This course will introduce students to the discipline of anthropology and the study of human culture. Students will learn the major concepts, theoretical perspectives and historical trends in anthropology and they will apply these concepts to anthropological case studies that investigate complex conflicts over culture, identity, nation, economic inequality, race, ethnicity, and natural resources management. Finally, the course will introduce students to “ethnography” a methodology originally designed to observe and document the cultural practices of small-scale societies around the world, now used to study global problems through the local case studies. Through independent projects, students will identify cultural “field sites,” and practice “participant observation,” interviewing skills, methods of mapping kinship. This course will challenge students to use critical thinking skills to critique their own and others’ perspectives and biases, by presenting urgent, complex, contemporary problems, exploring the usefulness of limits of Anthropology to better understand these issues.
- Instructor of record: Nicholas Carby Denning