Featured Courses

Fall 2024

ANTH 472 is a practice-based course that explores anthropology’s complex entanglements with photography, both historically and in contemporary anthropological practice.

Fall 2024

From popular culture and social media to the workplace, contemporary human life across most of the globe is media saturated. In this class we examine media production and circulation as cultural practices, comparing media formats in different contexts and locations.

Spring 2024

In this course we will examine keywords in cultural theory related to biopolitics, looking at concepts they name, and considering how they might inform critical analyses of colonial, state, and corporate control of populations. In addition to working through a set of influential late 20th century theoretical writings and more recent responses, we will examine a series of case studies in which life and death are centrally at stake.

Spring 2024

Throughout this course, we will examine the politics, practices, and technologies shaping human interactions with the environment. Topics will range from the discussion about terms such as “development” or “sustainability, to the history of National Parks, and the science behind antimicrobial resistance.

Spring 2024

This course’s focus on African American Anthropology is, in many ways, an outgrowth of these transitions. In this course, we will map out the parameters of “African American Anthropology,” beginning with early constructions of race and pioneering ethnographic studies of African Americans in the U.S. Later, we will explore how ongoing research on race and African American culture, as well as contributions by African American/feminist scholars, helped to both shape and shift the scope of anthropological inquiry over time. Finally, we will review new directions in the study of race and African American culture in anthropology.

Summer 2024

Imagine delving into the mysteries of the ancient Maya civilization, unraveling the secrets of their majestic palaces and temples, and exploring the lush wonders of the Belizean rainforest. ANTH 450 - Field Research in Maya Archaeology, a four credit summer course, is an unforgettable experience where you’ll learn cutting-edge field methods in excavation, survey, and digital cultural heritage research through an immersive, hands-on learning environment.

Summer 2024

Throughout the course we will explore issues such as current threats to cultural heritage, the roles of public opinion and tourism in the protection and interpretation of cultural heritage, impacts of development, questions of authenticity and identity, international law, ethics, and emerging and non-traditional areas of the field.

Spring 2024

How do living religions move across space and take on new characteristics in new places? How has the concept of indigenous religion been changed by refugee migrations and displacements? How do new forms of spirituality merge with tourism or terrorism? These are all questions for an anthropological perspective on transnational religion

Spring 2024

In this experiential learning course, students will take part in a multifaceted exploration of global women’s narratives of the past and the present. Using the Francophone world as a literary and cultural anchor, this course asks students to engage with the theory and practice of women’s narrative storytelling, especially as it applies to “minor” narratives, that is, those not issuing from official spaces of knowledge production.