Catalog Course Descriptions
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Anthropology Courses
Undergraduate
Overview of major ideas and approaches to the study of cultures around the world. Surveys kinship, social organization, political economy, religious beliefs, language and other aspects of non-Western cultures. Limited to three attempts.
Introduction to archaeology. Explores the ways in which the archaeological record contributes to issues and debates about the human past and present, as well as the lab and field methods used for understanding archaeological remains. Limited to three attempts.
Introduction to world prehistory. Begins with the biological, cultural, and technological evolution of the human species during a period known as the Paleolithic, followed by a consideration of developments following the end of the last Ice Age, focusing primarily on the origins of agriculture and the rise of complex societies around the globe. Limited to three attempts.
Uses an evolutionary perspective to introduce students to the study of humans and non-human primates as biological organisms. The course will analyze the genetic and environmental bases for modern human biological variation, understand primate behavior and biological relationships, and reconstruct the fossil record. Discussions about prehistoric skeletal remains will emphasize biological responses to changes in subsistence and social structure. Limited to three attempts.
Cross-cultural and transtemporal examination of complex societies and civilizations. Explores developmental schema for rise, articulation, spread, and decline of historic and contemporary civilizations. Limited to three attempts.
Examines Latin American cultures and selected aspects of historical record. Limited to three attempts.
Examines the peoples and cultures of ancient Mesoamerica, including Olmec, Maya, Teotihuacan, and Aztec societies. Major topics include the rise of civilization, the development of the Mesoamerican cultural tradition, the growth of cities, trade, exchange, writing systems, political organization, religion, conflict, and the archaeological study of this indigenous heritage. Limited to three attempts.
Examines the anthropological literature on peoples and cultures of the Middle East, with particular attention to political and social change over the course of the 20th century. Limited to three attempts.
Examination of South Asia, with emphasis on India. Includes general overview of prehistory and history; impact of colonialism; contemporary Indian culture, including the changing relations of caste and class, family organization, and the roles of women, religion, and ideology; and current trends in economic development and socioeconomic differences in different parts of the country. Limited to three attempts.
Examines cultural and ecological contexts of political structures and competition for power in selected societies; and cross-cultural and comparative approaches to study of political conflict, leadership, values, and symbolism. Limited to three attempts.
Examines religion as a cultural system. Topics include mythology, ritual, symbolism, and dogma. Emphasizes cross-cultural and predominantly non-Western material. Limited to three attempts.
Explores how human beings across cultures have historically expressed social anxieties through references to the one particular manifestation of the undead: zombies, figures representing a state in which human beings are animate and affective in the world around them, but lack consciousness or free will. Limited to three attempts.
Examines the anthropological literature on East Asian cultures (such as China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan). Includes particular attention to social and cultural changes in people’s everyday life associated with modernization, development, and movements. Limited to three attempts.
Explores the complex and distance-defying connections shaping Africa and being shaped by Africans on the continent. Emphasizes the diversity and change characterizing peoples who are at the center of world processes. Topics include popular representations of Africa and Africans, colonial and postcolonial histories, gender, money, family, religion, environment, and health. Limited to three attempts.
Explores anthropological theories and topics on death and dead bodies; cross-cultural approaches to the study of the politics of death and dead bodies, the role of the state, capitalism, social relationships, and institutions around death; and the impacts of these on managing corpses, performing rituals, and regulating emotion. Limited to three attempts.
Examines materials, theories, and methods of archaeology derived from and applied to historical sites, as they complement archival records. Limited to three attempts.
Examines origin and nature of conflict in human society with an emphasis on the ancient past. Major topics include the possible role of violence in human evolution, cross-cultural studies of conflict in indigenous society, warfare in early states, and sacrifice as a ritual practice. Limited to three attempts.
Intensive study of archaeological field techniques by directed group projects in site survey, site testing, recording techniques, and stratigraphy through discussions, demonstrations, and hands-on experience. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 6 credits.
Examines cultures of a specific region such as Africa and the Middle East. Focuses primarily on non-Western cultures. Limited to three attempts.
Introduction to causes and consequences of forced dislocation as a global issue. Covers formally recognized refugees, as well as people such as internally displaced persons and asylum seekers who are in refugee-like circumstances. Focuses on understanding the personal experiences of refugees and examining efforts on their behalf at national and international levels. Limited to three attempts.
Examines the varieties of cultural experience. Several cultures are studied in depth; with attention to local histories, global contexts, and shifting perspectives on the practice of ethnography. Notes: May be used for credit toward the BA in sociology. Limited to three attempts.
Introduces human developmental stages in terms of behavior, biology, and genetics. Addresses the history and methods of human growth research. Explores the environmental and socioeconomic influences on human growth. Investigates the evolution of uniqueness in human developmental stages of the human species in comparison of other primates. Limited to three attempts.
Deepens knowledge of genome technologies, the history of genome research, and how genomics has contributed to our understanding of humanity past and present. Considers how different paradigms of evolutionary thought have influenced the field and how forces of evolution act to shape genome variation in humans. Considers the central role of genomics in the both the rise of and resistance to race science, and how an anthropological perspective is essential to gain a fuller understanding of the social and political dimensions of genome science. Provides hands-on training of laboratory techniques for generating, analyzing, and interpreting human genome data and contextualizes these methods within historical and ethical frameworks. Traces how genome scientists have used these techniques to better understand human evolution, population history, health, and biodiversity. Evaluates the power of genome science to impact questions of human agency, kinship, identity, ancestry, and belonging. Limited to three attempts.
Explores the fossil evidence for human and primate evolution. Exposes students to evidence for the origins of mammals and primates, and to discussions of human evolution. Uses human fossils as tools to understand evolutionary relationships (phylogenetics), behavior, functional anatomy, and broader adaptation. Limited to three attempts.
Introduces students to the study of human skeletal remains and their associated archaeological artifacts, focusing on using the human skeleton to address behavior, growth, stress, ritual, social complexity, diet, disease, and violence in the past. Uses the human body and associated artifacts to provide a detailed analysis of cultural transitions, expression of socioeconomic inequality, the origins of ritual complexity, violence, and disease. Limited to three attempts.
Explores human health and disease from anthropological and evolutionary perspectives. Examines what a disease is, what causes them, how we have co-evolved with diseases, how disease patterns have changed over human history, and the future of disease. Limited to three attempts.
Explores scientific methods of classification as a reflection of social values. Explains the harms of “race” and eugenics committed under the aegis of science. While critiquing the biological concept of race, considers how the social construction of race becomes part of living bodies through racism. Details modern human variation as a product of evolutionary forces. Limited to three attempts.
Explores the relationship between diet and human adaptation from biological, archaeological, cultural, and evolutionary perspectives. Examines how humans are unique in our ability to find and process a wide range of foods. Introduces agriculture as a co-evolutionary strategy between humans and other species. Limited to three attempts.
Considers the history and development of genomics in relation to questions of human identities and belonging, including issues of race, cultural heritage, sex, gender, sexuality, violence, and monogamy. Evaluates how genomics has become a seemingly authoritative source of knowledge about human identities and our relations to one another, and assesses the consequences of genomic truth claims in society today. Evaluates the field of genomics as a form of knowledge production and also as a culturally and politically situated process. Brings science into better relation with critical race theories, Indigenous studies, and queer and feminist science studies to disrupt and reinvent how genomic knowledge of humans is made and understood. Limited to three attempts.
Examines relationships among environment, culture, and human behavior with an emphasis on cultural ecological explanations in mainly non-Western contexts. Limited to three attempts.
Explores the use of the biological and physical sciences in archaeology. Topics include dating, site discovery, prehistoric ecology, diet and technology. Emphasizes the ways in which data deriving from the archaeological sciences can contribute to a more contextualized and theoretically sophisticated understanding of the human past. Limited to three attempts.
Explores the nature of traditional hunter-gatherer societies and the range of methods and theories employed by archaeologists to reconstruct the lifeways and practices of prehistoric hunter-gatherers. Topics include ecology, diet, social organization, mobility, ritual, and technology from a cross-cultural perspective; case studies will derive primarily from tropical/sub-tropical and northern forager populations. Limited to three attempts.
Examines a variety of experiences through foods, which bring not only nutritional but also sociocultural debates to our table (e.g. identity, memory, senses, ethnicity, gender, geopolitics, climate change, and globalization). Focuses on both Western and non-Western cultures. Limited to three attempts.
Focuses on the study of burial patterns and death rituals in antiquity by introducing students to the methods of burial excavation, examining the history of mortuary archaeology theory and engagement with processual and postprocessual schools of thought, and examining case studies from around the world to decode the complex symbolisms encoded in burial practices. Limited to three attempts.
Examines 12,000 years of pre-Hispanic cultures of the Andean region of western South America. Focuses on the development and key achievements of some of the most remarkable civilizations of the New World, including the Chavin, Paracas, Cupisnique, Moche, Sicán, Nasca, Chimú, Wari, and lnka. Considers as well the nature, priorities, and accomplishments of scientific Andean archaeology. Limited to three attempts.
Anthropological analyses of language behavior, origins, and change. Emphasizes the interplay of language, culture, anthropology, and linguistics. Limited to three attempts.
Surveys the discipline of medical anthropology, focusing on traditional medical beliefs and the diverse responses to modern scientific medicine in developing countries and among cultural minorities in the United States. Limited to three attempts.
Uses tools and resources of sociocultural anthropology to study life in cities in a comparative, global context, including topics such as poverty, discrimination, migration, transnationalism, and urban planning. Case studies draw from different urban environments in Asia, Latin America, Europe, Africa, and North America. Limited to three attempts.
Introduces students to statistical methods used in anthropology. Emphasizes appropriate and creative application of statistical tests to anthropological problems and careful interpretation of results. Explores methods used to compare means, variances, and correlations within and between samples. Provides instruction on methods used in anthropological demography. Builds fluency in the use of statistical software. Limited to three attempts.
Explores the methods and theories applied in zooarchaeology through integrating hands-on assignments working with a comparative collection. Examines how archaeologists can understand human-animal relationships in the past including their role in reconstructing paleoenvironments, their contribution to ancient foodways, domestication of animals, and ritual uses of fauna. Limited to three attempts.
Introduces students to the methods of modern human skeletal analysis in bio- and forensic anthropology. Covers introductory human skeletal and dental gross anatomy and describes analytical techniques spanning including age and sex estimation, osteometry, and paleopathology. Limited to three attempts.
Laboratory course associated with ANTH 388. Limited to three attempts.
Overview of the major theoretical traditions and schools of thought in anthropology. Limited to three attempts.
Human remains play key roles in medicolegal investigations. Provides an overview of contemporary forensic anthropology including age and sex estimation from human remains, estimation of the time since death, analysis of sharp force, blunt force, and gunshot trauma, mass disaster contexts, and the forensic archaeological recovery of buried remains. Limited to three attempts.
This lab class in the companion to ANTH 391. Involves hands-on lab exercises in the learning of methods in modern forensic anthropology, covering age and sex estimation from human remains, estimation of the time since death, analysis of traumatic trauma, individual identification, and archaeological recovery of buried remains. Limited to three attempts.
Provides an introduction to the field of paleopathology which involves identification of pathological conditions in human skeletal remains, and reconstruction of the natural history and co-evolution of disease with humans. Covers the differential diagnosis and history of infectious pathogens, skeletal trauma, oral diseases, metabolic abnormalities, developmental defects, and more. Limited to three attempts.
Explores the contributions that archaeology can make to the study of climate change, past and present. Emphasizes the methods and theories used by archaeologists to reconstruct past environments and to evaluate the nature of human responses to climate change. Explores cases in which climate change has been evoked as a causal mechanism for human biological and behavioral change (spanning from the origins of the human lineage to the collapse of civilizations), while also addressing the ways in which archaeological data can contribute to dialogue about the changes in climate we are experiencing today and how climate change is impacting the preservation of cultural heritage. Limited to three attempts.
Introduction to the anthropology of work, technology, and society, with emphasis on information technology. Covers general conceptual issues of information technology and also involves specific practical exercises with computers, their operating systems, the logic of automated production, databases, and web-based communication. Attention also directed to social and ethical issues raised by contemporary information technology. Limited to three attempts.
Topic of contemporary interest in anthropology, focusing on social science topics of interest. Notes: May be repeated when topic is different. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 18 credits.
Field project or study abroad experience leading to the production of a written report Notes: May be repeated with permission of department. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 6 credits.
Topic of contemporary interest in anthropology, changing from semester to semester, and focusing on topics such as sex roles, anthropology and ethics, and primate social organization. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the term.
Examines selected topics with emphasis on the integration of different kinds of knowledge and the balancing of alternative ways of assessing meaning and relevance. Topics usually drawn from issues of global economic processes, civic rights and responsibilities, ethics, museums, public policy, the environment, and migration. Notes: May be repeated when topic is different. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 9 credits.
Examines the needs and problems of communities and organizations and develops professional skills for a career in applied anthropology. Topics include the history of applied anthropology, research methods and ethics, fields in which applied anthropologists work, career options, and professionalization. Students prepare a career portfolio and other documents common in the workplace for applied anthropologists. Limited to three attempts.
Introduces qualitative ethnographic research methods, including fieldwork, interviewing, artifact analysis, audio-visual, digital, and archival techniques, and offers practice in their application. Limited to three attempts.
Reviews major theoretical traditions and schools of thought in anthropology. Notes: Required for Anthropology majors, and for students applying to the Accelerated Master's program in Anthropology. Limited to three attempts.
Supervised project in applying anthropology in relevant settings including public and historical archaeology, developmental anthropology, museums, non-profit organizations, advocacy, communications, or consulting organizations. Notes: Students must complete 45 hours of work at the internship site for each credit. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 6 credits.
Individual research on a topic to be organized in advance by student and instructor. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 12 credits.
Topic of contemporary interest in anthropology, focusing on social science topics of interest. Notes: May be repeated when topic is different. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 18 credits.
Field project or study abroad experience leading to the production of a written report Notes: May be repeated with permission of department. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 6 credits.
Topic of contemporary interest in anthropology, changing from semester to semester, and focusing on topics such as sex roles, anthropology and ethics, and primate social organization. Notes: May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the term.
Graduate
Explores major refugee flows since the mid-20th century, emphasizing mechanisms for providing assistance, asylum, and resettlement. May not be repeated for credit.
Examines some of the major theorists of 19th- and early 20th-century cultural theory. Marx, Freud, Durkheim, and Weber are surveyed as foundational thinkers for reading the works of such 20th-century theorists as Boas, Malinowski, Benedict, and Sapir. May not be repeated for credit.
Examines contemporary theorists of anthropology, covering ongoing debates over epistemology and the multiple strands that inform anthropological theory and practice. May not be repeated for credit.
Examines the relevance of cultural processes to policymaking and the culture of policymaking organizations. Topics include development, welfare policy, environmental and energy policy, regulation and risk; health care and immigration policy; and the war on drugs. May not be repeated for credit.
Introduces human developmental stages in terms of behavior, biology, and genetics. Addresses the history and methods of human growth research. Explores the environmental and socioeconomic influences on human growth. Investigates the evolution of uniqueness in human developmental stages of the human species in comparison of other primates. May not be repeated for credit.
Explores the fossil evidence for human and primate evolution. Exposes students to evidence for the origins of mammals and primates, and to discussions of human evolution. Uses human fossils as tools to understand evolutionary relationships (phylogenetics), behavior, functional anatomy, and broader adaptation. May not be repeated for credit.
Examines a variety of ethnographic texts with attention to issues of form, style, and content in order to understand how authors blend theory, data, and narrative. Offers students the tools, practice, and insight on how to write ethnographically through discussion and writing exercises in a course that is part seminar, part workshop. May not be repeated for credit.
Examines 12,000 years of pre-Hispanic cultures of the Andean region of western South America - that constituted the most remarkable complex civilizations of the New World. Focuses on the development and key achievements of the Chavin, Paracas, Cupisnique, Moche, Sican, Nasca, Chimu, Wari, and lnka cultures, and the nature, priorities, and accomplishments of scientific Andean archaeology. May not be repeated for credit.
Explores the use of the biological and physical sciences in archaeology. Topics include dating, site discovery, prehistoric ecology, diet and technology. Emphasizes the ways in which data deriving from the archaeological sciences can contribute to a more contextualized and theoretically sophisticated understanding of the human past. May not be repeated for credit.
Explores the nature of traditional hunter-gatherer societies and the range of methods and theories employed by archaeologists to reconstruct the lifeways and practices of prehistoric hunter-gatherers. Topics include ecology, diet, social organization, mobility, ritual, and technology from a cross-cultural perspective; case studies will derive primarily from tropical/sub-tropical and northern forager populations. May not be repeated for credit.
Focuses on the study of burial patterns and death rituals in antiquity by introducing students to the methods of burial excavation, examining the history of mortuary archaeology theory and engagement with processual and postprocessual schools of thought, and examining case studies from around the world to decode the complex symbolisms encoded in burial practices. May not be repeated for credit.
Covers major theoretical trends and ethnographic works in environmental anthropology, focusing on the frameworks developed and used by environmental anthropologists, including cultural ecology, ecological anthropology, environmentalism, political ecology, new ecology, and science and technology studies. Explores how environmental anthropologists have contributed to broader debates about modernity, globalization, power, kinship, science and technology, and human-environmental relations. May not be repeated for credit.
Introduces students to the methods of modern human skeletal analysis in bioarchaeological and forensic science. Covers introductory human skeletal and dental gross anatomy and describes analytical techniques spanning including age and sex estimation, osteometry, and paleopathology. May not be repeated for credit.
Laboratory course associated with ANTH 582. May not be repeated for credit.
Provides an introduction to the field of paleopathology which involves identification of pathological conditions in human skeletal remains, and reconstruction of the natural history and co-evolution of disease with humans. Covers the differential diagnosis and history of infectious pathogens such as tuberculosis and syphilis, skeletal trauma, oral diseases, metabolic abnormalities neoplasms developmental defects joint disease and more. May not be repeated for credit.
Explores the cutting-edge methods of bioarchaeological science and reconstructs ancient living worlds from the remarkable information encoded in bones via patterns of demography, disease, diet, trauma, violence, lifestyle, social structures, sex and gender, ethnicity, and identities on a global scale and over the last 10,000 years of history. May not be repeated for credit.
Introduces students to statistical methods used in anthropology. Emphasizes appropriate and creative application of statistical tests to anthropological problems and careful interpretation of results. Explores methods used to compare means, variances, and correlations within and between samples. Provides instruction on methods used in anthropological demography. Builds fluency in the use of statistical software. Equivalent to ANTH 650.
Explores the methods and theories applied in zooarchaeology through integrating hands-on assignments working with a comparative collection. Examines how archaeologists can understand human-animal relationships in the past including their role in reconstructing paleoenvironments, their contribution to ancient foodways, domestication of animals, and ritual uses of fauna. May not be repeated for credit.
Provides an overview of contemporary forensic anthropology. Topics include: age and sex estimation from human remains, estimation of the postmortem interval, analysis of sharp force, blunt force, and gunshot trauma, individual identification, forensic taphonomy, mass disaster contexts, and the forensic archaeological recovery of buried remains. May not be repeated for credit.
Laboratory course associated with ANTH 590. Involves hands-on lab exercises in the learning of methods in modern forensic anthropology, covering age and sex estimation from human remains, estimation of postmortem intervals, analyses of traumatic trauma, individual identification, forensic taphonomy, and archaeological recovery of buried remains. May not be repeated for credit.
Explores the contributions that archaeology can make to the study of climate change, past and present. Emphasizes the methods and theories used by archaeologists to reconstruct past environments and to evaluate the nature of human responses to climate change. Explores cases in which climate change has been evoked as a causal mechanism for human biological and behavioral change (spanning from the origins of the human lineage to the collapse of civilizations), while also addressing the ways in which archaeological data can contribute to dialogue about the changes in climate we are experiencing today and how climate change is impacting the preservation of cultural heritage. May not be repeated for credit.
Explores current issues and debates in anthropology. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 18 credits.
Examines classic and contemporary works in urban theory, in light of broader scholarly discussions of modernity and globalization. Uses a case-study approach to analyze topics such as: public and private space, citizenship and governance, architecture and design, housing, transportation, formal and informal settlements, and the contest over space and environmental resources in cities around the world. Notes: Course may be offered fall or spring. May not be repeated for credit.
Introduces bodies of theory at the intersections of queer, feminist, and Indigenous studies and science and technology studies (STS), and questions how the concepts now known as “nature”, “sex”, and “life” were made. Illuminates connections between science and colonialism and how scientific concepts of nature have helped produce and maintain inequalities. Examines how colonial modes of thought have worked to isolate natural phenomena from their cultural contexts, and imposed divisions that have become the basis of colonial violence. Engages with multiple sustained efforts to resist these divides and/or rethink connections between nature and culture. May not be repeated for credit.
In-depth study of peoples and cultures of a specific world region (e.g., East Asia, Latin America, South Asia) and critical scholarship on the region. Content may include cultures defined by diaspora, migration, and other global forces and processes. Notes: May be repeated when topic is different. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 6 credits.
Explores the application of contemporary anthropological ideas, theories, and methods to find solutions to practical problems as defined by various organizations and institutions including business, government, nongovernmental organizations, and various institutions. May not be repeated for credit.
Reviews and examines major research methods commonly employed in cultural anthropological field study, with emphasis on ethnographic research design and the use of standard ethnographic techniques. Includes practice in designing ethnographic research project and using ethnographic methods and techniques in a field setting. Equivalent to ANTH 586.
Directed reading and research on a specific topic, agreed on by student and faculty member, resulting in a written project. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 6 credits.
Explores the wide variety of cultural interpretations of health, illness, and curing. Examines a number of different curing systems, both traditional and modern, and compares them with cosmopolitan biomedicine. Several book-length case studies cover a wide variety of cultural groups, health topics, and theoretical orientations. May not be repeated for credit.
All internships must be approved by faculty advisor to ensure suitability to the student's course of study. Introduction to applied anthropology through approved work and study at a museum, institute, agency, or other approved site. May be repeated within the term for a maximum 6 credits.
Intended for participation in formally organized course offered by Center for Global Education or an overseas institution or engagement in a field project related to the Master's thesis or project. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 6 credits.
Explores power and social conflict through the lens of cultural analysis. Special attention to the role of cultural differences in the structuring of conflict and the deployment of cultural theory in formulating a practice of conflict resolution. May not be repeated for credit.
Capstone research project conducted under the supervision of a faculty project director and project evaluation committee. Project should be a substantial contribution to anthropological knowledge and is in lieu of a thesis. Notes: Students must initially enroll for a minimum of 3 credits of ANTH 796 and maintain continuous enrollment in 796 until project is submitted. A maximum of 6 credits of ANTH 796 may be applied to the degree. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 12 credits.
Work on research proposal that forms basis for master's thesis or project. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 6 credits.
Master's thesis research and writing under direction of thesis committee. Notes: Students must register for a minimum of three credit hours in their first semester of 799 and maintain continuous enrollment in 799 while writing and submitting a thesis. A maximum of 6 credits of 799 may be applied to the degree. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 24 credits.
In-depth study of peoples and cultures of a specific world region (e.g., East Asia, Latin America, South Asia) and critical scholarship on the region. Content may include cultures defined by diaspora, migration, and other global forces and processes. Notes: May be repeated when topic is different. May be repeated within the degree for a maximum 6 credits.
