Undergraduate Course Description

This course focuses on some of the present, and possible future, socio-ecological conditions of life on planet earth. In particular we will work to understand the historic, economic, political, and socio-cultural forces that created the conditions we call climate change. With this we will take a particular interest in the...

Explore 10,000 years of Maritime peoples, histories, and cultures! • Key Themes: migration; human- nature relationships; development; resistance; sailing; knowledges; climate change

What is the apocalypse? How is it imagined and lived by people from different cultures around the world? We will explore the multiple utopic and dystopic potential future realities that the apocalypse may lead to through an anthropological lens. We consider the role of cultures, knowledges, epistemologies, and social- environmental...

This course introduces students to the varied peoples and cultures in the Caribbean region, including the historical, colonial, and contemporary political-economic contexts, as well as the religious, migratory, and other cultural practices. The Caribbean is composed of several islands united by the experiences of indigenous decimation, European colonization, and re-population...

Pueblo Indian communities are some of the most vibrant and distinctive native societies in the US today. In this course we will examine the archaeology, history, geography, social institutions and religious values of Pueblo Indian peoples. In the process, we will see how Pueblo cultures illustrate important ideas and debates...

What and where and who is Native North America? To find out, this introductory undergraduate course examines representations of Native Americans in movies, in anthropology, and in their own words and films. To understand the great diversity of indigenous peoples in North America, we learn about different communities such as...

Many researchers in the environmental sciences argue that human activities on the planet have created a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene. Arguments abound about what date should demarcate the onset of the Anthropocene – the rise in global consumption of goods and resources since the 1950s, the Industrial Revolution in...

The earliest civilizations on earth were found in such diverse settings as Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley of Pakistan, China, Mexico and Central America, and Andean South America. These civilizations had huge cities’ powerful rulers, fascinating religious beliefs, and elaborate temples and palaces. In this course, we will study the...

What does it mean to think anthropologically? This course will provide an overview of the history and foundations of anthropological thought, with a special focus on the key method of anthropology: ethnography. Drawing on both classical and contemporary anthropological texts from a broad range of international settings, we will analyze...

Where did human beings come from? How did we come to inhabit the world? Why don’t we eat wild foods anymore? How did complex urban societies rise and fall? All this and more….. Professor Douglas Bamforth See the University Catalog for specifics, recommendations, and prerequisites.