Anthropology
Courses
ANTH 101 Introduction to Cultural Diversity 3.0 Credits
Examines the diversity that exists in human culture. Uses lectures, films, and discussions to examine and illustrate the relationship between humans and their social/cultural systems.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
ANTH 110 Human Past: Anthropology and Prehistoric Archeology 3.0 Credits
Examines human origins from the australopithecines to the present, including both the physiological and archaeological records. Discusses new finds and new interpretations of evolution.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
ANTH 111 Introduction to Biological Anthropology 3.0 Credits
Anthropology is the holistic study of the human condition. Biological anthropology is a subfield of the larger discipline that studies humankind as a zoological species. As biological anthropology is firmly rooted in evolutionary theory, the evolutionary biology of humans is the central focus of the course. Basic concepts of genetics, geology, paleontology, comparative anatomy, primate biology and material culture provide the foundation for understanding humanity’s place in nature.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
ANTH 112 Language, Culture & Cognition 3.0 Credits
This course is an introductory survey of three ways language is understood as a central element that glues together human culture; language around categories and taxonomies as shared perception; language origins and evolution; and language as socialization. An additional fourth unit on fieldwork methods in cross-cultural understanding and language starts to prepare you for future qualitative research.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
ANTH 117 Introduction to World Religions 3.0 Credits
This course is meant to be a foundational course for the minor in religious studies. It introduces students to the world religions from an anthropological perspective. Hence the basic concerns of an anthropological approach – worldview, ritual, myth, and so forth – are introduced early and applied to each of the religions studied.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
ANTH 205 Imagining Africa 3.0 Credits
This course introduces students to Africa by exploring how Africa and Africans have been viewed, perceived or imagined by non-Africans; how such images and stories have affected Africans’ roles in global politics, economy, and media; and how images and stories generated by Africans are used creatively to express a sense of African lives in public life, in the arts and in the sciences. The course includes multiple video screenings.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
ANTH 210 [WI] Worldview: Science, Religion and Magic 3.0 Credits
Examines anthropological and archaeological evidence of the worldviews of non-literate people, as shown in the practice of ceremony, magic, sorcery, and witchcraft, and the role of shamans and priests. This is a writing intensive course.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
Restrictions: Cannot enroll if classification is Freshman
ANTH 212 [WI] Topics in World Ethnography 3.0 Credits
Examines the peoples and cultures of the selected cultural areas. Emphasizes indigenous cultures and the effects of modernization on these cultures.
Repeat Status: Can be repeated multiple times for credit
ANTH 215 Anthropology of Gender 3.0 Credits
This course takes an ethnographic approach to the study of gender socializations and gender roles. We will address issues of sex roles, the cultural construction of gender categories, the forms of gender inequality, and the ways cultures engage in gender based power relationships. While these issues will be dealt with in specific and local ethnographic contexts, students will be encouraged to make comparisons across the contexts and to compare these works with their own experience.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
ANTH 217 Anthropology of Interfaith Relations 3.0 Credits
This course aims to introduce students to how anthropological and ethnographic analyses can help us understand the variety of ways in which people of different faiths both conflict with and work amicably together.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
ANTH 225 Anthropology of Youth 3.0 Credits
What is youth? Is it a universal, biological phase of human life somewhere between childhood and adulthood, or a cultural category, socially constructed and historically contingent? Does it mean the same thing to be young today in the US, Samoa, Indonesia, Nepal, or Japan, or do place, culture, history, media, and politics dramatically influence the feeling and experience of being young? This course addresses these and other questions raised by anthropologists about the culture and nature of “youth.” We will be analyzing youth as an idea, an identity, a moral panic, a branding distinction, and an obsession.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
ANTH 240 Urban Anthropology 3.0 Credits
This course will give students the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the major themes in urban anthropology and how they relate to other areas of research in anthropology and the social sciences in general. Students will focus on the research methods used by urban anthropologists as well as read different ethnographic cases of urban life.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
ANTH 250 Anthropology of Immigration 3.0 Credits
By examination of key ethnographical texts, the course covers basic theoretical and topical approaches to the anthropology of immigration, including: immigration and emigration; transnationalism and globalization; reception contexts; ethnic economies, enclaves and ethnic businesses; global economic strategies for migrant households; refugees, the state and immigration; culture, identity, and adaptation and assimilation.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
ANTH 255 Psychological Anthropology 3.0 Credits
The course is an overview of the field of Psychological Anthropology. It examines issues live nature vs. nurture; personality and "madness"; ethnopsychologies; and cognition. The attempt is to always recognize the salience and significance of culture when considering these issues.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
Restrictions: Cannot enroll if classification is Freshman
ANTH 265 Health & Healing Practices in Cross-Cultural Perspective 3.0 Credits
This course examines the key concepts and research methodologies of medical anthropology. It will explore the various metaphors about health, and their meanings, that can be found across a range of cultural contexts. Students will learn that the distinctive feature of the anthropological approach to the study of health, disease and healthcare is the use of ethnography.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
ANTH 270 Comparative Religious Ethics 3.0 Credits
The eternal teaching of the different religions and how they address such issues as war, sexuality and economics.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
ANTH 310 Societies In Transition: The Impact of Modernization and the Third World 3.0 Credits
Looks at the impact of 20th-century technology on traditional societies. Uses area studies from Africa, Asia, and elsewhere to explore institutions such as the family, the polity, the economy, and religion.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
Restrictions: Cannot enroll if classification is Freshman
ANTH 312 Approaches to Intercultural Behavior 3.0 Credits
Examines theory and case studies related to working and living outside the United States. Includes topics such as culture shock, cultural relativity, and ethnocentrism. Selects specific geographic culture areas for case studies.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
ANTH 330 Media Anthropology 3.0 Credits
This course will introduce students to the anthropological study of media including traditional forms of mass media as well as new media such as the Internet. Students will be exposed to the theories and methodologies of media study from an anthropological perspective. Students will also engage in their own ethnographic studies of media to gain first hand experience with the methods of anthropology.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
ANTH 345 Visual Anthropology 3.0 Credits
Introduces students to the subdiscipline of visual anthropology through an overview of visual theory and a survey of ethnographic photography and film. Students will learn to evaluate ethnographic visual representation as well as develop their own skills as visual anthropologists through documenting and representing cultural phenomena.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
Prerequisites: ANTH 101 [Min Grade: D]
ANTH 350 Anthropology of Language 3.0 Credits
Explores how humans organize cultural activities though language and vice versa. After covering a short history of linguistic anthropological study and method, materials include ethnographic study of language and socialization, verbal art and linguistic performance, language and cultural categories, writing and literacy, and language ideologies.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
ANTH 355 Digital Culture 3.0 Credits
This course will focus on how the internet, new and social media have changed the way we think about space and time. It will look at the ways we work and engage in leisure activities. We will bring the approach of anthropology to the study of these new media in order to ask key questions about social life.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
ANTH 360 Culture and the Environment 3.0 Credits
This course explores the interplay between culture and the environment by examining both ethnographic accounts from around the world and archeological materials from the last 14,000 years. Special attention is paid to the changing cultural view of the environment over the last two centuries.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
ANTH 363 Sacred Traditions of the East 3.0 Credits
This course introduces the student to sacred traditions of Asia: Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism. It will attempt a historical-comparative investigation of these traditions. It will emphasize the practice and philosophical underpinnings of these traditions, as well as the interplay between integration of the folk or popular aspects and the abstracts or esoteric.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
ANTH 365 Family and Kinship 3.0 Credits
The course investigates the concepts of family and kinship from an anthropological perspective. It looks at the family as a critical and contradictory location at the intersection of global and transnational forces. Using anthropological concepts such as status and role, it will explore changing gender relationships, sexual expression, parenting and aging.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
Restrictions: Cannot enroll if classification is Freshman
ANTH 370 Ethnographic Methods 3.0 Credits
The course introduces students to ethnographic research methods through eight hands-on assignments: 1) selecting a site; 2) establishing rapport; 3) operationalizing hypotheses; 4) using qualitative and quantitative data gathering techniques; 5) taking field notes ; 6) analyzing data collected; 7) synthesizing these data; and 8) writing an ethnographic report.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
Restrictions: Cannot enroll if classification is Freshman
ANTH 375 Digital Ethnography 3.0 Credits
This course is the second part in the ethnographic methods series. It introduces students to the research methodologies employed by anthropologists to study online environments, digital communities, and virtual worlds. Students will gain practical, firsthand experience carrying out digital ethnographies and learn to evaluate the quality of digital ethnographic research.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
ANTH 390 Seminar in Ethnography 2.0 Credits
The Seminar in Ethnography is a course for anthropology majors. This is a peer-mentoring practicum where students are given the opportunity to present their own ethnographic fieldwork and get feedback from other students in the seminar. All anthropology majors will be in the seminar together. Juniors and seniors will be presenting mature research as well as mentoring the freshmen and sophomores.
Repeat Status: Can be repeated 3 times for 8 credits
Restrictions: Can enroll if major is ANTH.
ANTH 410 Cultural Theory I 3.0 Credits
The course is the first of a two part core cultural theory sequence. It tracks the development of anthropological theory beginning in the mid-19th century until the 1980's. Students are expected to understand the foundational role played by cultural evolution, historical particularism, structural functionalism, structuralism and cultural ecology within the discipline.
Repeat Status: Not repeatable for credit
Restrictions: Cannot enroll if classification is Freshman
ANTH I199 Independent Study in ANTH 0.0-12.0 Credits
Self-directed within the area of study requiring intermittent consultation with a designated instructor.
Repeat Status: Can be repeated multiple times for credit
ANTH I299 Independent Study in ANTH 0.0-12.0 Credits
Self-directed within the area of study requiring intermittent consultation with a designated instructor.
Repeat Status: Can be repeated multiple times for credit
ANTH I399 Independent Study in ANTH 0.0-12.0 Credits
Self-directed within the area of study requiring intermittent consultation with a designated instructor.
Repeat Status: Can be repeated multiple times for credit
ANTH I499 Independent Study in ANTH 0.0-12.0 Credits
Self-directed within the area of study requiring intermittent consultation with a designated instructor.
Repeat Status: Can be repeated multiple times for credit
ANTH T180 Special Topics in Anthropology 0.0-12.0 Credits
Topics decided upon by faculty will vary within the area of study.
Repeat Status: Can be repeated multiple times for credit
ANTH T280 Special Topics in Anthropology 0.0-12.0 Credits
Topics decided upon by faculty will vary within the area of study.
Repeat Status: Can be repeated multiple times for credit
ANTH T380 Special Topics in Anthropology 0.0-12.0 Credits
Topics decided upon by faculty will vary within the area of study.
Repeat Status: Can be repeated multiple times for credit
ANTH T480 Special Topics in Anthropology 0.0-12.0 Credits
Topics decided upon by faculty will vary within the area of study.
Repeat Status: Can be repeated multiple times for credit
