This course, an introduction to the study of human culture, exposes students to the basic principles of anthropology. Students will be introduced to the range of cultural diversity that exists in the world, from tribal societies to modern nation-states. Through this encounter, students will learn to view cultures in comparative context, and will critically reflect on what it means to be human. Open only to first-year and sophomore students. Permission of instructor required.

Location

Morey Room 321 (MWF 10:25AM - 11:15AM)

In this course exploring the anthropology of reproduction, we will think not only about how babies are "made" in the traditional sense, through sexual and other modes of reproduction, but also how they and the processes by which infants come into being are also socially and culturally constructed. This course exposes students to a range of anthropological modes of engagement, by examining reproductive practices through multiple lenses: medical anthropology, kinship studies, gender/sexuality studies and feminist critique, visual anthropology, ethnographic film, affect theory, and science studies. We will attend to the ways in which race, class, gender, and sexuality shape reproductive outcomes, exploring the relationship between reproduction, politics and the economy. Only open to first years and sophomores. Permission of instructor required.

Location

Online Room 17 (ASE) (TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

A survey of major developments in socio-cultural anthropological thought from the 19th century up to the present. This course is strongly recommended for students who are interested in graduate school in anthropology or related fields. Strongly encouraged for students pursuing honors in anthropology.

Prerequisite: At least one previous course in anthropology or permission of instructor.

Location

Goergen Hall Room 108 (MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

This course is a general inquiry into the practice of ethnography, including fieldwork and writing, carried out through a close reading of materials that investigate the role of the built environment in the production of power and inequality. This course has two aims. First, it will enable students to analyze and evaluate how anthropologists create ethnographic knowledge. Second, it will introduce students to urban anthropology and in particular, to scholarship which examines the politics of urban restructuring (including urban renewal, gentrification, urban violence, deindustrialization, and other topics). Reading ethnographies that document struggles over space in the US and abroad, we will investigate different constellations of power, inequality, and resistance - - and how anthropologists study them. Prerequisite: ANT 101 or permission of instructor.

Location

(TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

A survey of anthropological and philosophical debates over how to explain the apparently irrational beliefs of other people in terms of their different cultural perceptions of the same natural world, or in terms of their different experiences of ontologically different worlds. Authors discussed include Kant and Durkheim, Wittgenstein and Evans-Pritchard, Heidegger and Latour, and Levi-Strauss and Descola. Prerequisites: At least two previous anthropology courses or permission of the instructor.

Location

Online Room 5 (ASE) (MW 4:50PM - 6:05PM)

Using a critical lens, this course examines how forms of social organization create good health for some groups and poor health for other groups. Pre-requisite: ANTH 101 or PHLT 101.

Location

Dewey Room 2110D (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

Cultural and social dimensions of health and illness including the political and economic dimensions. Permission of instructor required: please contact her at lmetcalf325@gmail.com

Location

Online Room 13 (ASE) (MW 6:15PM - 7:30PM)

This is a course about how people use things: works of art, clothing, buildings, food, and technology.  We will explore the social and communicative roles that objects play in human society and investigate how people use objects to communicate, rebel, exert power, or make sense of the world around them in both market and non-market contexts. In addition to classic and contemporary ethnographic readings, we will watch films and video clips from popular media, and analyze advertisements, newspaper articles, and things themselves.  Students will do original research on a topic of their choosing. Permission of instructor required.

Location

Online Room 5 (ASE) (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

What is progress? Are universal theories of development possible? This course introduces students to major trends in the anthropological study of international development through case studies from around the world. Topics include: indigenous people and development, debates over cultural property and cultural loss, sustainability, and the role of cultural values in economic life.

Location

Goergen Hall Room 108 (MW 11:50AM - 1:05PM)

Addressing the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS in the United States, United Kingdom, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Haiti, and elsewhere, this uniquely interdisciplinary course will incorporate insights from the fields of public health, medical anthropology, and ethnomusicology. Studying the HIV/AIDS epidemic through the lens of musical expression, we will ask how individuals and communities affected by HIV/AIDS have mobilized musical sound in response to the disease. Topics addressed within the class will include musical representations of HIV/AIDS within queer communities; the use of music in public health campaigns to raise awareness about the disease; and the mobilization of musical performance within grassroots support groups for individuals affected by HIV/AIDS.

Location

Online Room 19 (ASE) (TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

This course will examine gender as a key component of social, economic, and political life.How are economic processes, political discussions, and intimate practices constrained by cultural ideas about gender and sex? How does gender intersect with race, class, and ethnicity? How is gender related to sexuality, bodies, and selves? While many or our discussions will be focused on the U.S., we will also examine several ethnographic examples from outside the contemporary western world that challenge the universality of our conceptions of gender and sexuality. Permission of Instructor required.

Location

Online Room 5 (ASE) (TR 4:50PM - 6:05PM)

This course is an interdisciplinary survey of the creation of an American Empire following the closing of the continental frontier in the 1890s. It was driven by the competition for scarce natural resources such as fertile land, minerals, and fossil fuels, and for cheap labor and access to markets. Part 1 covers American military intervention in Latin America, Asia and Europe between 1890 and 1945. Part 2 covers the competition between the USA and the USSR for hegemony in the post-colonial world between 1945 and 1992. Part 3 covers imperialist rivalry for the control of oil in the Middle East as the backdrop for the “Global War on Terror” that dates from 1992.  Key readings include Williams The Tragedy of American Diplomacy; LeFeber Inevitable Revolutions; Klein The Shock Doctrine; McCoy, The Politics of Heroin; Rashid Taliban; and Mitchell Carbon Democracy.

Location

Online Room 23 (ASE) (MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

The social and cultural circumstances that give rise to religious fundamentalism, explore the reasons for its attraction to adherents, and look at its contrasts with other forms of religious practice. Pre-requisite: ANTH 101 or PHLT 101.

Location

Dewey Room 2110D (TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

While many of us may or may not live in cities today, their presence as central places for administrative, judicial, and social purposes is undeniable. Both the historical and archaeological record demonstrate the city is not a new phenomenon, but scholars debate over what actually constitutes a city, especially in the prehispanic Americas. To this end, we will read key texts about cities and urbanism that will help us better understand this debate. We will also discuss how recent anthropological approaches to studying cities have helped archaeologists better understand prehispanic urbanism and city-life.

Location

Online Room 21 (ASE) (TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

Whiteness is often taken to be a human norm. An unraced, default, invisible category. Fundamentally unmarked, and yet a marker of power, status, and privilege. It has been the standard against which all non-white ways of being have been rendered Other. But whiteness is not a given. It is a mutable and flexible category. What does it mean to be white? How does one (or how do many) become white? And how can one (or many) move in and out of whiteness? In this course, we will deconstruct whiteness through theoretical, historical, and ethnographic lenses. We will examine the historical processes by which a number of ethnic groups have become white, and we will interrogate the ways in which whiteness continues to be actively produced and enacted in contemporary discourse and social life.

Location

Online Room 8 (ASE) (TR 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

This seminar considers the recent surge in anthropological scholarship on energy, and its historical antecedents and theoretical underpinnings, to understand the cultures, politics, and logics of energy. We will ask: How do shifting energy practices shape how people live in the world? What might empirical attention to energy (discourses, sources, landscapes, infrastructures, waste) help us to understand about the energy transitions and climate crisis of the 21st century? In addition to weekly seminar-style discussions, students will propose, develop, and present a semester-long research project. NOTE: Open to declared anthropology majors and minors who have taken Ant 101 and one 200-level core course.

Location

Lattimore Room 540 (T 9:40AM - 12:20PM)

This 2-credit course, by permission of the instructor, will enable students who successfully completed ANT 233 Cultural Politics of Prison Towns to continue ongoing independent research. Students will conduct biweekly independent or collaborative research visits, produce extensive field notes and interface with the ongoing Prison Towns collaborative ethnographic research project.

For ANT 101, Cultural Anthropology. By application only. The TA program requires students to work in teams and to lead group discussion.

Registration for Independent Study courses needs to be completed thru the instructions for online independent study registration.

Registration for Independent Study courses needs to be completed thru the instructions for online independent study registration.

Registration for Independent Study courses needs to be completed thru the instructions for online independent study registration.

Blank Description

Blank Description

Registration for Independent Study courses needs to be completed thru the instructions for online independent study registration.

Internships will be graded on a pass/fail basis only.

Registration for Independent Study courses needs to be completed thru the instructions for online independent study registration.