Courses
Course Descriptions 30000s
Course Descriptions 10000s-20000s
Course Descriptions 40000-43999
Course Descriptions 44000-49999
ANTH 30001 Majors and minors only
Mesoamerican Art: Olmec and Their Legacy
Elective
Cross-listed from: ARHI
The Olmec civilization was the mother culture of Mesoamerica, and beginning in 1500 B.C., forged the template of pre-Columbian cultural development for the next 3000 years. This course introduces the student to the Mesoamerican world-view by tracing the origins of Mexican art, religion and culture from the development of the Olmec civilization up to Aztec times. Each week’s classes will consist of a thorough examination of the iconography and function of art object through slide lectures, as well as hands on, in-depth study of individual pieces of sculpture. Special emphasis will be placed upon the essential unity of religious concepts as iconography evolved over this 3,000 year time span.
This will be an object-oriented course. Students will be called upon to reason logically, voice opinions, and make aesthetic judgements. A good visual memory will help anyone.
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ANTH 30012 Majors and minors only
Creole Language and Culture
2 credits
Elective
Cross-listed from: ILS
This course introduces students to the vivid, sonorous language of Kreyòl, or Creole, and to the fascinating culture of its speakers. This intensive, beginning-level course is intended for students with no knowledge of Creole. In small-group teaching sessions, students will be prepared for conversational fluency with basic reading and writing skills, emphasizing communicative competence as well as grammatical and phonetic techniques. Our study of Kreyòl is closely linked to our anthropological exploration of how the language is tied to Caribbean society and culture. The course takes a holistic, anthropological approach to the history, political economy, and religion of Haiti. In addition to class work, audio tapes, music and film enhance the study of the Haitian language and culture.
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ANTH 30013 Majors and minors only
Caribbean Diasporas (ILS)
This course examines the development of Creole societies in the French, Spanish, Dutch, and British Caribbean in response to colonialism, slavery, migration, nationalism and, most recently, transnationalism. The recent exodus of as much as 20 percent of Caribbean populations to North America and Europe has afforded the rise of new transnational modes of existence. This course will explore the consciousness and experience of Caribbean diasporas through ethnography and history, religion, literature, music, and culinary arts.
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ANTH 30017Majors and minors only
Archaeology of Pompeii & Herculaneum: Daily Life of the Ancient World
The course examines the history of excavations and the material record of Pompeii and Herculaneum, which were buried in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79 buried two thriving Roman cities, Pompeii and Herculaneum, in a prison of volcanic stone. The rediscovery of the cities in modern times has revealed graphic scenes of the final days and an unparalleled glimpse of life in the ancient Roman world. The course examines the history of excavations and the material record. Topics to be discussed include public life (forum, temples, baths, inns, taverns), domestic life (homes, villas), entertainment (amphitheater), art (wall paintings, mosaics, sculpture), writings (ancient literary sources, epigraphy, graffiti), the afterlife (tombs), urban design, civil engineering, the economy, and themes related to Roman society (family, slavery, religion, government, traditions, diet).
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ANTH 30023 Majors and minors only
Introduction to Irish Folklore
Elective
Cross-listed from: IRST
This course will discuss the 19th century concept of folklore and its application in Ireland. ´Irish folklore´ is usually understood in terms of three main and related domains: ´folk narrative´ (or oral literature), ´folk belief´ (or popular religion) and ´material folk culture´. These will be examined with special emphasis placed on narrative. Representative oral narrative texts from the Gaelic tradition will be studied in translation.
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ANTH 30074 Majors and minors only
Race & Ethnicity & the Latino Population in the U.S.
How Latinos are racialized often defies the common understanding of race as either Black or White. This course attempts to complicate this debate by exploring the historical, political, economic and social structures that determine the ethnic and racial stratification of Latinos in the United States. How Latinos are racialized often defies the common understanding of race as either Black or White. This course attempts to complicate this debate by exploring the historical, political, economic and social structures that determine the ethnic and racial stratification of Latinos in the United States. Topics include the multigenerational experience of Latinos, contemporary immigration, Latino youth and gender.
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ANTH 30101 Majors and minors only
Fundamentals of Biological Anthropology
Fundamentals or Elective
This course approaches human evolution from a theoretical point of view that combines both biological and cultural processes into a cohesive bio-cultural model. It begins by tracing the development of modern evolutionary theory and the place of evolutionary studies in anthropology, especially in the sub-field of bioanthropology. These concepts provide the framework for understanding the many lines of evidence that anthropologists use to explore and explain human evolution. These include studies of our primate relatives, through the intricacies of the fossil record, to archaeological evidence for the invention of material culture from the simplest stone tools to the complex cultural world that we live in today. Modern human variation can only be explained as the result of evolutionary forces acting on the complex interplay of biology and culture over millions of years. We continue to be affected by these forces, and this course not only provides information about where we came from, it also provides the scientific backgrounds to help us understand where we might be going as our species continues to evolve.
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ANTH 30102 Majors and minors only
Fundamentals of Archaeology
Fundamentals or Elective
This course is an introduction to the methods, goals, and theoretical concepts of archaeology, with a primary focus on anthropological archaeology practiced in the Middle East, North America, and Europe. The field of archaeology is broadly concerned with material culture (at times combined with textual information) that can be employed to generate interpretations about past human societies. The challenge of this social science is to interpret past societies and anthropological behavior using the fragmentary, but nonetheless rich and complex, data base of the archaeological record. Lecture topics will include the methods and goals of archaeological excavation; analytical techniques employed in material studies; and the problems and challenges in the interpretation of past human behavior. Case studies of survey, excavation, and analytical techniques will focus on recent or on-going investigations of archaeological sites in North America, Central America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
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ANTH 30103 Majors and minors only
Fundamentals of Social and Cultural Anthropology
Fundamentals or Elective
This course introduces students to the field of social-cultural anthropology. Cultural anthropologists are primarily interested in exploring issues of human cultural diversity across cultures and through time. This course will explore key theoretical, topical, and ethical issues of interest to cultural anthroplogists. We will examine diverse ways in which people around the globe have constructed social organizations (such as kinship, and political and economic systems) and cultural identities (such as gender, ethnicity, nationality, race, and class) and we will consider the impact of increasing globalization on such processes. Throughout the course we will consider how different anthropologists go about their work as they engage in research and as they represent others through the writing of ethnographies.
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ANTH 30104 Majors and minors only
Fundamentals of Linguistic Anthropology
Fundamentals or Elective
Language is fully embedded in human culture and society. It has both meaning and efficacy; that is, it both means things and does things. Our goal in this course is to become aware of some of the ways language functions in social life, often below the level of awareness of its users. Students will engage in a number of practical exercises that demonstrate some of the more astonishing features of language all around us. Topics include: the nature of language, including language origins, nonverbal communication, and electronic communication; language, culture, and thought (linguistic relativity); speech acts and what we do with words; conversational analysis; language and identity (class, race, gender); and language in the world (multilingualism, language endangerment and revitalization, language and education).
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ANTH 30130
Biocultural Anthropology: Human Nature and Culture
Elective
This course will present the theoretical and empirical bases of biocultural anthropology, the integration of biological and cultural anthropology. A split exists between scientific and humanistic understandings of ourselves, but recent anthropological research has actively bridged this gap. Using a key set of problems and models, this class will cover the basic elements of biocultural anthropology. Dichotomies such as nature versus nurture and mind versus body will be reconsidered in a biocultural perspective. Integrative approaches to studying humans (e.g., embodiment, human development) will be presented, along with the different types of biocultural anthropology that exist today (e.g., synthesis of human biology and political economy, evolutionary theory and ethnography, neurobiology and psychological anthropology). Finally, by actively participating in presenting case studies such as stress, addiction, and language, students will gain the analytical and conceptual tools to address complex problems in ways that embrace the field of anthropology as a whole.
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ANTH 30140
Primatology: Ecological, Evolutionary, and Conceptual Insights into the Human Species
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Elective
This course will examine not only the diversity of nonhuman primate species, including their behavior, ecological context, and evolution, but also the importance and implication of primatology's role in understanding our own species. Primates live in communities with other species. Therefore, they must be considered as apart of a broader ecological system that includes both animal and plant species. We will explore the various interactions that primates have with these other species and the various roles that they play in the larger ecological community. Using the comparative approach, this course will demonstrate that many facets of human evolution are basically elaborations of (albeit nuanced) general trends in primate evolution. In addition, despite the fact that nearly half of all known primate species are threatened with the possibility of extinction, our genetic next of kin are routinely displaced from their habitats, hunted for meat, captured for trade, housed in zoos, made to perform for our entertainment, and used as subjects in biomedical testing. We will examine the general pattern of processes related to impending extinction crisis, and discuss the specific conservation strategies and tactics, including the impacts (both positive and negative) of primate field research, eco-tourism, and ex-situ approaches such as captive breeding programs. Finally, students will critically examine the notion that successfully understanding what it means to be human is only possible through knowing what it means to be nonhuman. This very endeavor, however, will be shaped by how we proceed, how we perceive our place in nature, and how we will treat the subjects of our inquiries.
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ANTH 30150
Primate Conservation
Elective
Cross-listed with: BIO
This class will introduce students to the diversity, distribution, and abundance of nonhuman primates and explore the impact that human behavior can have on non-human primate populations. We will begin by discussing the top 25 most endangered primates; their behavior and ecology, biogeography, and reasons why it is classified as endangered. At this point, each student will be assigned one of these species as their “focus” for the rest of the semester. The course will then examine the various threats facing primate populations today, the ways that scientists define and monitor threatened/endangered populations, and the steps that are being taken to increase likelihood of their survival. For each topic addressed, each student will be responsible for reporting on how this topic specifically relates to their focal species. At the end of the semester, students will write a term paper discussing the current conservation status of their focal species and the programs being implemented to prevent/delay its extinction.
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ANTH 30160
Anthropology of Race
Elective
While issues of Race and Racism are pervasive in our society, most people know surprisingly little about the social, biological, political, and historical factors at play. Race is simultaneously a very real social construct and a very artificial biological one. How can this be? Why do we care so much about classifications/divisions of humanity? This course will tackle what Race is and what it is not from an anthropological perspective. We will learn about the biology of human difference and similarity, how societies view such similarities and differences, how our social and scientific histories create these structures, and why this knowledge is both extremely important and too infrequently discussed.
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ANTH 30170
Introduction to Anthropological Genetics
Elective
In this course, students will explore central questions within biological anthropology from a genetic perspective. The class will cover basic principles of molecular and population genetics. Additionally, students will learn how molecular and population genetics are applied to anthropological issues. Topics to be covered include: human origins, peopling of world, as well as human genetic diversity and disease.
ANTH 30190
Infancy: Evolution, History and Development
Elective
Formerly 30194
Explores aspects of infant biology and socio-emotional development in relationship to western child care practices and parenting. Western pediatric approaches to infancy and parenting are evaluated in light of western cultural history and cross-cultural, human evolutionary and developmental data. A variety of mammals are included as a comparative background to explore the relationships between infant physiology, mental and physical health and contemporary infant caregiving concepts.
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ANTH 30305
Immigration in Comparative Perspective
Elective
How do people in immigrant-receiving countries form their attitudes toward immigrants? What are the unintended consequences of increased governmental investments in border and immigration control? What are the differences between refugees and other migrants? How is immigration related to the 2005 riots in France? In this course we will be able to examine such questions, and more generally to understand the causes, experiences, and consequences of transnational migration. We will acquire a sound interdisciplinary understanding of migration in its historical, social, political, and cultural facets. Diverse aspects of immigration history, policy implementation and migrants' lives will be examined, with fieldwork accounts from countries of origin and from the United States, Europe, and Japan. Issues to be addressed include ethnic neighborhood formation; gender and class differences in migration and settlement; religion; identity formation; border enforcement; racism; and mass-media representation.
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ANTH 30310 Majors and Minors Only
Ritual, Sport and Play
Elective
This class considers three closely related genres of human behavior: play, sport and ritual. The class will begin by considering the concept of blurred genres -- forms of behavior which are considered quite distinct, but which have a strong family resemblance. We then consider child's play as a genre of performance, reading essays on play by noted psychologists and anthropologists. Weeks three and four will turn to key essays about games and sports, considering not only what makes sporting games a distinct genre of activity, but what features link games to child's play and eventually to ritual. Finally, we turn to the kind of performances we call ritual, once again considering them as distinctive variations on many of the themes we saw in both play and sports. The course includes several more general readings linking all three genres, and ends with Victor Turner's seminal essay which attempts to tie all three genres together using his famous concept of liminality.
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ANTH 30320
Native Peoples of North America
Elective
Tremendous variation exists between the cultures of the peoples of North America, both in the past and today. This course will offer an opportunity to glimpse at this variation, which occurs in technology, social organization, economic, political, and religious systems, and in the arts.
A brief introduction of the archaeological and linguistic evidence will provide information on the debate as to when and by what means people entered America and spread throughout its vast area. The course will then move on to consider the many different cultural adaptations to the various environments of North America. The comparative approach will be used to discuss the similarities and differences between specific cultures. The readings will focus upon particular groups (i.e. Eskimo, Cahuilla, Dakota, Navajo, etc.).
The course will also be concerned with the cultural changes which occurred within Native American cultures during the Colonial and Expansion periods of Euro-American cultures. The course will end with consideration of the current issues significant to Native American cultures.
Lectures, film, discussions of readings, and research will allow students a range of learning experiences. Both exams and short papers, as well as a research paper provide students with an opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of the basic information and issues.
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ANTH 30325
People, Environment, and Justice
Elective
What is our environment? What is our role within our surroundings? How do our actions affect ecological landscapes, and people’s livelihoods, across the globe? How does our reliance of fossil fuels lead to catastrophes such as Hurricane Katrina? What—if anything—does it mean to be “green”? This course will address these and other questions through the use of critically applied anthropology. We will explore the interaction of local peoples and cultures with natural and man-made ecosystems. We will focus equally on traditional environmental knowledge held by small-scale communities as on the usage of the environment by the industrial world. This course will focus on theory and major environmental questions, problems, and possible solutions illustrated by various case studies from different parts of the world. Topics to be discussed include: intellectual property rights, poverty and environmental health and justice, economic development, health and emerging disease, and ethno- and eco-tourism. Through readings, films, discussions, and independent research students will be able to critically understand the complexity surrounding humans’ place within the environment.
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ANTH 30330
Religion, Myth and Magic
Elective
This course explores anthropological approaches to the diverse human experience of supernatural power and spiritual life. It examines the major theoretical concepts expounded by pioneering thinkers such as Tylor, Durkheim, Weber, Malinowski, and Evans-Pritchard, Lévi-Strauss, Douglas, Geertz, and Turner, paying steady attention to the rich ethnographic tradition upon which the discipline is built. While a variety of themes will be addressed, including shamanism, dreams, voodoo, ecstatic states, witchcraft, healing cults, uses of psychotropic drugs, divination, theodicy, and rites of passage, a major emphasis will be placed on the question of immortality. Addressing different understandings of death and afterlife from an anthropological perspective will concentrate on the comparative study of attitudes and practices surrounding funerary ritual and memorial cults, as expressions of beliefs about the nature of life beyond the grave and the implications of these ideas for the living.
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ANTH 30335
Christianity, Colonialism, and Culture
Religion has long been a locus of anthropological inquiry, but Christianity outside of Europe or European settler states was often dismissed as a corruption of true local culture. In recent years, however, there has been a burst of anthropological attention to non-Western Christianity-in part because so many of the people with whom anthropologists have worked have enthusiastically embraced this foreign religion. This course examines Christian belief and practice in historically non-Christian areas, focusing on Africa and the Pacific Islands. Christian missions were often established in the context of European colonial domination; we will examine how this history continues to affect the way that formerly-colonized people experience Christianity today. We will consider how conversion to Christianity often entails a total re-imagining of social life that is often simultaneously empowering and disturbing. We will also examine new forms of Christianity that are not perceived to be emanating from the West. Students in the course are encouraged to engage methodological and theoretical issues, including questions about whether there is a "culture" of Christianity and whether it is valid to take religion as a distinct domain of social life.
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ANTH 30359
Peoples of Africa
Elective
This course is designed to provide the student with an introduction to the societies of Sub-Saharan Africa. The scope of the course is broad and general. We will use a combination of African film and video, novels, and ethnographic studies. The basic goal is to gain an understanding and an appreciation of the many and varied cultures of Africa. The content of the course includes a consideration of the dimensions of both time and space with emphasis placed on modern Africa, from the period of early colonialism and the slave trade to contemporary independent African countries. It examines cultures in present-day Africa as well as in the past in order to lend an understanding to the developmental processes which led to their modern forms.
The course will be a readings based, seminar format. Evaluation will be based upon one midterm, a final, a term paper, and class participation.
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ANTH 30365
The Contemporary Middle East
Elective
This course examines the societies located in the vast culture area that makes up what Muslims have long referred to as the region from the Ocean to the Gulf, meaning from North Africa in the west to the extremities of the Arabian Peninsula and Iran to the east. Approached from an anthropological perspective, the course includes an overview of existing social, political, economic, expressive, and religious dimensions including recent history and persistent tensions. Traditional structures such as the family, tribe, city, village, market, and pilgrimage will be addressed as well as a range of issues that have risen to dramatic prominence more recently such as health, gender, law, education, nation-state, tourism, and fundamentalism. The role of religious institutions and ideas and their influence at all levels of interaction will receive special emphasis.
Readings will include not only ethnographic and other social science sources, but a range of materials illustrating current trends in the region including contemporary fiction.
In addition to a mid-term and a final exam, students will be expected to write a term paper on a major topic relevant to the objectives of the course.
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ANTH 30382
The Anthropology of Gender
Elective
All humans are born with a biological identity called "sex" (male or female). But we are also socialized into different social roles (called "gender") for being male and female. Who defines our gender? How do we come to adopt ways of being male and female?
This course introduces students to the main issues and debates characterizing the anthropology of gender. Through cross-cultural studies, students explore the manifold ways in which gender is constructed in human societies. The class contrasts and compares the representation of women and men in different kinds of societies and in different political-economic contexts. Students explore the construction of gender in different contexts, but also how anthropologists, through various paradigms, have attempted to understand changing roles, sexual asymmetry and stratification. Thus, Anth 382 is about masculinity as much as it concerns feminity. It is neither a course in feminism nor an exercise in criticizing men. Men and women are most welcome in the class.
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ANTH 30390
European Cultures and Societies
Elective
This course offers an ethnographically grounded understanding of contemporary European cultures and societies. We start by presenting a brief history of the idea of Europe. Then, we define its geographical focus: where are the boundaries of Europe? Are Israel and Turkey part of Europe? Who gets to decide? Are there European Muslims? We will then read recent works focusing on selected regions and on diverse urban populations. We will explore and discuss socio-cultural facets of European everyday life; trends and challenges in technology, the environment, popular culture, demography, and politics; and the diversity of urban/rural, north/south, and more generally intra-European ways of life. The course will be of interest to students of contemporary global issues, and in particular to students who intend to spend a semester in Europe; are back from the field; or intend to write a related senior thesis.
ANTH 30395
Russian Realms: Societies/Cultures of Eastern Europe and Beyond
Elective
This course explores the social structures, the historical contexts, and the symbolic universes of the peoples who either identify themselves as Russian or whose way of life has come to be deeply affected by the Russian tradition. It concentrates on those territories that were formerly incorporated into the Tsarist empire and subsequently formed parts the Soviet Union. It will include an examination of the extensive efforts by Russian thinkers to characterize their own national spirit, reflecting, for example, on classic and contemporary attempts to define dusha or a distinctively Russian "soul," as well as some of the consequences of these formulations, looking at this famous "civilization" question through art, literature, and film as well as social science works. However, the chief approach of the course will be through reading of anthropological studies that have addressed the larger questions from numerous specific local venues. A strong emphasis will also be placed on the so-called current "transition period," as a new Russia in the neighborhood of the "Commonwealth of Independent States" seeks to reshape it heritage amid complex problems arising from social, economic, political, and cultural tensions, not to mention old ghosts of global rivalry, terrorism, and on many levels, disputed legitimacy.
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ANTH 30530
The Archaeology of Africa
Elective
This course is designed as a survey of the archaeological evidence recovered on the continent of Africa. It will begin with an examination of the earliest evidence for culture in the lower Paleolithic 3 to 4 million years ago. From these earliest beginnings, the study of emergent cultural systems will move chronologically through the various stages of cultural development from early Paleolithic through the middle and later periods of the Paleolithic and the beginnings of regional diversification and ecological specialization on the continent. From the next period, the Mesolithic, the beginning of early sedentism will be traced in several geographic regions culminating in the earliest evidence of agriculture and pastoralism in the Neolithic. In the last period, the Iron Age, the development of urban centers and the earliest evidence for regional and world trade will be examined as they took shape before the earliest European contact by sea.
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ANTH 30535
Archaeology of the African Diaspora
Elective
This course is designed to serve as an in-depth undergraduate level introduction to archaeological perspectives on the African Diaspora. In this course, we examine the formation and transformation of the Black Atlantic World beginning with the transatlantic slave trade to the middle of the 19th century through the study of archaeological and historical sources. The emphasis in this course is on English- speaking African America, where the vast majority of archaeological investigations have been undertaken. A major objective of this course is to understand the material world of communities of the African Diaspora within the context of the history and historiography of the Black Atlantic.
This course is organized around the following themes:
1) Diaspora and the Atlantic World
2) Material Life of the Diaspora
3) Diverse Communities of the Diaspora
4) Intersections of Race, Class, Gender, and Representation
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ANTH 30550
Buried Cities & Lost Worlds: Archaeology of Cultural Collapse
How and why do complex societies collapse? Is collapse a 'natural' phase in the life of a society and, thus, inevitable? Is it the result of some social malaise and, thus, can it be (or could it have been) avoided? The class explores some of the important political, economic, and environmental dimensions of the emergence and eventual collapse of complex societies. Combining archaeological case studies (the Classic Maya of Mesoamerica, Pueblo cultures of the American Southwest, Bronze Age city states of Mesopotamia, and Neolithic agricultural towns of the Near East) with anthropological theory of the emergence of social differentiation, and the mechanisms of societal collapse, this class explores contemporary debates of processes by which, and reasons for, the emergence and disappearance of complex societies in the past. While the geographical focus will be worldwide, the class considers topical issues that illustrate a range of methodological and theoretical approaches to understanding social organizations and cultural collapse.
ANTH 30580
Forager/Farmer Transition
Elective
The course explores the transition from hunting and gathering ways of life to agricultural societies and systems of food production in the Old and New Worlds. The transition to food production represents one of, if not the, most critical cultural developments in prehistory. This course examines the origins of food production in diverse areas as a long-term social, conceptual and economic process. The first part of this course focuses on the different approaches to the treatment of archaeological sources and remains dating to this shift and evaluates the consequent differences in interpretation and understanding of the emergence of food production. The second part of the course focuses on the consequences and implication of food production, addressing such issues as changing health conditions, population dynamics, and the organization of labor and social practices employed to maintain communities during this critical economic and social transition.
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ANTH 30590
Prehistory of Eastern North America
Elective
The ancestors of the historic American Indians are thought to have been the first people to discover North America. They entered the New World as hunters of now-extinct animals such as mammoths and mastodon. Over the next 10,000 years, the Native Americans of eastern North America developed the unique and varied cultures first encountered by Europeans in A.D. 1492.
This course traces the development of a Native American culture from its earliest beginnings in North America to the time of European contact. The Native American tribes had no written histories, so archaeology is the only way to learn about the prehistory of the American Indian. The course shows how archaeology has sought to learn such things as when the American Indians first entered North America, who the Moundbuilders were, how the Native Americans invented agriculture, how they developed sophisticated societies, and why historic American Indian tribes were so diverse. There will be one mid-term exam and a final exam. You will also write a short research paper on a topic of interest to you.
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ANTH 30591
Prehistory of Western North America
Elective
This course deals with archaeological data and cultural life of prehistoric western North Americans over the last 20,000 years. The course emphasizes origins and cultural development from an early pioneer stage to the later, sophisticated and diverse cultures of the Native Americans. The course will focus on material culture, environmental relationships, and technology to explore cultural change, land-use patterns, economics, and political complexity. In addition, some understanding of the methods by which archaeology is done by scientists in North America and an introduction to historical archaeology are included.
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ANTH 30592
Prehistory of the American Southwest
Elective
This course deals with archaeological data and cultural life of prehistoric Southwest Americans over the last 12,000 years. The course emphasizes origins and cultural development from an early pioneer stage to the later, sophisticated and diverse cultures of the native Americans. The descendants of these cultures includes the Pueblo peoples, the Dene, and the Oíodham peoples. In the course students will explore cultural change, land-use patterns, economics, and political complexity, using information on environmental relationships, technology, and other aspects of material culture.
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ANTH 30610
Kinship and Comparative Social Organization
Elective
The course uses a broad cross-cultural comparative perspective to identify and analyze the major forms of human social organization. Emphasis is on kinship terminology, descent, marriage, residence units, economic exchange, political structure, and social inequality, among other topics.
ANTH 33100
Career Skills Pro Seminar
Elective
The goal of this proseminar is to engage students in their own professional development, be it either towards traditional academic career or some other applied career. There are two key components to this course: individual projects and group projects of their own choosing. Individual projects center on technical development (such as the use of powerpoint and graphics programs), and the development of other professional skills. This includes practical skills such as creating resumes, applying for employment, writing statements of purpose for graduate school or some other professional organization, writing abstracts for professional meetings and writing grant applications. Group projects vary with the interest of class members, but can include attending professional meetings, presenting group papers and organizing departmental or university events. This might include organizing speakers and international visits.
ANTH 33300
Intro to Community-Based Participatory Research Methods
Elective
1-Credit Course
Cross-listed from: CSC
This interdisciplinary Seminar focuses on the ways in which researchers and community members collaborate to conduct research that leads to community change and improvement in the quality of community life. The purpose of this Seminar is to introduce students to community-based participatory research as a means to examine community challenges through quantitative and qualitative research methods. The Seminar is offered through the collaboration of the Center for Social Concerns and the Department of Anthropology.
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ANTH 34750
Archaeological Fieldwork at Neolithic Dhra', Jordan
Methods or Elective
Seven weeks of intensive archaeological fieldwork on one of the earliest Neolithic farming communities in the world. Students will be introduced to the use of geophysical survey and to excavation techniques at this prehistoric Near Eastern site. Students will also learn analytical techniques by working with material culture and other archaeological remains they've excavated, namely lithics, architecture, fauna, and paleobotanical remains. Students will also learn about the prehistory and history of Jordan through a series of lectures and field trips in the region. Students must have taken ANTH 327 as a prerequisite, or another upper-level archaeology course. By permission of instructor only, application necessary (see Dept of Anthropology for application).
http://www.nd.edu/~ikuijt/dhra/
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ANTH 35106
Primate Behavior
Methods or Elective
This course provides an introduction to the field of medical anthropology. Medical anthropology examines beliefs, practices, and experiences of illness, health, and healing from a cross-cultural perspective to show that illness, health, medicine, and the body are shaped by social relationships and cultural values from the local level of the family and community to the global level of international development and transnational capitalism. This course will consider the ways in which medical anthropology has historically been influenced by debates within the discipline of anthropology as well as by broader social and political movements. Particular emphasis will be placed on the importance of viewing biomedicine as one among many culturally constructed systems of medicine. Some of the key issues which we will explore are: medical pluralism and therapeutic choice; biocultural studies; medicalization; the political economy of health and disease; the anthropology of the body; the role of medicine and disease in colonialism and postcolonial movements; and applied medical anthropology.
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ANTH 35110
Primate Behavior and Ecology
Methods or Elective
This course will give students an understanding of primate social systems and the factors that influence their maintenance and evolution. The course will begin with a brief overview of primate natural history (taxonomy of major primate groups and primate evolution). The remainder of the course will use various primate examples to explore the core topics of primate behavior and ecology, including: diet and nutrition, predation, social structure, kinship, mating behavior, social dominance, and cognition. Students will also have the opportunity to learn some of the basic data collection techniques used when studying non-human primate behavior, and a trip to the zoo will be scheduled so that they can practice these techniques. Throughout the semester, the students will be asked to read several relevant books/articles (primate case-studies) and write reaction papers on their readings.
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ANTH 35210 Majors and minors only
Health, Healing and Culture
Methods or Elective
This course provides an introduction to the field of medical anthropology. Medical anthropology examines beliefs, practices, and experiences of illness, health, and healing from a cross-cultural perspective to show that illness, health, medicine, and the body are shaped by social relationships and cultural values from the local level of the family and community to the global level of international development and transnational capitalism. This course will consider the ways in which medical anthropology has historically been influenced by debates within the discipline of anthropology as well as by broader social and political movements. Particular emphasis will be placed on the importance of viewing biomedicine as one among many culturally constructed systems of medicine. Some of the key issues which we will explore are: medical pluralism and therapeutic choice; biocultural studies; medicalization; the political economy of health and disease; the anthropology of the body; the role of medicine and disease in colonialism and postcolonial movements; and applied medical anthropology.
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ANTH 35250
Cultural Aspects of Clinical Medicine
Elective or Methods
4-credit-hour course
ELIGIBILITY:
1. Open only to Juniors and Seniors
2. Must have access to transportation to participate in the ER internships
3. Must be able to spend one 4 hour evening session per week in hospital internship
This course focuses on social science approaches to sickness and healing. The medical encounter is examined from anthropological perspectives. The course emphasizes the difficulties traditional biomedicine has in addressing patients' expectations for care. Students serve an internship as patient ombudsman in a local hospital emergency room 4 hours per week. Students are required to sign a waiver, to present evidence of immunizations, and to receive a TB skin test.
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ANTH 35340
Anthropology of Globalization
This course analyzes contemporary patterns of globalization drawing on recent ethnographies. We will briefly overview the historical antecedents of globalization, and then proceed to analyze globalization’s cultural, socio-political, and economic complexity, often resulting in urbanization. In particular, we will tackle the global circulation of food, entertainment, fashion, capital, ideologies, violence, religious practice, migrant/trafficked labor, and even of so-called “anti-globalization” movements. Examples of specific topics include youth and free trade in Latin America; cyber-politics among transnational Chinese, Eritreans, and others; McDonald's and consumerism in Moscow; Indian cinema and global media; outsourcing and the labor market. By locating global processes in everyday practice, including in our own communities, we will come to understand the interconnectivity sustaining globalization, and the resulting practices of resistance. More broadly, we will appreciate on the one hand how various cultures and societies become increasingly interconnected, and on the other how people around the world appropriate large-scale processes in culturally specific ways.
The course emphasizes Anthropology’s role as a discipline that is globally relevant and publicly “engaged.” Accordingly, we will focus on the discipline’s methodological and theoretical contributions in the study of globalization and its inequalities, and toward a more socially-just world. The course will enable you to participate in community-based-learning, orienting and equipping you to design and implement an original research project, and to write an ethnographic account based on such project.
ANTH 35350
Anthropology of Africa
Africa is known as the cradle of humanity and has the longest record of ¿human¿ activity of any continent. Yet it is also the least understood in terms of its past. The discipline of anthropology has the primary field of study used to understand the development of societies and cultures of Africa. In this course, students will learn and critically apply techniques drawn from biological anthropology, archaeology, ethnography, history and linguistic anthropology for understanding the evolution of human societies within Africa, and the inter-connections between Africa and the rest of the world from the earliest times to the present era. Topics covered in the readings, lectures, practical laboratory work, and assignments will include the beginnings of cultural development (tool-making and social networks), the interactive development of agriculture, pastoralism and foraging, the rise of social complexity, urbanism and states within Africa, colonialism, and post-colonial African states.
This course examines the ways people interact with digital and new media both for communication and for entertainment. This course examines the ways people interact with digital and new media both for communication and for entertainment. Using anthropological concepts, we look into such phenomena as cell phones (for talk and text), Facebook and other social networking sites, music downloading and issues of intellectual property and creativity, e-mail, the Internet, wikis, YouTube, Twitter, censorship and political mobilization, and more. There will be class projects, group projects, blogs, and other new forms of writing, along with more traditional ways of presenting knowledge and thought.
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ANTH 35500
Archaeological Ethics and Law
This class explores the ethical, legal, and practical dimensions of modern archaeology through a consideration of the following topics: archaeology as a profession; archaeological ethics; the relationship between archaeology and others (the public, ethnic groups, avocational archaeologists, collectors, etc.); international and national approaches to archaeological heritage management; the antiquities market; maritime law, underwater archaeology, and treasure hunting; cultural resource management in the United States; and archaeological education.
ANTH 35510 Majors and minors only
Museum Internship: N Indiana Center for History
A museum internship is available to anthropology majors and minors at the Northern Indiana Center for History (NICH), South Bend, Indiana. This internship will teach students about the array of documentary and other resources that archives curate, including issues of acquisition, conservation, proper care and handling, systems of organization and management, etc. The facility's association with an historic museum will also familiarize students with the varied constituencies served by NICH, gain experience with public education and outreach, and develop other valuable skills.
The intern will work with the Archivist to prepare digital versions and transcriptions of early historic records, especially those pertaining to the fur trade and the founding of South Bend. Interns will also observe and learn about the operation of an archive and a historical museum. They will also have the opportunity to conduct their own research project in conjunction with the archival work.
The internship is unpaid and can be taken during either semester of the academic year. Grading will be S/U with variable credit (from 1 to 3 credits, interns are expected to commit at least 3 hours for every hour of credit given). The intern’s work at the NICH will be supervised by Mr. Scott Shuler, Archivist and a course grade will be assigned by the supervising Notre Dame professor after consultation with the Archivist. Interns must provide own transportation.
ANTH 35582 Majors and minors only, permission required
Archaeology of Ireland
Methods or Elective
This course examines the cultural and historical trajectory of the archaeology of Ireland through a series of richly illustrated lectures, organized chronologically, that trace cultural, social, and technological developments from the Neolithic through the Viking period. Integrated with this lecture series, and running concurrently on alternate days, will be a series of seminar and discussion classes focused upon a number of anthropological and archaeological issues related to each of these periods of time. This includes the emergence of the unique systems of communities, and the development of systems of metallurgy in the Iron Age. Other classes will touch upon the topics of regionalism and identity and contact at different periods of time, mortuary practices and ritual, and discussion of village life in ring forts during the Bronze Age.
Questions should be directed to Prof. Kuijt. Permission required. Authorization numbers may be obtained directly from Prof. Kuijt, 617 Flanner.
http://www.nd.edu/~ikuijt/Ireland/index.htm
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ANTH 35588
Archaeology Field School
Methods or Elective
Three weeks of practical instruction in the method and theory of archaeological survey, excavation and laboratory analysis. Students learn field techniques and apply them to investigations of both prehistoric and historic archaeological sites. They also learn the basic methods used in laboratory analysis of archaeological materials by working with artifacts collected during the field course. There are no prerequisites for this course, but prior exposure to an introductory course in anthropology or archaeology is helpful. Enrollment is limited to 14. Materials/transportation fee.
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