Anthropology (anthropology of science, air pollution science, data science, genetics, history of science, United States, Iceland)
David Theo Goldberg, Ph.D. The Graduate Center, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology; Anthropology; Criminology, Law and Society (race, racism, race and the law, political theory, South Africa, digital humanities)
Susan M. Greenhalgh, Ph.D. Columbia University, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology
Sherine Hamdy, Ph.D. New York University, Professor of Anthropology (medical anthropology, science, technology and society, bioethics, comics, Islam, Egypt, middle east)
Anneeth Kaur Hundle, Ph.D. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Dhan Kaur Sahota Presidential Chair of Sikh Studies and Associate Professor of Anthropology; Asian American Studies; Religious Studies (Sikh studies, African and South Asian diaspora/studies; politics of afro-asianism; citizenship, race, and decolonization; minoritization and community formation, postcolonial and transnational feminisms; gender and sexuality; critical university studies; Uganda, East Africa, global south)
Angela C. Jenks, Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley, Associate Professor of Teaching of Anthropology (medical anthropology, race and ethnicity, urban ethnography, United States)
Eleana Kim, Ph.D. New York University, Professor of Anthropology; Asian American Studies (kinship, transnationalism, environment, Korea)
Karen Leonard, Ph.D. University of Wisconsin, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology; Religious Studies
Christopher Lowman, Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley, Assistant Professor of Anthropology (historical archaeology, race, gender, immigration)
Lilith Mahmud, Ph.D. Harvard University, Associate Professor of Anthropology (freemasonry, elites, gender, nationalism, race, citizenship, critical studies of Europe, secrecy, transparency, knowledge production, secret societies, power)
George E. Marcus, Ph.D. Harvard University, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology (elites, ethnography, cultural critique, Pacific)
William M. Maurer, Ph.D. Stanford University, Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Professor of Anthropology; Criminology, Law and Society; School of Law (anthropology of law, globalization, Caribbean, anthropology of money and finance, gender and kinship)
Michael J. Montoya, Ph.D. Stanford University, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology
Keith Murphy, Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles, Associate Professor of Anthropology (linguistics, design, aesthetics and morality, Sweden)
Valerie A. Olson, Ph.D. Rice University, Associate Professor of Anthropology (environmental systems, science and technology, U.S., extreme environments)
Kristin Peterson, Ph.D. Rice University, Associate Professor of Anthropology (science and technology, feminism, pharmaceuticals, West Africa)
Justin Richland, Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles, Department Chair and Professor of Anthropology; School of Law (legal discourse analysis and semiotics, anthropology of law; contemporary native American law, politics, art, and ethnographic museology)
A. K. Romney, Ph.D. Harvard University, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology
Damien Sojoyner, Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin, Professor of Anthropology; Culture and Theory (prisons; public education; urban anthropology; race; African diaspora theory; public policy and law; gender; United States)
Ian Straughn, Ph.D. University of Chicago, Associate Professor of Teaching of Anthropology; Religious Studies (archaeology, cultural heritage, middle east and Islamic studies, space and landscape, material culture)
António Tomás, Ph.D. Columbia University, Associate Professor of Anthropology (colonialism, race and racism, social and political theory, african urbanism and cityness, Angola, cartography and graphic representation)
Roxanne Varzi, Ph.D. Columbia University, Professor of Anthropology; Culture and Theory; Film and Media Studies; Religious Studies (Iran, media, war, visual anthropology, film studies, ethnographic and fiction writing)
Salvador Zarate, Ph.D. University of California, San Diego, Assistant Professor of Anthropology; Chicano/Latino Studies (race, gender, labor, and the environment; southern California domestic work and gardening labor; Marxism and women of color feminism; historical methods and anthropology; ethnic studies)
Mei Zhan, Ph.D. Standford University, Associate Professor of Anthropology (medical anthropology, cultural and social studies of science, globalization, transnationalism, gender, China and United States)

Affiliate Faculty

Lee Cabatingan, Ph.D. University of Chicago, Associate Professor of Criminology, Law and Society; Anthropology (anthropology of law, sovereignty, property, postcolonial studies, ethnography and qualitative methods)
Susan B. Coutin, Ph.D. Stanford University, Professor of Criminology, Law and Society; Anthropology; Chicano/Latino Studies; Religious Studies (law, culture, ethnography, immigration, human rights, citizenship, political activism, Central America)
Eve Darian-Smith, Ph.D. University of Chicago, Department Chair and Distinguished Professor of Global and International Studies; Anthropology; Criminology, Law and Society; School of Law
Jerry Won Lee, Ph.D. University of Arizona, Professor of English; Anthropology; Asian American Studies; Comparative Literature; Culture and Theory; East Asian Studies
Gabriele M. Schwab, Ph.D. University of Konstanz, Distinguished Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature; Anthropology; Culture and Theory; European Languages and Studies; German (modern literature, critical theory, psychoanalysis, comparative literature)

Courses

ANTHRO 2A.  Introduction to Sociocultural Anthropology.  4 Units.  
Introduction to cultural diversity and the methods used by anthropologists to account for it. Family relations, economic activities, politics, gender, and religion in a wide range of societies. Stresses the application of anthropological methods to research problems.
(III and VIII.)  
ANTHRO 2B.  Introduction to Biological Anthropology.  4 Units.  
Evolutionary theory and processes, comparative primate fossil record, human variation, and the adequacy of theory, and empirical data.
(III)  
ANTHRO 2C.  Introduction to Archaeology.  4 Units.  
Archaeological theory and cultural processes with emphasis on North American Indigenous and contemporary cultures in a global context.
(III and VII)  
ANTHRO 2D.  Introduction to Language and Culture.  4 Units.  
Explores what the study of language can reveal about ourselves as bearers of culture. After introducing some basic concepts, examines how cultural knowledge is linguistically organized and how language might shape our perception of the world.
Same as LSCI 68  
(III)  
ANTHRO 10A.  Probability and Statistics.  4 Units.  
An introduction to probability and statistics. Emphasis on a thorough understanding of the probabilistic basis of statistical inference. Emphasizes examples from sociology, anthropology, and related social science disciplines.
Same as SOCIOL 10A  
Overlaps with PSYCH 10A, SOCECOL 13, SOC SCI 10A, POL SCI 10A.  
Restrictions: Anthropology majors and Sociology majors have the first consideration for enrollment.   
(Va)  
ANTHRO 10B.  Probability and Statistics.  4 Units.  
An introduction to probability and statistics. Emphasis on a thorough understanding of the probabilistic basis of statistical inference. Emphasizes examples from sociology, anthropology, and related social science disciplines.
Prerequisite: SOCIOL 10A or ANTHRO 10A.   
Same as SOCIOL 10B  
Overlaps with PSYCH 10B, SOCECOL 13, SOC SCI 10B, POL SCI 10B.  
Restrictions: Anthropology majors and Sociology majors have the first consideration for enrollment.   
(Va)  
ANTHRO 10C.  Probability and Statistics.  4 Units.  
An introduction to probability and statistics. Emphasis on a thorough understanding of the probabilistic basis of statistical inference. Emphasizes examples from sociology, anthropology, and related social science disciplines.
Prerequisite: SOCIOL 10B or ANTHRO 10B.   
Same as SOCIOL 10C  
Overlaps with PSYCH 10C, SOCECOL 13, SOC SCI 10C, POL SCI 10C.  
Restrictions: Anthropology majors and Sociology majors have the first consideration for enrollment.   
(Vb)  
ANTHRO 20A.  People, Cultures, and Environmental Sustainability.  4 Units.  
Anthropological consideration of global environmental sustainability from the perspective of human cultures and communities. Causes and consequences of population growth, natural resource management, environmental law, environmental ethics. Case studies emphasize tropical rain forests, arid lands of Africa and North America.
(VIII)  
ANTHRO 25A.  Environmental Injustice.  4 Units.  
Explores how pollution, climate change, and other environmental problems impact people around the world, often worsening social inequality. Students use social science frameworks to understand environmental problems, different interpretations of these problems, and how people have organized for political change.
(III and VII.)  
ANTHRO 30A.  Global Issues in Anthropological Perspective.  4 Units.  
Explores anthropological perspectives on issues of importance in an increasingly global society. Topics include emphases on ethnic conflict; identity; immigration and citizenship; religion and religious diversity; medical anthropology; legal anthropology; development and economic change; gender.
Restrictions: Anthropology majors have the first consideration for enrollment.   
(VIII)  
ANTHRO 30C.  Visual Anthropology .  4 Units.  
Focusing on the construction of culture through visuality, this course engages traditional ethnographic films, popular media and anthropological texts to analyze ethics, “reality” and fiction; propaganda and documentary, construction of a frame, the responsibility of the filmmaker, photographer, and anthropologist.
ANTHRO 41A.  Global Cultures and Society.  4 Units.  
Offers a general overview of the rise of global interdependence in political, economic, demographic, and cultural terms. Considers what drove people from relative isolation into intensified intercourse with one another, and investigates the consequences of this shift.
Same as INTL ST 11  
Restrictions: Anthropology majors and International Studies majors have the first consideration for enrollment.   
(III and VIII.)  
ANTHRO 45A.  Science, Culture, Power.  4 Units.  
Examines science in historical and cultural context (Scientific and Darwinian Revolutions, Manhattan Project, contemporary biosciences) to understand scientific truths and their limits, scientists as social actors, and vital intersections of sciences with religion, politics, gender, and other forms of culture.
(III)  
ANTHRO 48.  Archaeology or Aliens?: Conspiracy, Pseudoscience, and the Emergence of Civilizations.  4 Units.  
Archaeology has inspired (and sometimes actively encouraged) various theories about aliens, lost civilizations, dark conspiracies, and mysterious technologies. Does such an intimate relationship with these fantastic notions undermine archaeology and its claims of authoritative knowledge about past cultures?
(III and VIII.)  
ANTHRO 60.  Global Themes in Sikh Studies.  4 Units.  
Serves as an introduction to Sikhism and the field of Sikh Studies. Examines the development of the religious tradition and the formation of the scholarly field of Sikh Studies in the contemporary Western university.
Same as REL STD 60  
(III and (VII or VIII).)  
ANTHRO 100A.  Ethnography and Anthropological Methods.  4 Units.  
Anthropological research, learning ethnographic methods, and how to choose a research topic, construct research questions, explore library resources, collect data, and write an analytical paper on research findings.
Prerequisite: ANTHRO 2A (may be taken concurrently).   
Restrictions: Anthropology majors, Anthropology minors, and Medical Anthropology minors have the first consideration for enrollment.   
ANTHRO 100B.  Anthropology Careers.  4 Units.  
Gives students the skills and perspective needed to leverage undergraduate anthropology education in diverse career domains. Students explore different career domains (health care, tech development, environmental governance, etc.) and learn to represent themselves professionally.
Restrictions: Anthropology majors, Anthropology minors, and Medical Anthropology minors only.   
ANTHRO 121AW.  Kinship and Social Organization.  4 Units.  
Organization of social life primarily in preindustrial societies. Theories of kinship, marriage regulations, sexual behavior, and social roles. Comparisons of biological, psychological, sociological, and economic explanations of social organization.
Prerequisite: Satisfactory completion of the Lower-Division Writing requirement.  
(Ib)  
ANTHRO 121D.  Cross-Cultural Studies of Gender.  4 Units.  
Explores the construction of gender in national and transnational contexts. Special attention is given to how race, sexuality, class, and global inequalities shape different experiences of gender, and how gender structures political, institutional, and social life across the world.
(VII)  
ANTHRO 121J.  Urban Anthropology.  4 Units.  
Cultural roles of cities and the processes of urbanization in a comparative perspective. Focus includes nonwestern, nonindustrial societies of past and present; the relationship between modern urban centers across different world regions. Themes covered include: inequality, race, migration, poverty, capitalism.
ANTHRO 122.  Anthropology of Work.  4 Units.  
Focuses on different kinds of labor that range from domestic and gardening work to transnational surrogacy and mothering work, even covering the entangled worlds of human, animal, and ecological workers to understand theories of life, exploitation, and resistance.
ANTHRO 124.  Gold: The Alchemy of Socio-Economic Practice.  4 Units.  
Before bitcoin, before derivatives and mortgage-backed securities, before even writing itself, there was gold. Explore gold’s role in the development of culture, politics, and power. From Pharaohs to modern financial wizards, gold has impacted and mediated social life.
Restrictions: Anthropology majors, Economics majors, Anthropology minors, Archaeology minors, and Economics minors have the first consideration for enrollment.   
ANTHRO 125.  Anthropology of Debt.  4 Units.  
Explores how debt has shaped culture across varied contexts geographically and historically. In what ways have societies naturalized indebtedness, taken it for granted as a fact of life, and used it for organizing social relations.
Restrictions: Anthropology majors, Economics majors, Anthropology minors, Archaeology minors, and Economics minors have the first consideration for enrollment.   
ANTHRO 125A.  Economic Anthropology.  4 Units.  
Economic systems in comparative perspective: production, distribution, and consumption in market and non-market societies; agricultural development in the third world.
Prerequisite: One course in general science, anthropology, economics, geography, or sociology.  
Same as ECON 152A  
Restrictions: Anthropology majors, Business Economics majors, Economics majors, and Quantitative Economics majors only.   
ANTHRO 125B.  Ecological Anthropology.  4 Units.  
Studies relationships between human communities and their natural environments. The role of environment in shaping culture; effects of extreme environments on human biology and social organization; anthropologist's role in studying global environmental problems, e.g., African famine, tropical rain forests destruction.
Prerequisite: ANTHRO 2A or ANTHRO 2B or ANTHRO 2C.   
ANTHRO 125F.  Humans and Other Animals.  4 Units.  
Explores peoples' relationships with other animals, a topic that continues to shape anthropological understandings of humanness, culture, and the social. Subthemes: symbol and matter, nature/culture, ontologies, relations, moralities, ecologies, futures.
Prerequisite: ANTHRO 2A or ANTHRO 2B or ANTHRO 2D.   
ANTHRO 125U.  Immigration, Nation, and Media.  4 Units.  
Examines media shapes and reflects public opinion on immigration and its representation of immigrants, citizens, and ideas about the nation, and who belongs and who is a potential threat; as well as the relationship between scholars and journalists.
Same as CHC/LAT 123, SPPS 101A  
ANTHRO 125X.  Transnational Migration.  4 Units.  
Examines the movement of people across national borders, governmentality and the role of state practices to control populations, and issues of citizenship, belonging, and identity. Examples are drawn from the United States, Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa.
Same as CHC/LAT 161  
(VIII)  
ANTHRO 125Z.  Arabs and Muslims in the US.  4 Units.  
Offers a critical academic study of Islam in America, focusing on the core tenets of belief, the diversity of practices, and historical transformations that have taken place since the arrival of Muslims in the United States.
Same as ASIANAM 142  
ANTHRO 126.  Cultures of the Middle East.  4 Units.  
The diversity of cultures and peoples who constitute the Middle East demonstrates the failure of much contemporary media and discourse to understand this region. Students learn about the broad scope of the contemporary Middle East through an ethnographic lens.
Restrictions: Anthropology majors and Anthropology minors have the first consideration for enrollment.   
ANTHRO 126A.  Elite Cultures.  4 Units.  
The distinctive contribution that ethnographic studies have made to the understanding of elites past and present, in particular societies and globally.
Restrictions: Anthropology majors have the first consideration for enrollment.   
ANTHRO 127.  Controversies, Courts, Cultures: The Anthropology of Law.  4 Units.  
Assesses the contributions anthropology has made to legal scholarship, reviewing historical and contemporary themes. Considers both comparative questions of law’s norms, structures, and practices around the globe, and the specific insights anthropology offers about contemporary U.S. law.
Same as CRM/LAW C183  
(III)  
ANTHRO 127C.  Language and the Law.  4 Units.  
Considers the role of language in legal practice and power. Particular attention is paid to linguistic and discourse analytic research that cover topics such as: trial talk, language crimes, law talk in cross-cultural perspectives, and linguistic evidence.
Same as CRM/LAW 151  
Restrictions: Anthropology majors have the first consideration for enrollment.   
ANTHRO 127D.  Anthropology of Law .  4 Units.  
Introduces the anthropological study of law through a focus on the foundations of this subfield, its primary methodologies, and several important topics of inquiry, including policing, immigration, and structural inequalities. Provides an international perspective on law and society.
Same as CRM/LAW C141  
Restrictions: Anthropology majors, Criminology, Law and Society majors, and Social Ecology majors have the first consideration for enrollment.   
ANTHRO 127E.  Law and Violence.  4 Units.  
Interrogates the historical and ongoing relationship between law and violence. How is the law employed to justify violence? Is the law itself a form of violence? Does the language used to describe violence matter for how it's addressed?
ANTHRO 128A.  Science, Technology, Controversy.  4 Units.  
Explores ways in which the social sciences conceive of science as a sociocultural practice. Emphasis on literature in Science and Technology Studies (STS), especially writings that concern the relationship of science to space and place, power, and politics.
Restrictions: Anthropology majors only.   
ANTHRO 128B.  Race, Gender, and Science.  4 Units.  
Perfect for pre-health, science, and social science majors wanting to appreciate how science and society interact. Race and gender as biological and socio-cultural constructs are examined. Questions explored: What is disease? What is science? What are social and biological differences?
Same as CHC/LAT 176  
(VII)  
ANTHRO 128C.  Digital Cultures .  4 Units.  
Explores cultural and political implications of the infotech revolution and the ways new media are used around the world, new cultural practices and spaces (e.g., cybercafes), debates surrounding the meanings of these new technologies, and their implications for transforming society.
Restrictions: Anthropology majors have the first consideration for enrollment.   
ANTHRO 128D.  Science and Myth.  4 Units.  
Examines how science and myth may conflict but also reinforce, with complex ethical and political implications. Analyzes contemporary media representations of science, the cultural power of myths and narratives, and their devolution into conspiracy theories and disinformation.
ANTHRO 129.  Special Topics: Social and Economic Anthropology.  1-4 Units.  
Studies in selected areas of Social and Economic Anthropology. Topics addressed vary each quarter.
Repeatability: May be taken unlimited times as topics vary  
Restrictions: Anthropology majors have the first consideration for enrollment.   
ANTHRO 132A.  Psychological Anthropology.  4 Units.  
Cultural differences and similarities in personality and behavior. Child-rearing practices and consequent adult personality characteristics, biocultural aspects of child development and attachment, culture and behavior evolutionary models, politically linked personality, cognitive anthropology, psychology of narrative forms, comparative national character studies.
Prerequisite: ANTHRO 2A or (COGS 7A or PSCI 9 or AP Psychology Exam with a minimum score of 4) or (COGS 9A and COGS 9B and COGS 9C) or (PSCI 11A and PSCI 11B and PSCI 11C).   
Same as COGS 173A  
Restrictions: Anthropology majors, Cognitive Sciences majors, Psychology majors, Anthropology minors, and Medical Anthropology minors have the first consideration for enrollment.   
ANTHRO 134A.  Medical Anthropology.  4 Units.  
Introduces students to cross-cultural perspectives and critical theories in anthropological studies of medicine. Special attention is given to diverse ways of understanding bodies, illnesses, and therapeutic practices in our changing world.
Same as CHC/LAT 178A  
(VIII)  
ANTHRO 134B.  Cultures of Biomedicine.  4 Units.  
An introduction to the anthropolobical study of biomedicine and biotechnology. Topics include medicalization, experimentation and discovery, diagnosis, expertise, health activism, and biotechnology.
ANTHRO 134C.  Medicine, Food, and Health.  4 Units.  
With anthropological studies of edible things as its foundation, this course explores topics related to the relationship between medical knowledge, eating, and health from a medical anthropological perspective.
Prerequisite: ANTHRO 2A or ANTHRO 2B or ANTHRO 2D.   
ANTHRO 134F.  Anthropology of the Body.  4 Units.  
Examines human bodies as both biological and sociocultural entities and explores the relationship among mind, body, and society cross-culturally. Topics include embodiment; race, sex, gender, and the body; somatization; control of the body; commodified bodies; and hybrid/cyborg bodies.
ANTHRO 134H.  Anthropology of Food.  4 Units.  
Examines how food communicates ideas about ethnocentrism, disgust, privilege, gender, race, labor, social identities and hierarchies, globalization, power, and the "Western diet" and its health consequences.
Same as CHC/LAT 118  
ANTHRO 134I.  Comics and Medicine .  4 Units.  
Patients, caregivers, and healers have increasingly described their illness experiences in comics format, offering therapeutic value for both producers and readers. Read and analyze comics about disability, chronic and mental illness, epidemics, caregiving, dementia, cancer, and health justice.
ANTHRO 134N.  Disease, Health, and Inequality.  4 Units.  
Examines the relationships among disease, health, and social inequality in the U.S. and globally. Topics include infectious and chronic disease case studies, health policy, and strategies for promoting health equity.
ANTHRO 136A.  Nationalism and Ethnicity in the Contemporary World.  4 Units.  
An exploration of the concepts of identity, culture, ethnicity, race, and nation through ethnographic cases, with a view to asking larger questions: how do people create nativeness and foreignness? How does "culture" get worked into contemporary racisms and nationalisms?
(VIII)  
ANTHRO 136B.  History of Anthropological Theory.  4 Units.  
Provides foundational knowledge in the discipline of anthropology by reviewing competing approaches in anthropological theory, from the 19th century to the present. Covers historically fundamental approaches—social evolutionism, functionalism—and recent movements such as feminism, cultural studies, poststructuralism, and postmodernism.
Restrictions: Anthropology majors have the first consideration for enrollment.   
ANTHRO 136D.  Conflict Resolution in Cross-Cultural Perspective.  4 Units.  
Examines theories of conflict management. Analyzes how conflict is mitigated in diverse cultures: at the interpersonal level, between groups, and on the international scale. Students discuss readings, hear from conflict management practitioners, and simulate negotiations.
Same as POL SCI 154G, SOC SCI 183E, INTL ST 183E  
(VIII)  
ANTHRO 136G.  Colonialism and Gender.  4 Units.  
An anthropological enquiry into the ways colonial relations of power have been structured and gendered throughout the world, and to what effect. Examines the social locations of men and women in the everyday exercise of colonial and imperial power.
Restrictions: Anthropology majors have the first consideration for enrollment.   
ANTHRO 136K.  The Woman and the Body.  4 Units.  
Probes culture and politics of the female body in contemporary American life. Focusing on "feminine beauty," examines diverse notions of beauty, bodily practices, and body politics embraced by American women of different classes, ethnicities, and sexualities.
(VII)  
ANTHRO 138.  Prisons and Public Education.  4 Units.  
Looks at the connections between schools and prisons in the United States. Students learn about ideas that push beyond common trope of the “school to prison pipeline.”
Same as AFAM 159  
ANTHRO 139.  Special Topics in Cultural and Psychological Anthropology.  1-4 Units.  
Studies in selected areas of Cultural and Psychological Anthropology. Topics addressed vary each quarter.
Repeatability: May be taken unlimited times as topics vary  
Restrictions: Anthropology majors have the first consideration for enrollment.   
ANTHRO 140.  Sex and Conquest in Latin America.  4 Units.  
Competing ideas of masculinity and femininity, sexual violence, sexual identities, and gendered hierarchies informed how the Spanish engaged in military and religious domination of Mexican and Andean communities, as well as the forms of native resistance throughout colonial Latin America.
Same as HISTORY 160, CHC/LAT 150A, GEN&SEX 171A  
ANTHRO 141A.  Ancient Civilization of Mexico and the Southwest.  4 Units.  
The prehistory and cultural evolution of the civilization which originated in Mexico, including the Olmecs, Aztecs, Toltecs, Maya, and Zapotec, as well as the Pueblos of the Southwestern U.S. Topics include the origins of food production and of the state.
Same as INTL ST 177I  
ANTHRO 144.  Archaeology of California.  4 Units.  
Explores the archaeology of California, including evidence of human migration, the ancient environment and its management by Native Californians, European colonialism, the Gold Rush, global immigration, college campuses, Japanese incarceration camps, hippie communes, and the U.S.-Mexico border.
ANTHRO 145.  Museums and Heritage.  4 Units.  
Focuses on understanding the history of museums, practices of collecting and displaying material culture, the role of anthropology and museums in perpetuating or addressing colonialism, digital collections research, and museums as community-collaborative spaces.
ANTHRO 146.  Consumption and Culture.  4 Units.  
Our modern "society of the spectacle" often equates your consumption to your very humanity. Explores the ways in which our desire for things expresses our identity, politics, place within society, and how what we consume dominates social life.
Restrictions: Anthropology majors and Anthropology minors have the first consideration for enrollment.   
ANTHRO 147.  Egyptomania.  4 Units.  
An exploration into the archaeological heritage and cultures of ancient Egypt. Also examines how ancient Egypt became appropriated as a popular cultural phenomenon and site of scholarship in the centuries after the Pharaohs.
Restrictions: Anthropology majors, Anthropology minors, and Archaeology minors have the first consideration for enrollment.   
ANTHRO 147A.  Archaeology of the Islamic World.  4 Units.  
The archaeological record connected with the Islamic tradition spans nearly 1,500 years and stretches from Spain to South East Asia. Working with artifacts and other materials, students learn about the sites and historical transformations associated with Islam and Muslim societies.
Restrictions: Anthropology majors, Anthropology minors, and Archaeology minors have the first consideration for enrollment.   
ANTHRO 147B.  Archaeology, Politics, and Identity.  4 Units.  
Archaeologists don’t excavate in a political vacuum. Their research has profound consequences for the ways in which people identify with and claim their cultural heritage. Examines archaeology’s role in constructing such identities through the traces of the past.
Restrictions: Anthropology majors, Anthropology minors, and Archaeology minors have the first consideration for enrollment.   
ANTHRO 148.  I Dig UCI.  4 Units.  
An introduction to archaeological fieldwork through participation in an active excavation on campus. Students engage with research design and learn the foundational methods of archaeological recovery: survey, mapping, sampling strategies, documentation, excavation, artifact identification, and interpretation.
ANTHRO 149.  Special Topics in Archaeology.  1-4 Units.  
Studies in selected areas of Archaeology. Topics addressed vary each quarter.
Repeatability: May be taken unlimited times as topics vary  
Restrictions: Anthropology majors have the first consideration for enrollment.   
ANTHRO 150A.  Language and Social Cognition.  4 Units.  
Explores the relationship between language and cognition in social and cultural contexts. The overall goal is to think through how language structure and use impact how individuals perceive, think about, and understand the world around them.
Same as LSCI 168S  
Restrictions: Anthropology majors have the first consideration for enrollment.   
ANTHRO 151A.  Improvisation, Language, and Culture.  4 Units.  
Addresses improvisation, both in performance and in everyday life. Examines improvisation as the "flexible regulation" of everyday behavior by exploring different scholarly treatments of language and interaction, and working on developing actual theatrical improvisation skills.
Same as LSCI 168J  
ANTHRO 152A.  Language Origins: Evolution, Genetics, and the Brain.  4 Units.  
Examines how human language(s) may have originated. Studies pertinent techniques (reconstruction) and addresses related questions, including is our language faculty inborn (i.e., genetically encoded)? Can brain imaging and population genetics research help to unlock this mystery of human evolution?
Same as LSCI 175, GLBLCLT 105, HISTORY 135G  
ANTHRO 162A.  Peoples and Cultures of Latin America.  4 Units.  
Surveys the prehistory of Latin America and its indigenous cultures, emphasizing the impact of colonial rule, capitalism, and 20th-century transformations. Emphasis on communities from several countries. In some years, emphasis on comparisons between the Latin American and Caribbean experiences.
Same as CHC/LAT 120  
(VIII)  
ANTHRO 162B.  Indian North America.  4 Units.  
A survey of indigenous peoples in North America: American Indians, Alaska Natives, First Nations, Native Americans. Tribal populations and geographic distributions, political and social organization, sovereignty, self-determination, intergovernmental relations; cultural continuity and change; management, preservation, development of environments/resources.
(VII)  
ANTHRO 162D.  Anthropology of the United States.  4 Units.  
Examines anthropological research in and of the United States. Topics include race, class, identity, politics, law, and media.
ANTHRO 162E.  Revolution and Memory in Latin America.  4 Units.  
Comparison of how Andeans resurrected the leaders of the Inca, a defeated indigenous empire, to contest the Spanish empire with how enslaved Africans, with their descendants and others, defeated Spanish colonial rule in what would become the Cuban nation.
Same as HISTORY 165A  
ANTHRO 163A.  Peoples of the Pacific.  4 Units.  
The cultural history and recent developments among the Pacific peoples of Polynesia, Micronesia, Melanesia, New Guinea, and Australia.
Same as INTL ST 158B  
(VIII)  
ANTHRO 164P.  Peoples and Cultures of Post-Soviet Eurasia.  4 Units.  
Examines the cultures and political conflicts of the more than 130 indigenous ethnic groups in the European and Asian territories of the former U.S.S.R. Emphasis is on the theoretical issues of ethnicity, nationalism, and conflict management.
Same as POL SCI 154F, INTL ST 162B  
(VIII)  
ANTHRO 165A.  Modern Iran: Cinema and the City.  4 Units.  
Exploring modern Iran through film, literature, photography, travel writing, and philosophy and social science texts that introduce students to important concepts in post-colonial studies, social thought, war culture, religion, and media as experienced through the paradigm of a non-Western modernity.
Same as PERSIAN 165A  
ANTHRO 167.  United States Material Culture.  4 Units.  
Considers the recent history of the United States through material culture as a lens to understand power, race, colonialism, gender, religion, and other aspects of identity. Weekly themes include ceramics, glass, and metals, stone, food, bodies, and toys.
ANTHRO 169.  Special Topics in Area Studies.  1-4 Units.  
Studies in selected areas of Anthropology. Topics addressed vary each quarter.
Prerequisite: Prerequisites vary.  
Repeatability: May be taken unlimited times as topics vary  
Restrictions: Anthropology majors have the first consideration for enrollment.   
ANTHRO 180AW.  Anthropology Majors Writing Seminar.  4 Units.  
Anthropological theory designed especially for majors in Anthropology. Topics addressed vary each quarter.
Prerequisite: Satisfactory completion of the Lower-Division Writing requirement.  
Repeatability: May be taken 3 times as topics vary  
Restrictions: Anthropology majors only.   
(Ib)  
ANTHRO 190.  Senior Thesis.  4 Units.  
Senior thesis with Anthropology faculty.
Repeatability: May be taken for credit 3 times  
ANTHRO H190A.  Honors Research Design.  3 Units.  
Students design a research project and articulate its goals and significance. Written work consists of a research proposal describing the research questions, the relevant literature, methods of data collection and analysis, and ethical considerations.
Prerequisite: ANTHRO 199 (may be taken concurrently).   
Restrictions: Anthropology Honors students only.  
ANTHRO H190B.  Honors Field Research.  3 Units.  
Students begin or continue ethnographic field research and gain experience with a variety of data collection methods, including participant-observation, interviews, surveys, and the study of archival and documentary materials.
Corequisite: ANTHRO 199.  
Prerequisite: ANTHRO 199 and ANTHRO H190A.   
Restrictions: Anthropology Honors students only.  
ANTHRO H190C.  Honors Research Analysis.  3 Units.  
Students apply qualitative data analysis techniques to ethnographic data collected as part of their Honors research.
Corequisite: ANTHRO 199.  
Prerequisite: ANTHRO H190B and ANTHRO 199. Anthropology Honors ONLY.  
ANTHRO H190W.  Honors Thesis Writing.  3 Units.  
Students draft a senior honors thesis (typically) with the following sections: problem statement, literature review, ethnographic background, and descriptions of the methods, results, and conclusions.
Corequisite: ANTHRO 199.  
Prerequisite: ANTHRO H190C and ANTHRO 199. Anthropology Honors ONLY. Satisfactory completion of the Lower-Division Writing requirement.   
(Ib)  
ANTHRO 197.  Field Study.  1-4 Units.  
Field study with Anthropology faculty.
Repeatability: May be taken unlimited times  
ANTHRO 198.  Directed Group Study.  1-4 Units.  
Directed study with Anthropology faculty.
Repeatability: May be taken unlimited times  
ANTHRO 199.  Independent Study.  1-4 Units.  
Independent research with Anthropology faculty.
Repeatability: May be taken unlimited times  
ANTHRO 202A.  Proseminar in Anthropology.  4 Units.  
Year-long intensive introduction to the history of anthropological thought and reading in classical and contemporary ethnography for first-year graduate students.
ANTHRO 202B.  Proseminar in Anthropology.  4 Units.  
Year-long intensive introduction to the history of anthropological thought and reading in classical and contemporary ethnography for first-year graduate students.
Prerequisite: ANTHRO 202A with a minimum grade of B-.   
ANTHRO 202C.  Proseminar in Anthropology.  4 Units.  
Year-long intensive introduction to the history of anthropological thought and reading in classical and contemporary ethnography for first-year graduate students.
Prerequisite: ANTHRO 202B with a minimum grade of B-.   
ANTHRO 204A.  Proseminar in Medicine, Science, and Technology.  4 Units.  
Explores the phenomena studied by "medical anthropology" and "science and technology studies" are inextricably linked, and how understanding formations requires moving between disparate fields of inquiry. Required for students pursuing a Graduate Certificate in Anthropoligies of Medicine, Science, and Technology.
Restrictions: Students pursuing a Graduate Certification in Anthropoligies of Medicine, Science, and Technology have first consideration for enrollment.  
ANTHRO 215A.  Ethnographic Methods.  4 Units.  
Exposes students to diverse methods, both traditional and experimental, used in anthropological ethnographic research. Students gain experience practicing diverse methods, and learn to select methods appropriate to particular study designs and contexts.
ANTHRO 215B.  Research Design.  4 Units.  
Introduces research design for anthropology, including concept work and mapping, research topic and aims development, research question construction, and fieldwork planning.
Prerequisite: ANTHRO 215A with a minimum grade of B-.   
ANTHRO 215C.  Grant and Proposal Writing.  4 Units.  
Focuses on production, critique, and revision of student research proposals. A practical seminar designed to improve student proposals, help students through the application processes, and increase students' chances of obtaining support for their research.
Prerequisite: ANTHRO 215B with a minimum grade of B-.   
ANTHRO 220.  Pedagogy and Professionalization in Anthropology.  4 Units.  
Introduces students to pedagogical approaches in anthropology, fostering professional development in and beyond academia, and providing general advice about teaching and mentorship. Periodically invites authors of the reviewed texts to participate in classroom conversation.
Repeatability: May be taken unlimited times  
Restrictions: Anthropology majors only.   
ANTHRO 230F.  Ethnography.  4 Units.  
Explores the theory and practice of ethnography with a focus on anthropology, the discipline most associated with ethnography. Students are exposed to the theoretical underpinnings of ethnographic work, traditional and innovative practices, and sample ethnographies.
Same as CRM/LAW C222, CHC/LAT 217  
ANTHRO 235A.  Transnational Migration.  4 Units.  
Examines borders and boundaries as material and semiotic constructs. Drawing upon an array of literatures, but loosely situated in U.S. geo/biopolitics, explores transformative troublings of places, spaces, borders, and bodies of all sorts.
Same as SOC SCI 254A, CHC/LAT 215  
ANTHRO 236.  Black Ethnography in the Anthropological Imagination.  4 Units.  
What is ethnography? Rather than an existential question, students cull through the history of the field and understand the very oft-problematic stance of ethnography to construction of particular types of blackness.
ANTHRO 245A.  Seminar in Political Anthropology.  4 Units.  
Explores anthropological approaches to politics. Covers a range of issues and topics, including: theories of culture, power, and hegemony; approaches to colonial and post-colonial relations of global inequality; and ethnographic approaches to the modern state.
ANTHRO 246.  Feminist Anthropology.  4 Units.  
Examines feminist anthropology’s rise as an interdisciplinary field. Paying special attention to issues of power, subjectivity, and authority in the research encounter, feminist anthropologists’ major contributions to ethnography, gender studies, queer studies, and cultural anthropology are surveyed.
ANTHRO 247A.  Structuralism and Post-Structuralism.  4 Units.  
Traces recent theoretical discussions and arguments over the philosophical and historical "subject" from structuralist decenterings toward the characteristically "post-structuralist" contemporary concern with the historical and political constitution of subjectivities and subject positions.
ANTHRO 248.  Archival Violence.  4 Units.  
Synthesizes the multifaceted nature of the archive as both an object/tool of western ontological warcraft and as a driver/accelerator of difference making.
ANTHRO 249A.  Humanism and Posthumanism.  4 Units.  
Examines alternative forms of human, humanisms, and posthumanisms to explore the inherent ambiguities and shifting boundaries of knowing and being human, and to venture into modes of analysis that problematize the universality and globality of liberal humanism.
ANTHRO 252A.  Queer Anthropology.  4 Units.  
Explores historical and contemporary scholarship that employs ethnographic approaches to address the discursive construction of sexuality. Also examines how the discipline of anthropology has been shaped by the study of sexuality.
ANTHRO 253A.  Design, Aesthetics, and Social Life.  4 Units.  
Anthropology has only recently recognized that design demands consideration as a cultural form linked to, yet nonetheless distinct from, other aesthetic endeavors. Largely oriented toward collaboratively working out a conceptual basis for a distinctly anthropological approach to design.
ANTHRO 254.  Digital Anthropology.  4 Units.  
Examines “the digital” from an anthropological perspective by exploring ethnographic research on digital culture and using anthropological frameworks to approach the digital and the human. Readings are interdisciplinary, including work from history and communications.
ANTHRO 255A.  Disability Worlds.  4 Units.  
Explores disability from a range of methodological and theoretical perspectives. Examines the genealogy of disability in anthropology and related disciplines, with an emphasis on ethnographic work. Topics addressed include access, embodiment, politics, selfhood, and sexuality.
ANTHRO 256A.  Ethnographies of Technology.  4 Units.  
Surveys current ethnographic research pertaining to technologies, technical systems, and infrastructures.
ANTHRO 256B.  Secrecy, Security, and Surveillance.  4 Units.  
Explores secrecy and security as fundamental to constructions of public and private domains, relations of citizenship and sovereignty, the militarization of everyday life, and the ways that the fabrics of societies are woven of both trust and deceit.
ANTHRO 259A.  Dissertation Writing Seminar.  4 Units.  
Intended for advanced, post-fieldwork Anthropology graduate students. Emphasis on the presentation of research design and results, problems of ethnographic writing, and qualitative and quantitative data and analysis. Prerequisites: post-fieldwork; graduate standing in Anthropology or consent of instructor.
ANTHRO 260.  Critical Medical Anthropology.  4 Units.  
Reading-intensive graduate seminar offers an overview of theoretical and ethnographic approaches to illness and healing in different settings, while also studying the political economic distribution of risks that contribute to disease. Students develop their own research papers integrating course readings.
ANTHRO 261.  Anthropology of the Mind .  4 Units.  
Reading-intensive graduate seminar looks at emergence of mind/soul in modern age and similar concepts across cultural and historical contexts; studies psychiatric anthropological approaches to trauma, the subconscious, dreaming, madness. Students develop their own research papers integrating course readings.
ANTHRO 263.  Black Political Theory in the United States.  4 Units.  
Black Political Theory analyzes the development of Black political ideologies and the strategic processes by which Black people in the United States have attained freedom.
ANTHRO 263A.  Prisons in the United States.  4 Units.  
Analyzes, deconstructs social relations and posits new realities with respect to interlocking violence that is levied against Black people in the form of prisons in the United States of America.
ANTHRO 264.  Literary Anthropology.  4 Units.  
Looks at genre-blending between creative nonfiction, ethnography, fiction, memoir and other forms of expression, interrogating the boundary between literature and ethnography.
ANTHRO 270.  Transformative Teaching in Higher Education.  4 Units.  
Introduces graduate students to the theoretical and practical aspects of teaching and learning in higher education. Topics include critical and liberatory pedagogies; theories of learning; course design and instructional strategies; inclusive teaching; and teaching in academic careers.
ANTHRO 289.  Special Topics in Anthropology.  1-4 Units.  
Studies in selected areas of Anthropology. Topics addressed vary each quarter.
Repeatability: May be taken unlimited times as topics vary  
ANTHRO 290.  Dissertation Research.  4-12 Units.  
Dissertation research with Anthropology faculty.
Repeatability: May be taken unlimited times  
ANTHRO 299.  Independent Study.  4-12 Units.  
Independent research with Anthropology faculty.
Repeatability: May be taken unlimited times