Courses

Cultural Anthropology | ANTH 1001 |  DC SCE SS

Cultural Anthropology is the study of the cultural similarities and differences among peoples all over the world. In this class, you will learn how to understand those who have different perspectives and behaviors that you do. You will leave the class with a broader knowledge of cultures around the world, a deeper understanding of your own culture, and the skills and tools to make better sense of the world around you, from events happening in your own neighborhood to affairs occurring on the other side of the world.

Biological Anthropology | ANTH 1003 | NS SS

Why do humans have such big brains? When did we start walking on two legs? Why do some people choose not to reproduce? Why do we rely so heavily on cultural learning? When did people first develop art and music? This course examines the evolution of the human species and how we differ from other animals. We will compare humans to other primates to determine what characteristics people have in common with apes and monkeys. We will examine fossils that inform us about the evolution of the species that preceded us. This course will consider the interactions of genes and environments that contribute to variation in the physical appearance and behavior of modern humans in different geographical locations. We will engage philosophical questions about the usefulness of evolutionary theory for explaining variation among species in the natural world. This course prepares students to interpret and critique quantitative data.

Introduction to Archaeology | ANTH 1005 | HP SS

Discover the mysteries of ancient civilizations. What is archaeology? How are archaeological sites discovered and investigated? This course introduces the scientific methods that archaeologists use to study archaeological sites. This course examines the roles ethics, history, preservation, and conservation play in archaeology and their significance in modern society. Examples of past and present archaeological research are presented. Students will have the opportunity to examine and analyze artifacts and report their findings. This course is ideal for anyone interested in interdisciplinary science, environmental science, and historic preservation.

Linguistics Anthropology | ANTH 1007 | DC SCE SS

Linguistics Anthropology introduces the study of language as a form of social practice. Applying key concepts from the field of linguistic anthropology, students examine the role of language in the construction of social groups and identities, the exercise of power and agency, and social differentiation in relation to topics such as the nature and origins of human language, the connection between language, thought and culture, and language and gender, race and ethnicity. In this course, students work with materials form a variety of languages and engage with language use in different modes, fr om written texts to videos and new media. They also intervene in contemporary debates over issues around language and gender, race, and ethnicity, and reflect on their own language practices to produce a linguistic autobiography. This course is useful for observing human interactions and understanding group dynamics, identifying value systems, recognizing cultural differences and similarities, providing insight into social problems and reaching new conclusions through comparative study, as well as reading critically, writing clearly, explaining complex ideas and presenting and defending a position.

Our Inner Ape: Humans as Primates | Anth1040 | NS

In recent decades, genetic research has shown that the DNA of humans is almost identical to that of chimpanzees and bonobos. How can humans be so closely related to these ape species, and yet look and behave so differently? This course introduces the biological bases of human behavior while drawing on comparisons to non - human primates and other animal species. The course reassesses the human niche in the broader animal kingdom, and comparative evidence comes from many fields, including biological anthropology, psychology, and evolutionary ecology.

Old World Prehistory | ANTH 2017 | HP SS 

This course provides an introduction to key developments in human prehistory as evidenced by archaeological evidence from the Old World (Africa, Asia, India, Europe) from around 6 million to 3,000 years ago. Central issues include the evolution and dispersal of modern humans, the transition to agriculture, and the emergence of complex societies. The latter two themes are examined from a cross-cultural perspective, drawing explicitly on case studies from the Indus Valley, east Africa, China, the Near East, and southern Europe.

New World Prehistory | ANTH 2018 | HP SS

Who were the first people to inhabit North America? Who were the ancestors of contemporary Native American tribes? How and where did they live? Who built Chaco Canyon and the cliff dwellings? This course will examine the prehistory and history of Native Americans across North American and the ethical issues associated with their sociopolitical identity and human rights. It will highlight the important contributions of Native Americans of North America to art, agriculture, engineering, and science. This course provides an important background on Native Americans for anyone interested in learning more about their rich cultural heritage.

Humans & Nature: Living in the Anthropocene | ANTH 2040 | NS SE

We are living in an age of increasing technology and consumption combined with increasingly fewer resources. In this course we will discuss the origins and environmental impacts of anthropogenic activities such as agriculture, animal husbandry, urbanism, mining, and technological development. We will focus on current social and environmental issues that emphasize the links between raw materials, waste, and products used in day-to-day life.

Anthropology of Global Problems | ANTH 2066 | DEI SE SS

This course applies anthropological concepts and approaches to understanding some of the most pressing problems in the world today, including hunger, poverty, environmental degradation, labor, consumption, and religious fundamentalism. Problems are analyzed within a framework of the expansion of capitalism and its incorporation or resistance. In this course, students engage in active learning through role - play scenarios incorporating gaming principles that focus on specific cases of global problems. They also learn experientially by getting involved with an organization or campaign addressing a ‘global problem’ and which they reflect on for a final project. This course is useful for observing human interactions, understanding dynamics of inequality between groups, and identifying systems of power within and between societies, as well as providing insight into social problems, reaching new conclusions through comparative study, and making policy based on social scientific research. It is also useful for reading critically and writing clearly, summarizing data and explaining complex ideas, designing a research project and presenting results in written, oral, and visual formats.

Religion in Culture | ANTH 2068 | DC SCE SS

An examination of religious practices from around the world, the relationship of religion to culture, theories of the origin of religion, religion and sociopolitical complexity, and the role of religion in culture change.

Anthropology of Media | ANTH 2072 | DC SS

How do different forms of media produce knowledge about cultures? How do media circulate across social and cultural contexts? This course focuses on how to analyze media through their artifacts, practices, and processes to reveal key insights about contemporary social life around the world. We will also examine popular discourses about “the media” and consider the parallel projects of representation and mediation by anthropologist and media producers.

Curation Methods in Archaeology | ANTH 3015

What is a curator? What role does an archaeologist play in museums? Students will be involved in all phases of archaeological curation methods including accession, laboratory processing, cataloguing, data management, and storage. This course focuses on how artifacts and archaeological data are managed and curated and provide s a historical perspective of archaeological curation. Students will learn about the ethical and legal issues archaeologists face in a curation setting. This class will be a 100% hands - on, learn - by - doing, curation methods experience. Students will learn collaborative methods and transformative solution - oriented outcomes in a team - based setting. Students will participate in the processing of artifacts spanning the past 14,000 years. This course is important for anyone considering a career in museum curation, historic preservation, environmental science, and environmental engineering.

Ohio Valley Prehistory | ANTH 3023 | HP SE

Who were the first people to live in the Ohio River valley? Who built the monumental mounds and earthworks of this region? Who were the first people to explore the longest cave in the world? This course will examine the prehistory and history of Native Americans in the Ohio River valley and the ethical issues associated with their sociopolitical identity and human rights. It will highlight the important contributions of Native Americans living in the Ohio Valley to art, agriculture, engineering, and science. This course provides an important background on Native Americans for anyone interested in learning more about their rich cultural heritage.

Origins of Civilization | ANTH 3026| HP SE

The origins of complex community organization in both the New and Old Worlds are examined. The effects of trade, warfare, large scale irrigation systems, and the influence of population growth will be assessed. Examples of these developmental trends will draw principally from ancient Mesoamerica and the Near East, though discussion groups will examine other primary centers of complex societal advancement. 

Identities and Material Culture | ANTH 3027| DC HP

Explore how the material world is implicated in the production and assertion of identity. Investigate how material culture is used to express identity in both modern and ancient contexts. Consider your own engagement with the material world, and interpret past and present uses of material culture in contexts ranging from museums to archaeological sites to public memorials to personal objects. This course considers both theoretical and applied approaches to material culture.

Human Osteology | ANTH 3043C

A detailed examination of human skeletal anatomy, including the biology and structure of bone tissue, bone growth and remodeling, identification of anatomical elements, reconstruction of life histories and analysis of human skeletal variation. Includes hands-on laboratory practice with the concepts and methods used in the analysis of skeletal material consistent with recovery in archaeological and forensic contexts. The skills and knowledge gained from this course are relevant to a broad range of scientific study that encompasses paleoanthropology, paleopathology, forensic anthropology, bioarchaeology, human variation, functional morphology and biomechanics.

Forms of Seeing | ANTH 3074 | SE

An ethnographic approach to a range of visualizing practices and forms, emphasizing seeing as a socially situated, culturally variable, and historically specific practice. The course will consider such questions as, how do the ways in which we think about the visible and invisible inhibit or encourage the development of certain kinds of conclusions about the natural world? Topics include image, imagination, and power; visual economies; expert visions; moral and social implications of forms of seeing; the intersection of visual, material, discursive and embodied practices.

Constructed Languages | ANTH 3075 | DC SS

What do languages like Esperanto, Newspeak, Quenya, Klingon, Na’vi, and Dothraki tell us about the nature of human language and the relation between language and culture? Through the experience of creating an original constructed language, or ‘conlang,’ students will learn methods of linguistic description and analysis and draw on concepts of cultural and linguistic relativity to identify the beliefs, attitudes, and values underlying conlanging as a social and linguistic practice. Using films and texts on conlangs and conlanging, and the experience of creating their own language, students will attempt to answer the question: why do people invent languages?

Social Network Analysis | ANTH 3090 | SS

This hands - on course introduces students to tools for analyzing social networks. Students will use R software to download data from Twitter, and these data sets form the basis of subsequent class exercises. The class introduces concepts from the interdisciplinary field of social network analysis, which simultaneously focuses on individuals and the relationships between individuals. Students will gain experience with manipulating relational data in R and analyzing statistical relationships between variables. The skills for downloading, analyzing, and visualizing data are skills that are broadly transferable to careers in business, government, and other research - related fields. The course also foreshadows the increasing availability of digit al data for understanding human behavior and applications across the social sciences.

Formation Processes of the Archaeological Record | ANTH 4019 

Approaches for understanding the origins and the inferential potential of the archaeological record, and the cultural and environmental factors that affect it, are presented. Students will be introduced to frameworks drawn from geology, geoarchaeology, ethnoarchaeology, experimental archaeology, and anthropology for interpreting the archaeological record. Case studies are drawn from anthropogenic phenomena worldwide.

Principles of Archaeological Analysis | ANTH 4020

An exploration of the theories and methods that archaeologists use to obtain chronological, behavioral, and organizational information from different kinds of archaeological assemblages and data bases.

People and Wetlands | ANTH 4021 PM

In this course, students explore the complex relationship between people and wetlands as it has evolved in different times and places around the world. The primary aim of the course is to apply concepts that are central to environmental anthropology and historical ecology to the analysis and interpretation of human experiences of wetland landscapes. Course activities are intended to foster critical analysis of conservation issues as they relate not only to the natural environment, but also to social diversity, and thus to foster civic and social responsibility. Students will devote particular attention to understanding the many cultural and natural values of wetlands, how wetlands create power relationships between groups of people, and contemporary issues regarding wetland preservation. Students will examine a diversity of ethnographic and archaeological case studies that investigate people living in or on the margins of wetlands. The selected case studies come from North America, Mesoamerica, India, Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.

Spatial Archaeology | ANTH 4028

The manipulation and use of physical space and settlement by past societies. The construction, maintenance, and distribution of vernacular architecture, both domestic and public, will be studied. The course will focus on archaeologically retrieved data, though recent historical and contemporary engineered landscapes will be examined both cross-culturally and within geographically varied environmental settings. A writing component will complement this course.

Human Evolutionary Genetics & Genomics | ANTH 4046

Explore how genomic data is used to investigate topics in anthropological genomics including: population structure, migration, archaic admixture, localized adaptation, colonization of the Americas and the Pacific, and the impact of the Neolithic revolution. Learn methods for generating and analyzing genomic data, and identify when and how to apply these to specific questions in the fields of human and primate genomics. Students in this course will develop skills in data analyses and in critical thinking.

Zoo Archaeology | ANTH 4048C

This course provides an overview of basic mammalian skeletal anatomy, preservation and techonomic processes, types of human modification, techniques used to determine age, sex, and seasonality, methods for quantifying faun al assemblages, and inferring human behavior and ecological information from animal remains.

Ethnographic Methods | ANTH 4071

Introduction to ethnographic research including an overview and examination of research ethics, principles of research design, qualitative research methods, and experience in skills such as interviewing, observation and record-keeping.

Anthropology & Development | ANTH 4074

This course examines international development from an anthropological perspective, discussing development theory and discourse in the context of its historical roots and contemporary manifestations. Topics include the relationship between gender and development, major development institutions like the World Bank, the role of biotechnology in development, and alternative development.

Beauty, Race & Gender in the Marketplace | ANTH 4078

A cross-cultural, ethnographic examination of the articulation of beauty, race, and gender in the marketplace that will explore the political, cultural, and economic stakes of aesthetic industries, including pageants, aesthetic surgery, cosmetics, fashion, and reality television, in multicultural and multiracial societies, and beauty's relationship to liberalism, nationalism, business, and justice.

Archaeological Theory | ANTH 5025

This course provides students with (i) an historical perspective on the growth of theoretical concepts in American and British archaeology and (ii) an introduction to current controversies and emerging directions in the development of archaeological theory. These objectives entail several others, as well, including (i) the application of philosophy of science concepts to archaeological inquiry, (ii) the role of cross - disciplinary theory borrowing, and (iii) the suitability of sociocultural concepts and methodological approaches for building archaeological theory. This is a Capstone course for Anthropology and Archaeology Majors in their Senior year.

Evolutionary Theory | ANTH 5049

A seminar examination of scientific theory, formation of evolutionary thought from Darwin through the Modern Synthesis, adaptationist programmes, punctuated equilibrium and evolutionary-developmental biology. Readings focus on evolutionary texts and recent scientific articles. Brief lectures and seminar discussions cover general theory and critiques in biological anthropology.