Courses for Fall 2023
General Information About Courses
AAMW course numbers are crosslisted with departmentally based courses. Not all courses of relevance to AAMW students have AAMW numbers. Potentially relevant courses can be found in the rosters from the departments and programs in the History of Art, Ancient History, Anthropology, Classical Studies, History, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Religious Studies, Architecture and Historic Preservation. In addition courses may be taken for Penn credit at Bryn Mawr and Princeton. Advanced students may also request to take a specialist course at other universities in commuting range. If the professor teaching the course agrees, the AAMW Graduate Chair will give the class a Penn Independent Study number, and transcribe the grade received.
| Title | Instructors | Location | Time | Description | Cross listings | Fulfills | Registration notes | Syllabus | Syllabus URL | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AAMW 5260-401 | Material & Methods in Mediterranean Archaeology | Lauren M Ristvet | MUSE 419 | W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM | This course is intended to provide an introduction to archaeological methods and theory in a Mediterranean context, focusing on the contemporary landscape. The class will cover work with museum collections (focusing on the holdings of the Penn Museum), field work and laboratory analysis in order to give students a diverse toolkit that they can later employ in their own original research. Each week, invited lecturers will address the class on different aspects of archaeological methodology in their own research, emphasizing specific themes that will be highlighted in readings and subsequent discussion. The course is divided into three sections: Method and Theory in Mediterranean Archaeology; Museum collections; and Decolonizing Mediterranean Archaeology. The course is designed for new AAMW graduate students, though other graduate students or advanced undergraduate students may participate with the permission of the instructor. | ANTH5026401, CLST6300401 | |||||
| AAMW 5390-401 | Archaeobotany Seminar | Chantel E White | MUSE 190 | T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM | In this course we will approach the relationship between plants and people from archaeological and anthropological perspectives in order to investigate diverse plant consumption, use, and management strategies. Topics will include: archaeological formation processes, archaeobotanical sampling and recovery, lab sorting and identification, quantification methods, and archaeobotany as a means of preserving cultural heritage. Students will learn both field procedures and laboratory methods of archaeobotany through a series of hands-on activities and lab-based experiments. The final research project will involve an original in-depth analysis and interpretation of archaeobotanical specimens. By the end of the course, students will feel comfortable reading and evaluating archaeobotanical literature and will have a solid understanding of how archaeobotanists interpret human activities of the past. | ANTH5230401, CLST7313401, NELC6930401 | |||||
| AAMW 5620-401 | Intro to Digital Archaeology | Jason Herrmann | MUSE 190 | MW 3:30 PM-4:59 PM | Students in this course will be exposed to the broad spectrum of digital approaches in archaeology with an emphasis on fieldwork, through a survey of current literature and applied learning opportunities that focus on African American mortuary landscapes of greater Philadelphia. As an Academically Based Community Service (ABCS) course, we will work with stakeholders from cemetery companies, historic preservation advocacy groups, and members of the African Methodist Episcopal Church to collect data from three field sites. We will then use these data to reconstruct the original plans, untangle site taphonomy, and assess our results for each site. Our results will be examined within the broader constellation of threatened and lost African American burial grounds and our interpretations will be shared with community stakeholders using digital storytelling techniques. This course can count toward the minor in Digital Humanities, minor in Archaeological Science and the Graduate Certificate in Archaeological Science. | ANTH3307401, ANTH5220401, CLST3307401, CLST5620401, NELC3950401 | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202330&c=AAMW5620401 | ||||
| AAMW 6130-401 | Landscapes and Seascapes of the Ancient Mediterranean | Thomas F Tartaron | DRLB 2N36 | R 1:45 PM-4:44 PM | The Mediterranean environment is both diverse and unique, and nurtured numerous complex societies along its shores in antiquity. This seminar offers a primer on theoretical and methodological approaches to studying landscapes and seascapes of the Mediterranean from the Bronze Age to the early modern era, at scales from local to international and on land and underwater. Concepts from processual, post-processual, and current archaeologies will be considered, and field techniques including excavation and surface survey, remote sensing and geophysics, GIS modeling, and ethnography/ethnoarchaeology are examined. Course content and discussion focus on case studies that illustrate how these tools are used to reconstruct the appearance and resources of the natural environment; overland and maritime routes; settlement location, size, function, and demography; social and economic networks; and agricultural, pastoral, and nomadic lifeways. Seminar participants will develop case studies of their own geographical and chronological interest. | CLST3318401, CLST5318401 | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202330&c=AAMW6130401 | ||||
| AAMW 6250-401 | Greek Art and Artifact | Ann L Kuttner | JAFF B17 | TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM | This lecture course surveys Greek art and artifacts from Sicily to the Black Sea from the 10th century BCE to the 2nd century BCE, including the age of Alexander and the Hellenistic Kingdoms. Public sculpture and painting on and around grand buildings and gardens, domestic luxury arts of jewelry, cups and vases, mosaic floors, and cult artefacts are discussed. Also considered are the ways in which heroic epic, religious and political themes are used to engaged viewers' emotions and served both domestic and the public aims. We discuss the relationships of images and things to space and structure, along with ideas of invention and progress, and the role of monuments, makers and patrons in Greek society. | ARTH2250401, ARTH6250401, CLST3401401, CLST5401401 | https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202330&c=AAMW6250401 |