Noncredit participation in the excavation of an archaeological site. Training varies depending on the site, but usually includes site surveying, archaeological engineering, techniques of excavation, flora, fauna, and soil analysis, field laboratory practice, and on-site computer data processing. Usually offered every summer.

Topics vary by section, may be repeated for credit with different topic.

People around the world create and use systems of symbols to express their identities as members of social groups. This course draws on diverse life-cycle experiences in tribal, state-level, and post-colonial societies to explore ways that both tradition and contact with other cultures contribute to the cultural pluralism of the contemporary world. Usually offered every term.

ANTH-150: Anthropology of American Life 4:1 (3)

How race, gender, class, ethnicity, age, and region affect Americans' experiences of interwoven historical, economic, political, scientific, religious, and cultural processes. Usually offered every fall.

Topics vary by section, may be repeated for credit with different topic.

Examines why racism has often characterized the relations between human groups, and compares these cases with other societies which have been nonracist. Social stratification, ideas about the nature and role of individuals, and economic factors are considered within and across cultures. The course links analysis of the past to possible social action. Usually offered every term. Prerequisite for General Education credit: ANTH-110 or LIT-150 or RELG-185 or SIS-140 or SOCY-110.

How economic systems, social structures, and values construct and redefine biological distinctions between women and men. Includes gender in egalitarian societies; origins and consequences of patriarchy; gay and lesbian cultures; gender, politics, and social change. Case studies from tribal, state-level, and post-colonial contexts. Usually offered every term. Prerequisite for General Education credit: ANTH-110 or LIT-150 or RELG-185 or SIS-140 or SOCY-110.

Foreign trade, foreign aid, tourism, and migration establish ties between peoples and cultures in spite of political and historical divisions. Examines the effect of international migration and the growing "one-world" economy on the daily lives of peoples around the world and in the emerging multicultural urban centers in the United States. Usually offered every spring. Prerequisite for General Education credit: ANTH-110 or LIT-150 or RELG-185 or SIS-140 or SOCY-110.

Examines language and its contribution to creativity, and how knowledge of language enriches human experience. Includes imagery and metaphor building through language; the effects of topic, speaking situation, and gender on creativity in tribal, state-level, and post-colonial contexts; and ways written language recasts and redefines human imagination. Usually offered every fall. Prerequisite for General Education credit: ARTH-105 or COMM-105 or LIT-120 or LIT-135.

ANTH-230: India: Its Living Traditions 3:2 (3)

The rich diversity among peoples and cultures of India through time and the significance of various traditions for contemporary life. Individual experiences of caste, class, gender, and sect are examined, as are outside influences on social patterns and modes of thought, revealing complex interplay between tradition and modernity, India and the West. Usually offered every spring. Prerequisite for General Education credit: ANTH-110 or LIT-150 or RELG-185 or SIS-140 or SOCY-110.

ANTH-235: Early America: The Buried Past 2:2 (3)

An introduction to how archaeology reconstructs this country's historic past. The course looks at the way archaeologists use both artifacts and written records to tell the story of life in the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. Emphasis on artifact and document interpretation, architecture, consumerism, African diaspora, and early non-Anglo settlers. Usually offered every spring. Prerequisite for General Education credit: LIT-125 or HIST-100 or HIST-110 or WGST-150.

The contributions that physical anthropology and archaeology can make toward an understanding of the origins and development of humankind. Includes genetics, the principles of evolution as applied to humans, the nonhuman primates and their behavior, human fossils, and the archaeology of the New and Old Worlds. Usually offered every fall. Prerequisite for General Education credit: BIO-100 or BIO-110 or PSYC-115.

Exploration of a variety of current perspectives in cultural anthropology. The kinds of questions anthropologists ask in seeking to understand cultural variation and diverse human experience. The relevance of anthropology to life in a changing, multicultural world. Usually offered every fall.

Archaeology as a subfield of anthropology. Includes the history of archaeology, methods of archaeological excavation and analysis, the historical archaeology of seventeenth and eighteenth century America, paleolithic archaeology in the Old World, the prehistory of North and South America, and other current discoveries and issues within the field. Usually offered every spring.

Examines connections between language, culture and society. Includes grammars as systems of knowledge; language and cognition; structure of everyday discourse; language diversity; speech communities; language change; literacy and language planning. Usually offered every spring.

Topics vary by section, may be repeated for credit with different topic.

Focuses on issues of inequalities attending the destruction of resources, the siting of dangerous facilities, dumping of toxic wastes, and the development of technologies that harm some people while benefiting others. Case studies from North America, Latin America, Africa, the Arctic, Pacific, and Caribbean examine questions about history, social relations, power, connections among the world's societies, and competing values. Usually offered alternate springs.

Examines questions concerning how individuals, groups, and social institutions legitimize the power to repress, coerce, and kill, how victims experience and interpret their suffering, how "ordinary people" come to accept and justify violent regimes, and the possibility of constructing an understanding of genocide that extends across cultures and from individual impulse to global conflict. Case studies include genocide in the Americas, the Nazi Holocaust, and ethnic cleansing in Central Africa and Eastern Europe.

Topics vary by section, may be repeated for credit with different topic. Examination of a particular culture area to provide insight into the conditions that produced distinctive cultures in certain geographical regions. Rotating cultural areas include North American Indians, Latin America, Mexico and Central America, North American ethnic groups, Europe, India, Africa, China, and Japan. Meets with ANTH-639. Usually offered every term.

Surveys theory through the original writings of anthropologists. Contemporary perspectives and debates in anthropology examined through close, critical readings of cutting-edge studies. These readings reflect current approaches in the field such as culture and political economy, postmodern multi-vocal texts, feminist ethnographies, and post-colonial writing. How ethnographies are crafted, including how authors contextualize their subject and their own involvement, uses of evidence, and literary devices. Usually offered every spring.

Topics vary by section, may be repeated for credit with different topic. Cross-cultural comparison and analysis within selected culture areas. Rotating topics include cultural perspectives on sports, war and aggression, rites of passage, food and culture, rise of civilization, archaeology of the Chesapeake Bay region, North American prehistory, and historical archaeology.

Prerequisite: permission of instructor and department chair.

Topics vary by section, may be repeated for credit with different topic.

A comparative study of magic, witchcraft, and religion in Western and non-Western societies. Includes an analysis of ritual behavior and the ritual process, mythology, sorcery, and revitalization movements. Usually offered every fall.

Exploration of those persons, items, experiences, and acts which so frighten and repel humans that they try to prohibit them. Includes discussion of subjects rich in taboo and sensitivity including sexuality, witchcraft, cannibalism, human-animal relations, madness, and death. Why taboos emerge, how they are enforced, and when they are violated. Usually offered alternate springs.

Capstone seminar for anthropology majors which explores a central question for the discipline, the exploration of power. Examines the questions of how people experience and articulate power relations, how power is legitimized, where power comes from, how power relations shift over time and place, and how the study of power enriches and infuses anthropological studies. Usually offered every spring. Prerequisite: anthropology major with at least 36 credit hours of courses in the major.

Prerequisite: permission of instructor and department chair.

Prerequisite: permission of instructor and department chair.

Topics vary by section, may be repeated for credit with different topic.

May be repeated for credit but not in the same term, for a maximum of 6 credit hours. Opportunity for qualified undergraduates to carry out anthropological research under supervision of members of the faculty. Development of a written paper and participation in senior thesis seminar are required. Usually offered every term. Prerequisite: permission of department chair.

Topics vary by section, may be repeated for credit with different topic. Rotating topics include historical archaeology, artifact analysis, archaeology of the Chesapeake, archaeology of the Potomac Valley, Aztec, Inca, and Maya, and archaeology and politics.

All significant ideas about the nature of human culture center on issues of cultural stability or change, and stability itself is often a result of change. As anthropology focuses on today's world, an understanding of culture change is especially important. This course explores ways to understand culture change. Usually offered every spring. Prerequisite: ANTH-251 and one additional course in cultural anthropology, or graduate standing.

Explores the field of cultural resources management and preservation. This course examines the range of resources - from archeological sites to historic structures to living communities - that are often given protected status and the reasons for such protection. Also considers the benefits to society of this protection, along with the available policies, processes, and laws that are utilized in the preservation effort. Usually offered alternate springs. Prerequisite: ANTH-253 or ANTH-531, or permission of instructor.

Discussion of the way that anthropologists have used and developed the concept of class as a way to understand patterns of social inequality. The variation in relationships of class to economic, social, and political structures in different societies and how class experiences and struggles influence and are influenced by the cultural norms and values in different social systems. Prerequisite: ANTH-251 and one other course in cultural/social anthropology, or permission of instructor.

Ethnicity has become a universal means for groups to defend their interests, avoid alienation, and create powerful rituals of self-preservation and defense. This course examines ways that groups in complex societies and new nations use ethnicity and nationalism to express and enact community and identity, similarity and difference, peaceful social relations, warfare, and genocide. Prerequisite: one course in social or cultural anthropology.

Topics vary by section, may be repeated for credit with different topic. Rotating topics in comparative perspectives on the interrelationships of cultural and linguistic patterns in different societies. Case studies focus on language variation and pluralism as related to verbal creativity, social hierarchies, gender diversity, language history, and colonialism and nation building. Usually offered alternate summers. Prerequisite: one course in anthropology or linguistics, or permission of instructor.

This course traces shifting relationships among governments, anthropologists, and ordinary people. Readings and class discussions explore the rise of "applied" anthropology as part of the processes of colonialism and capital accumulation. Also covered are colonial encounters, immigration and internment, neocolonialism, and structural adjustment. Usually offered every fall.

Explores efforts to build an applied anthropology which advances popular struggles for economic freedom, human rights, and social justice while maintaining a critique of state power. The course also examines how such work engages conventional approaches to research, publication, and career advancement, and suggests pathways to alternative anthropological careers. Usually offered every spring.

Anthropological approaches to the analysis of economic development and change, with attention both to development theory and to practice. Development problems as perceived at the local level, contemporary development concerns, and the organization of development agencies and projects are considered. Usually offered every fall.

Topics vary by section, may be repeated for credit with different topic. The application of anthropological method and theory to solving problems in contemporary society. Rotating topics include inequality and change in education, health, culture and illness, public archaeology, and anthropology of human rights. Usually offered every spring.

Using a series of research exercises, students learn how to collect genealogies, gather censuses of research populations, conduct directed and nondirected interviews, map research areas, work with photographic data, collect life histories, observe as participants, write research proposals, and evaluate data. Ethical and methodological fieldwork problems are stressed throughout. Usually offered alternate falls.

An introduction to research methods used within the field of anthropology, including ethnography, the distinctive tool of the field. Includes research design, data collection, quantitative and qualitative analysis. Ethics and pragmatics of research are discussed, including research funding and proposal writing. Usually offered every spring. Prerequisite: two courses in anthropology, or graduate standing.

Topics vary by section, may be repeated for credit with the same topic. Active participation in the excavation of an archaeological site. Training varies depending on the site, but usually includes site surveying, archaeological engineering, techniques of excavation, flora, fauna, and soil analysis, field laboratory practice, and on-site computer data processing. Usually offered every summer.

Prerequisite: permission of instructor and department chair.

ANTH-596: Selected Topics: Non-recurring (1-6)

Topics vary by section, may be repeated for credit with different topic.

An overview of both the history of cultural and social theories and methods and the contemporary concerns of anthropology. Usually required of all incoming graduate students; consult the department chair. Usually offered every fall.

This course addresses developments and debates in anthropology over the last three decades, looking at how central concerns in anthropology are recast over time, as well as how new concerns emerge with new theory. The course grounds the central concept of culture in analyses that emphasize its relationship to historical process as well as class, race, and gender, and the use and abuse of the culture concept in struggles for identity, dominance, and liberation. Usually offered every spring.

This course considers archaeology as a culturally-specific enterprise that is tightly integrated with other aspects of our modern-day, western materialist, capitalist system. Includes a review of archaeological theory, how archaeology creates knowledge about the past, and the context in which archaeological theory and practice developed. Reviews basic concepts about time, space, and material culture, and explores different theoretical currents: culture historical, processual, post-processual, feminist, and contemporary theory. Usually offered every fall.

This seminar explores the disjunction between biological myths of race and gender and their social construction as credible institutions; the historical, economic, and political roots of inequalities; the institutions and ideologies that buttress and challenge power relations; and the implications of social science teaching and research for understanding social class, race, and gender discrimination. Issues of advocacy for social change are also explored. Usually offered every spring. Prerequisite: permission of instructor.

This seminar reviews current approaches to studies of narrative, life stories, and conversation, and the insights into social location, ideology, and claims to power which such studies disclose. Usually offered every spring. Prerequisite: graduate standing in anthropology and ANTH-631; or graduate standing in the TESOL master's program and 6 graduate credit hours in linguistics; or permission of instructor.

Topics vary by section, may be repeated for credit with different topic. Examinations of particular culture areas to provide insight into the conditions that produced distinctive cultures in certain geographical regions. Cultural areas include North American Indians, Latin America, Mexico and Central America, North American ethnic groups, American culture and society, Europe, India, Africa, China, and Japan. Meets with ANTH-339. Usually offered every term.

Topics vary by section, may be repeated for credit with different topic. Rotating topics include issues such as cultural construction of gender, transformations in U.S. anthropology, and militarism and state violence. Usually offered every term.

Prerequisite: permission of instructor and department chair.

Prerequisite: permission of instructor and department chair.

 

Topics vary by section, may be repeated for credit with different topic.

Usually offered every term.

Usually offered every term.