ANTH 104 Introductory Cultural Anthropology (4)
Introducing perspectives of Socio-Cultural Anthropology, the class explores how culture (the way of life shared by a group of people) creates varied realities and life experiences worldwide in relation to socially-generated understandings of gender, religion, ethnicity, class, race, and kinship. Focused on patterns of difference and similarity across cultures around the globe, this course teaches students the value of cross-cultural comparison and how to analyze their own cultural backgrounds through the anthropological lens.
ANTH 106 Introductory Physical Anthropology and Archaeology (4)
An introduction to the processes of human and cultural evolution. Physical anthropology will focus on human evolution and the human fossil record, genetic processes, primatology, and physiological characteristics of modern human populations. Archaeology will trace cultural evolution from the first hominins to the beginnings of complex societies The pertinent methods and theories are presented throughout.
ANTH 109 World Prehistory (4)
This course introduces human prehistory. Referencing the influence of regional environments and technological innovations on early human societies’ attempts to resolve panhuman challenges, the class examines the earliest evidence for ritual, architecture and art in the Paleolithic and Mesolithic. Next, considering the irrevocable changes in human life caused by the development of agriculture, the course surveys early complex societies in Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, and China. Course topics also explore transitions from tribal societies to chiefdoms and proto-states in Asia, pre-Roman Europe and Mesoamerica to identify patterns in human social organization and perceptions of the supernatural.
ANTH 213 Cultural Resource Practicum (2)
This practicum focuses on historical or prehistoric cultural resources, both archaeological and standing structures, on the University Domain. Students learn excavation and documentation techniques appropriate to the specific resource type. In addition, artifact processing and cataloging will be covered. The majority of this course is field based. This course can be repeated once for credit.
ANTH 218 Archaeology of North America (4)
This course reviews Pre-Columbian and Historic Era histories and social landscapes of North America. The course begins with a critical overview of anthropological archaeology as a lens through which to study the past. We focus on issues such as the timing and process of the initial peopling of the continent, then moving forward by region we address issues including cultural responses to climate change, foodways, regional systems of exchange, shifts in technology, and development of social hierarchies.
ANTH 220 Historical Archaeology (4)
This course examines the history of North America, particularly the history of the American South, since the arrival of Europeans from an archaeological perspective. Students will learn to apply social theories to material culture and archival documents in order to view the past from a new perspective. The objective is to expand our understanding of historically marginalized groups, including African Americans, women, and immigrants, through the objects they left behind.
ANTH 250 Food and Culture (4)
Food provides a lens through which to understand cultures and social structures. This course examines how food production and consumption articulates with power and inequality, and with gender, ethnic, class and community identities. The course offers anthropological perspectives on the links between diet and disease, global economic integration and commodity chains, migration and labor, and the future of sustainable foodways.
ANTH 285 Anthropology and Environmental Justice (4)
This course considers the ways in which ethnicity, race, religion, gender, class and culture shape differential access to natural resources and a healthy living environment. Drawing on anthropological studies of local ecological knowledge, political economies and city and regional planning, the class asks how disproportionate experiences of environmental benefits and burdens can be redressed in societies around the globe. Students consider culturally-informed routes to food and water security and socioecological resilience in the wake of climate change.
ANTH 290 Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective (4)
This class considers the myriad experiences of gender and sexuality around the globe. The survey engages students in considering power dynamics and status accorded by gender in foraging societies, chiefdoms, archaic and late industrial states and the roles that subsistence, technology and religion play in shaping gender identity. Students examine the traditional cultural exceptions to binary categories in Native American, Middle Eastern and Indian societies and consider current movements around gender fluidity.
ANTH 298 Ecological Anthropology (4)
This course will examine human-environmental relationships from the anthropological perspective. Consideration of theoretical approaches and practical applications will be supplemented by archaeological, ethnographical, and ethnohistorical case studies. We will consider various ecosystems and landscapes as palimpsests that reveal cultural footprints to the archaeologist and human choices to the ethnographer. We will explore how an understanding of both can greatly inform ecological studies and further new thinking about environmental policy.
ANTH 301 American Culture (4)
An anthropological study of the United States using community studies and topical essays to explore regional differences and national continuities. Symbols of self, home, community, and nation are used to interpret technology, the economy, leisure, popular culture, and social class, and patterns that typify America in general, and, in particular, the region of Appalachia.
ANTH 302 Southern Cultures (4)
An anthropological study of the southern United States emphasizes cultural continuity in both mountains and lowlands. The course uses community studies and literature to explore how indigenous interpretations fit within and react against national patterns and how locality, race, status, and gender act as social principles.
ANTH 303 The Anthropology of Europe (4)
This course surveys the major monuments, population migrations, and cultural patterns of continental prehistory; examines how Christianity's arrival shaped myriad chiefdoms, kingdoms, and states into the Europe we recognize today; explores ethnicity and the historical origins of ethnic conflicts; and considers the cultural impacts of European Union membership and 21st-century immigration issues.
ANTH 304 Peoples and Cultures of Africa (4)
A brief survey of geography, prehistory, and history followed by an evaluation of modern African cultural groups. Special topics considered include African women, labor migration, urbanization, associations, and elites. The overarching theme of the course is the differential effects of modernization on Africa.
ANTH 305 Cultures of Latin America (4)
This class is an anthropological investigation into Latin American cultural traditions that are the product of cultural hybridization between African, European, and Amerindian traditions first brought together by the Spanish conquest. We will explore the dividing practices associated with colonization and nation-building, as well as the diverse ways in which gender, race, and class are conceptualized and experienced across the region.
ANTH 306 American Indians (4)
A consideration of North American native peoples that involves origins and culture areas and the study of several specific groups as to history, economy, kinship, authority, and world view. Special attention will be given to problems of conquest, reservation life, and U.S. government policy.
ANTH 309 The Celts (4)
This course explores ancient Celtic societies through archaeology, ethnohistory, linguistics, and medieval documentation of indigenous myths. Beginning with Early Iron Age material culture in Austria (the Hallstatt period from 800 BC) and the continental Late Iron Age (the La Tene period from 450 BC to the Roman conquest), the class then considers the perceived endurance of Celtic tradition through the Middle Ages in areas least impacted by Roman rule (Ireland, Scotland, and Wales).
ANTH 312 Place, Ritual, and Belief (4)
A place-based introduction to the Anthropology of Religion, the seminar engages students in thoughtful examination of the relationship between religious beliefs and practices and their environmental contexts. While including the major religious traditions, the course particularly considers indigenous, historic and prehistoric sacred sites around the globe. Examining religious syncretism due to historical conquest or latter 20th century globalization, the class focuses on sacred landscapes and waterscapes.
ANTH 316 Archaeology of the Cumberland Plateau (4)
This course examines the cultural history of the Cumberland Plateau through anthropological archaeology. After a brief consideration of the subject's environmental context within one of the most biologically diverse regions on earth, the class investigates the Plateau's rich prehistoric and historic archaeological record, which spans at least 12,000 years. In addition to ethnohistorical research, students actively engage in laboratory analysis of artifacts from the University Domain. Students also participate in site visits and field survey to explore both the Native American and European American record left as rock art, as well as that found in open habitation, cave, and rockshelter sites.
ANTH 319 Medical Anthropology (4)
This anthropological investigation into medical topics with a cultural component (gerontology, substance abuse, nutrition, folk medicine, etc.) will also examine the ways in which various cultural backgrounds may impede or enhance the medical process. Issues such as disease and therapy will also be examined in cross-cultural perspective.
ANTH 322 Artifact Analysis (4)
This course examines the process of analyzing artifacts from archaeological sites. Through a combination of lecture, discussion, and hands-on experience we explore all phases including distinguishing materials, selecting attributes, coding data, typology and interpretation of both prehistoric and historic artifacts and ecofacts (bone, shell). The course will also serve to expand student experience with computer spreadsheet and database development, and basic statistical manipulation. Prerequisite: ANTH 106 or ANTH 109 or one course with attribute G5, G5E, or G5Q.
ANTH 325 Indigenous Plant Use: A Global Approach (4)
This is a dynamic course in plant-human interaction that bridges cultural anthropology and related disciplines like economic botany, archaeology, and environmental history to explore a selection of economic plants that have shaped human society. This course follows case studies of select taxa to explore their origins and past uses, impacts of colonial encounters, effects of climate change, and other contemporary social and political entanglements. Special attention will be given to issues of plant use and Indigenous resilience, sovereignty, and cultural revitalization, as well as potential contributions to sustainable futures and agrobiodiversity.
ANTH 330 Environmental Archaeology (4)
The study of the human past requires knowledge of the biological and geophysical systems in which cultures developed and changed. This course explores past environments and the methods and evidence used to reconstruct them. Emphasis is on the integration of geological, botanical, zoological, and bioarchaeological data used to reconstruct Quaternary climates and environments. Prerequisite: ANTH 106 or ANTH 109 or one course with attribute G5E.
ANTH 331 Anthropology of Business (4)
This course applies the methods and theories of cultural anthropology in the study of business organizations and their ecosystems. Examining companies and markets as human groups with social structures, students consider how corporate cultures develop their own rituals, symbols, cultural norms, and procedures, and how these articulate with kinship, religion, gender, class, ethnicity, and environment. The class considers intercultural challenges in the current phase of global economic integration and the intersection of corporate cultural values, ethics, and practice. A significant dimension of the course is a focus on sustainable business cultures.
ANTH 332 Archaeological Resource Management and Policy (4)
This course explores international and national approaches to archaeological heritage management. It includes review of public policy that protect sites (much of it incorporated into environmental legislation) and of regulations that guide the process. The course centers around study of how the determination of such policies affects negotiation between the past and present as archaeologists, various governments, descendant communities, and others try to balance a concern for preservation with growing demand for development and sustainability. Interwoven into the course are topics such as how diverse cultures view the past, the growing commodification of archaeological sites in the tourist trade, the antiquities market, and careers in cultural resource management.
ANTH 341 The Culture and History of Southeast Asia (4)
A survey of the peoples and polities of Southeast Asia from prehistory to the present, stressing the cultural and historical continuities that unite this ethnically diverse region. Special consideration is given to urban rule, peasants, popular religion, and indigenous notions of power, gender, space, and time.
ANTH 357 Field School in Archaeology (4 to 8)
An intensive, field immersion course in archaeological field techniques. This course offers intensive training and experience in the process of conducting archaeological field research on significant cultural resources. While fieldwork is the primary component—including excavation, survey, and various forms of documentation—guest lectures, field trips, and other related activities may also be provided for a holistic experience in archaeological practice. This course varies in location and is dependent on current active field projects. This course may be repeated for credit when the topic, site, or both differ up to a maximum of 10 credit hours. Prerequisite: Only open to students admitted to the Field School in Archeology program.
ANTH 371 The Anthropology of Water (4)
This course considers the role of water in shaping human societies. Beginning with an examination of how the search for fresh water resources influenced the global migration of Paleolithic humans, the seminar explores theories about the relationship between the control of water through irrigation, social complexity, the emergence of state level societies, and the place of water in world cosmologies and religious ritual. The course concludes by considering contemporary water insecurity and how understanding water cultures can foster policies for socioeconomic resilience.
ANTH 398 Special Topics (4)
A seminar on a topic related to anthropology. This course may be repeated for credit when the topic differs.
ANTH 401 Anthropological Field Methods (4)
Designed to train upper-division anthropology students to develop and carry out field research, the course first focuses on specific field methods used by anthropologists, ethnomethodology, network analysis, and statistical analysis. The second part of the course comprises a supervised field study where such methods can be tested. The last part of the course consists of data analysis and presentation.
ANTH 403 Anthropological Theory (4)
The historical development of anthropological theory beginning with positivism and classical evolutionary thinking through that of the neo-evolutionists. Consideration of different historical approaches is followed by exploration of cultural materialism, structuralism, Marxism, symbolic interpretation, and practice theory. The course concludes with a survey of post-modernism and collaborative approaches. Open only to juniors or seniors pursuing programs in anthropology.
ANTH 420 Sacred Landscapes and Folk Liturgies of Ireland (2)
This cultural immersion course engages students in ethno-ecological fieldwork in rural Ireland. Students collaborate with local communities in documenting holy well sites and contemporary well-side practices. Students daily interview Irish consultants about folk liturgy, ethno-botany, and localized saint cults. Students also visit holy well sites and hike ancient pilgrimage trails between sites sacred in both the pagan and Christian eras.
ANTH 444 Independent Study (2 or 4)
Independent research, reading and discussion. Prerequisite: Instructor prerequisite override required.
