University of Sydney Handbooks - 2022 Archive

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Anthropology Descriptions

Unit outlines will be available through Find a unit outline two weeks before the first day of teaching for 1000-level and 5000-level units, or one week before the first day of teaching for all other units.
 

Anthropology

Major

A major in Anthropology requires 48 credit points from this table including:
(i) 12 credit points of 1000-level core units
(ii) 6 credit points of 2000-level core units
(iii) 6 credit points of 2000-level selective units
(iv) 6 credit points of 3000-level core units
(v) 12 credit points of 3000-level selective units
(vi) 6 credit points of 3000-level Interdisciplinary Project units

Minor

A minor in Anthropology requires 36 credit points from this table including:
(i) 12 credit points of 1000-level core units
(ii) 6 credit points of 2000-level core units
(iii) 6 credit points of 2000-level selective units
(iv) 6 credit points of 3000-level core units
(v) 6 credit points of 3000-level selective units

1000-level core units of study

ANTH1001 Introduction to Anthropology

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 1 Classes: 2x1hr lectures/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prohibitions: ANTH1003 Assessment: 1x1000wd short answer quiz (15%), 1x1000wd written assignment (25%), 1x1000wd first short essay (25%), 1x1000wd second short essay (25%), 11x500wd total weekly reading notes (10%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
Anthropologists study the different ways of life of people in different parts of the world. They study peoples of all kinds, whether in the remotest villages ofthe remotest parts of the globe or in the largest cities of the wealthiest nations on earth. In every kind of place where anthropologists work, they want to step into the shoes of the people whom they wish to understand and to understand people's worlds from the inside out. Topics of study include the environment, the city, the village, the family, the nation, poverty, inequality, race, gender, religion and power. This unit will introduce students to these topics and to core anthropological, concepts, case studies and methods.
ANTH1002 Anthropology in the World

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 2 Classes: 2x1hr lectures/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prohibitions: ANTH1004 Assessment: 1x300wd in-class quiz (5%), 1x900wd observation exercise (15%), 1x1500wd take-home midterm (30%), 1x1800wd essay (40%), participation (10%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
As humans, culture completes us, but we also create culture through our words and deeds. Social and cultural anthropologists are engaged in both cultural description and cultural criticism: their work contributes to understanding the world and changing it. Anthropologists challenge many dominant beliefs about how the world works. In this class, you will be introduced to the unique perspective of cultural anthropology on human experience through a study of how anthropologists have contributed to debates on contemporary issues of global importance. You will learn how anthropological understandings of culture and society help us to rethink the way we live and the world we inhabit.

2000-level core units of study

ANTH2700 Key Debates in Anthropology

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x2hr lectures/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 1000 level in the Anthropology major Assessment: 1x1400wd review essay (30%), 1x500wd group project (10%), participation (10%), 1x1000wd test (15%), 1x1600wd topic essay (35%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
This unit introduces students to contemporary issues in anthropology and the world. Students will learn approaches to climate change, illness and well-being, human-animal relations, life in cities, new forms of media, work and welfare, inequality, poverty and development, the social life of new digital technologies, the changing character of the family, emergent forms of violence and domination and the new forms of protest and resistance that are occurring in the world today. The unit will provide students informed and practical approaches to contemporary social problems and an appreciation of the different cultural lenses through which they are understood.

2000-level selective units of study

ANTH2606 Culture and the Unconscious

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 1000-level in Anthropology Assessment: 1x2500wd essay (70%), 1x2hr exam (30%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
This is a unit on psychoanalytic anthropology. With the focus on the unconscious dimension of human cultural existence the unit critically examines the systematic topical, theoretical, ethnographic and historical aspects of this unique field of anthropological inquiry. All psychoanalytic conceptual frameworks are elucidated and assessed through ethno-psychoanalytic work done in different cultural life-worlds. Firmly grounded in detailed ethnographic evidence the unit provides a comprehensive phenomenological-existential validation of the discipline and its contribution to both anthropology and psychoanalysis.
ANTH2623 Anthropology of Gender and Sexualities

This unit of study is not available in 2022

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week or equivalent intensive Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 1000 level in Anthropology or 12 credit points at 1000 level in Gender Studies Prohibitions: ANTH2020 or ANTH2023 Assessment: 1x2500wd Essay (55%), 1x1500wd Essay (35%), 1x500wd Tutorial paper and presentation (10%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
This unit explores anthropological approaches to genders, gender relations and sexualities in different cultural settings across the world. Students will gain insights into ethnographically informed analysis of local
and global practices and ideas that reproduce, but can also challenge, dominant views of genders and forms of sexuality, and how such views are implicated in structures of inequality that fundamentally shape people's everyday lives and experiences.
ANTH2625 Culture and Development

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 1000 level in Anthropology Assessment: 1x1500wd essay (40%), 1x1400wd take-home exercise (35%), 1x1hr multiple-choice exam (15%), 12xweekly 50wd reading notes (10%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
The 1949 speech by US president, Harry Truman, declared his countrys commitment to the development of the Third World, and began what many consider to be development as an institutional approach to non-Western societies. Anthropology, well established in its study of non-Western societies, was able to offer a rich ethnographic insight into the developing world. Combining ethnographic detail with social science concepts, this unit covers topics such as food crisis, land, environment, cities, fair trade, migration, nation-state, NGOs, poverty and informal economy.
ANTH2627 Medical Anthropology

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 1000 level in Anthropology or 12 credit points at 1000 level in Gender Studies Prohibitions: ANTH2027 Assessment: 1x1000wd essay (30%), 1x3000wd take-home exercise (60%), tutorial participation (10%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
Medical anthropology is a comparative and ethnographic response to the global influence of biomedicine within diverse cultural worlds. This unit will examine major theoretical approaches, their respective critiques, and the methods that underpin them. Concepts such as 'health/illness', 'disease', 'well-being', 'life-death', and 'body/mind' will be located in a variety of cultural contexts and their implications for different approaches to diagnosis and treatment considered. The unit will include culturally located case studies of major contemporary health concerns, such as AIDS.
ANTH2629 Race and Ethnic Relations

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 1000 level in Anthropology or 12 credit points at 1000 level in Diversity Studies Prohibitions: ANTH2117 Assessment: 1x1000wd short written assignment (30%), 1x1000wd equivalent group oral presentation (15%), 1x2500wd essay (45%), tutorial participation (10%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
A comparative study of race and ethnic group relations. The unit will consider the history of ideas of race and practices of racialising and their relationship to ethnicity. It will draw on studies from various areas including North America, the Caribbean, Japan and Australia.

3000 level core units of study

ANTH3700 Practicing Anthropology

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 2000 level in the Anthropology major Assessment: 1x1100wd research proposal (15%), 1x1300wd review essay (30%), 1x1600wd project report (35%), 1x500wd collaborative project (10%), participation (10%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
Anthropology is known for its distinctive method of long-term field work and participant observation engagement with the peoples it studies. This unit will teach students how anthropological methods inform anthropological concepts and broader social theories and how anthropological fieldwork, research and writing contributes to contemporary social debates and reveals new ways of seeing the world that can help to change it for the better. It shows how to put anthropology into practice in all facets of research, writing and public engagement.

3000 level selective units of study

ANTH3603 Sea of Islands: Anthropology in Oceania

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x2hr seminar/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 2000 level in the Anthropology major Prohibitions: ANTH2603 Assessment: 1x4500wd research essay (60%), 1x1000wd take-home exercise (20%), 500wd weekly reflections (10%), participation (10%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
Melanesia is both a distinctive culture area and, with over 1000 different languages, a site of intense and highly localised cultural variation. This unit will explore the nature of that variation around themes of power, status, gender, secrecy, cosmology and local organization. The unit also examines the impact of this diversity on modern projects of Christianity, state formation and the market economy and the influence this has had on the wider anthropological literature on modernity.
ANTH3604 The Anthropocene

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 2 Classes: 2x1hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 2000 level in the Anthropology major Assessment: 1x1000wd in-class test (20%), 1x1200wd review essay (30%), 1x1800wd project paper (40%), 1x500wd group work (10%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
Anthropogenic climate change is the primary challenge facing the next generation of leaders. Anthropology's holistic approach to the social world provides key insights into the ways human/environment interactions have caused - and can mitigate - climate change. This unit will explore social/political/cultural aspects of climate change, focusing on current indicators and outcomes, and seek to understand and evaluate different forms of mitigation. The unit will rely on Anthropology's close association with social justice issues, and will focus on climate change effects in the developing world.
ANTH3615 Ethnography of Southeast Asia

This unit of study is not available in 2022

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr seminar/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 2000 level in the Anthropology major Assessment: 1x3000wd take-home exam (50%), 1x2000wd essay (40%), 10x100wd online reading response (10%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
Southeast Asia is a region of great geographic and cultural diversity, a meeting point for civilisational influences from India and China including the religions of Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. It is also the laboratory for much anthropological inquiry, attracting the attention of prominent anthropologists and social scientists, including Clifford Geertz and Benedict Anderson. This unit will examine Southeast Asia in historical and contemporary context, and draw on ethnographies dealing with issues such as nationalism, ethnic minorities and the nation state, gender and modernity, drugs and development, and the rural-urban divide.
ANTH3618 Indigenous Australians Today

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x2hr seminar/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 2000 level in the Anthropology major Prohibitions: ANTH2630 Assessment: 1x3000wd research project proposal (45%), 1x1200wd project outline with bibliography (15%), 3x600wd reading analyses (30%), seminar participation (10%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
The unit uses an anthropological lens to examine how Indigenous Australians have long engaged with a diversity of non-Indigenous practices, ideas and values as they continue to articulate distinct Indigenous lives. It investigates ethnographically changing Indigenous lifeworlds since colonisation with a focus on state policy and rights politics.
ANTH3632 The Anthropology of the Body

This unit of study is not available in 2022

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr seminar/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 2000 level in Anthropology Prohibitions: ANTH2632 Assessment: 4x375wd Reading responses (20%), 1x Participation (10%), 1x3000wd Research essay (40%), 1x1500wd Concept essay (30%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
The body as a site of culture has been of interest to anthropologists from the inception of the discipline. This unit focuses on anthropological approaches to and ethnographic explorations of the body. The key question will be to explore different theories that attempt to explain the relationship between the body and society. We will study important theoretical approaches including Marx, Mauss, Bourdieu and Foucault. Along with each theorists' primary work(s) on the body, we will read associated ethnographic texts, to understand how anthropologist base ethnographies on social theory.
ANTH3653 Economy and Culture

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x2hr seminar/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 2000 level in the Anthropology major Prohibitions: ANTH2653 Assessment: 1x1400wd equivalent group presentation (20%), 1x1800wd short written assignment (30%), 1x2800wd essay (40%), participation (10%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
Economy and Culture provides tools for the understanding of economic activity as both a foundation and an expression of human sociality. It approaches material and cultural practice as inextricably linked in the shaping of the social, and explains that linkage through the discussion of ethnographically grounded studies and theorists. Against this background, economic practices characterised as rational, irrational, inspired, magical, informal, corrupt or devilish will be analysed as sources of an anthropological inquiry into the human condition and its social dimensions.
SPAN3615 Indigenous Movements in Latin America

This unit of study is not available in 2022

Credit points: 6 Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr seminar/week Prerequisites: SPAN3001 or SPAN3611 or 12 credit points at 2000 level in Anthropology major Prohibitions: SPAN2615 Assessment: Active seminar participation (10%), 1x1500wd group presentation (20%), 1x2000wd literature review (30%), 1x2500wd essay (40%) Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
This course approaches the study of Latin American societies through an interdisciplinary approach to studying indigenous movements. These movements have been pivotal actors in the shaping of contemporary conceptions of democracy, citizenship and statecraft in the continent, and have also drawn attention globally. Students will gain insight into cultural diversity of Latin American societies and acquire analytical tools for studying and understanding a wide variety of topics associated with political structure and agency in the continent.

Interdisciplinary project unit of study

If you are completing two majors and both of your majors are from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, please select the Interdisciplinary Impact unit of study for your first major, and the Industry and Community Project unit of study for your second major.
If you are completing two majors but only one of your majors is from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, please select the Interdisciplinary Impact unit of study for that major.
If you are completing one major only and that major is from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, please select the Interdisciplinary Impact unit of study for your major.
FASS3999 Interdisciplinary Impact

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Intensive December,Semester 1,Semester 2 Classes: 1hr lecture/performance event week for 5 weeks 2hr workshop per week for 10 weeks 2hr online learning modules for 5 weeks Prerequisites: Completion of at least 90 credit points Assessment: 1x1000wd disciplinary mapping exercise (20%), 1x1500wd / 10 min team presentation (30%), 1x2000wd critical reflection (35%), participation and engagement (15%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Block mode Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
Note: Department permission required for enrolmentin the following sessions:Intensive December
Interdisciplinarity is a key skill in fostering agility in life and work. This unit provides learning experiences that build students' skills, knowledge and understanding of the application of their disciplinary background to interdisciplinary contexts. In this unit, students will work in teams and develop interdisciplinarity skills through problem-based learning projects responding to 'real world problems'.
ANTH3999 Interdisciplinary Impact

This unit of study is not available in 2022

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Refer to the unit of study outline https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Intensive December,Semester 1,Semester 2 Prerequisites: Completion of at least 90 credit points Prohibitions: Interdisciplinary Impact in another major Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
Note: Department permission required for enrolmentin the following sessions:Intensive December
Interdisciplinarity is a key skill in fostering agility in life and work. This unit provides learning experiences that build students' skills, knowledge and understanding of the application of their disciplinary background to interdisciplinary contexts. In this unit, students will work in teams and develop interdisciplinarity skills through problem-based learning projects responding to 'real world problems'.
ANTH3998 Industry and Community Project

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Intensive February,Intensive July,Semester 1,Semester 2 Classes: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Prerequisites: 72 credit points Corequisites: Interdisciplinary Impact in any major Assessment: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences
This interdisciplinary unit provides students with the opportunity to address complex problems identified by industry, community, and government organisations, and gain valuable experience in working across disciplinary boundaries. In collaboration with a major industry partner and an academic lead, students integrate their academic skills and knowledge by working in teams with students from a range of disciplinary backgrounds. This experience allows students to research, analyse and present solutions to a realworld problem, and to build on their interpersonal and transferable skills by engaging with and learning from industry experts and presenting their ideas and solutions to the industry partner.