Undergraduate Program

How do people live, love, work, pray,  parent, and play around the world? This course introduces students to the ways in which cultural anthropologists research human diversity. Students will learn about the different ways people understand racial categories and national identities; how they organize gender dynamics, sexualities, and families; how they generate belief systems and heal sickness; how they structure law, politics, and markets; and how they cope with transitions and upheaval. This course therefore raises questions about cultural diversity, social inequality, justice, and power, in a world shaped by global flows of people, money, media, and technology, and asks students to challenge their assumptions and consider alternative views. Open only to first-year and sophomore students.

Location

(MWF 11:50AM - 12:40PM)

This course provides an overview of the interdisciplinary field of medical anthropology. Using a range of ethnographic case materials (including graphic novels, documentaries, and texts), we will explore how cultural, biological, and political contexts variously shape understandings and experiences of health and illness. Key topics include cultures of medicine, medical pluralism, medicalization, social suffering, and ethics in medical research, medical technologies, and global health. This introductory survey in medical anthropology is open to first- and second-year undergraduate students.

Location

(MW 10:25AM - 11:40AM)

This course investigates the relationship between language and culture at the interface of linguistics and anthropology. It examines the ways in which language reflects the perception of the world, ways of life and beliefs of its speakers, creates rituals and maintains social ties, and is used by people of different ages, genders, social classes, and ethnicities.We will discuss hypotheses that try to explain the nature of relationship between language and culture and then turn to a wide variety of topics which are relevant for both linguists and anthropologists. These include, for instance, kinship systems, language of perception (e.g. colors, spatial relations), politeness across languages and cultures, and writing systems.

Location

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

This course will introduce students to the core research methods at the heart of contemporary anthropology, ranging from ethnographic fieldwork, participant observation, interviews and life histories, to textual analysis and archives, and visual and audio recordings. We will ask, How did anthropology emerge as a discipline around particular methods, and why and how have they changed? What data are produced through specific methods, and how can those data help us answer particular questions? How do methods and theory relate? How are representational, ethical, and methodological concerns intertwined? Students will examine the history of anthropological methods, theories and critiques of methods, and ethical and regulatory issues associated with gathering data. The course will use readings, guest lectures by anthropology faculty, and primary research projects. Not open to first year students. Prerequisite: Ant 101.

Location

(MW 10:25AM - 11:40AM)

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. At least 1 previous course in Anthropology or permission of the instructor.

Location

(TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

This course examines the arguments and the rhetoric of radical thinkers who have tried to change the world rather than just interpret it since the revolutions of 1848

Location

(MW 4:50PM - 6:05PM)

In this introduction to linguistic anthropology, we will take as our starting point the idea that language does not merely describe the world; rather, linguistic practices play a key role in constituting social relations and cultural formations. Communication enables us to form social groups, to create and sustain social differences, to share cultural conceptions of the world, and to learn models of behavior. Through ethnographic case studies, we will explore each of these issues in turn. We will examine how language works as a communicative system and consider the relationship between communication and culture. We will explore language differences within society and the role of language in the production of social identities and power relations. Finally, we will approach language as a cultural product, exploring traditions of performance and communicative genres (narratives, ritual speech, poetry, slang, etc.). In addition to classic and contemporary readings, we will watch films and video clips from popular media, and analyze advertisements, newspaper articles, and political speeches. Quizzes and a series of written assignments will help students learn to think like a linguistic anthropologist.

Location

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

Emotions are not only subjective psychological states, but also intersubjective social and cultural phenomena. In this course, we will approach the study of emotions as both critical categories of experience and analysis. Together, we will develop a theoretical grounding in the concepts of emotion, affect, and feeling, and closely examine specific emotions—such as anger, shame, love, hate, mourning, and hope—from a variety of anthropological orientations and across different cultural contexts. We will review the distinctive contributions of psychological, linguistic, and cultural anthropologists, along with the interdisciplinary contributions from across the humanistic social sciences, to deepen our understanding of emotions at the levels of social individuals and social collectives—that is, emotion as social life.

Location

(MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

In this course we will explore the nature of personhood and structured inequality. Alongside changing theoretical definitions of what personhood is – from social roles to ideologies and semiotic displays – we will read ethnographies that highlight the ways in which social values, practices, and institutions have shaped who and what people think they are. Through an extended comparison between the US and South Asia, we will investigate categories of class, caste, and race to understand how social stratification and exclusion operate. Debating whether “race” in the US is like “caste” in India (among other questions), we will search out the opportunities and limits of cross-cultural comparison. We will view ethnographic and popular films and analyze a range of contemporary media in addition to readings.

Location

(TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

Why do we suffer? How do we heal? How do religious commitments and practices promote processes of healing? This course explores the interaction between religion and healing. Ethnographic examples will draw from multiple religious traditions (e.g., spirit possession, Shamanism, Buddhism, Pentecostalism, and Chinese folk religion), and will emphasize local understandings of illness and healing, with a focus on non-Judeo-Christian traditions. Through readings and audiovisual materials, we will examine the distinction between curing and healing, the mind and body connection, personal and communal dimensions of healing, the experience of affliction and suffering, and theoretical grounding in spiritual and religious worldviews which shape practices of healing. This course is meant to challenge, intrigue, and reorient us into new ways of thinking about health and wellbeing and our relationship with the world.

Location

(MW 11:50AM - 1:05PM)

This course uses anthropological approaches to explore the sociopolitical construction of “the law” in the contemporary world. We will examine how the state’s power and regulatory practices constitute contingent domains of il/legality and how they shape people’s lives. We will also look at a range of illegal activities—including racketeering, piracy, drug trafficking, and political corruption—as well as how certain racialized and gendered bodies are subjected to criminalization. In so doing, we will look critically at the boundary between the illegal and the legal and its assumed alignment with dis/order and the im/moral at local, national, and global scales. We will examine case studies from Latin America, the Middle East, East Asia, the US, and elsewhere.

Location

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

This course explores the legal, political, and philosophical dimensions of the concept of indigenous people; how it differs from overlapping concepts such as peasantry, race, ethnicity, language, culture, and religion; how its definition varies according to the history of colonialism in different parts of the world; and why this movement gained momentum after the end of the Cold War.

Location

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

Does it matter where our power comes from? Why or how and to whom? This course uses anthropological case studies of different kinds of energy sources (fossil fuels, nuclear, water, solar, wind) and different kinds of electrification (centralized grids versus micro-grids) around the world to think about the relationship between energy, environments, power, and culture with a specific focus on intersectional gender and sexuality. How do energy practices and cultural norms of racialized gender shape each other in various places around the world, and to what effects? What might empirical attention to how people talk about and use energy help us to understand about the energy transitions and climate crises of the 21st century?

Location

(M 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

What did it mean to free yourself from enslavement in different parts of the Americas?

What constitutes success? How does agency, resistance, and complicity emerge in the

transition from unfreedom to freedom? What are the legacies of such actions in the

contemporary moment? By focusing on flight from enslavement, we will trace the contours

of colonization in the Americas, how maroons challenged the naturalness of the colonial

order and shaped larger geopolitical relations among colonial powers. First, we will take a

nuanced approach to broad themes such as freedom, independence, and resistance as we

examine case studies from Latin America, the Caribbean, and North America. We will then

explore how these narratives of freedom and resistance have been used in the present day

for a variety of purposes from commemoration to tourism to activism. By following the

lives and afterlives of maroons in the Americas, this course asks us to critically engage with

the often ignored co-authors of the hemisphere’s past, present, and future.

Location

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

Research based class on a particular topic. Required for ANT Majors

Location

(W 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

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

Location

( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

Registration for Independent Study courses needs to be completed through the Independent Study Form​

Location

( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

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

Location

( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

Registration for Independent Study courses needs to be completed through the Independent Study Form​

Location

( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)