Anthropology (ANT) courses
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ANT 100 World Cultures
General Education Course (Focus on Cultural Competence).An exploration of cultural differences throughout the world, with emphasis on nonwestern societies, from the perspective of cultural anthropology.
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ANT 125 Exploring Our Human Ancestry
General Education Course (Focus on Social and Behavioral Sciences).This course explores what it means to be human by tracing our biological and cultural roots. Topics include the evolutionary process; our place among the living primates; fossil and archaeological evidence of human ancestors; and the origins of language, society, and culture.
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ANT 303 Cultural Anthropology
The comparative study of human society and culture, focusing on theories of culture and cultural institutions and ethnographic and cross-cultural methods of research.
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ANT 304 Biological Anthropology
An examination of biological aspects of humanity from comparative and evolutionary perspectives. Topics include evolutionary theory, the origin and evolution of nonhuman primates and humans, primate behavior, biological variation among human populations, and anatomical and physiological influences on behavior.
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ANT 305 Introduction to Archaeology
An introduction to the goals, methods, theories, issues, and ethics of archaeology-the study of cultures in the past from the remains they left behind. Topics will include archaeological survey, excavation, dating techniques, artifact analysis, conservation, and cultural adaptation and change.
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ANT 306 Linguistic Anthropology
This course is an introduction to the field of linguistic anthropology, with special emphasis on language as a basic component of human culture. Subjects include the humanness of language, the study of linguistic structure, description and analysis of languages, origins of human speech, the history of languages and writing, the use of language in social relations, and the relationship among language, thought, and culture.
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ANT 309 Service-Learning in Anthropology
Prerequisite: 30 hours and concurrent registration in an anthropology course designated as a service-learning offering.An integrative learning experience which addresses the practice of citizenship and promotes an awareness of and participation in public affairs by incorporating community service with classroom instruction. Includes 40 hours on-task service to a community organization, agency or public sector provider. The community service placement agency and service assignment will vary, dependent on the disciplinary course topic and learning objectives. May be repeated.
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ANT 312 Anthropology of Gender
Prerequisite: ANT 100 or ANT 303 or permission of instructor.Theories, concepts, and case studies relating to the cultural and social construction of gender from an anthropological perspective. Students will examine gender in relation to sexuality, fertility, child-bearing, self-identification, family, power, status, voice, hegemony/resistance, colonialism, and globalization in cultures and societies around the world. Identical with AAS 312. Cannot receive credit for both ANT 312 and AAS 312.
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ANT 313 Volunteering and Development in the Global South: Anthropological Perspectives
This course examines theories, concepts, underlying assumptions, and case studies about aid and other assistance to developing nations. It will consider the various meanings given to development by residents of particular regions, as well as those of aid workers, policy makers, private industries, non-governmental and non-profit organizations, and government officials. The course will examine how development projects and policies in areas such as public health and food systems are experienced in daily life in urban and rural areas in Africa, Latin American, and Asia. Students will develop critical thinking skills about the role of culture in the complex and diverse world of international aid.
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ANT 314 Environmental Anthropology
Prerequisite: ANT 100 or ANT 303.An introduction to the anthropological study of the dynamic relationship between humans and their environment. Students will learn how belief systems, political ideologies and religions around the world have shaped human-environment relationships.
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ANT 315 Anthropology of Globalization
Prerequisite: ANT 100 or ANT 303 or permission of instructor.This course critically examines the interconnected modern world using theories, methods, case studies, and concepts developed in cultural anthropology. Students will explore how economic exchanges, new media, human migration, knowledge flows, and other dimensions of globalization are variously experienced in diverse parts of the world by tracing global structures of power and mobility.
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ANT 316 Ends of Life
Prerequisite: ANT 100 or ANT 303 or permission of instructor.This course explores the social, cultural, and biological nature of human personhood in the context of death and dying. Students will examine anthropological literature that seeks to explain and interpret the tremendous cross-cultural variation in mortuary rituals and funerary behavior, the cultural construction of death, mourning and bereavement, and medical and ethical issues relating to death and dying. Students will also examine a variety of ways that U.S. society deals with death and dying today.
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ANT 317 Medical Anthropology
An examination of health, illness and healing from an applied anthropological perspective, medical anthropology is one of the largest fields in the discipline of anthropology today, and one that has obvious applications. Topics may include: evolutionary perspectives on illness, the cultural construction of illness, cross-cultural variations in illness and healing, ethnomedical beliefs and practices, shamanism and other forms of symbolic healing, ethnobotany, and relations between biomedicine and ethnomedicine.
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ANT 318 Anthropology of Tourism
Tourism is a huge, powerful, and problematic industry that is having profound effects on peoples and cultures around the globe today, particularly in societies traditionally studied by anthropologists. The anthropological study of tourism seeks to understand the motives and experiences of the tourist, the relationships between "hosts" and "guests", and the impacts of the industry on communities, cultures, and identities. This course pays particular attention to ethnic, cultural, and heritage tourism and to "best practices" that promote sustainable community development as well as social justice and cultural preservation.
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ANT 320 Ethnography
Prerequisite: ANT 100 or ANT 303.In this course students will read, critique, and compare selected ethnographic accounts of societies around the world and explore ways in which anthropologists have written about and interpreted cultures.
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ANT 321 Ethnographic Field School
Prerequisite: ANT 100 or ANT 303; and permission.Field experience in the techniques, methods, and theories of ethnographic research within a community. Variable content course. May be repeated to a maximum of nine hours.
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ANT 325 North American Indian Cultures
Prerequisite: ANT 100 or ANT 303.A survey and comparison of Native American societies and cultures in North America (north of Mexico), including their ecology, subsistence, technology, social organization, politics, and religion.
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ANT 326 Plains Indian Cultures
This course examines the origins, development, and traditional cultures of Native American groups in the North American Plains region. Topics will include the prehistoric record, historical influences, material culture, subsistence, languages, social organization, trade, law and social control, warfare and alliances, art and religion.
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ANT 327 North American Indians Today
Focuses on major developments in North American Indian life in the 20th and 21st centuries, including cultural, social, economic, political, environmental, and legal issues that affect Native Americans today.
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ANT 330 Peoples and Cultures
Anthropological study of a cultural region of the world (such as the Caribbean, Latin America, or Southeastern Indians), including environment, subsistence, technology, economy, social and political organization, and religion. Identical with AAS 330. Cannot receive credit for both ANT 330 and AAS 330. Variable content course. May be repeated when topic changes.
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ANT 332 Peoples and Cultures of Africa
An exploration of African societies (especially sub-Saharan), including family structure, gender relations, social and political organization, beliefs, economics, art, oral literature, music, dance, and other aspects of culture. Identical with AAS 333. Cannot receive credit for both ANT 332 and AAS 333.
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ANT 334 Peoples and Cultures of Japan
An anthropological survey of the culture and cultural development of the peoples of Japan, from prehistory to the present, including cultural ideology and ethos, social organization, major cultural principles, customs, religion, technology, material culture, and the arts.
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ANT 336 Peoples and Cultures of Latin America
An overview of the peoples and cultures of Latin America. Explores culture, politics, economics, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, health, popular culture, social movements, environmental issues, and historical developments in Latin America from an anthropological perspective.
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ANT 338 Peoples and Cultures of Oceania
An overview of the peoples and cultures of Oceania. Explores culture, politics, economics, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, health, popular culture, social movements, environmental issues, historical developments, and global positioning of the region from an anthropological perspective.
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ANT 340 Archaeology of Complex Societies
Prerequisite: ANT 305 or permission of instructor.A detailed consideration of the archaeological study of complex societies, emphasizing the origins and development of social forms and institutions of the modern world such as social inequality, urbanism, and nation-states and empires. Case studies may be selected from Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America.
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ANT 342 Hunters and Gatherers
Prerequisite: 30 hours or permission of instructor.Explores past and present hunter-gatherer (non-agricultural) societies through all subfields of anthropology, especially cultural anthropology and archaeology. Topics include subsistence, technology, gender, social organization, religion, environmental sustainability, the cultural sustainability of contemporary hunter-gatherers, popular stereotypes, and the history of anthropological approaches to hunter-gatherers. Uses case studies from diverse regions such as Australia, Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
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ANT 345 Historical Archaeology
Prerequisite: ANT 305.Historical archaeology investigates the emergence of the modern world over the past ca. 500 years through the study of the material traces of human behavior, in conjunction with the study of written and oral records. This course provides an in-depth introduction to the field of historical archaeology including its methods, theoretical approaches, debates, and applications. Key topics include the historical archaeology of colonialism, slavery, class, gender, ethnicity, consumerism, capitalism, and industrialization. By the end of the course, students will understand how archaeologists recover, analyze, and interpret historical artifacts.
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ANT 347 Archaeology of the Southwest
A broad introduction to the archaeology and the peoples, past and present, of the greater southwest. The course covers the history of archaeological research in the region, one of the most intensively studied in the world. It traces cultural developments from the earliest evidence of humans in the Americas in the late Pleistocene through the adoption of farming, the emergence of regional systems, the population movements that culminated in the formation of today's indigenous communities, and the major changes brought on by Spanish colonization and the eventual conquest of much of the region by the United States.
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ANT 351 Field Archaeology
Prerequisite: ANT 125 or ANT 305; and permission.Field experience in the techniques, methods and theories of reconnaissance and excavation of archaeological sites. May be repeated to a maximum of nine hours.
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ANT 355 Environmental Archaeology
Prerequisite: ANT 305 or BIO 122 or GLG 110 or GLG 171 or GRY 108 or GRY 142.This course focuses on the archaeological study of human interactions with the environment over long periods of time and in multiple settings. It will emphasize both the methods scientists in multiple disciplines use to reconstruct past environments and the conceptual frameworks that are relevant to understanding how people acted on and reacted to the changing world around them. As a holistic and diachronic study of the socio-natural system, environmental archaeology can provide unique perspectives on today's ecological challenges.
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ANT 360 North American Archaeology
Prerequisite: ANT 305.Americanist archaeology is distinctive as a set of theoretical and methodological orientations. This course illustrates those orientations through archaeological case studies of initial human migrations, hunting-and-gathering societies, the formation of more complex polities, and European colonialism in North America. The multiple contexts of archaeological research and its impacts on living people are also considered.
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ANT 361 Research Methods in Biological Anthropology
Prerequisite: ANT 304 or concurrent enrollment.A survey of techniques and materials used in biological anthropology. Course will cover the main areas of biological anthropology with a focus on hands-on learning activities in the realms of evolutionary theory, basic human genetics, primatology, human evolution, and forensic anthropology. Students will use the departmental collection of bones and fossil casts to become familiar with skeletal remains and the variability that exists in human and nonhuman primate populations, past and present.
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ANT 363 Survey of Forensic Anthropology
A survey of the scope of forensic anthropology, which deals with identification and interpretation of human skeletal remains in medico-legal contexts. Included in this course are both theoretical and practical components. Topics to be discussed include the history and ethics of forensic anthropology, forensic investigation, influence of activity and disease on bone, and human rights applications. Practical aspects cover identification of bones and features of the human skeleton; techniques for determining age, sex, stature and race, and distinguishing human from nonhuman skeletal remains.
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ANT 365 Human Variation
Prerequisite: ANT 304, or BIO 101 and 111, or BIO 121, or BMS 100 and 101, or BMS 110 and 111.An examination of ways in which humans have adapted both genetically and physiologically to a wide variety of environments and how these adaptations have produced the biological variation seen in contemporary human populations. Major topics will include historical and current approaches to classifying human groups, human growth and development, adaptation and acclimatization to specialized environments, genetic disease, and tracing lineages through DNA analysis. It will also explore recent studies relating human biology to social constructs such as gender, race, ethnicity, and intelligence.
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ANT 370 The Living Primates
Prerequisite: ANT 304 or BIO 122 or PSY 336.An introduction to the human species' closest relatives, the nonhuman primates (prosimians, monkeys, and apes); their taxonomy, distribution, morphology, ecology, evolution, behavior, and conservation.
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ANT 375 Human Evolution
Prerequisite: ANT 304 or BIO 122.An exploration into the evolution of the human species, through examination of fossil and molecular evidence.
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ANT 380 Language and Culture
Prerequisite: ANT 306 or ENG 296.Advanced study in linguistic anthropology on topics such as ethnographies of speaking, ethnolinguistics, language change and historical linguistics. Variable content course. May be repeated when topic changes.
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ANT 390 Native American Code Talkers
This course explores the use of Native American languages in U.S. military service during World War I and World War II. The cultural background of code talkers, their recruitment, use in combat situations and post war experiences will be examined, along with their unique status in Native American cultures and recent efforts to document and recognize them.
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ANT 395 History of Anthropological Theory
Prerequisite: ANT 303 and 60 hours.This course traces the development of anthropology and anthropological theory, with emphasis on the major theorists and schools of thought in the twentieth century. Public Affairs Capstone Experience course.
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ANT 397 Special Topics
Selected topics such as primitive technology, cultural ecology and behavioral evolution. Variable content course. May be repeated to a maximum of nine hours when topic changes.
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ANT 400 Action Anthropology
A survey of social activism and advocacy in anthropology. Course will cover anthropological approaches to studying social problems, learning about the diverse perspectives of stakeholder communities, and working to resolve real world issues in an informed way. Includes issue-based discussions with local activists and a hands-on component focused on addressing local social issues.
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ANT 490 Field Experience in Anthropology
Prerequisite: permission of instructor.Supervised group study and/or research in an off campus setting. A fee may be charged to cover travel expenses. Identical with AAS 490. Cannot receive credit for both ANT 490 and AAS 490. Variable content course. May be repeated when topic changes.
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ANT 499 Internship in Anthropology
Prerequisite: 18 hours of ANT and permission of instructor.This independent study course provides an opportunity to earn academic credit for supervised work experience related to anthropology with an approved business, industry, organization, or government agency. May be repeated to a maximum of six hours. Graded Pass/Not Pass only.
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ANT 500 Applied Cultural Anthropology
Prerequisite: ANT 303 and 60 hours.An introduction to the field of applied anthropology, which is the application of anthropological methods, theories, and knowledge to the problems of society. Applied anthropology is the fastest growing field of anthropology today because it provides a basis for many careers. Course will examine the role of cultural anthropologists in areas such as foreign aid and development projects, migrant and refuge services, disasters and humanitarian assistance, human rights issues, business and industry, health and medicine, tourism, environmental protection, fisheries management, the military, and cultural preservation.
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ANT 505 Ethnohistory
Prerequisite: ANT 303 and 60 hours.The use of documents, maps, photos, recordings, oral histories, artifacts, folklore, linguistics, and ethnography to reconstruct the culture history of a social or ethnic group, particularly historically marginalized peoples such as Native Americans.
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ANT 511 Ethnographic Field Methods
Prerequisite: ANT 303 and 60 hours.Ethnographic methods and techniques in the study of culture, with emphasis on participant-observation, interviewing, note-taking and management, data analysis, and ethics.
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ANT 545 Cultural Resource Management
Prerequisite: 60 hours.An examination of laws and regulations pertaining to the preservation of American history and culture and the professional management and preservation of ethnic, historic, and prehistoric cultural resources. May be taught concurrently with ANT 645. Cannot receive credit for both ANT 545 and ANT 645.
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ANT 550 Advanced Methods in Archaeology
Prerequisite: ANT 305 and 60 hours.Advanced study and practice in methods and techniques employed in archaeology such as lithic, ceramic, and faunal analysis. Variable content course. May be repeated when topic changes.
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ANT 555 Archaeological Theory
Prerequisite: ANT 305 and 60 hours.A comprehensive and in-depth examination of theoretical issues and perspectives concerning the practice of archaeology and the interpretation of archaeological remains.
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ANT 596 Directed Readings in Anthropology
Prerequisite: 6 hours of ANT and permission of instructor.Readings designed to supplement material introduced in previous anthropology courses. Includes a wide selection of literature in the field. May be repeated to a maximum of six hours.
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ANT 598 Seminar in Anthropology
Prerequisite: 60 hours including 3 hours of Anthropology.A detailed investigation and analysis of a specialized or advanced topic of interest to anthropology (e.g., Upper Paleolithic art, the evolution of human behavior, ethnographies of religion). May be repeated when topic changes. Variable content course.
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ANT 599 Directed Research in Anthropology
Prerequisite: 9 hours in Anthropology and permission of instructor.Individual or group research involving supervised collection and analysis of cultural data. May be repeated to a maximum of nine hours.
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ANT 645 Cultural Resource Management
An examination of laws and regulations pertaining to the preservation of American history and culture and the professional management and preservation of ethnic, historic, and prehistoric cultural resources. May be taught concurrently with ANT 545. Cannot receive credit for both ANT 545 and ANT 645.
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ANT 795 Directed Readings in Anthropology
Prerequisite: permission of instructor.Supervised readings in preparation for a practicum or thesis project.
