Creative Coursework Showcase

The creative expressions featured here demonstrate some of the diverse and meaningful ways in which UTM Anthropology students reflect upon relevant anthropological topics. All work on this page is reproduced with permission of creators, and copyrights belong to creators.

If you're interested in sharing creative work that you created for a UTM Anthropology course, please send an email to communications.utmanthro@utoronto.ca.

Thank you to students for sharing your work!

artwork depicting 13 moons with animals, plants and trees on them
13 Grandmother Moons by Donna Nilson, Acrylic Paint. Click on image to view full-size version.

"In this class (ANT317H5 Pre-contact Indigenous History of Eastern North America) we talked quite often about traditional knowledge and oral history. I painted the 13 Grandmother Moons. It is not western science but it is something that Anishinaabe people followed to tell them when to plant, hunt, harvest etc. Not western science but science just the same!" - Donna Nilson

 

artwork depicting two identical bearded male faces looking away from eachother
Digital artwork by Maddie Jantzi. Click on image to view full-size version.

"This image depicts Scott Walter as the Roman god Janus, the god with two faces." - Maddie Jantzi

 

man with three question marks above his head seated at a computer and another man standing with a microphone with the words research!?! ha! between them
Panel from Camryn Ferguson's digital comic "Wolter and Tsoukalos' Pseudoscience Adventure". Click on image to view the full PDF.

"My work is a 17-page parody comic (PDF) about Scott Wolter and Giorgio Tsoukalos. Kenneth Feder's pseudoscience cheat sheet is heavily included in the comic. I chose this medium because I wanted to make something funny, and comics are a great way to get humour across." - Camryn Ferguson

 

 

Quest for the Truth

"Quest for the Truth (PDF) is about various pseudoarchaeologists in the spotlight, their shows playing on the History, National Geographic and other such TV channels. It is a similar structure to epic poems, where there are couplets describing brave quests; however, it is used in an ironic manner, as those in the story have less than noble journeys spreading misinformation that often end up being quite anti-climactic too."

 

Strange Happenings

"Strange Happenings (PDF) is a combination of poetry and ranting. With the poetry, I sought to mock pseudoscientists and their absurd claims. Although I appear to be falling for the claims made by pseudoscientists, my poem should not be taken literally, but rather, as jest. The rant is where I seek to inform the reader of how nonsensical these claims are by pseudoscientists. I attempt to acknowledge the fact that humans are capable of incredible things and that it does not take a pseudoscientific explanation to explain how humans are capable of those things." - S Saadeq Ahmed

 

"This video is a parody of pseudoarcheology. My character discovers an extremely fake alien artifact, and goes on to invent proof that Professor Steven Dorland of the Anthropology department is an Alien. I take lecture recordings out of context to make it seem like Professor Dorland believes in aliens." - Kathleen Russell

 

 

artwork depicting three male figures standing facing each other and pointing at one another
Meme-inspired artwork (soft pastel, pencil and marker) by Arianna Vacca. Click on image to view full-size version.

"This work was inspired by the Spider-Man No Way home meme of the two look-alike Spider-Mans pointing at each other dumbfounded. In this artwork/meme i have included three infamous pseudoscience theorists that include: Graham Bruce Hancock, Erich Von Daniken and Giorgio A. Tsoukalos. I have decided to illustrate them in the Spider-Man No Way Home meme because not only are they similar in appearance (European men) but also in their racist ideology crediting for example ancient aliens instead of non-European individuals." - Arianna Vacca