Anthropology
Overview
Anthropology explores the astonishing diversity and complexity of human life and culture in the contemporary moment and in historical and prehistorical times. A foundational part of a liberal arts education, anthropology challenges students to think critically about the assumptions we make about the world and the power hierarchies that shape our everyday lives. Anthropology examines how social, economic, environmental, and political relationships are reproduced and transformed in the present and across much longer timeframes (millennia as well as decades).
Through the subdisciplines of cultural anthropology and archaeology, students develop holistic and empirically based knowledge of local cultural practices and processes of change in regions including Africa, the Arctic and North Atlantic, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania. Students deepen their understanding of relationships of power and inequality (including gender, ethnicity, race, class, sexuality, age, etc.). Students consider the particularities of local everyday practices and the global circulation of people, ideas, and commodities. Throughout the curriculum, students are exposed to the discipline’s analytical concepts and tools, theoretical perspectives, and field-based qualitative and quantitative research.
Anthropology promotes intellectual curiosity, creative and interdisciplinary thinking, empirical and ethical scholarship, and respect for our common humanity. Our students develop skills that may be mobilized in a variety of fields, such as education, environmentalism, humanitarianism, journalism, law, media, medicine, museum administration, public policy, and social justice, as well as in graduate and professional studies.
Learning Goals
- To develop understanding of human cultural and biological diversity across time and space
- To gain familiarity with anthropological concepts, methods, and theories (within and across the sub-disciplines) and to utilize these to understand issues, relationships, and systems in the present and the past
- To develop the skills to collect and analyze various types of information (e.g., material, visual, narrative, oral, etc.) and to evaluate the use of qualitative and quantitative data in social science research and in everyday life
- To develop critical perspectives on relations of power and inequality through attention to local (ethnographic and archaeological) particularities, global connections, and historical trajectories
- To communicate effectively through written and oral communication
Options for Majoring or Minoring in the Department
Students may elect to major in anthropology or to coordinate a major in anthropology with digital and computational studies, education, or environmental studies. Students pursuing a coordinate major may not normally elect a second major. Non-majors may elect to minor in anthropology.
Susan A. Kaplan, Department Chair
Monica Gallego, Department Coordinator
Professors: Susan A. Kaplan, Krista E. Van Vleet
Associate Professor: Bianca Williams (Africana Studies)
Assistant Professors: Karime Castillo, William D. Lempert, Stephen McIsaac‡, Shreyas Sreenath‡
Visiting faculty: Karem Irene Said
Anthropology Major
The major in anthropology consists of ten courses.
| Code | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Required Courses | ||
| Core Courses: | ||
| ANTH 1100 | Introducing Anthropology: What Makes Us Human? | 1 |
| ANTH 2010 | Anthropological Research: Methods and Ethics in Practice a | 1 |
| ANTH 2030 | Anthropological Theory: Concepts in Context | 1 |
| Select an anthropological archaeology course at the 1000-, 2000-, or 3000-level. | 1 | |
| Select one 3000-level anthropology course. | 1 | |
| Select five anthropology elective courses. b | 5 | |
| a | Students are strongly encouraged to take this course as sophomores or juniors. |
| b | Only two 1000-level courses (1000–1999) may be counted toward the major. |
Anthropology Minor
The minor in anthropology consists of five courses.
| Code | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Required Courses | ||
| ANTH 1100 | Introducing Anthropology: What Makes Us Human? | 1 |
| Select four anthropology elective courses. c | 4 | |
| c | Three courses must be at the intermediate (2000–2969) or advanced level (3000–3999). |
Additional Information and Department Policies
- In order for a course to fulfill major or minor requirements, a grade of C- or above must be earned in that course.
- Courses that count toward the major or minor must be taken for regular letter grades (not Credit/D/Fail).
- First-year writing seminars count toward the major or minor.
- There is no limit on how many courses a major or minor in anthropology can double-count with another department or program major.
- Eight of the ten courses required for the major must be Bowdoin anthropology courses. Up to two independent study or honors level courses advised by department faculty may be included in the eight Bowdoin courses required for the major.
- Majors may count up to two elective courses, with departmental approval, from among off-campus study courses, and/or—with approval by the department chair—other Bowdoin courses in related fields that contribute to the student's specific interests.
- One of the five courses required for the minor, with department approval, may be from off-campus study.
- Only two 1000-level courses (1000–1999) may be counted toward the minor.
Independent Study
For the anthropology major program, up to two semesters of intermediate or advanced level independent study or honors courses may be counted. For the anthropology minor program, one semester of intermediate or advanced level independent study may be counted.
Departmental Honors
Students seeking to graduate with honors in anthropology must have distinguished themselves in the major program. Students contemplating honors candidacy should have established records of A and B grades in anthropology courses. To pursue honors, students submit a written proposal early in the first semester of their senior year. Students then prepare an honors project, which ordinarily is a research paper written over the course of two semesters under the mentorship of a faculty advisor. A total of two independent study courses may be counted toward the major requirements in anthropology. Determination of honors is based on grades attained in major courses, an honors project that is approved by the department, and demonstration of the ability to work independently and creatively synthesize theoretical, methodological, archaeological, and/or ethnographic material.
Off-Campus Study
Off-campus study may contribute substantially to a major in anthropology and the department encourages students to consider academic work in another location, cultural context, and/or language. Students are advised to plan study away for their junior year and to complete ANTH 2010 Anthropological Research: Methods and Ethics in Practice—which focuses on research design, methods, and ethics—before studying away. Students must obtain provisional approval for their study-away courses in writing by department faculty before they leave, and then, to receive credit toward their major or minor, students must seek final approval from their advisor upon their return to Bowdoin. With departmental approval, students may count up to two off-campus study courses toward their major requirements and up to one off-campus study course toward their minor requirements.
Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate
For information on credit for International Baccalaureate tests, please see the department. No credit is given for Advanced Placement. In order to receive credit for International Baccalaureate work, students must have their scores officially reported to the Office of the Registrar by the end of their sophomore year at Bowdoin.
Information for Incoming Students
Anthropology explores the diversity and complexity of humanity in contemporary cultures and in the “deep past.” We integrate the specifics of individual experience, local particularities of landscapes and communities, and broad regional and global contexts to better understand human actions and meanings, including relations of power, identity, and inequality. In our courses in cultural anthropology and anthropological archaeology students learn how to “make the strange familiar, and the familiar strange” through analysis of material, visual, sonic, and textual data.
The Anthropology Department welcomes first-year students into several of our courses. This fall the anthropologists are offering two first-year writing seminars, ANTH 1016 Imagining Futures and ANTH 1022 Fiction and Fraud in Archaeology: Debunking Modern Myths about Ancient Cultures. We also will teach one section of ANTH 1100 Introducing Anthropology: What Makes Us Human?. Another entry level course being offered is ANTH 2100 Archaeology and the Human Experience. In the spring of 2024, we will teach another section of ANTH 1100 Introducing Anthropology: What Makes Us Human?. We always save several seats for first-year students in these introductory courses.
None of these courses assume any prior work in anthropology. All of these courses contribute to the major or minor in Anthropology. We encourage students who may want to take 2000-level Anthropology courses – including courses that fulfill the College’s International Perspectives (IP) or Difference, Power and Inequity (DPI) distribution requirements – to take ANTH 1100 Introducing Anthropology: What Makes Us Human? as soon as possible.
ANTH 1016 (b) Imagining Futures
Non-Standard Rotation. Fall 2023. Enrollment limit: 16.
How, why, and for whom do we imagine the future? Focuses on the future through the lens of indigenous science fiction and off-Earth exploration and settlement. Students engage with indigenous films and science fiction, popular and scholarly literature about space exploration, and the writing of cultural anthropologists to develop skills in analyzing visual and written texts and to reflect on “the future” as created by our individual and collective hopes, fears, and expectations.
Previous terms offered: Fall 2022, Fall 2019.
ANTH 1022 (b) Fiction and Fraud in Archaeology: Debunking Modern Myths about Ancient Cultures
Non-Standard Rotation. Fall 2023. Enrollment limit: 16.
Archaeology has inspired endless theories and stories about extraterrestrial aliens, lost civilizations, dark conspiracies, apocalyptic predictions, and mysterious technologies. While archaeology, in many ways, tries to solve ancient “mysteries,” and while archaeologists do sometimes crawl around in caves in the desert, archaeology is a discipline grounded in rigorous methodologies, careful accumulation and analysis of data, and scientific method. The course investigates a range of fringe archaeology theories and looks at how they were developed. Topics will include theories about the lost city of Atlantis, purported evidence of extraterrestrial influences on past cultures, and Viking incursions in the Americas. The course explores the many different myths about archaeology and ancient cultures and the stories’ impacts on contemporary society and our understanding of human history.
Previous terms offered: Fall 2022.
ANTH 1025 (b) Ties that Bind: The Anthropology of Relatedness
Understanding relatedness, or kinship, illuminates the intimate and hierarchical relationships through which human beings, across time and place, live their lives. Drawing cases from small-scale indigenous societies and industrialized states across Africa, Asia, North and South America, and Oceania, the course challenges assumptions about “natural” relationships and biological givens. Introduces concepts, methods, and ethics in anthropology and encourages students to critically reflect on emergent global issues. Topics may include fosterage and adoption; reproductive governance, rights, and technologies; migration and transnational care networks; intimate violence; aging and personhood; and/or human/non-human relations. Incorporates attention to gender, race, ethnicity, age, and sexuality as dimensions of inequality that intersect with relatedness. Shows how relatedness is vital to understanding our personal dilemmas and relations that structure the global political economy.
Previous terms offered: Fall 2020.
ANTH 1029 (b) People Like Us: Class, Identity, and Inequality
Our socioeconomic class shapes who we are. At the same time, class is a powerful form of inequality. We use three ethnographic case studies of class (in China, India, and in the U.S.), along with fiction, poetry, and film, to explore the following questions: How is class "performed" and interpreted in different cultures? How do class identities feed back into systems of inequality? How does class intersect with other forms of identity and inequality, such as gender, race, and caste? Key theorists are also brought into play. (Same as: ASNS 1048)
Previous terms offered: Fall 2021.
ANTH 1100 (b) Introducing Anthropology: What Makes Us Human?
Every Semester. Fall 2023; Spring 2024. Enrollment limit: 50.
Investigates cultural differences and connections across time and space to understand our common humanity. Introduces anthropological theories through case studies of past and contemporary cultures. Explores methods used to cultivate holistic understandings of diverse practices, worldviews, and ways of being across cultural and geographic contexts. Students apply anthropological concepts to engage critically with vital current issues. Includes topics such as self and society, personhood and identity, power and inequity, economic and political organization, material culture, circulation of people and ideas, ecology and environment, religion and ritual, and relatedness and kin-making.
ANTH 2010 (b) Anthropological Research: Methods and Ethics in Practice
Every Spring. Spring 2024. Enrollment limit: 35.
This course is a hands-on introduction to the design of qualitative ethnographic research and the various practices through which anthropologists gather and analyze empirical data. Students gain skills in collecting information through methods such as participant observation, field notes, interviews, mapping, archival and library research, photography, and/or video. Students also employ various analytical techniques to interpret diverse forms of data (including aural, visual, material, and digital). Additionally, the course explores the use and misuse of various methodological approaches and the craft of ethnographic representation, especially in writing. Ethical practices and the protection of human subjects are highlighted, along with the power dimensions of anthropological research.
Prerequisites: ANTH 1100 or ANTH 1101.
Previous terms offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2021, Spring 2020.
ANTH 2030 (b) Anthropological Theory: Concepts in Context
Every Fall. Fall 2023. Enrollment limit: 35.
This course explores theoretical approaches to the study of culture and society that have emerged from the nineteenth century through the present. Contemporary anthropology defines itself in relation to--and sometimes against--various theoretical traditions and historical influences. Close readings of anthropological texts elucidate some of the underlying assumptions of social theory and the historical contexts in which anthropologists have worked. Understanding how contemporary anthropologists employ, extend, challenge, or reframe earlier concepts and theories illuminates the abiding concerns and transformational possibilities of the discipline.
Prerequisites: ANTH 1100 or ANTH 1101.
Previous terms offered: Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2020, Fall 2019.
ANTH 2100 (b) Archaeology and the Human Experience
Every Fall. Fall 2023. Enrollment limit: 35.
Showcases human diversity through time and space and the methods that archaeologists use to study the past. Topics include conflicting theories of human biological evolution, debates over the genetic and cultural bases of human behavior, development of artistic and religious expression, and expansion of human populations into diverse ecosystems around the world. Considers ways that relationships to environments changed as people domesticated plants and animals, and the reasons many groups moved from a nomadic to settled village life are explored, as is the rise of complex societies and the state. Examines how contemporary archaeologists address colonialism, racism, and postcolonial interpretations of the past.
ANTH 2105 (c, DPI, IP) Who Owns the Past? Contemporary Controversies and Contested Narratives
Focuses on the meaning and significance of artifacts, archaeology sites, monuments, and art from a diversity of perspectives. Students learn about disagreements regarding who owns antiquities and ethnographic objects. They consider the ethical, cultural, and legal considerations of where heritage materials are housed, and whether they should be published and exhibited, and if so, by whom. They examine the impact of politics, conflicts, and war on cultural heritage sites and monuments, and learn about the illegal trafficking in antiquities and art. Students wrestle with museums’ colonial legacies and consider how decolonizing practices are transforming museums and interpretations of the past. Case studies cover a broad array of museums, cultures, and nations. Readings, class discussions, visits by guest speakers, and hands-on work with objects are augmented by visits to the college’s two museums. (Same as: ARCH 2207)
Previous terms offered: Fall 2022, Fall 2020.
ANTH 2107 (b, IP) Investigating the Recent Past: Archaeology, Oral Narratives, and Written Records
Every Other Year. Spring 2024. Enrollment limit: 35.
Archaeology is an effective way to study the past, even more so when integrated with oral and historical sources to understand and interpret cultural heritage from the relatively recent past. It can give voice to underrepresented groups, bringing to light histories that were silenced or forgotten. Case studies drawn from around the world illustrate the use of multiple lines of archaeological, visual, oral, and written evidence to examine issues of culture contact, colonialism, ethnicity, racism, slavery, immigration, and industrialization. Recent theoretical, methodological, and thematic developments in the field of historical archaeology will be explored, including the rise of community or collaborative archaeology and indigenous archaeology as strategies to challenge and decolonize dominant historical narratives.
Prerequisites: ANTH 1000 - 2969 or ANTH 3000 or higher.
Previous terms offered: Spring 2022.
ANTH 2108 (b) Nailed it! Investigating Ancient Technologies
Every Other Year. Spring 2024. Enrollment limit: 16.
Adopts a hands-on approach to the study of ancient technologies and craft production to explore how people in the past created, adopted, and used technology to interact with the environment and with one another. Ancient people engaged in ceramic production, flint napping, metallurgy, glassmaking, basketry, and textile production among other technologies. Draws on archaeological and anthropological research to illuminate social, cultural, economic, and functional reasons for the development and adoption of new technologies. Forefronts issues of community, labor, skill development, exploitation of resources, consumption, and waste. Students have opportunities to research and replicate an ancient artifact or technique. (Same as: ARCH 2108)
Prerequisites: ANTH 1050 - 2969 or ANTH 3000 or higher or ARCH 1050 - 2969 or ARCH 3000 or higher.
ANTH 2155 (b) Gender, Race and Environmental Justice
Non-Standard Rotation. Fall 2023. Enrollment limit: 35.
Introduces students to the struggle for environmental justice in various cultural arenas, with a focus on gender, race, and their intersections. Through readings, films, lectures, and discussions, the course addresses topics such as migration, resource extraction, and food and climate justice. Provides tools for cross-cultural understanding by examining the dynamic interplay among people, places, and non-human species within multiple regions of the world. Explores concepts such as racial capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism and their relationship to environmental change. Evaluates the potential of different feminist and decolonial approaches to achieve environmental justice. (Same as: ENVS 2155, GSWS 2155)
ANTH 2156 (b, DPI) Interrogating Gender in North Africa and the Middle East
Non-Standard Rotation. Spring 2024. Enrollment limit: 35.
Explores gender politics surrounding the regions of North Africa and the Middle East at multiple scales. Investigates the geopolitics of gender as related to militarism and international development. Considers the emergence and course of feminism in countries of these regions. Delves into masculinity studies and the politics of how masculinity is represented, experienced and performed. Course themes include modernity, mobility, reproduction, consumption, Islam, social movements and urban contexts.
ANTH 2170 (b) Changing Cultures and Dynamic Environments
Over the last 20,000 years the Earth's environment has changed in both subtle and dramatic ways. Some changes are attributable to natural processes and variation, some have been triggered by human activities. Referring to anthropological and archaeological studies, and research on past and contemporary local, regional, and global environments, examines the complex and diverse relationship between cultures and the Earth's dynamic environment. A previous science course is recommended. (Same as: ENVS 2311)
Prerequisites: ANTH 1100 or ANTH 1101 or ANTH 1103.
Previous terms offered: Spring 2022, Spring 2020.
ANTH 2213 (b, DPI, IP) Afterlives: Anthropology, History, Temporality
Amid social movements calling for reparations, ongoing displacement, dispossession, and occupation, and enduring global inequality, understanding how histories of violence and subjugation permeate the present is more urgent than ever. Combines anthropology, literature, historiography, and critical theory to explore how histories of violence morph and find new expressions in the present. Asks how ordinary people live with, experience, and reckon with the afterlives of history in their everyday lives. Draws on scholarly articles and books, films, and other media to ask: In what ways do histories—personal, social, political—stay with us? Are past, present, and future so easily separable? How do people see, know, feel, or touch the past in their present lives? How do people resist the weight of history and carve out different possibilities for the future? Topics vary but include: psychic and structural legacies of colonialism; bodily aftereffects of war, trauma, and dispossession; spatial aftermaths of segregation; and environmental impacts of industry.
Prerequisites: ANTH 1000 - 2969 or ANTH 3000 or higher.
Previous terms offered: Fall 2022, Spring 2021.
ANTH 2215 (b, MCSR) Mapping the Social World: Geographic Information Systems in Social Science Research
Examines the use of geographical information systems (GIS) to organize, analyze, and visualize spatial data within social science and humanities research. Introduces foundational concepts of cartography, database design, spatial data representation, and data visualization. Provides hands-on experience in spatial data collection, three-dimensional modeling, spatial analysis, spatial network analysis, and spatial statistics. The application of GIS to areas of social scientific and humanistic inquiry are explored through examination of case studies, weekly laboratory exercises, and an individual semester project that culminates in a conference-style research poster. Case studies and data sets are drawn from anthropology, archaeology, and related fields, such as sociology, history, and cultural geography. (Same as: URBS 2215)
Prerequisites: ANTH 1100 or ANTH 1101 - 1103 or SOC 1101.
Previous terms offered: Fall 2021, Spring 2020.
ANTH 2220 (b, IP) Medical Anthropology
Medical anthropology explores health, medicine, and the body as embedded in cultural contexts and shaped by social inequalities. Introduces foundational concepts and approaches that emphasize the meanings and experiences of health and illness. Develops tools for understanding health, illness, and well-being within broader systems of power, including inequalities of gender, ethnicity, race, class, and sexuality. Examines case studies in a variety of contexts to trace the implications of these approaches. Topics may include the production of authoritative knowledge, symbolic and ritual healing, mental illness, pharmaceuticals, organ donation and the commodification of body parts, disability, and/or well-being. Reflects on the unique methods and perspectives that anthropologists bring to the field of medicine, along with the role of anthropologists in public debates about health.
Prerequisites: ANTH 1100 or ANTH 1101.
Previous terms offered: Spring 2022, Fall 2020, Fall 2019.
ANTH 2227 (c, VPA) Protest Music
Focuses on the ways black people have experienced twentieth-century events. Examines social, economic, and political catalysts for processes of protest music production across genres including gospel, blues, folk, soul, funk, rock, reggae, and rap. Analysis of musical and extra- musical elements includes style, form, production, lyrics, intent, reception, commodification, mass-media, and the Internet. Explores ways in which people experience, identify, and propose solutions to poverty, segregation, oppressive working conditions, incarceration, sexual exploitation, violence, and war. (Same as: AFRS 2228, MUS 2292)
Previous terms offered: Fall 2021.
ANTH 2230 (b, DPI, IP) Language, Identity, and Power
As human beings, we are profoundly social. Most of our lives are spent interacting, directly or indirectly, with others. Language is central to this process. Through language people create, maintain, and transform personal identities, senses of belonging, and social differences, including those tied to inequity and privilege. Draws on cultural and linguistic anthropology to explore language as a social activity and resource intertwined with relationships of power. Analyzes the co-production of language and inequality (especially gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity, class, dis/ability) at various scales, from face-to-face conversations to governmental policies. Encourages students' critical reflection on a wide array of ethnographic contexts (e.g., indigenous North and South America, Israel, Japan, Kenya, United States), our own linguistic experiences, and the seeming neutrality of our everyday lives through readings, assignments, and activities.
Prerequisites: ANTH 1000 - 2969 or ANTH 3000 or higher.
Previous terms offered: Spring 2023.
ANTH 2235 (b, IP) Science,Technology, and Medicine in Africa
Introduction to the historical and ethnographic study of the politics of science, technology, and medicine in African contexts. Offers opportunities to learn about African experiences of science, technology, and medicine. Reconsiders common definitions of science and technology from the perspective of African cultures of expertise. Topics considered include the spiritual and religious dimensions of expert knowledge, environmental management, conservation, archaeology, hunting, metallurgy, healing, genetically modified organisms, pharmaceutical development, epidemiology, and information technology. Science and technology will be considered in relation to precolonial social formations, colonialism, independence struggles, and the postcolonial state. Course materials include historical and ethnographic writing as well as speculative fiction. (Same as: AFRS 2753)
Prerequisites: ANTH 1100 or ANTH 1101 or AFRS 1101.
Previous terms offered: Spring 2020.
ANTH 2243 (b, DPI, IP) Imagined South Asias, Everyday South Asias
Interrogates the relation between the imagined and the everyday through a focus on South Asia, the most densely populated region in the world. Discusses how South Asia is imagined as a site of (post)colonial desires, despairs, and revolts as well as through civilizational or national tropes. Explores how these imagined South Asias are reshaped and disrupted by the everyday habitations of various political communities within the region and in diaspora. May include discussion of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Through ethnography, fiction, poetry, film, and music aims to cultivate a distinctly postcolonial sensitivity to thinking about caste, gender, spirituality, ecology, language, militancy, and politics in the region. (Same as: ASNS 2571)
Prerequisites: ANTH 1000 - 2969 or ANTH 3000 or higher.
Previous terms offered: Spring 2023, Fall 2021.
ANTH 2246 (b, DPI, IP) Anthropology of Care: Intimacy, Inequity, and Power
Every Other Year. Spring 2024. Enrollment limit: 35.
Care shapes the relationships of children, adults, and elders within families, but care also extends far beyond the boundaries of households, incorporating domestic workers, medical professionals, missionaries, volunteers, NGOs, and governments. This course explores care as a form of intimate labor and an array of social practices that are embedded in local cultural contexts and shaped by global political economic relationships. Gender, race and ethnicity, class, nationality, (dis)ability, and age shape the configurations of caring by and caring for others. Incorporates attention to feminist, decolonial, and poststructuralist theories of power as operating on bodies, selves, and intimate relationships. Course texts include ethnographies, scholarly articles, and other materials. Draws on a wide array of contemporary contexts around the world for ethnographic case studies and challenges students to critically reflect on hierarchies of care in their own lives. (Same as: GSWS 2246)
Prerequisites: ANTH 1000 - 2969 or ANTH 3000 or higher.
Previous terms offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2020.
ANTH 2250 (b) The Anthropology of Media
Examines the social and political life of media and how it makes a difference in the daily lives of people as a practice--in production, reception, and/or circulation. Introduces some key concepts in social theory which have been critical to the study of the media across disciplines, ranging historically, geographically, and methodologically; investigates the role of media in constituting and contesting national identities, forging alternative political visions, transforming religious practice, and in creating subcultures; examines diverse source materials such as early experiments in documentary film to the Internet, from news reporting to advertising.
Prerequisites: ANTH 1100 or ANTH 1101 or SOC 1101.
Previous terms offered: Fall 2020.
ANTH 2251 (b) New Media and Technology in Anthropological Perspective
Non-Standard Rotation. Spring 2024. Enrollment limit: 35.
This anthropology course investigates overlap in social understanding of media and technology. Investigates contemporary shifts in media landscapes where new media have come to dominate popular ideas about what qualifies as technology. Examines implications of mediation as an ever-present feature of daily life. Critically interrogates how technology and media have been differently classified depending on intended users. Additionally, the course explores how low-tech technologies, artful craft, and inclusive design could lead to more accessible, beneficial technology. Incorporates discovery of maker spaces, multimedia, and readings in anthropology, science studies, media studies, gender studies, and race and ethnicity studies.
ANTH 2256 (b, IP) Ecological Crisis and Reparation: Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet
Human beings confront a paradox as we become aware of anthropogenic climate change. On the one hand, we are geological agents powerful enough to irreparably transform life on earth. On the other, we face collective despair and powerlessness in our attempts to avert certain ecological collapse. This course draws on contemporary anthropology and other approaches in the social sciences and humanities to explore how cultivating diverse ‘arts of living’ addresses this double-bind. Dominant environmental paradigms that emphasize 'natural conservation' are examined in relation to the re-emergence of patriarchy, racism, xenophobia, and class conflict in various socio-cultural contexts. Through course readings, activities, and assignments students re-imagine ecology from the starting point of repair rather than conservation in order to develop a more conducive ethics of life on an already damaged planet. (Same as: ENVS 2356)
Prerequisites: ANTH 1100 or ANTH 1101 or ANTH 1103 or SOC 1101.
Previous terms offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Fall 2020.
ANTH 2257 (b, IP) Material Culture: The Anthropology of Stuff
Humans everywhere and through time have made, consumed, and surrounded themselves with things. This course explores how these objects escape their intended purposes and exert power over us. Drawing on cross-cultural perspectives, it examines things—from the mundane to the extravagant—as mediums for the expression of identity, communication of ideas, and memory-making. Topics include consumerism, environmentalism, identity, class and inequality, crafting, and the maker movement. Students explore intersections between cultural anthropology and archaeology to understand how the study of things sheds light on societies in both the past and present. Introduces students to a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of material culture with opportunities to apply concepts to a variety of objects.
Prerequisites: ANTH 1000 or higher.
Previous terms offered: Spring 2020.
ANTH 2258 (b, IP) Ancient Civilizations of Mesoamerica
Explores the emergence of social complexity and state-level societies through a focus on ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica (Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador). Among the diverse peoples and cultures that populated this region prior to the Spanish invasion, the Maya and the Aztec are among the most famous. This course challenges popular misconceptions about these and other societies who occupied this region over the course of 3500 years. Asks how cities rivaling in size those of the old world rose, collapsed, and sometimes disappeared. Considers the political structure and economic systems of these societies, their technologies, and their relationships with the environment. Explores ancient worldviews, belief systems, and political and religious power. Incorporates various types of evidence, including the archaeological material record, art, monumental architecture, and ethnohistorical sources, and the ways archaeologists analyze and interpret that evidence. (Same as: LACL 2758)
Prerequisites: ANTH 1000 - 2969 or ANTH 3000 or higher.
Previous terms offered: Spring 2023, Fall 2021.
ANTH 2278 (b, DPI) Decolonizing Archaeology in Latin America
Explores the legacies of colonialism in modern Latin America and archaeologists’ current efforts to decolonize Eurocentric interpretations and discourses of the colonial past. Focuses on indigenous and community archaeology as a means of reframing our understanding of the past and present. Discussions address the impact of colonialism in Latin America and the Caribbean, including how contemporary relationships in the region are structured by colonial history. Students work with case studies grounded in archaeological, ethnographic, and historical sources to learn how archaeology can help contest and subvert dominant narratives derived from colonialism. Indigenous resistance and resilience will be addressed along with cultural continuities and change. Topics may include identity and the construction of ethnicity, gender, and race; religion; slavery and diaspora; and art, architecture, and technology. (Same as: LACL 2755)
Prerequisites: ANTH 1000 - 2969 or ANTH 3000 or higher or LACL 1000 - 2969 or LACL 3000 or higher.
Previous terms offered: Spring 2023.
ANTH 2335 (b, MCSR) Advanced Topics in Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing
In this project-based course, students pursue semester-long research projects that employ geographic information systems (GIS) and spatial analysis to address questions of relevance to social science and humanistic research. Provides theoretical and methodological training for advanced GIS applications in social science research, including implementing GIS in research design, field collection of spatial data, and data processing, management, visualization, and analysis. Case studies from anthropology, archaeology, and other social science and humanities fields are used to introduce a diversity of GIS applications. Additional topics will be tailored to the interests and research projects of enrolled students. Assignments in the course are designed to further progress on the semester research project. This course is intended for students with prior experience working with geographic information systems and/or conducting spatial analysis.
Prerequisites: ANTH 2215 (same as URBS 2215) or CSCI 3225 or EOS 2030 or ENVS 2004 (same as DCS 2335 and URBS 2004) or ENVS 2301 (same as DCS 2340 and URBS 2301) or ENVS 2331 (same as DCS 2331) or ENVS 3909 (same as DCS 3040) or HIST 2625 (same as DCS 2550).
Previous terms offered: Spring 2022, Spring 2021.
ANTH 2340 (b, IP) Ethnographic Film
Considers the development of ethnographic film from an anthropological lens and international perspectives. Starting with the advent of the documentary and concluding with ethnographic new media, investigates how, why, and to what end film has been used as a tool by anthropologists and the communities that they work with to expand discussions about the modern world. Topics include filmmaking as a methodology for social scientists, the connections between ethnographic film and self-determination efforts in minority communities, critical examinations of media-making practices--onscreen and off--and the global impact these factors have had. (Same as: CINE 2831)
Prerequisites: ANTH 1100 or ANTH 1101 or SOC 1101 or CINE 1101.
Previous terms offered: Spring 2022, Fall 2020, Fall 2019.
ANTH 2345 (b, IP) Gender, Race, and Citizenship in Brazil
This course examines how hierarchies of race, class, gender, and sexuality structure everyday life in Latin America's largest nation, Brazil. Twentieth century elites described Brazil as a racial democracy and a sexual paradise, but this vision is increasingly contested in the twenty-first century by Black, feminist, and LGBT social movements. Reading ethnographic accounts and watching film portrayals of daily life in Brazil across a number of case studies, we will examine how Brazilians encounter social inequality in a variety of intimate settings. Potential topics include: domestic labor, sex work, queer activism, plastic surgery and reproductive rights. Students will complete short response papers during the semester and complete a final research project on a self-selected topic that includes primary or secondary sources on Brazil. (Same as: GSWS 2345, LACL 2345)
Previous terms offered: Fall 2022, Spring 2021, Fall 2020.
ANTH 2350 (b, IP) Global Indigenous Cinema
Surveys Indigenous-produced film from around the globe, with an emphasis on contemporary Native North American and Aboriginal Australian cinema. Engages recent technological innovations in filmmaking. Analyzes film through discussion and writing, pairing screenings with readings of anthropological and Indigenous scholarship. Considers film in relation to the social, historical, and cultural contexts and broader global processes of indigenous media production and circulation. (Same as: CINE 2832)
Prerequisites: ANTH 1000 - 2969 or ANTH 3000 or higher or CINE 1000 - 2969 or CINE 3000 or higher or SOC 1101.
Previous terms offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2021.
ANTH 2390 (b) Science, Technology, and Culture
Explores science and technology as institutions and cultural forces that are culturally and historically situated. Introduces key theoretical approaches and concepts, focusing on anthropological research. Considers how scientific knowledge is produced in places such as laboratories, hospitals, clinical research sites, conservation areas, the military, and/or computing projects in diverse societies. Asks how power is ascribed to this way of knowing in everyday life. Compares western science with indigenous and traditional knowledge systems. Examines the role of science and technology in the social construction of race in colonial and postcolonial political projects. Takes a global perspective, juxtaposing cases from Asia, Latin America, Africa, and/or Oceania. Addresses differing definitions of science and technology, standards of objectivity, and the politics of technoscience.
Prerequisites: ANTH 1100 or ANTH 1101 or SOC 1101.
Previous terms offered: Fall 2019.
ANTH 2410 (b, IP) Landscapes of Power: Culture, Place, and the Built Environment
Explores spaces, landscapes, and the built environment as arenas for producing, reproducing, and contesting relationships of power and authority. Human beings transform and are transformed by their physical surroundings, and relationships between people and places are shaped by culture, history, identity, and politics. Drawing on critical theories from anthropology, cultural geography, and related fields, students examine the intersections of space, place, and power using case studies from a variety of cultural and historical contexts. Considers how relationships of inequality become embedded in the landscape and the built environment. Topics include state violence, gated communities, colonialism, borders and borderlands, racial segregation, and gendered spaces.
Prerequisites: ANTH 1100 or ANTH 1101 or ANTH 1103 or SOC 1101 or ANTH 2000 - 2969.
Previous terms offered: Spring 2021.
ANTH 2420 (b) The Anthropology of Sport
Examines, from an anthropological perspective, the practice and conceptualization of sport. Using a variety of methodologies, investigates the meaning invested in various sporting endeavors, as well as how these vary across time and cultural context. Topics include soccer fandom in the UK, Title IX legislation in the US, Maori masculinity and rugby in New Zealand, the impact of instant replay, and the challenges of performance-enhancing drugs. Also considers the relationship between sports and nationalism, sports and gender, and the global political economy of multibillion-dollar athletic industries.
Prerequisites: ANTH 1100 or ANTH 1101 or SOC 1101.
Previous terms offered: Fall 2021, Spring 2020, Fall 2019.
ANTH 2566 (b, DPI, IP) Black Feminisms and Social Movements
Every Other Year. Fall 2023. Enrollment limit: 16.
Intermediate seminar. This course examines past and present social movements through the lens of global Black feminist writing and media. By reading and engaging key texts of activist groups and leaders (such as the Combahee River Collective, The Black Panther Party, and the Movement for Black Lives), students will learn about the principles, philosophies, and organizing praxis of Black feminist activists. (Same as: AFRS 2566, GSWS 2566)
ANTH 2572 (b, DPI, IP) Contemporary Arctic Environmental and Cultural Issues
Non-Standard Rotation. Fall 2023. Enrollment limit: 35.
Throughout the Arctic, northern peoples face major environmental changes and cultural and economic challenges. Landscapes, icescapes, and seascapes on which communities rely are being transformed, and arctic plants and animals are being affected. Many indigenous groups see these dramatic changes as endangering their health and cultural way of life. Others see a warming Arctic as an opportunity for industrial development. Addressing contemporary issues that concern northern peoples in general and Inuit in particular involves understanding connections between leadership, global environmental change, human rights, indigenous cultures, and foreign policies, and being able to work on both a global and local level. (Same as: ENVS 2312)
Prerequisites: Two of: either ANTH 1100 or ANTH 1101 or ANTH 1103 and BIOL 1000 - 2969 or EOS 1000 - 2969 or ENVS 1000 - 2969 or CHEM 1000 - 2969 or PHYS 1000 - 2969.
Previous terms offered: Fall 2021, Fall 2019.
ANTH 2610 (b) Sex and State Power
Non-Standard Rotation. Fall 2023. Enrollment limit: 16.
Seminar. Examines sexual politics of the law, policing, public health, and state surveillance as they intersect with race, gender, class and disability. Explores feminist and queer responses to the relationship between sex and power from a variety of disciplines and traditions. Focuses on two major trends in the regulation of sex in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: (1) how policy making has shifted from defining sexual morality to managing populations, and (2) the reinvigorated politics of the family as governments scale back their social welfare programs. Additional topics may include reproductive rights, sex work, marriage, hate crimes, surveillance, militarism, and prisons. Students learn main trends in the politics of sexuality and conduct guided research on the topic of their choice. (Same as: GSWS 2610)
Previous terms offered: Fall 2022.
ANTH 2723 (b) Religion and Social Transformation in South America
Non-Standard Rotation. Fall 2023. Enrollment limit: 35.
Religious beliefs and practices intersect with processes of social change at various historical moments, illuminating the power dynamics of (trans)cultural encounters. Using cases from the Andean and Amazonian regions of South America, explores local indigenous cosmologies, rituals, and concepts of the sacred in relation to expansive regional and global religions, including Catholicism and Protestantism. Focuses on twentieth– and twenty-first-century social issues. Includes examples from pre-Columbian, Inca, and Spanish colonial periods to highlight the continuities and transformations in local and global institutions. Forefronts religion, as a facet of identity and inequality, intersecting with gender, race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality. Scholarly and popular texts introduce topics like religious syncretism; sacred landscapes; human-supernatural relations; religious violence and ritual protest; global capitalism and citizenship; everyday moralities, embodiment, and faith-based humanitarianism. (Same as: LACL 2724)
Prerequisites: ANTH 1000 - 2969 or ANTH 3000 or higher.
Previous terms offered: Spring 2021.
ANTH 2737 (b, IP) Family, Gender,and Sexuality in Latin America
Focuses on family, gender, and sexuality as windows onto political, economic, social, and cultural issues in Latin America. Topics include indigenous and natural gender ideologies, marriage, race, and class; machismo and masculinity; state and domestic violence; religion and reproductive control; compulsory heterosexuality; AIDS; and cross-cultural conceptions of homosexuality. Takes a comparative perspective and draws on a wide array of sources including ethnography, film, fiction, and historical narrative. (Same as: GSWS 2237, LACL 2737)
Prerequisites: ANTH 1100 or ANTH 1101 or SOC 1101.
Previous terms offered: Fall 2019.
ANTH 2830 (b, IP) Descendants of the Sun: The Inca and their Ancestors
Considers the Inca figure in contemporary imaginations, from mummies to archaeological sites like Machu Picchu. This course examines 12,000 years of cultural change in the Andean region of South America. Situates the Inca, perhaps the most well-known of the early civilizations that predated the European invasion, in relation to other cultures, including the Chavin, Paracas, Moche, Nasca, Wari, Tiwanaku, and Chimu. Topics include the peopling of South America; early religious traditions; cultural adaptations to mountainous and desert environments; origins and development of agriculture; domestication of llamas and alpacas; rise and fall of states; imperial expansion; artistic expression; architectural traditions; treatment of the dead and ancestor veneration; and Spanish colonization. Considers both archaeological and ethnohistorical research from the region that includes Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. Includes opportunities to work with artifacts from the region. (Same as: LACL 2730)
Previous terms offered: Spring 2022, Fall 2020.
ANTH 2840 (b, DPI) Contemporary Issues of Native North America
Explores contemporary Native American issues within and beyond tribal nations. Topics may include sovereignty and decolonization, federal policy, cultural appropriation, gaming and casinos, blood quantum, the repatriation of human remains and objects, language revitalization, comedy, and the little-known history of Native Americans' influence on rock and roll. Throughout, we emphasize Indigenous-produced scholarship and media. Brings attention to tribal nations in Maine as well as the significance of recent political mobilizations in relation to the long history of Native activism.
Prerequisites: ANTH 1000 - 2969 or ANTH 3000 or higher.
Previous terms offered: Fall 2022, Fall 2020.
ANTH 2850 (b) Indigenous Societies of Australia and New Zealand
Surveys the contemporary social, economic, and political issues facing native peoples of Australia and New Zealand. Explores a range of indigenous Australian and Maori forms of social being historically, geographically, and methodologically. Through an examination of diverse source materials--such as ethnographic texts, art, novels, autobiographies, films, television, new media, and museum exhibitions--considers the ways that native identity has been constructed and challenged since the eighteenth century. Investigates the relationships between indigenous sovereignty, the nation state, and cultural production.
Prerequisites: ANTH 1100 or ANTH 1101 or SOC 1101.
Previous terms offered: Spring 2020.
ANTH 2860 (b, IP) Oceania: Indigenous Sovereignty and Settler Colonialism
Non-Standard Rotation. Spring 2024. Enrollment limit: 35.
While often relegated to the margins, Oceania encompasses more than one-third of the globe, including a continent, thousands of islands, and the world’s largest ocean. Engages Australia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia thematically through the framework of Indigenous sovereignty and ongoing legacies of colonization. Traces unbroken lineages of traditional knowledge and contemporary practice through topics such as tattoo, surfing, and navigational wayfinding. Highlights Indigenous scholarship, media, and political movements that assert cultural and political self-determination. Challenges students to confront existential threats, including nuclear testing and rising sea levels, in the process of imagining hopeful and sovereign Oceanic futures.
Prerequisites: ANTH 1100 or ANTH 1101 or SOC 1101.
Previous terms offered: Spring 2021.
ANTH 3210 (b) Animal Planet: Humans and Other Animals
Cultures around the world maintain different stances about non-human animals. People eat meat or avoid doing so. Religions advocate veneration, fear, or loathing of certain animals. Domesticated animals provide us company, labor, and food. Wild animals are protected, studied, photographed, captured, and hunted. Animals inhabit novels, are featured in art, and adorn merchandise. Students read ethnographies, articles, animal rights literature, and children’s books; study museum collections; and examine animal themes in films and on the Web. Employing anthropological perspectives, students consider what distinguishes humans from other animals, how cultures are defined by people’s attitudes about animals, and what might be our moral and ethical responsibilities to other creatures. (Same as: ENVS 3920)
Prerequisites: ANTH 2000 - 2969.
Previous terms offered: Spring 2021.
ANTH 3217 (b, DPI, IP) Toxicities
Examines the relationship between toxicity and human habitation, focusing on how toxic environments compel us to live in, attend to, and craft otherwise worlds. Delves into anthropological theories and ethnographies of disorder, contamination, waste, material entanglement, and more-than-human embodiment. Explores the uneven distribution of toxic burdens in local, national, and global contexts and traces toxic flows to illuminate capitalist, colonial, racial, gendered and caste logics. Engages with emergent popular politics that rewrite contamination as collaboration. Encourages students to consider possibilities of life otherwise, amid toxic realms that exceed purely human instrumentalities yet archive all too human histories of social power.
Prerequisites: ANTH 2000 - 2969.
Previous terms offered: Fall 2022, Spring 2021.
ANTH 3222 (b) Cultural Performances
"Cultural performances" include many media and events that are not typically thought of as performative in Euroamerican cultures. The term covers not only drama, dance and music, but also such cultural media as ritual, literature, political spectacle, sport and celebration. This course will approach performances in three ways: first, to see what they reveal about a culture, to both insiders and outsiders; second, to consider what social, psychological and political effects they can have on participants and their societies; and third, to investigate what methods have been used to study performance. We will examine a wide variety of cultural performances. Special attention will be paid to audiences, and to their reception and uses of symbolic material.
Prerequisites: Two of: ANTH 1100 or either ANTH 1101 or SOC 1101 and either ANTH 2000 - 2969 or either SOC 2000 - 2969 or ANTH 3000 or higher or SOC 3000 or higher.
Previous terms offered: Spring 2022, Fall 2020.
ANTH 3225 (b) Humanity’s Mirror: Aliens and Outer Space
Non-Standard Rotation. Spring 2024. Enrollment limit: 16.
Considers how extraterrestrial imaginings provide a cultural mirror for the treatment of beings and spaces here on Earth. Recontextualizes core anthropological concepts such as kinship, religion, and social structure by extending them beyond our home planet. Explores diverse perspectives, including Indigenous cosmologies, that understand the celestial as neither alien nor outer. Examines parallels between historical imperialism, contemporary space projects, and speculative non-Earthling human societies. Integrates scholarly, multimedia, and science fiction materials to engage topics such as subversive science communities, defining life and intelligence, body and labor relations, treaties and boundaries, extractive and settler colonialisms, climate change and escapism, and utopianism and immortality.
Prerequisites: ANTH 2000 - 2969.
ANTH 3320 (b) Youth and Agency in Insecure Times
Non-Standard Rotation. Fall 2023. Enrollment limit: 16.
Explores research on youth as a window into broader questions related to agency, identity, and social, political, and economic inequality in the contemporary world. Youth move between families, communities, and nations; claim belonging to divergent communities; create distinct identities; and navigate hierarchies. Incorporates attention to culturally specific notions of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood while highlighting youth and children as social actors. Draws on theoretical approaches to agency, subjectivity, and resistance in late-twentieth and early twenty-first-century anthropology. Considers methodological and ethical implications of research with children and youth. Topics may include adoption, citizenship, migration, labor, reproductive politics, human trafficking, tourism, and activism in Latin America, as well as Asia, Oceania, and/or Africa. Hierarchies of gender, ethnicity, race, sexuality, class, and age are considered throughout. (Same as: LACL 3720)
Prerequisites: ANTH 1100 or ANTH 1101 or SOC 1101.
Previous terms offered: Spring 2020.
ANTH 3340 (b) Mindful Bodies: Anthropology of Embodiment
Considers how embodiment—the lived experience of inhabiting a body—offers unique insight into a variety of social and political issues. Explores the body as a layered terrain of social, moral, political, biocultural, and historical forces. Examines the body as a site of power; as cultivated through techniques and discipline; as constitutive of personhood and identity; as a material, biological, and organic entity; and as a locus of experience, wisdom, and subjectivity. Topics vary but include: racialized, gendered, and classed dimensions of embodiment; critical disability studies; technological and biomedical enhancement; pain and pleasure; mindfulness, somatic therapy, and psychosomatic experience; sex and sexuality; affect and the sensorium; religious discipline and piety; self-expression and performance; and body/non-human/environment relations.
Prerequisites: ANTH 2000 - 2969.
Previous terms offered: Spring 2023, Fall 2021.