This is a broad introductory course covering race, language, and culture, both as intellectual concepts and as political realities. Topics include race and culture as explanations of human affairs, the relationship of language to thought, cultural diversity and cultural relativity, and cultural approaches to current crises.

Culture is the central concept that anthropologists use to understand the striking differences among human societies and how people organize the meaningful parts of their lives. In this course we explore this diversity, examine its basis in neuroplasticity and human development, and consider its implications for human nature, cognition, creativity, and identity. By learning about other cultures, we gain new understanding of ourselves.

This course offers an insight into the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services practiced by peoples ignored or unknown to classic Western economics. Its principle focus will open upon the obvious differences between cultural concepts of the self and the very notion of its desire. Such arguments as those which theorize on the "rationality" of the market and the "naturalness" of competition will be debunked.

Introductory course in which the concepts of culture, multiculturalism, race, racism, and nationalism are critically examined in terms of how they are used and structure social relations in American society and, by comparison, how they are defined in other cultures throughout the world.

The course introduces medical anthropology, and contextualizes bodies, suffering, healing and health. It is organized thematically around a critical humanist approach, along with perspectives from political economy and social constructionism. The aim of the course is to provide a broad understanding of the relationship between culture, healing (including and especially the Western form of healing known as biomedicine), health and political power.

In this course, students rethink assumptions about what "language" and "environment" are. Both depend on living systems to be rendered meaningful, and together we will wrestle with how these two ideas can be brought into relation and the implications associated with different frames of understanding. There are many perspectives on the issues raised in this course, and you will receive a broad introduction to that diversity.

Topics to be announced prior to each semester, dealing with linguistics.

Topics to be announced prior to each semester, dealing with social and cultural anthropology.

Surveys patterns in the development of prehistoric civilizations in different areas of the world including the Inca of Peru, the Maya, the Aztec of Mexico, and the ancient Middle East.

The theoretical, methodological and ethical practice of an engaged anthropology is the subject of this course, We begin with a history of applied anthropology. We then examine case studies that demonstrate the unique practices of contemporary sociocultural, linguistic, archaeological and bioanthropological anthropology in the areas of policy and civic engagement.

This course approaches food from various social science perspectives, focusing on historically and culturally variable forms of food production, exchange, preparation and consumption as the means through which both individual and social bodies are constructed and reproduced. We examine food and the environment; food and colonialism; the globalization of food and food production; food and identities; and food and bodies.

An intro to the broad field of Native Studies, this class focuses on themes of representation and erasure. We read Indigenous scholars and draw from current events, pop culture, and historical narrative to explore complex relationships between historical and contemporary issues that Indigenous peoples face in the US. We examine the foundations of Native representations and their connections to critical issues in Native communities.

Biopolitical analysis has become one of the prominent critical approaches across the social sciences and humanities. This course will consider various biopolitical theories and the ways in which they help us understand diverse phenomena of our contemporary condition, which will be examined through various case studies.

Anarchy - organizing society through horizontal relations of free association - has a modern European history contemporary with Anthropology and has Indigenous histories in many places where people decided together to organize society against the state and hierarchy. Readings survey anthropology of non-state societies and engage questions of how non-European anarchies of Black and Indigenous authors and organizers critique anthropological methods.

There's no debate that human reproduction is a biological universal, but it's also an intensely cultural phenomenon with widely disparate, & often contested, specific cultural routines, symbolic systems, ideas & practices whether focused on mothers, fathers, infants or communities or who is recognized as a birthing expert. Course examines variations in physiological & cultural processes globally & explores both the individual experiences & and systemic patterns associated with the phases of reproduction from pregnancy through to post-partum.

Topics to be announced prior to each semester, dealing with social and cultural anthropology.

This course will review the history of South America from its earliest population to the Spanish Conquest. Emphasis will be placed on tracing the rise of civilization in the Andes. The Inka empire was only the last of a long sequence of states and empires. Comparison of the Inka state with earlier polities such as the Moche and Tiwanaku will reveal the unique and enduring traditions of Andean political organizations.

This course surveys transformations in the African past, from the Middle Stone Age emergence of modern humans, to the florescence of lifeways in the Late Stone Age, to the broad mosaic of small-, medium-, and large-scale Iron Age societies, to the archaeology of colonial encounters. We also consider how archaeological methods work to produce knowledge in combination with studies of genetics, climate and environment, and historical methods.

Survey of modern schools of linguistics, both American and European, discussing each approach in terms of historical and intellectual context, analytical goals, assumptions about the nature of language, and relation between theory and methodology.

The majors seminars in anthropology offer majors and minors an opportunity to engage deeply with a topic of anthropological concern. Through these courses anthropology students gain experience in doing an independent research project on a topic they care about and produce a significant paper or other major work. Enrollment for majors and minors is preferred.

Independent study conducted by the student under the supervision of an instructor of his or her choice.

Writing of a thesis of approximately 50 pages, under the supervision of the faculty DMP thesis readers. Prerequisite: ANTH 4998.

This course will examine mental health issues from the perspectives of biomedicine and anthropology, emphasizing local traditions of illness and healing as well as evidence from epidemiology and neurobiology. Included topics will be psychosis, depression, PTSD, Culture Bound Syndromes, and suicide. We will also examine the role of pharmaceutical companies in the spread of western based mental health care and culturally sensitive treatment.

This course explores the theoretical, practical, and ethical foundations of language documentation and linguistic fieldwork, forms of research that can hardly be separated in this era of global language loss.

New course in the subject of anthropology.

Seminars in topics announced prior to each semester.

Topics to be announced prior to each semester, dealing with social and cultural anthropology.

This course explores theories and techniques underlying spatial analysis and use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in archaeological research. Topics covered in this hands-on course include construction and manipulation of spatial data, basic spatial statistics and landscape studies. Students are expected to work on their own research projects, involving the construction, analysis and modeling of environmental and social variables.

Explores the major recent theoretical approaches in current anthropology, with attention to their histories and to their political contexts and implications.

Anarchy - organizing society through horizontal relations of free association - has a modern European history contemporary with Anthropology and has Indigenous histories in many places where people decided together to organize society against the state and hierarchy. Readings survey anthropology of non-state societies and engages questions of how non-European anarchies of Black and Indigenous authors and organizers critique anthropological methods.

Survey of modern schools of linguistics, both American and European, discussing each approach in terms of historical and intellectual context, analytical goals, assumptions about the nature of language, and relation between theory and methodology.

For master's research, taken before a thesis director has been selected.

For master's thesis, taken under the supervision of a thesis director.

Directed Readings

Directed Readings

Research Practicum

For doctoral research, taken before a dissertation director has been selected.

For doctoral dissertation, taken under the supervision of a dissertation director.