Fall 2013 Undergraduate Course Descriptions
Please note that this represents the most accurate listing possible of the course offerings for this semester. It may not match what the HUB currently says.
APY 105LEC
Introduction to Anthropology
Instructor Joshua Kwoka
Reg. #11886
Monday/Wednesday/Friday 9:00 am – 9:50 am
Fillmore 355
An introduction to the study of human cultural and physical variation across time and space. This course covers the various subfields of anthropology (socio-cultural, biological, archaeological, linguistic, applied). Topics to be addressed include: the evolutionary development of humanity, the origins of agriculture and complexity, cross-cultural perspectives of economics, sex, family, language, and race, and the ethical application of anthropological knowledge to address contemporary social challenges. Students will learn to appreciate both the unity and diversity of the human species, as well as examine the role of the human sciences in a rapidly globalizing world.
APY 106LEC
Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
Dr. Jaume Franquesa
Reg. #16613
Tuesday/Thursday 11:00 am – 12:20 pm
Fillmore 170
What is culture and how does it affect our understanding of the world and the ways we behave? How do cultural anthropologists approach the study of human societies and what methods do they use to do research? These are some of the questions that we will examine in this class. The course introduces students to ethnographic methods and theories of cultural anthropology. The aim is to enhance our knowledge of our own culture and of other cultures around the world. All majors are welcome.
APY 107LEC
Introduction to Physical Anthropology
Instructor Melanie Mayberry
Reg. #11010
Monday/Wednesday/Friday 11:00 am – 11:50 am
Fillmore 355
For centuries preceding modern times, our uniqueness as a species was taken as a sign of special creation; we were not seen to be a part of nature. But as knowledge of human evolution, of our closeness to other primates, and of our adaptations to specific environments emerged, we have taken our place in the animal kingdom. Here we will learn how those insights developed, and about current methods of understanding human origins and the natural forces that have shaped us.
APY 108LEC
Introduction to Archaeology
Dr. Ezra Zubrow
Reg. #13146
Tuesday/Thursday 3:30 – 4:50 pm
Fillmore 170
This course is designed to provide the student with a general introduction to the field of archaeology, including the methods and techniques that archaeologists use to identify and investigate archaeological sites. The course will focus on some of the key issues in archaeology, from human evolution and origins of agriculture, to the beginning of the modern age, including examples from the Old World and the New World. Students will learn how archaeologists use material culture to construct interpretations of human behavior in the past.
APY 168LEC
Myth and Religion in the Ancient World
Dr. Roger Woodard
Reg. #18751
Monday/Wednesday/Friday 1:00 – 1:50 pm
Norton 112
In this course, we will investigate mythic and religious traditions of ancient Greece and Rome. Our study of myth and religion will, however, be comparative in emphasis. We will thus have a twofold goal: (1) to encounter the Greco-Roman traditions themselves and (2) through our comparative investigations, to attempt to identify the mythic and religious traditions which the Greeks and especially the more conservative Romans inherited from their Indo-European ancestors. About mid-semester, will begin to turn our full gaze upon comparative materials, but even as we are engaged in discovering the mythic and religious traditions of the ancient Indic, Iranian Celtic, Germanic and Hittite cultures, we will continue to encounter new materials and motifs from Greece and Rome.
(APY 168 is cross-listed with CL 113 and RSP 113. If you register through either of these departments, complete an APY departmental petition form and submit it to the APY Undergraduate Office to insure APY major credit.)
APY 203LEC
Anthropology and Film
Dr. David Banks
Reg. #19549
Monday/Wednesday/Friday 10:00 – 10:50 am
Fillmore 355
Studies culture through the use of visual materials (films, tapes, etc.). Emphasizes learning anthropological concepts, attitudes, and methodologies, with film as the primary medium for so doing. This is a class in anthropology, rather than a films, course.
APY 275LEC
Introduction to Medical Anthropology
Dr. Frederick Klaits
Reg. #23745
Monday/Wednesday/Friday 2:00 – 2:50 pm
Fillmore 355
This course uses ecological, evolutionary, and cultural perspectives to study human health. Topics covered include the ecology and epidemiology of disease; genetic, physiological, and cultural adaptation; nutrition; pregnancy and childbirth; stress; culture change; and health disparities in both developing and developed countries. Health issues associated with globalization and increased military conflict will also be covered. Supplementary readings deal with maternal health, midwifery, and children’s health and nutrition in Africa and illustrate the biocultural approach to health.
APY 301SEM
Indigenous Women
Dr. Barbara Tedlock
Reg. #24178
Tuesday/Thursday 11:00 am – 12:20 pm
Clemens 102
No one on earth has been more negatively impacted by the current global economic system than the 350 million indigenous peoples. Likewise no peoples alive today are so strenuously and successfully resisting these invasions. In 1992, when an Indigenous Guatemalan woman, Rigoberta Menchú Tum (K’iche’ Maya), won the Nobel Peace Prize, international leadership by Indigenous women became visible. During the United Nations First and Second Decades of the World’s Indigenous Peoples (1995-2015) another woman activist, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, an Igorot from the Philippines, began lobbying for the United Nations adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. She was elected chairperson of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and initiated decolonizing acts including native sovereignty, advocacy, and cultural reclamation. In this seminar we will explore recent Indigenous women’s issues, including social justice, and political practices such as indigenizing the academy, collaborative theater, and ecofeminism.
APY 311LEC
Culture and Personality
Dr. Donald Pollock
Reg. #23747
Monday/Wednesday/Friday 1:00 – 1:50 pm
Fillmore 351
Social scientific, psychological, and psychiatric materials on normal and abnormal behavior in a variety of cultural settings; social and cultural change and personality; group functioning; forms of deviancy.
APY 325 SEM
Contemporary Afro-Caribbean Religion
(counts as an Area Studies course)
Dr. Craig Centrie
Reg. #19545
Tuesday/Thursday 3:30 – 4:50 pm
Fillmore 352
Familiarizes students with the rich cultural syncretisms of Afro-Caribbean culture from a Latin American perspective, challenges the miasma of mysticism surrounding the religions as viewed by developed nations, and provides students with the basic skills necessary to conduct field research from an anthropological perspective.
APY 344 LEC
Animal Communication
Dr. Carol Berman
Reg. #23746
Tuesday/Thursday 9:30 am – 10:50 am
Fillmore 355
Surveys natural communication systems within the animal kingdom, including the structure, functions, development, and evolution of natural communication systems among both human and non-human animals.
APY 348 LEC
Forensic Anthropology - Osteology
Dr. Joyce Sirianni
Reg. #12495
Monday 4:00 pm – 6:40 pm
Fillmore 170
Lecture, demonstration, and laboratory work. Fundamentals of human skeletal anatomy will be covered. Procedures and applications in contemporary and historical human biology and in archaeology will be considered, with stress placed upon both technical approach and theoretical application. Forensic applications will be considered.
APY 393 LEC
Anthropology of Religion
Dr. Phillips Stevens
Reg. #23751
Tuesday/Thursday 12:30 pm – 1:50 pm
NSC 218
Religion has existed in all cultures of the world, and at all stages of recorded history -- indeed, it seems as old as humanity; and it is an extremely powerful motivator of behavior. For these reasons alone its study is essential to anthropology. This course considers religion as a dynamic system which can't be fully understood without reference to its interrelationships with other cultural systems, as well as to the biology of the human practitioner. Specific topics include: the nature of belief and the concept of "supernatural"; types of supernatural agencies; types of religious practitioners; theories of religion; myth; ritual; divination; sacrifice; totemism; taboo; magic and sorcery; witchcraft; shamanism; religious altered states of consciousness: spirit possession, ecstasy, and simple trance; supernaturally-caused illness and religious-based healing; religion in cultural change; new religions, cults, and “the occult” today; and others. The course will be illustrated throughout with films, slides, videos, religious objects, etc.
APY 410 SEM (Honors College only)
Cities, Citizenship, and Civic Engagement
Dr. Deborah Reed-Danahay
Reg. #24636
Wednesday 9:30 am – 12:10 pm
Capen 110
This course will examine cities and suburbs as social spaces in and through which forms of cultural citizenship and civic engagement can be expressed. Questions we will discuss include: What is the relationship between the idea of “the city” and forms of citizenship? How does cultural (or, vernacular) citizenship differ from strictly legal bases for citizenship? And, how do newcomers to cities (especially immigrants) learn to become “cultural citizens” in their new host settings? We will adopt the cross-cultural approach of anthropology and most of the cases discussed will be based on ethnographic research. Students will be encouraged to reflect upon their own experiences of citizenship and civic engagement.
APY 411 SEM
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Dr. Ezra Zubrow
Reg. #20858
Tuesday 7:00 pm – 9:40 pm
Fillmore 351
This course studies the four horsemen in all of their guises. It examines their importance historically and presently. They have been and are religious icons, symbols of the major processes of warfare, disease, famine, and death, as well as cultural, literary and artistic stymbols throughout the generations. The course is a seminar in which the students trace one of the horsemen through both time and space in the intellectual area of their choice.
APY 432 SEM
Peoples of the Arctic
(counts as an Area Studies course)
Dr. Ann McElroy
Reg. #23755
Monday/Wedensday 3:30 pm – 4:50 pm
Fillmore 354
Anthropological survey of arctic and subarctic populations, primarily focusing on Canada and Alaska, with some comparative coverage of Greenland, Siberia, and the Lapps of northern Europe. Develops multidisciplinary models using ethnographic, historical, and epidemiological sources to analyze traditional patterns and contemporary changes in northern communities. A variety of ecological and cultural systems have emerged in the North since the period of contact and settlement by Europeans, and the course encourages students to do comparative analyses of national, regional, and ethnic differences and similarities.
APY 434 SEM (dual-listed with APY 587)
Archaeology of Sacred Places and Spaces
Dr. Tina Thurston
Reg. #23879
Thursday 9:30 am – 12:10 pm
Fillmore 354
In this course we will examine definitions and concepts of the sacred, the social construction of places and spaces, and explore the relationships between place, space, and the supernatural in archaeological contexts. Incorporating studies from North, Middle and South America as well as Eurasia, Australia and Africa, we will use ethnographic, historic, and archaeological cases as a key to understanding the often baffling archaeological connections between place, belief, and worldviews in ancient times.
All human societies tangibly and cognitively construct physical, social, economic, political, and sacred space and place, but every society has its own unique cultural signature in terms of how it organizes and imbues meaning onto place and space. Until recently, we lacked many systematic and comprehensive studies of how various social systems, past and present, both determine and are reflected in location and locale; recent advances on these issues have come from a number of perspectives: structuralism, postmodernism and poststructuralism, using concepts such as phenomenology, embodiment, practice, and performance. To do this, we will look at the history of thought about sacred space within anthropology and archaeology but also geography, psychology, neurophysiology, art, and architecture. How do scholars in various disciplines understand these issues, and what can it tell us about the archaeological past? Ideas from geography, anthropology, and architecture give insights into how humans change space into place through physical and cognitive constructions, and attach meaning and history to natural and built locales.
We will focus on both natural features considered sacred, such as caves, mountains, water, forests, and on human modification of the natural landscape for symbolic purposes, such as with standing stones, rock art, geoglyphs, and the construction of built sacred places and spaces: temples, plazas, and sacred or ritual landscapes.
Topics include:
• conceptualizations of space, place, symbol, and sacredness;
• meaning and context of sacred structures and landscapes;
• contextual (emic) and analytical (etic) perceptions of the material world
• the impact of sacred perception on resource use and mobility;
• the role of myth, ritual, and history in sacred site location, construction, and geometry;
• sacred landscape as identity (belief, kinship, ethnicity, gender);
• contemporary disputes over sacred sites and regions
APY 447 LEC (cross-listed with ENG 447)
Mythology of the Americas
(counts as an Area Studies course)
Dr. Dennis Tedlock
Reg. #19979
Tuesday/Thursday 9:30 am – 10:50 am
Clemens 17
Myths not only create imaginal worlds that offer alternatives to the life world, but also offer keys to the interpretation of the life world itself, revealing a mythic level of significance in everyday events. Myths also give shape and meaning to dreams and visions, and dreams and visions give rise to further myths. We will try to catch those moments when the mythic world comes in contact with the world of experience.
We will undertake a close reading of selected myths from the Americas, attempting to enter imaginal worlds and to look back at the life world from a distance. We will consider myths that come down to us from storytellers, speechmakers, singers, and dramatists. In addition to readings, lectures, videos, and discussions, there will be guest appearances by Native American storytellers.
APY 448 LEC (dual-listed with APY 548)
Legal and Ethical Issues in Human Genetics
Dr. Christine Duggleby
Reg. #24629
Wednesday 2:00 pm - 4:40 pm
158 Spaulding
Recent advances in genetic technology have presented the scientific and lay community with ethical and legal problems, yet to be resolved. The objective of this course is to provide an opportunity for informed discussions of such issues relating to contemporary human/medical issues.
APY 476 LEC
Health Care in the United States
(counts as an Area Studies course)
Dr. Donald Pollock
Reg. #23756
Monday/Wednesday/Friday 11:00 am – 11:50 am
Fillmore 351
Explores the culture and social organization of health-care systems in the United States, including mainstream allopathic medicine and nursing, as well as more 'alternative healing' modalities, such as faith healing, chiropractic, 'New Age' healing, and so forth. Gives students a specifically anthropological understanding of health care in American society. This anthropological perspective draws attention to the many diverse components of health care in the United States, from high-tech advanced medical science to faith healing.
APY 494SEM
Senior Seminar: Death and Dying
Dr. Mariella Bacigalupo
Reg. #23757
Tuesday/Thursday 11:00 am – 12:20 pm
Fillmore 351
In this course we will explore the interrelated social, cultural, medical, and political underpinnings of death and the way different communities have responded to it. Nineteenth-century anthropologists speculated that the origin of religion was to be found in the puzzlement of early humans about what differentiates the living from the dead. Twentieth-century anthropologists interpreted death as a potential tear in the social fabric, requiring symbolic management for societal stability. We will explore the confusion about dying and death resulting from experiences of rebirth and medical technologies that maintain people’s lives through the body parts of cadavers. We will also analyze mourning, living in the wake, compassionate cannibalism, modern-day American care for the dying, and the politics of death.
APY 494 SEM
Senior Seminar:
Dr. David Banks
Reg. #23758
Monday/Wednesday/Friday 12:00 pm – 12:50 pm
Fillmore 351
This semester we will read three books about anthropology and its uses. Anthropology offers us the opportunity to understand society from numerous points of view. We are now in an age of uncertainty, randomness and reflexivity, the age of Einstein and beyond. Human decision making about what and how to study is part of the mix. Social science is not only about prediction.
APY 495 SEM
Supervised Teaching
(requires permission of instructor)
Dr. Joyce Sirianni
Reg. #16771
Arranged – Please speak with Instructor
Spaulding 158
APY 496 TUT
INTERNSHIP
(Variable credit)
Required prior to registration: permission of Faculty Advisor and submission of completed Record of Internship Data form. Visit the Undergraduate Office (380 Fillmore) for guidance, form, and registration number.
APY 499 TUT
INDEPENDENT STUDY
(Variable credit)
Required prior to registration: permission of Faculty Advisor and submission of completed Independent Study form. Visit the Undergraduate Office (380 Fillmore) for guidance, form, and registration number.