AN 101. Local Cultures, Global Issues.3 Credits.
This introductory course provides a broad overview of cultural anthropology, giving students the tools to understand, speak and write about human diversities and similarities cross-culturally. Course materials emphasize issues of race, ethnicity, class and gender, making visible for students the inequalities and power dimensions embedded in societies throughout the globe.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: Every year, All
UC: Social Sciences, Intercultural Understand
AN 103. Dirt, Artifacts and Ideas.3 Credits.
This course introduces students to the social science of archaeology, one of the four subdisciplines within anthropology. Students explore the history and methodology of archaeology, human evolution and adaptation. They learn to interpret archaeological data and study the relationship between humans and the natural environment. The ethics of doing archaeological fieldwork and the contemporary debates within the discipline also are discussed.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: Every year, All
UC: Social Sciences, Intercultural Understand
AN 104. Bones, Genes and Everything In Between.3 Credits.
In this course, students explore human origins and modern human diversity from a holistic, biocultural evolutionary perspective. Participants begin with the processes of evolution and natural selection, along with the mechanisms of genetic inheritance at the molecular level and its role in modern human diversity. Next they focus on our closest living relatives, the non-human primates, and then discuss the evidence for primate and human evolution found in the fossil record. The course concludes by exploring the origins of modern humans and their dispersal across the globe.
Corequisites: Take AN 104L.
Offered: Every year, Fall
UC: Natural Sciences
AN 104L. Bones, Genes and Everything In Between.1 Credit.
Lab to accompany AN 104.
Corequisites: Take AN 104.
Offered: Every year, Fall
UC: Natural Sciences
AN 200. Special Topics.3 Credits.
Subject varies each semester according to student and faculty interest.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed, All
AN 210. Gender/Sex/Sexuality.3 Credits.
This course introduces students to the social and cultural constructions of gender, sex and sexuality around the world. Students discover the way anthropologists approach these topics. They explore the constructions as they relate to notions of biology, family, households, work, migration, inequality/inequity, economics and class status, violence, and race and ethnicity. Discussions focus on what gender, sex and sexuality are, what they mean and how they theoretically and practically matter as categories.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: Every other year
UC: Social Sciences, Intercultural Understand
AN 215. Introduction to Language Studies.3 Credits.
Human language involves much more than vocabulary and grammar. It is a dynamic, complex system for conveying meaning via sound, images/text, and gestures. In this interdisciplinary course, students will explore the structural components of language, including sound patterns, word formation, syntax, and semantics, and understand how these phenomena evolve over time. Regional, social, and cultural impact on language development will also be covered. Based on this foundation, students will pursue individual projects on linguistic topics of their choice, such as language acquisition, neurolinguistics, computational linguistics, or forensic linguistics. This course assumes no prior study of linguistics or foreign languages. All reading and discussion will be in English. This course does not fulfill a foreign language requirement.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed
UC: Breadth Elective
AN 227. Rites of Passage.3 Credits.
In this course, students examine the study abroad experience as a life turning point, looking through the lens of traditional Rites of Passage Theory, as put forth by anthropologist Arnold van Gennep. They connect each of the traditional Rites of Passage phases to the study abroad experience (i.e., separation, liminality and reincorporation) and begin to develop an understanding of why rites of passage were/are formulated, and how to apply the concepts and elements presented in traditional Rites of Passage Theory not only to the study abroad experience, but also to personal, academic and professional turning points throughout one's life.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: Every year, All
UC: Breadth Elective
AN 230. Sustainable Development.3 Credits.
This course introduces students to the concept and practice of "development" from an anthropological perspective. Students learn how to assess and critique the ideological threads in development discourses, and are able to identify how anthropological approaches to development differ from other social sciences and allied disciplines. Students also learn how classical social theory continues to influence policy makers and international aid bureaucrats.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed
UC: Social Sciences, Intercultural Understand
AN 233. Practicing Archaeology.3 Credits.
Archaeology is an exciting multidisciplinary field that combines approaches from the social and natural sciences to reconstruct human behavior. In this course, students explore the theories and methods that guide archaeological inquiry through lectures, class discussions and interactive laboratory and field exercises. Guest lectures will highlight various specializations and applications in the field, including geographic information systems, archaeological chemistry, bioarchaeology, museum curation, public archaeology and cultural resource management. Archaeological case studies will focus on the Indigenous history and prehistory of southern New England including the Quinnipiac land and people.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: Every year, Fall
UC: Social Sciences
AN 237. Health and Medicine Around the World.3 Credits.
This course takes a comparative study approach by looking at the diverse ways in which societies throughout the world both define and respond to disease and illness. Special attention is paid to how differently people understand the body and its relation to illness, and the importance of cross-cultural understanding for treating and curing illness in pluralistic societies.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: Every other year
UC: Social Sciences, Intercultural Understand
AN 240. Ethnography: Learning from Others.3 Credits.
This course introduces students to ethnographic theory, method, practice and application within the discipline of anthropology. The goals are: 1) to provide students with a background of the history of ethnography; 2) to introduce students to the range of ethnographic writings in the contemporary era; 3) to encourage students to think about what ethnographic writings teach us and why they matter; 4) to compare ethnography to other forms of academic and popular writings; and 5) to consider the ethical dimensions and dilemmas of conducting ethnographic research.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed
UC: Social Sciences
AN 242. Cannabis Culture.3 Credits.
This course explores the archaeological, cross-cultural, and contemporary political, symbolic, linguistic, and sociobehavioral influence of cannabis on human existence. In this class students will explore the long history of the cannabis plant and other "drugs" in human life; the war on drugs; the racialized and gendered implication of criminalization; and what the legalization of cannabis in multiple states in the US and around the world means for the plant's future.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed
UC: Social Sciences
AN 243. Ancient Food For Thought.3 Credits.
In this course, students explore the origins of food production and consumption from an anthropological perspective. Participants examine evidence for ancient diets in various food-getting strategies such as hunter-gatherer, pastoral and agricultural. They will also explore the gastro-politics of growing, cooking, serving, and eating food in a variety of contemporary cross-cultural examples. Finally, students will discuss social, environmental, and health problems related to food production and consumption in today's globalized food system. Throughout the semester the class will participate in cooking workshops that highlight weekly discussion themes.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: Every year, Spring
UC: Social Sciences, Intercultural Understand
AN 250. Forensic Anthropology.3 Credits.
This course provides a general introduction to forensic anthropology, an applied subfield of biological anthropology, wherein human remains of medico-legal significance are analyzed. Students review the history of the field, basic skeletal anatomy and human biological variation, recovery of human remains and how time since death can be established. The course also covers the identification of trauma and disease in both modern and prehistoric skeletons, as well as markers of individualization that may lead to positive identification.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: Every other year
UC: Breadth Elective
AN 252. The Science of Human Diversity.3 Credits.
This course surveys human phenotypic variation through an evolutionary and biocultural perspective. The role of genetics and environment (including culture) is discussed in relation to the heritability of human differences. Participants also consider how culture and society shape an understanding of human biology. Topics as diverse as environmental adaptations, "race," sex differences, aging, growth, nutrition, demography and genetic disorders are addressed from this biocultural perspective.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed
UC: Breadth Elective, Intercultural Understand
AN 272. Sh t Happens: a Natural History of Human Waste.3 Credits.
This course explores the natural history of human excrement. Human waste is something that we are all intimately familiar with, yet rarely discuss (or at least, we rarely admit to discussing it). But, it tells an incredible story about our lives and our interactions with the environment. We study ancient feces to learn about diet and health in the past; we look at cross-cultural studies to understand different types of contemporary waste disposal and cultural understanding of human waste; we learn about the gut microbiome, which may influence our emotions; we study our closest living relatives and their relationship with bodily waste.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: Every year, Spring
UC: Breadth Elective
AN 299. Independent Study.1-6 Credits.
Pursuit in depth of a specific topic. The topic and credit are to be arranged with an instructor.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed, All
AN 300. Special Topics.3 Credits.
Subject varies each semester according to student and faculty interest.
Prerequisites: None
Offered: As needed, All