Anthropology (ANTH)
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. Preference to first and second year students. Juniors and seniors only with permission.
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. Not open to first-year students. Crosslisted as SOCI 201.
ANTH 202. Rainforests and Eco-Politics in Latin America. 1 Credit.
Offered Spring Semester Only; Lecture hours:3
We study how business interests, scientists, and indigenous peoples think and engage with rainforests in radically different ways. Attentive to these differences, the course explores how rainforests are being destroyed by some groups and protected by others. Crosslisted as ENST 209 and LAMS 202.
ANTH 205. Violence, Conflict and Peace in Latin America. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
Explores the historical and contemporary causes of political, structural and systematic forms of violence in Latin America. Crosslisted as IREL 205 and LAMS 205.
ANTH 206. Special Topics in Anthropology. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3; Repeatable
Topics related to current events/issues in anthropology.
ANTH 208. Global Indigenous Politics and Law. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
Explores Indigenous people’s historical and contemporary struggles for recognition and respect with an emphasis on Indigenous groups in Latin America and global governance. Crosslisted as IREL 208 and LAMS 208.
ANTH 210. Environmental Ethnography. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
This course explores environmental issues from around the world through scholarly readings in environmental anthropology. Students will also examine and practice the ethnographic methods that qualitative social scientists use to understand environmental phenomena. Not open to first-year students. Crosslisted as ENST 210.
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 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 234. Zombies: From Slavery to Pandemics. 1 Credit.
Offered Summer Session Only; Lecture hours:6,Other:2
Considers the anthropology, history, and symbolism of zombies. Topics include slavery, Haitian folklore, contemporary films, the role of the zombie in U.S. popular imagination, and the zombie as commentary on colonialism, race, consumerism, and pandemics. Includes two asynchronous film viewings per week. Students will leave this class with braaaaaaaaaaaaaains.
ANTH 236. Human Ecology. 1 Credit.
Offered Alternating Spring Semester; Lecture hours:3
A general science course in human ecology, to demonstrate the ways humans continue to adapt to their environment through biological, cultural, scientific, symbolic, political and technical means. Crosslisted as ENST 234 and GEOG 234.
ANTH 243. Violence and Politics in Southeast Asia. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; 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 251. Gender, Power and Global 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 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 260. Environmental Anthropology. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; 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.
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 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. Crosslisted as ANTH 683.
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 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 307. Language & Environmental Politics. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
Communication is central to how people perceive the environment, understand their relationship to it, and organize actions to change it. This course draws on concepts from linguistic anthropology, including discourse analysis, to examine debates about wildlife conservation, clean energy, eco-friendly products, environmental rights, and climate change. Crosslisted as ENST 320 and LING 320.
ANTH 308. Special Topics in Anthropology. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3; Repeatable
Topics related to current events/issues in Anthropology.
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 312. Global Health. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
This seminar examines the global impact of social, political, and economic processes on health and illness, emphasizing anthropological methods and theories. Topics include infectious diseases, mental health, disasters, ageing, reproductive health, and development aid.
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 328. Feeding Latin America. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
An advanced seminar about the history of relationships between peoples, cultures, agricultural systems, and cuisines in Latin America. Topics will include: plant and animal domestication, pre-Columbian agriculture and environments, colonialism, land tenure regimes, food as global commodity, food aid and foreign policies, and contemporary gastropolitics.
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 371. Dance, Culture and Power. 1 Credit.
Offered Either Fall or Spring; Lecture hours:3
An exploration of dance as cultural and political practice. Topics include: colonialism; the politics of tradition; gender, ethnicity, and nationalism; dance and violence. Prerequisites: not open to first-year students or students who have taken ANTH 271 or WMST 271 Dance and Culture. Crosslisted as UNIV 371 and WMST 371.