Courses

• GRS AN 775: Culture, Society, and Religion in South Asia
  Ethnographic and historical introduction to the Indian subcontinent with a focus on the impact of religion on cultural practices and social institutions.
• GRS AN 784: Anthropology of Religion
  Myth, ritual, and religious experience across cultures. Special attention to the problem of religious symbolism and meaning, religious conversion and revitalization, contrasts between traditional and world religions, and the relation of religious knowledge to science, magic, and ideology. Also offered as GRS RN 687.
• GRS AN 797: Anthropology and Film: Ways of Seeing
  Considers the history and development of anthropological, ethnographic, and transcultural filmmaking. In-depth examination of important anthropological films in terms of methodologies, techniques, and strategies of expression; story, editing, narration, themes, style, content, art, and aesthetics.
• GRS AN 901: Directed Study in Anthropology
  
• GRS AN 902: Directed Study in Anthropology
  
• GRS AR 699: Teaching College Archaeology I
  The goals, contents, and methods of instruction in archaeology. General teaching-learning issues. Required of all teaching fellows.
• GRS AR 701: The Intellectual History of Archaeology
  The historical development of archaeological methods and theory from the Renaissance to the present day, including comparison of major developments in Western Europe and the Americas with developments in other regions. Basic concepts in archaeological record and society.
• GRS AR 703: Seminar: Materials in Ancient Society
  Topic to be announced. Offered through the Center for Materials Research in Archaeology and Ethnology. (MIT Materials in Ancient Societies: course #3.984)
• GRS AR 704: Seminar: Materials in Ancient Society
  Topic to be announced. Offered through the Center for Materials Research in Archaeology and Ethnology. (MIT Materials in Ancient Societies: course #3.989)
• GRS AR 705: Pre-Urban Development
  Cultural development from the origins of humankind through the establishment of food production, with emphasis on models for reconstructing successive changes in adaptation among early populations. (Program core course.)
• GRS AR 706: Archaeology of Complex Societies
  Core concepts of archaeological research on the formation, cultural development, and decay of complex societies as well as their introduction into other cultures. Coverage emphasizes research design rather than simply survey. (Program core course.)
• GRS AR 708: Processes in the formation of Archaeological Sites.
  Considers in detail geological, biological and anthropogenic depositional and post-depositional processes that result in formation of archaeological sites. Initial focus on basic principles/processes, then their application to site-evaluation in New and Old World. Field trips in area.
• GRS AR 712: Seminar in Old World Prehistory
  Selected problems or topics in prehistoric archaeology of the Old World.
• GRS AR 741: Seminar: Archaeology of Mesopotamia
  Detailed survey of the ancient Near East, from the introduction of agriculture to the Hellenistic era. Examines the genesis of the first urban society and its transformation under the Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Persians.
• GRS AR 742: Archaeology in the Holy Land
  In Israel, archaeology is part of current events. We study material remains from the Israelite to the Muslim conquests (c. 1200 BCE -- 640 CE) to learn how physical evidence is created and still plays a role in a larger historical drama. Also offered as GRS RN 690.
• GRS AR 743: Anatolian Archaeology
  An historically oriented survey of the material remains of the ancient cultures of Turkey and northwest Iran from the Neolithic to the Hellenistic period. Emphasis is on the Hittite Empire and civilizations that succeeded it in the first millennium.
• GRS AR 747: Egypt and Northeast Africa: Early States in Egypt, Nubia, and Eritrea/Ethiopia
  Comparative analyses of early states in Egypt and northeast Africa, with a focus on socioeconomic institutions, kingship, burial practices, and religions, utilizing archaeological as well as textual evidence.
• GRS AR 751: Seminar: Mesoamerican Archaeology
  Seminar focused on the archaeology of prehispanic Mesoamerica (much of modern Mexico and Central America) and intended to provide students with an in-depth understanding of major issues in studying the Mesoamerican past, with relative emphases changing by semester.
• GRS AR 770: New World Historical Arachaeology: Colonial America
  Seminar in material culture of the people who colonized North America. Architecture, artifacts, and a variety of sites -- domestic, military, commercial, sepulchral -- are studied. Uses of archival evidence as factual and ethnographic documentation for archaeological interpretation are discussed.
• GRS AR 771: New World Historical Archaeology: Postcolonial America
  Seminar. The archaeological study of America since the Revolution. Focus is on the archaeological and artifactual evidence for the development of plantation systems and slavery, induustrial and urban centers, ethnicity, and modern popular culture.

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