CRC Anthropology

06/01/2024

Looking for a part-time job in anthropology? CRC Anthropology is hiring an Instructional Assistant(IA) for the 2024-2025 academic year. The IA helps to maintain our collection, set up labs and helps students taking introductory anthropology classes. This is a perfect opportunity for newly graduated anthropology students, or anthro grads taking time off before grad school or other opportunities. This is part-time employment, with some flexibility in scheduling and can easily work around other jobs and commitments.

Minimum requirements: completion of the equivalent of an AA or AS in Anthropology (60 semester units, with at least 13 in anthropology), and at least 1 year working or volunteering in a lab, museum, field school or educational setting (i.e. tutor).

Deadline to apply is June 12! The full job posting contains the link to apply: https://jobs.losrios.edu/postings/25470

If you have any questions about the position, please reach out to Amanda Wolcott Paskey ([email protected]), Chair of CRC Anthropology.

02/28/2024

CRC Anthropology invites you to attend a presentation on experiences in forensic anthropology with Chico State graduate Thomas Delgado and current graduate student Paige Schmitt on Tuesday March 5 at 10:30 am in Winn 150! Chico State's Human Identification Lab (HIL) is one of the best in the nation and provides training to law enforcement, responds to natural disaster recover like wildfires, and is engaged in ongoing projects with the Department of Defense involving repatriation of veteran remains of US soldiers killed or missing in action. This event is free and open to the public.

Thomas Delgado
Thomas A. Delgado is a q***r and Latine scholar that completed their B.A. at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and their M.A. at California State University, Chico. Their research interests include the use of stable isotopes and machine learning to estimate region-of-origin from unidentified remains as well as ethics and accessibility related to forensic anthropology. They've held roles supporting student engagement within the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and are currently employed by a local cultural resource management firm supporting a large archaeological investigation in downtown Sacramento.

Paige Schmitt
Paige Schmitt is a first-generation college student at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. She received her B.A. from West Virginia University in anthropology and criminology before moving to Chico to pursue a master’s degree. Her academic interests are primarily in bioarchaeology and how our lived experiences become embodied in our skeletons. Paige's thesis research is an extension of this interest as she uses a lens of structural violence to interpret nonspecific skeletal indicators of stress among Archaic Greek individuals from a site in Athens. Additionally, at Chico, she has worked as an assistant for Tribal Relations to aid in the rehousing and repatriation of ancestors and cultural objects. In the long term, she would like to continue to work in repatriation. Outside of school and work, Paige enjoys hiking and crocheting.

10/03/2023

In celebration of Latinx Heritage Month, CRC Anthropology invites you to attend a special Anthro Stories panel presentation on the Latinx experience in anthropology and higher education. We welcome three scholars at different steps of their academic journeys – Dr. Christina Torres (UC Merced), Jessica Morales (UC Davis), and Andrea Lemus Noyola (Sacramento State) who will share their unique interests in anthropology and how their identities as Latina/x inform their scholarship and employment experiences. All are welcome to attend! UC Davis Sacramento State Anthropology Sacramento State UC Merced Cosumnes River College

Date: Thursday, October 12
Time: 9:00-10:30 am
Location: L-111

09/29/2023

Time to brush up on all things Australopithecus!

These ancient human relatives include the first species with evidence of upright walking and running like humans. They represent more than a third of our evolutionary history.

09/21/2023

One of the best local conferences is coming up this November in Chico! This is a great opportunity to meet Chico State Anthropology's amazing students and faculty and learn about cutting edge research in forensic anthropology.

09/09/2023

Cutting edge research on "touch DNA" and ancient humans.

An anthropologist examines how new forensics tools offer unprecedented answers about who likely held or wore Stone Age objects.

09/07/2023

We were happy to share all things anthropology with our campus community during Hawk Week and had a great time meeting new students! Cosumnes River College CRC Anthropology

08/21/2023

What better way to start the new school year, happy fall semester everyone!

Troy and Abed perform a rap with Professor June Bauer (Betty White).Season 2 Episode 1 Anthropology 101: Classes resume at Greendale Community College and th...

05/23/2023

Our final summer book recommendations - Neanderthals, the cultural construction of emotions, young love, and the Oxford English Dictionary!

Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death, and Art by Rebecca Wragg Sykes
Kindred shoves aside the cliché of the shivering ragged figure in an icy wasteland, and reveals the Neanderthal you don't know, our ancestor who lived across vast and diverse tracts of Eurasia and survived through hundreds of thousands of years of massive climate change. This book sheds new light on where they lived, what they ate, and the increasingly complex Neanderthal culture that researchers have discovered.

Between Us: How Cultures Create Emotion by Batja Mesquita
“How are you feeling today?” We may think of emotions as universal responses, felt inside, but Mesquita asks us to reconsider them through the lens of what they do in our relationships, both one-on-one and within larger social networks. By looking outward at relationships at work, school, and home, we can better judge how our emotions will be understood, how they might change a situation, and how they change us.

The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
In 1901, the word bondmaid was discovered missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. This is the story of the girl who stole it. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, Esme spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of lexicographers are gathering words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Esme begins to collect other words from the Scriptorium that are misplaced, discarded or have been neglected by the dictionary men. They help her make sense of the world.

If I See You Again Tomorrow by Robbie Couch
A speculative young adult romance about a teen stuck in a time loop that’s endlessly monotonous until he meets the boy of his dreams. Clark has woken up and relived the same monotonous Monday 309 times. Until Day 310 turns out to be…different. Suddenly, his usual torturous math class is interrupted by a boy he’s never seen before. When Clark decides to throw caution to the wind and join effusive and effervescent Beau on a series of “errands,” he never imagines that anything will really change, because nothing has in such a long time. And he definitely doesn’t expect to fall this hard or this fast for someone in just one day.

05/21/2023

Another four books to check out this summer as recommended by the Anthropology professors. What to read first?

More Than You’ll Ever Know, Katie Gutierrez
True crime writer Cassie is thrilled when Lore Rivera agrees to let Cassie write a book about her. Lore was discovered to have two marriages and families - one in Mexico and one in Texas - when one husband was arrested for murdering the other in the 1980s, and Cassie knows this is fodder for a bestseller. But as Cassie investigates the crime and gets closer to Lore, she has to contend with what she’s willing to do and the type of person she’s willing to be to get the story. This was a fun, engaging novel with complicated female characters.

Foolproof: Why Misinformation Affects our Minds and How to Build Immunity by Sander van der Linden
In Foolproof, one of the world’s leading experts on misinformation lays out a crucial new paradigm for understanding and defending ourselves against the worldwide infodemic. van de Linden explains why our brains are so vulnerable to misinformation, how it spreads across social networks, and what we can do to protect ourselves and others. Strategies like fact-checking and debunking can leave a falsehood still festering or, at worst, even strengthen its hold. Deconstructing the characteristic techniques of conspiracies and misinformation, the book gives readers practical tools to defend themselves and others against nefarious persuasion―whether at scale or around their own dinner table.

True Biz, by Sara Nović
In this novel a deaf teenage girl enrolls at a boarding school for the deaf having never met another deaf person before, bringing her into the Deaf community for the first time. The author, who is deaf herself, provides fascinating and important perspectives on issues like implants, disability rights, and the struggles and joy in Deaf culture through well-developed, realistic characters. I also loved learning more about sign language and Deaf history through lessons sprinkled throughout the novel.

The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths
When a child’s bones are found near an ancient henge in the wild saltmarshes of Norfolk’s north coast, Ruth Galloway, a university lecturer in forensic archaeology, is asked to date them by DCI Harry Nelson. He thinks they may be the bones of a child called Lucy who has been missing for ten years. It’s a cold case he has never been able to forget, in part because he’s received creepy letters about Lucy—quoting Shakespeare and the Bible, in addition to referencing ritual and sacrifice—ever since her disappearance. When Ruth proves that the bones are those of an Iron Age girl who died over two thousand years ago, she supposes that this is the end of the story. She’s wrong: it’s just the beginning of a nightmare.

05/20/2023

We've been putting together the summer reading recommendations from our faculty, check out these first great selections.

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe.
Munroe is a cartoonist, engineer, and runs a popular blog where people ask him science questions. In his book he tackles some of the most absurd questions like: What if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90 percent the speed of light? How fast can you hit a speed bump while driving and live? If there was a robot apocalypse, how long would humanity last?

The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
Nella is the only Black employee at an elite publishing house in New York, exhausted from the constant micro aggressions and pressure to represent all Black people. When another young Black woman starts working there Nella is initially thrilled, but she grows suspicious as she begins receiving threatening notes telling her to leave. I enjoyed this novel about workplace racism, office politics, and the choices young Black women need to make in their careers, especially when it became clear there was a creative, surprising twist to Harris’ take on these issues.

The Island of Missing Trees, Elif Shafak
Tells the story of the forbidden romance between a Greek and Turkish Cypriot on the island of Cyprus in the 1970s, and then years later the story of their teenage daughter in London who knows little about her parents’ past and cultures. Part of the story is told from the perspective of the fig tree who has been witness to the family’s and island’s history!

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray
Tells the story of Belle da Costa Greene, who is hired by J. P. Morgan to serve as the curator and librarian of his newly-constructed library, the Pierpont Morgan Library. As she acquires valuable works and becomes a society darling, she worries about keeping her secret -- that she's a Black woman passing as white.

05/20/2023

Congratulations to CRC's 2023 graduates! We were honored to share this day with you all! CRC Anthropology Cosumnes River College