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Anthropology Current Courses

Fall 2025

Course Code Title/Instructor Meets
ANTH 100-01 Introduction to Biological Anthropology
Instructor: Karen Weinstein
Course Description:
This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the field of biological anthropology. We will examine the development of evolutionary theory. We will then apply evolutionary theory to understand principles of inheritance, familial and population genetics in humans, human biological diversity and adaptations to different environments, behavioral and ecological diversity in nonhuman primates, and the analysis of the human skeleton and fossil record to understand the origin and evolution of the human family. Three hours classroom and three hours laboratory a week. Offered three semesters over a two-year period.
01:30 PM-04:30 PM, W
DENNY 115
09:30 AM-10:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 115
ANTH 101-01 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
Instructor: ANTH STAFF, James Ellison
Course Description:
This course is a comprehensive introduction to how cultural anthropologists study culture and society in diverse contexts. We will use ethnographic case studies from across the world to examine the ways people experience and transform social relationships and culture in areas including families, gender, ethnicity, health, religion, exchange, science, and even what it means to be a person. We will examine how culture and society are embedded within, shape, and are shaped by forces of economics, politics, and environment. Offered every semester.
08:30 AM-09:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 313
ANTH 205-01 Listening Across Cultures
Instructor: Ellen Gray
Course Description:
Cross-listed with MUAC 209-01. Is music a "universal language"? How might we listen to, consume, and participate in music across a diverse cultural spectrum without engaging in "cultural tourism" or appropriation? Can we listen across cultures? Working with a wide range of approaches to these questions, this course introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of ethnomusicology (the study of music and sound in relation to social life). Students will study sound recordings and ethnographic films, read widely, and examine material objects (like musical instruments) drawn from socio-politically and geographically diverse case studies. No previous musical training or note reading skills are necessary.
03:00 PM-04:15 PM, TF
WEISS 235
ANTH 242-01 Research Methods in Global Health: Quantitative, Qualitative and Anthropological Approaches
Instructor: James Ellison, ANTH STAFF
Course Description:
This course introduces students to different methodological approaches used in global health to understand health needs in the global south and design appropriate interventions to address them. Through readings and discussions about the theoretical underpinnings of qualitative and quantitative research students will learn the different ways in which each approach contributes to understanding a health problem and developing solutions, with a special emphasis on the growing role of anthropological perspectives in conducting socially relevant and context appropriate global health research. Pre-requisites: ANTH 100 or 110 (ARCH 110) or 101 or 216 or permission of instructor.
10:30 AM-11:45 AM, TR
DENNY 112
ANTH 255-01 Global Eastern Africa
Instructor: James Ellison
Course Description:
Cross-listed with AFST 220-03. This course examines global connections in the intersections of culture and power that underlie contemporary issues in eastern Africa. The globally marketed indigenous cultures and exotic landscapes of eastern Africa, like current dilemmas of disease and economic development, are products of complex local and transnational processes (gendered, cultural, social, economic, and political) that developed over time. To understand ethnicity, the success or failure of development projects, the social and economic contexts of tourism, responses to the AIDS crisis, the increasing presence of multinational corporations, and other contemporary issues, we will develop an ethnographic perspective that situates cultural knowledge and practice in colonial and postcolonial contexts. While our focus is on eastern Africa, the course will offer students ways to think about research and processes in other contexts.This course is cross-listed as AFST 255. Offered every two years.
10:30 AM-11:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 303
ANTH 262-01 South American Archaeology
Instructor: Matthew Biwer
Course Description:
Cross-listed with ARCH 262 and LALC 262-01. This course examines the development of prehistoric societies in the South American continent through archaeological data. This course will explore the interactions of culture, economics, and politics in the prehistory of two major regions: the western Andean mountains and Pacific coast, and the eastern lowlands focusing on the Amazon River basin and Atlantic coast. In addition to learning the particular developments in each region, we will address three overarching themes: 1)What role did the environment play in shaping socio-political developments? 2) What influence do ethnographic and ethno-historical sources have on the interpretation of pre-Hispanic societies in South America? 3) What were the interactions between highland and lowland populations, and what influence did they have (if any) on their respective developments? This course is cross-listed as ARCH 262 and LALC 262.
10:30 AM-11:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 103
ANTH 290-01 Archaeological Methods
Instructor: Andrew Dufton
Course Description:
Cross-listed with ARCH 290-01. This course focuses on archaeological field and laboratory methods through readings, lectures, and hands-on experiences and the data these practices generate. It will cover the essential field methods employed in archaeological survey (pedestrian, aerial, and geophysical) and excavation. This will include the fundamentals of documentation including note-taking, drawing, photography, and map-making. It will also introduce how archaeologists organize and analyze the large quantities and wide range of data recovered in these processes with particular attention to the use of computer databases, especially Geographic Information Systems (GIS). It will provide a general overview of different types of laboratory analysis including lithics, ceramics, metals, plant and animal remains, and discuss the available dating methods. Students will have the opportunity to practice many of the field and lab methods in the Simulated Excavation Field (SEF), and, when available, archaeological sites in the Cumberland Valley. Through these experiences and interactions with a range of archaeological datasets, students will learn how the archaeological record is formed and what its patterns can teach us about ancient human livelihoods. Finally, students will learn to synthesize and present the results of field and laboratory research in reports, a critical genre of writing in the discipline.This course is cross-listed as ARCH 290. Prerequisite: Any ARCH course at 100- or 200-level.
01:30 PM-04:30 PM, M
ARCH LAB
ANTH 345-01 The Future in Ruins
Instructor: James Ellison
Course Description:
Distress in our world raises pressing questions about the future. What will it be like? Is it singular? Who gets to shape futures? How do futures relate to what came before, and to what exists now? Possible futures permeate people's world-building efforts. Crafted in relational presents, futures also reside amid the ruins of varied pasts. We will examine how future-making embodies hoped for futures across cultures in the present and past and in our own lives. Our pursuit will include architecture, built environments, landscapes, art, and social networks. We will explore how various agents collaborate in future-worlds, including other forms of life, materials, technologies, and milieus. We will also study temporal dimensions of future-making, and how the things humans help create constantly experience unmaking. From these lessons we will collaborate to imagine new world-building possibilities and implications for ethnographies of the future.
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
DENNY 303
ANTH 345-02 Archaeology of Food
Instructor: Matthew Biwer
Course Description:
Cross-listed with ARCH 345-01. This course will focus on the roles food and drink played in the social, political, and economic lives of past societies. Food is, of course, necessary for human survival but its procurement, processing, and consumption has become a primary means by which humans define and distinguish themselves and their societies. Thus, the study of food and drink is an exciting avenue for archaeologists to gauge the ways in which ancient societies interacted with their environments, created diverse economic and political systems, and individuals reproduced and also challenged their identities within these societies. Methodological advancements in the field of archaeology have greatly increased our access to the ingredients and contexts of past food and drink; therefore, this seminar's topic also allows students to engage with a wide range of archaeological techniques and datasets to investigate the foodways of past societies.
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, TF
DEAL 1
ANTH 400-01 Senior Colloquium
Instructor: Matthew Biwer
Course Description:
Offered every fall semester, senior anthropology majors will meet to learn about professional career opportunities in anthropology as well as a write a research paper that incorporates primary sources in anthropological writing and/or original anthropological scholarship involving fieldwork or laboratory research.Prerequisite: Research in Anthropology course.
03:00 PM-04:15 PM, TF
DEAL 1
ANTH 400-02 Senior Colloquium
Instructor: Karen Weinstein
Course Description:
Offered every fall semester, senior anthropology majors will meet to learn about professional career opportunities in anthropology as well as a write a research paper that incorporates primary sources in anthropological writing and/or original anthropological scholarship involving fieldwork or laboratory research.Prerequisite: Research in Anthropology course.
03:00 PM-04:15 PM, TF
DENNY 212