This course explores the history, experience of, and creation of tourist sites and landscapes through an anthropological lens. Multiple perspectives are considered in various venues including typical vacation spots such as hotels and beaches as well as those sites ‘off the beaten path’. As a broad survey course, it will begin with the ‘grand tours’ of the 18th and 19th century and continue through the present day. The various roles and experiences of the tourist, tour guide, and other stakeholders within cultural, ecological, heritage, sex and leisure tourism will be examined. Students who previously took this as a topics course, ANTH 352, may not take again for credit.
Introduction to Historic Preservation
Historic preservation in the US is an exciting, growing and interdisciplinary field. This course provides a general overview of historic preservation as an applied practice, including historical and cultural resources sustainability and management. We will explore the history, method, theory, ethics and law of historic preservation as currently practiced in the United States. Students who previously took this as a topics course, ANTH 352, may not take again for credit.
Native American Culture and History
This course provides an interdisciplinary anthropological and ethnohistorical analysis of Native American societies and cultures in the Americas from the first peopling of the New World through interactions with Euro-Americans from the 17th to the early 20th century. Archaeological, ethnographic and ethnohistorical approaches are employed. Cross-listed as HIST 311. Students may receive credit for either course but not both.
Principles of Applied Anthropology
This course provides an overview of applied anthropology and the work of practitioners from a historical perspective. The course examines the contexts in which practitioners work, the types of problems they face and the political and ethical challenges associated with their work. Students become familiar with and begin to develop requisite skills to undertake applied work by carrying out a service-learning project in the local community.
Food and Culture
This course focuses on the role of food in human evolution and the cultural dimensions of food practices. Students learn what people eat across cultures and why; how groups get, process and prepare food; how food is used to build and maintain social, economic and political relationships; and how food is linked to gender, age, social class and ethnicity.
Archaeology and Prehistory
This course provides an overview of the methods and theories employed by archaeologists to study prehistoric populations. Students learn the methods used by anthropologists to collect, analyze and interpret archaeological data. Students survey the development and composition of past human cultures.
Language and Culture
This course provides a broad introduction to linguistic anthropology. Students learn how anthropologists study the relationships between language, culture and society and how language both reflects and shapes human behavior. Topics addressed include historical and comparative linguistics, descriptive linguistics and sociolinguistics. This course fulfills the Core Curriculum requirement in Cultural Perspectives.
Biological Anthropology
This course addresses the relationships between culture and human biology. Topics include primate classification and behavior, human origins and evolution and human variation and genetics. Students work with fossils, as well as geological and other data, to understand the biological dimensions of human populations.
Cultural Anthropology
This course provides an introduction to the ways societies use culture to structure behavior and interpret experience. Students learn methods and theories anthropologists use to study culture; examine aspects of culture such as language, social organization, gender, marriage, family and religion; and analyze historical, biological and social determinants of cultural institutions. This course fulfills the Core Curriculum requirement in Cultural Perspectives.
Archaeology Practicum
This course introduces students to the pleasures and challenges of using archaeological collections to document and interpret life in the past. A single collection will be analyzed over the course of the semester. Students help create a catalog record of a very important archaeological site. Students learn to wash, label, catalog, photograph, conserve, research, archive and report on materials recovered from an important archaeological collection. Prerequisite: ANTH 101 or permission of instructor.