22 courses with the subject ANTH, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
ANTH 100Introduction to Cultural Anthropology4
Introduces the study of culture and human diversity. Through reading ethnographies (case studies), students learn about different societies around the world, including their own. They also learn how different anthropologists have gone about studying societies. Particular attention is given to concepts of culture, cultural relativism, holism, and participant observation. Active learning components are incorporated to give students a sense of the field practices of anthropologists. Fall and Spring.
ANTH 145Sensing Religion: Body, Desire, and Emotion4
Introductory course that takes each of the senses as an entry point into how practitioners experience their religious and spiritual lives and what moves them about their relationships and practices with the sacred. This anthropology of religion approach centers the body, as we examine emotion and affect, rather than belief systems or intellectualized arguments. When people sing or chant mantras, cook a meal for an orisha, touch the Torah scroll while dancing, decorate an altar in the colors that please a deity, or engage in visual mandala practice, these activities create intimacy, communal belonging, self-transformation, and other outcomes that defy dominant discourses and provide a lens into why religion really matters to many people. This class invites us to reincorporate our own embodied knowledge as part of the analytical learning process. Every other year.
Course not otherwise included in the catalog listing but for which there may be special needs. May be repeated for credit as often as permitted and as subject matter changes. See department chair.
Subject
ANTH
Credits (min)
1
Credits (max)
6
Type
course
Repeatable
May be repeated for credit as often as permitted and as subject matter changes.
Explores a variety of theoretical frameworks for understanding human societies and social experience. Students learn classical and contemporary approaches to analyzing and interpreting the worlds around them, as well as how to combine theoretical perspectives with various methodological approaches common to Sociology and Anthropology. Students will not only read theory but learn in workshops to use theory in the interpretation of concrete and empirical social and cultural worlds.
Course not otherwise included in the catalog listing but for which there may be special needs. May be repeated for credit as often as permitted and as subject matter changes. See department chair.
Subject
ANTH
Credits (min)
1
Credits (max)
6
Type
course
Repeatable
May be repeated for credit as often as permitted and as subject matter changes.
ANTH 305Internship in Sociology and Anthropology (SOC 305)4
An internship can be an important link between academic learning and real-life application. In this course, students work with participating agencies and organizations of their choice for a minimum of 105 hours. Weekly seminar meetings focus on professional development, including: the acquisition of basic helping and interpersonal skills, ethical issues in professional life, preparation of job application materials, and the exploration of individual interests and abilities as they relate to career possibilities. Grading is S/U.
Twelve hours of sociology and/or anthropology and permission of the instructor. Spring.
ANTH 322World Archaeology and Culture (ARTH 322)4
This interdisciplinary course surveys the archeology of major world cultures from the Paleolithic to the early historic periods. The geographic areas of focus will include the Near East (Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus Valley), Mesoamerica East Asia, Africa and South America. Topics will include the role of environmental history; the origins of agriculture, the development of urbanism and state level societies, the production and context of material culture, religion and ritual; local economic systems and modern stewardship of cultural heritage. See department chair.
Explores how people in different places around the world make and communicate meaning. On the way, we ponder the nature of culture and mind. Texts include classic and contemporary works in symbolic and psychological anthropology. Students will explore challenges and rewards of knowing other minds, in texts, discussions, and workshops. Odd years Fall.
Understanding social experiences through grounded-theory research. Course offers hands-on lessons in gathering, analyzing and interpreting ethnographic data. Topics include participant-observation, interviewing, mapping, content analysis, taking and interpreting field notes, and ethnographic writing. Weekly sessions include discussion seminars and methods workshops. Students complete an ethnographic writing project.
Examines the diversity of gendered experience in the Americas, using an anthropological lens. The close study of gendered experience in a variety of American contexts (focusing on Latin America, the Caribbean and Latin@s in the US) will be used to reflect on both the nature of gender inequality in human experience in general and the engendered nature of our own experience as cultural actors. We will focus particularly on the ways in which gender, ethnicity, class, and disability intersect in the social construction of American individuals’ identities. Includes a writing lab experience. Odd years Fall.
Explores human interest in and relations with honeybees (judging by ancient rock art, our fascination with honeybees is one of our oldest). The class will also take a long look at honey-bee sociality, hive organization, and communication. These have strong family resemblances to our own. Many beekeepers and scholars suggest that human decision-making and conflict resolution could benefit by learning a few lessons from honeybees. Class includes field trips to nearby apiaries and opportunities to inspect beehives and see honey bees in action. Even years Spring.
Looks at how diverse cultures–including the culture of biomedicine and popular health culture–understand, experience, and treat illnesses. How are sickness and healing culturally constructed? How is the health of individuals shaped by cultural norms, social institutions, and the forces of globalization? How do different peoples in the world understand notions of health and well-being? By reading ethnographies and viewing documentaries, we will consider the cultural construction of illness and how social and cultural factors influence pandemics and epidemics, medical ethics, and social justice issues. Odd years Fall.
Using ethnographies, memoirs and films, this course examines the concepts of the body and disability in a variety of cultures, including our own. Interrogates what is natural and normal. Includes the role of narrative (written and filmic) in the cultural construction of the body and disability and emphasizes intersectionality of ability with class, gender, and race, and religious and sexual identity. Even years Spring.
ANTH 357Disrupted Lives: The Anthropology of Social Suffering4
Through ethnographies and other texts (both written and filmic), this course explores the anthropology of social suffering, from acts of disruption to the possibility of reconciliation. From war, political violence, state terror, and marginalization to chronic illnesses, disability, addictions, and other forms of embodied distress, how is suffering collectively and individually experienced? Is it possible for broken communities and dispirited lives to heal? The focus is on everyday life–how painful events are culturally constructed and socially healed in the realm of the ordinary. Includes independent and active learning components. Odd years Spring.
Examines the cross-cultural representation of gender, through ethnographies, documentary films and writing exercises. The course considers how culture affects our understanding and experience of gender. Issues such as hierarchies and power, the body and sexualities, and the dilemmas of writing about identities are explored. Includes a writing lab experience. See department chair.
Everybody dies. Not everybody manages death the same way. The class takes a cross-cultural look at the ways people die and cope with death around the world, by reading a variety of classic and contemporary literature on death, and by taking field trips to graveyards and funeral homes. The course offers opportunities to learn about other societies as a platform for exploring mortality more generally. Every year.
Course not otherwise included in the catalog listing but for which there may be special needs. May be repeated for credit as often as permitted and as subject matter changes. See department chair.
Subject
ANTH
Credits (min)
1
Credits (max)
6
Type
course
Repeatable
May be repeated for credit as often as permitted and as subject matter changes.
Zen and Anthropology are different practices. Zen is a type of religion from one part of the world; Anthropology is a kind of science from another. But there are remarkable resemblances. Both are, in a sense, methods for learning about the nature of human reality. Both ask practitioners to pay attention to the here and now. Both ask us to be accepting of other forms of life. Both recognize that reality changes, and that one of our tasks as human beings is to try to understand those changes and come to terms with them. Drawing on Zen and Anthropological texts, the seminar explores what these different methods teach us about ourselves. Each class begins with a short period of zazen, or sitting meditation. See department chair.
The course sets out to study a range of nomadic societies around the world, to notice their variety and similarity, and to understand the dynamics that differentiate mobile from stationary peoples. Nomadism was the original human condition. As an adaptive strategy, it has lasted longer than any other - even as nowadays traditionally nomadic societies are dying out or being absorbed by sedentaries. As the world becomes more global, and as disenfranchised communities move underground, nomadism has even become a technique of resistance. Even years Spring.
Students engage in a semester-long capstone project incorporating one or more of the following: independent data collection and analysis; extended theoretical inquiry; service and applied learning. These projects will culminate in a thesis and oral presentation.
ANTH 336 or SOC 338 or permission of instructor. Fall.
ANTH 471-6Special Topics in Anthropology1-6
Course not otherwise included in the catalog listing but for which there may be special needs. May be repeated for credit as often as permitted and as subject matter changes. See department chair.
Subject
ANTH
Credits (min)
1
Credits (max)
6
Type
course
Repeatable
May be repeated for credit as often as permitted and as subject matter changes.
Undergraduate research under the supervision of a faculty mentor. An IP grade may be awarded at the discretion of instructor. May be repeated for a total of 8 hours credit. Fall and Spring.
