ANT

Subject

ANT

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

www.purchase.edu

The major fields of interest and contributions of social and cultural anthropologists. Accounts of life in different societies are read to illustrate how institutions vary in different cultural settings and to explore what it means to be a member of a culture different from one’s own.

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

3

Credits (max)

3

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

Students explore through fiction, nonfiction, film and artwork stories of immigration and emigration that have made Israel a space of transit, transition and settlement. What has drawn peoples to this land and what do they encounter when they arrive? Who decides to stay and who leaves? Focus on Soviet, Eastern European, Ethiopian and North American Jews, and Christians and Arabs.

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

3

Credits (max)

3

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

Explores the different roles that language plays in the lives of people, communities, and nations. Topics include language and thought, language and power, poetics and verbal art, bilingualism, African- American English (“Ebonics”), pidgin and Creole languages, Native American language revitalization, “politically correct”; language, and the rise of English as a global language.

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

3

Credits (max)

3

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

How useful a tool is film for the study of peoples who come from cultures entirely different from one’s own? Appropriate readings accompany the visual material, in addition to ethnographic accounts of the societies viewed in class and discussions of the problems encountered in filming non-Western peoples.

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

3

Credits (max)

3

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

An introductory survey of music, theatre, and dance in Western and non-Western cultures, including the relationships between music and religion, dance and weddings, theatre and curing. The course also explores the performing arts as aesthetic phenomena in their own right. Live performances by non-Western performers and optional field trips are planned. PREREQ: ANT1500 Or MSA1050 Or NME1050

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

3

Credits (max)

3

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

Using texts and films, students analyze how street drugs and legitimated pharmaceuticals become entangled with the economic and aesthetic practices of marginal and mainstream social worlds. Topics include rural Midwestern methamphetamine production as a cottage industry; the ways that steroids and methamphetamine refashion the HIV+ body and identity; and the designs of “performance enhancers” like Adderall that make machines out of bodies.

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

3

Credits (max)

3

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

Subject

ANT

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

www.purchase.edu

Subject

ANT

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

www.purchase.edu

Students examine and interrogate commonsense distinctions between ‘traditional’ museums and other spaces of cultural-historical exhibition. The aim is to partner with local communities to mount shows that resonate with community aesthetic, political, social and ecological concerns and, in the process, teach apprenticing curators how cultural institutions might become more inclusive and achieve relevance in the daily lives of their patrons.

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

3

Credits (max)

3

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

Investigates magic and witchcraft in the shadow of technology, industrialization, and capitalism. Readings range from athletes who employ superstition to cope with uncertainty, to more challenging case studies on witchcraft, spirit possession, shamanism, and other forms of magic as healing. Alongside classical anthropological texts, concepts such as fetishism, fantasy, and enchantment are explored in contemporary contexts, including film, art, and literature. PREREQ: ANT1500 Or MSA1050

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

3

Credits (max)

3

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

A survey of theoretical orientations and methodologies for the study of musical production, performance, and consumption in particular cultural contexts and within global flows of materials, ideas, cultural forms, and people. Focuses on music as a communication medium and collective poetic process. Students attend and critically engage musical performances and/or engage directly in musical production and performances.

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

3

Credits (max)

3

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

Begins with historical examples of ethnographic work on black diasporic cultures and then moves to contemporary anthropological work on black life from around the world. Underscores the history of anthropology in understanding race and racial politics and also draws on an array of topical issues, from mass incarceration to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

3

Credits (max)

3

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

Explores and compares the diverse ways in which sexuality and gender are practiced, experienced, and regulated in different communities around the world. Particular attention is paid to how sexual identities and practices have influenced, and been influenced by, global political, economic, and cultural movements, including colonialism, capitalism, feminism, queer activism, and the spread of world religions.

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

3

Credits (max)

3

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

Theoretical concepts and their use in analyzing empirical data. Students read and critically analyze the work of some of the major thinkers in anthropology, including Benedict, Mead, Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, Geertz, Turner, and Lévi-Strauss. PREREQ: ANT1500

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

4

Credits (max)

4

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

4

Credits (max)

4

Credit unit

credits

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

www.purchase.edu

The experiences and problems of city dwellers in the Third World and migrants from Third World countries to Western cities, including New York. Topics include urbanization and family life, adaptation of migrants, ethnicity and class, the culture of poverty, and methods of urban anthropologists. PREREQ: ANT1500 Or ANT2055

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

4

Credits (max)

4

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

This course explores the benefits and drawbacks of tourism as experienced by tourists, travel-industry workers, and local and Indigenous community residents in various global contexts. Topics include affective labor, cultural commodification, heritage tourism, study abroad, voluntourism, selfie tourism, digital nomads, travel writing and vlogging, and debates over environmental and social sustainability.

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

4

Credits (max)

4

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

Examines both foundational and newer critical approaches to understanding religion from an anthropological perspective. Texts cover a diversity of topics from a variety of cultures, including the construction of religion as an analytical category; religion’s relation to secularism, law, and political ideology; religion and gender; and embodied religious experience. In particular, the relationships between media and religion are explored. Not intended as a general survey of religious traditio PREREQ: ANT1500 Or NME1050 Or MSA1050

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

4

Credits (max)

4

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

Africa is home to some of the oldest and fastest-growing cities in the world. Rapid urbanization brings challenges, opportunities, and expectations. Topics include colonial and postcolonial urban planning; corruption and informal economies; violence and security; ethnicity, nationalism, and pan-Africanism; modernism and traditionalism; youth styles and subcultures; charismatic Christianity and Islamic reformism.

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

4

Credits (max)

4

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

Explores how African performing artists and audiences have responded to the cultural, political, and economic circumstances of the times and places in which they live. Performance media include music, song, dance, film/video, and the spoken word, with a special focus on western and southern Africa. Students draw on anthropological theories to produce, perform, and critique their own versions of African performance texts. PREREQ: ANT1500 Or MSA1050

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

4

Credits (max)

4

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

How have myth, ritual, and performance functioned as ways to comprehend, organize, and even generate the world around us? What are the values and constraints of symbolic structures as they shape and influence bodies and environments? Students consider both structural and poststructural approaches to performance as a medium for exploring, but also transgressing, structures of everyday life. PREREQ: ANT1500 Or THP2020 Or MSA1050 Or MSA1050

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

4

Credits (max)

4

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

This course takes an interdisciplinary and global approach to children’s media cultures drawing on fields of cultural studies, media studies, ethnomusicology, and cultural anthropology. Topics include cuteness and grossness, tiny things and miniatures, consumption, nostalgia, and play. Students will also explore a range of media forms aimed at children including music, TV/film, books, and toys. PREREQ: ANT1500 Or MSA1050

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

4

Credits (max)

4

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

Subject

ANT

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

www.purchase.edu

Students examine how language is used with other media to convey meanings and build social connections in particular cultural contexts. Focus on ethnographic approaches to spoken and written communication, paying attention to genres and norms of interaction and performance. Students carry out original research, using linguistic-anthropological theories to analyze real-life instances of language use and consider their broader sociocultural significance.

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

4

Credits (max)

4

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

4

Credits (max)

4

Credit unit

credits

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

www.purchase.edu

Listening

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

4

Credits (max)

4

Credit unit

credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

Drawing on the fields of ethnomusicology, anthropology, and popular music studies, this course explores the politics of popular music in relation to critical theory, affect, race, class, gender, and sexuality. Topics include: pop idol industry, the boy band phenomenon, heavy metal and masculinity, music and moral panics, music as a form of protest and censorship, afro-futurist music, androgyny and new wave, and diasporic pop musics. PREREQ: ANT1500 Or MSA1050

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

4

Credits (max)

4

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

What theories of embodiment, mind, and matter must be adopted to adequately grasp experiences of time, space, color, emotion, and attention? How can people conceptualize forms of experience without purging them of poetic resonance? Students explore this interdisciplinary field in connection with the arts. Includes readings in cognitive science, anthropology, and poetry, plus collaborative art projects, sensory experiments, and excursions. PREREQ: ANT1500 Or PSY1530 Or MSA1050

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

4

Credits (max)

4

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

The methodological, political, and ethical issues of participant observation. Students read and discuss classical examples of participant-observation research. Each student conducts a participant-observation field research study and presents a preliminary version of the results to the seminar before submitting the written report. Limited to anthropology majors. PREREQ: ANT1500 And ANT3150

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

4

Credits (max)

4

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

Subject

ANT

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

www.purchase.edu

Students focus on recent theoretical texts in cultural anthropology and are expected to present short oral reports on these texts and to lead class discussion. Limited to anthropology majors in their senior year. PREREQ: ANT1500 And ANT3150

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

4

Credits (max)

4

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

Explore the rural as a meeting place of working-class expressive cultures, an atmosphere of slow or strange time, a dramatic history of industry and agriculture, a notoriously tense racial zone, and a place of exuberant stories and poetics. Examine the vital ideological function of the rural as the urban’s dark twin in American myth throughout history and today. PREREQ: MSA1050 Or ANT1500

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

4

Credits (max)

4

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

Special anthropological topics by geographic area. PREREQ: ANT1500 Or MSA1050

Subject

ANT

Credits (min)

4

Credits (max)

4

Credit unit

Credits

Type

course

Edition

Catalog 2026-27

Catalog

Catalog 2026-27

Source

www.purchase.edu

Subject

ANT

Type

alias

Source

www.purchase.edu

Subject

ANT

Type

alias

Source

www.purchase.edu