Anthropology (ANTH)
The department encompasses two disciplines, sociology and anthropology, and offers separate majors and minors in each.
Cultural anthropology explores the basis of and implications for human diversity by posing general and specific questions about the varieties of human experience. The study of human diversity contributes essential elements to a liberal arts education.
The aim of the anthropology major is to introduce students to the theories and methods anthropologists use to study and analyze different cultures around the world. Instruction is offered on various topical issues (e.g. the anthropology of economics, religion, medicine, and emotions), and on the ways anthropologists research problems that are both practical and intellectual in nature. Students may go on to graduate work in anthropology, but a major in anthropology furnishes skills and conceptual tools useful in a wide variety of paths.
We encourage anthropology majors to include original research and off-campus experiences in their program of study. We make field research a required component in several of our courses, and we encourage students to take anthropology courses in off-campus study programs in the U.S. and abroad. We encourage students interested in off-campus field research to take research methods courses beginning in their second or third year at Bucknell, although seniors with no prior experience are usually admitted to field study courses.
Honors
The department strongly encourages qualified majors to consider working for honors in anthropology. Such students should consult with one or more members of the faculty of the department to begin defining a research topic and writing a proposal in their junior year. Normally, during the senior year, an honors student will enroll in ANTH 319 Honors Course in Anthropology and, if agreed to by the academic adviser, a second semester in ANTH 320 Honors Course in Anthropology. The honors proposal is to be approved by the department chairperson and submitted to the Honors Council by mid-October of the senior year. Further information can be obtained from the student’s academic adviser, the department chairperson, and from the Honors Council.
Anthropology Major
The major in anthropology requires that students complete nine courses. Students may count a total of two sociology courses (one methods/theory course and one elective course) toward the anthropology major. Requirements are as follows:
| ANTH 109 | Introduction to Cultural Anthropology | 1 |
| ANTH 201 | Field Research in Local Communities | 1 |
| ANTH 283 | Theory in Anthropology | 1 |
| ANTH 330 | Advanced Seminar in Anthropology 1 | 1 |
| ANTH Electives (one must be at the 300-level) | 4 | |
In addition, students must take ONE of the following courses:
| SOCI 208 | Methods of Social Research | 1 |
| SOCI 209 | Analyzing the Social World | 1 |
| SOCI 211 | Classical Sociological Theory | 1 |
| SOCI 212 | Sociological Theory | 1 |
| 1 | This course serves as the Culminating Experience. |
The major in anthropology provides students with an overview of the discipline, broad exposure to cultural issues and anthropological concerns, and a variety of specialty areas in the field, reading and writing skills, and information literacy. Courses emphasize careful reading and analysis of ethnographic and theoretical texts, writing as part of both research process and presentation of results, presentation to multiple audiences, and how to find and use information from multiple sources. Students will graduate prepared for the workforce or graduate/professional study.
The department strongly recommends that core courses be taken as early as possible in a student’s career (preferably during the sophomore or junior year). Students should take at least one anthropology course at the 100 or 200-level before taking the methods courses (ANTH 201, SOCI 208, or SOCI 209). Methods courses are not intended for first-year students.
Courses that are cross-listed as anthropology and sociology courses count as anthropology courses and still allow anthropology majors to take one elective designated solely as a sociology course.
Up to two off-campus courses may be counted toward 200-level electives in the major. The department chair may allow off-campus courses to count toward other major requirements if these courses adequately substitute for material that is taught in our department.
Minor in Anthropology
The minor in anthropology requires a minimum of five courses in anthropology, with no more than one course at the 100-level. No more than one off-campus course ordinarily counts toward the minor.
Anthropology Learning Goals
Majors in Anthropology will be able to:
Demonstrate knowledge of cultural variability within one geographical region of the world. (3,4,6,9)
Demonstrate knowledge of the major theoretical perspectives in anthropology. (1,3,4,5,6,7,8,9)
Non-majors in Anthropology will be able to:
Demonstrate knowledge of how anthropologists define culture. (1,3,4,9)
Demonstrate knowledge of the subfields within anthropology (biological, archaeology, linguistic, cultural, and applied). (1,3,4,6)
Demonstrate knowledge of the methods of ethnographic research. (1,2,4,5,6,7,8,9)
Apply anthropological concepts and/or principles to individual experiences and/or the social world. (1,4,5,6,9)
Courses
ANTH 109. Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
Nature and scope of the field: method and theory, institutions of human beings in cross-cultural perspective, case studies.
ANTH 200. Urban Anthropology. 1 Credit.
Offered Fall Semester Only; Lecture hours:3
Anthropological perspective and the study of the city; problems of methodology, comparative urbanism, case studies, culture of poverty.
ANTH 201. Field Research in Local Communities. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
Participant-observation, interviewing, and other field research methods. Students will devise and conduct their own ethnographic research projects in a local community. Crosslisted as SOCI 201.
ANTH 202. Rainforests and Ecopolitics in Latin America. 1 Credit.
Offered Spring Semester Only; Lecture hours:3
Focusing on Amazonia as a key region in global environmental politics, the course examines climate policy debates and recent shifts in global environmentalism. Crosslisted as LAMS 202 and ENST 209.
ANTH 203. Hazards, Risks, and Disasters: The Anthropology of a Dangerous World. 1 Credit.
Offered Spring Semester Only; Lecture hours:3
This course examines environmental hazards and their implications across time and culture. Questioning commonly held notions about danger, it focuses on how risk and disaster are understood, experienced, and analyzed.
ANTH 204. Language and Culture: Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
This course introduces the anthropological study of language and its importance to human behavior and social relations, covering key concepts, terms, and theories about how languages are structured, how people acquire language, and how language affects a number of important social and cultural domains, among other topics. Crosslisted as LING 204.
ANTH 205. An Approach to Ethnomusicology. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:2,Recitation:1
An anthropological approach to music including a study of history, objects and methods. Prerequisite: permission of the instructor.
ANTH 226. Violence, Culture, and Human Rights. 1 Credit.
Offered Both Fall and Spring; Lecture hours:3
Explores debates over tensions between respect for human rights and cultural differences. Anthropological case studies will consider different understandings of "violence," "culture," and "rights."
ANTH 229. Pilgrimage, Prayer, and Purity: The Anthropology of Religion. 1 Credit.
Offered Spring Semester Only; Lecture hours:3
The anthropological analysis of religion and religious phenomena. The exploration of religious practices across the globe, including initiation, circumcision, death and funerary customs, spirit possession, sacrifice, pilgrimage and saint veneration.
ANTH 231. Communicating Across Cultures. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
This course will introduce students to an interdisciplinary perspective on understanding the challenges and opportunities posed by cross-cultural interactions. Crosslisted as UNIV 231.
ANTH 232. Gender and Sexuality in South Asia. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
Explores issues of gender and sexuality in South Asia, primarily India and Sri Lanka. Topics include marriage, family, life cycle, religion and nationalism. Crosslisted as WMST 232.
ANTH 235. Modern Africa. 1 Credit.
Offered Fall Semester Only; Lecture hours:3
Introduction to the complexity, richness, and vitality of contemporary African culture. Interdisciplinary perspectives on issues including economy, politics, family and community, art, literature, religion. Crosslisted as IREL 235.
ANTH 243. Introduction to Southeast Asia Studies. 1 Credit.
Offered Fall Semester Only; Lecture hours:3
Introduction to diversity of contemporary Southeast Asia. Interdisciplinary perspectives on topics including politics, gender, religion, violence, and globalization.
ANTH 248. Latin America: Challenges for the 21st Century. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
Perspectives on the challenges facing Latin American peoples and nations in the 21st century. Crosslisted as LAMS 250.
ANTH 250. Digital Culture and Cybersocial. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
This course is a critical examination of digital media--from online games, to social networking sites, to citizen journalism, and more--and how different cultures and societies around the world incorporate them into everyday life and ways of being social.
ANTH 251. Women and Development. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
This course examines the relationship between women and development, and an ideological, economic, political, and social enterprise. Crosslisted as WMST 251.
ANTH 254. Peoples and Culture of Latin America. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
Introduction to the diversity of cultures and social groups of Latin America. Situates changing politics, economies and cultures within the region, with focus on issues of gender, race, class and religion.
ANTH 256. Anthropology of Native North America. 1 Credit.
Offered Alternating Fall Semester; Lecture hours:3
This course introduces students to the anthropology of contemporary Native North America. The goal is to teach students the theories, concepts, and methods used by anthropologists to investigate and explain the practices, beliefs, attitudes, and organization of Native peoples.
ANTH 259. Peoples and Cultures of the Caribbean. 1 Credit.
Offered Occasionally; Lecture hours:3
Introduction to the diversity of cultures and social groups of the Caribbean. Situates changing political economies and cultures within the region, with focus on issues of gender, race, class, and migration.
ANTH 260. Environmental Anthropology. 1 Credit.
Offered Spring Semester Only; Lecture hours:3
Using anthropological methods and theories as a guide, this course considers the form and content of human interactions with the environment in various regions of the world. Prerequisite: permission of the instructor.
ANTH 265. Food, Eating, and Culture. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
Social significance of food and eating. Taboos and ritual, food and identities, eating and political hierarchy, food and gender, global culture. Materialist and symbolic interpretations.
ANTH 266. Money, Markets and Magic. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
This course will provide an introduction to the study of economic systems within specific cultural contexts. We will consider how economic systems interact with other aspects of daily life on the level of the individual, the family, and society.
ANTH 267. Anthropology of Tourism. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
Tourism is one of the largest industries in the world. The contemporary tourism industry is an outgrowth of global capitalism. We will consider the specific relationships between tourists, toured, service providers, the state, and money.
ANTH 270. Sexuality and Culture. 1 Credit.
Offered Spring Semester Only; Lecture hours:3
Explores diverse cultural constructions of sexual identity, power, transformation, and taboo, and examines gender as a primary principle of social and cosmic organization.
ANTH 271. Dance and Culture. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
An exploration of dance as a cultural practice. Topics include: the body and movement; gender and sexuality; race and ethnicity; colonialism and nationalism; aesthetics; ritual and healing; globalization; representation. Crosslisted as WMST 271.
ANTH 282. Performance and Culture. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
Interdisciplinary approaches to the study of culture and performance; dance, music, theatre and ritual. Explores issues of embodiment, identity, gender, ethnicity, colonialism, nationalism, and globalization.
ANTH 283. Theory in Anthropology. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
Explores the historical and contemporary theories in cultural anthropology; conceptualizations of culture, society, humankind; history and critical assessment of the concept of culture in anthropology.
ANTH 284. Anthropology of Socialism. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
This course examines the cultures, politics, and economic systems of socialist and post-socialist societies through the investigation of a series of thematic case studies.
ANTH 285. Interdisciplinary Perspective on Latin American Studies. 1 Credit.
Offered Fall Semester Only; Lecture hours:3; Repeatable
Selected topics on Latin America addressed through disciplinary perspectives in the social sciences and the humanities.
ANTH 288. Global Cuisines, Local Contexts: Commensality and Conflict. 1 Credit.
Offered Alternating Spring Semester; Lecture hours:3
We will consider how food both brings people together, and creates divisions between them, through an in-depth examination of the cases of French and Andean (South American) cuisines. Cuisine will be considered through aesthetic, cultural, and economic lenses as a mirror into larger social worlds. Crosslisted as FREN 288 and LAMS 288 and UNIV 288.
ANTH 290. Medical Anthropology. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
Health and illness are not solely determined by an individual's biology. Their social determinants are the focus of this course. An understanding of health requires an investigation into the cultural meanings of the body, social relations, and the systems of power in which they are embedded.
ANTH 291. Culture and Mind. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
This course examines the relationship between cultural and mental phenomena through a historical and cross-cultural perspective. What does the study of the mind as a cultural phenomena reveal about social life, conflicts, and movements?.
ANTH 293. Ancestors, Angels, and Androids: African Religions in a Global Era. 1 Credit.
Offered Occasionally; Lecture hours:2,Other:1
Examines African religions in a global era, focusing on the intersection of culture, religion, and globalization. Focuses on beliefs and practices in Africa's three major religious traditions: indigenous African religions, Christianity, and Islam. Crosslisted as AFST 293.
ANTH 305. Womb to Tomb: Culture and the Life Course. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
Explores how members of different cultures imagine and experience major phases of the life course: birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, old age and death.
ANTH 306. Culture and Madness. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
This seminar examines the mental health and illness in cross-cultural perspective. Questioning commonly held notions about the nature of madness, the course focuses on how categories of deviance and abnormality are assigned to people.
ANTH 310. Culture, Nature and Place. 1 Credit.
Offered Alternating Spring Semester; Lecture hours:3
We examine the intersection of place, nature and culture throughout the world, including our own backyard. Prerequisites: permission of the instructor and ANTH 109 or GEOG 101.
ANTH 311. Mind, Madness and Medicine. 1 Credit.
Offered Both Fall and Spring; Lecture hours:3; Repeatable
The cross-cultural study of mental health and illness, gender and health, pharmaceuticals, and ritual healing, etc. This is a student led seminar.
ANTH 315. Sex and Sexualities. 1 Credit.
Lecture hours:3
An examination of sex and sexualities from the situated vantage points of fieldwork, focusing on the theoretical, methodological and representational issues faced by ethnographers.
ANTH 317. Race and Culture. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
An investigation of the sociocultural workings of race from ethnographic perspectives. Comparative analyses and case studies with a focus on how race functions as marker of cultural difference, terrain of ethnic affiliation, and unruly “social fact.”.
ANTH 319. Honors Course in Anthropology. 1 Credit.
Offered Both Fall and Spring; Lecture hours:Varies
Each student selects a project to be developed individually. Prerequisite: permission of the instructor.
ANTH 320. Honors Course in Anthropology. 1 Credit.
Offered Both Fall and Spring; Lecture hours:Varies
Each student selects a project to be developed individually. Prerequisite: permission of the instructor.
ANTH 325. Advanced Reading in Anthropology. .5-2 Credits.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:Varies,Other:12; Repeatable
Readings developed around the interest of individual students. Prerequisite: permission of the instructor.
ANTH 326. Advanced Reading in Anthropology. .5-2 Credits.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:Varies,Other:12; Repeatable
Readings developed around the interest of individual students. Prerequisite: permission of the instructor.
ANTH 329. Religions in Africa: Spirits, Saints, and Sufis. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
Explores the diversity of religious beliefs and practices in Africa. Religious change, syncretism, and ritual debates. Prerequisite: any anthropology course or permission of the instructor.
ANTH 330. Advanced Seminar in Anthropology. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
Focuses on selected topics of ethnographic and theoretical interest, varying from year to year according to the professor. This Culminating Experience course is open only to senior anthropology majors, and junior anthropology majors by permission. Prerequisite: ANTH 283 (may be taken concurrently) and permission of the instructor.
ANTH 351. Field Research. .5-2 Credits.
Offered Alternating Spring Semester; Lecture hours:3; Repeatable
Independent investigation in the field; formulation of hypotheses, construction of measuring instruments, data collection, data analysis, and test of hypotheses.
ANTH 352. Ritual, Resistance, and Rebellion in South America. 1 Credit.
Offered Both Fall and Spring; Lecture hours:3
The cultural and social groups inhabiting the South American west coast in historical context; implications for anthropological and social issues concerning Third World societies. Crosslisted as LAMS 252.
ANTH 380. Anthropology of the Body. 1 Credit.
Offered Occasionally; Lecture hours:3
This course examines how sociocultural and political dynamics shape ideas about the human body and in turn, how these perceptions influence social processes.
Faculty
Professor: Coralynn V. Davis
Associate Professors: Michelle C. Johnson, Susan A. Reed, Clare Sammells, Edmund Searles (Chair)
Assistant Professors: Matthew Baltz, Allen L. Tran