Anthropology

This is a broad introductory course covering race, language, and culture, both as intellectual concepts and as political realities. Topics include race and culture as explanations of human affairs, the relationship of language to thought, cultural diversity and cultural relativity, and cultural approaches to current crises.

The course introduces medical anthropology, and contextualizes bodies, suffering, healing and health. It is organized thematically around a critical humanist approach, along with perspectives from political economy and social constructionism. The aim of the course is to provide a broad understanding of the relationship between culture, healing (including and especially the Western form of healing known as biomedicine), health and political power.

This course explores anthropological writings on development and humanitarianism to better understand the historical context and contemporary practice of these distinct modes of world saving. We will attend to critiques of development and humanitarianism, and will also consider writings by anthropologists who champion the humanitarian project

Introduces the interrelationships of linguistic, cultural, and social phenomena with emphasis on the importance of these interrelationships in interpreting human behavior. No prior knowledge of linguistics is required.

Reviews key findings in the study of language variation. Explores the use of language to express identity and social difference.

Examines the evolution of our capacity for language along with the development of human ways of cooperating in engaged social interaction. Course integrates cognitive, cultural, social, and biological aspects of language in comparative perspective. How is the familiar shape of language today the result of evolutionary and developmental processes involving the form, function, meaning and use of signs and symbols in social ecologies?

Topics include alternative theories of prehistoric culture change, dating methods, excavation and survey techniques, and the reconstruction of the economy, social organization, and religion of prehistoric societies.

Overview of the major theoretical positions which have structured anthropological thought over the past century.

Ethnographies of Amazonian Peoples and the new anthropological theories about their way of life.

The scientific and administrative focus on life and the centrality of technology to it have become defining features of the contemporary condition. This course will explore various theoretical approaches for understanding this condition, and will explore case studies to elucidate them.

What is distinctive about being human in a capitalist economy? This course considers the broad experience of living in a particular economic moment, with a focus on understanding what 'kinds' of people capitalism both creates & emerges from. As we consider both contemporary life & examples of the transition to capitalism, students will actively engage various modes of procuring goods & services to understand what makes capitalism distinct, & what those characteristics mean for humans of capitalism.

Disabled people are considered the "world's largest minority," but does a shared disability experience exist? In this course we examine the diverse ways disability is understood in different social contexts. We use disability studies as a critical lens to examine issues of power and to ask key questions of anthropology, including; What does it mean to have an anthropology of embodied experience? An anthropology of the mind?

Introduces the native languages of North America and the methods that linguists and anthropologists use to record and analyze them. Examines the use of grammars, texts and dictionaries of individual languages and affords insight into the diversity among the languages.

This course covers the basic principles of diachronic linguistics and discusses the uses of linguistic data in the reconstruction of prehistory.

Topics to be announced prior to each semester, dealing with archaeology.

Topics to be announced prior to each semester, dealing with social and cultural anthropology.

This course teaches the importance of understanding cultural meanings when curating items, whether material or intangible, drawn from social worlds other than one's own. It provides a general introduction to collection, preservation, and display through study of a specific collection held by the instructor or by a local institution such as the Fralin Museum of Art.

This course surveys transformations in the African past, from the Middle Stone Age emergence of modern humans, to the florescence of lifeways in the Late Stone Age, to the broad mosaic of small-, medium-, and large-scale Iron Age societies, to the archaeology of colonial encounters. We also consider how archaeological methods work to produce knowledge in combination with studies of genetics, climate and environment, and historical methods.

The majors seminars in anthropology offer majors and minors an opportunity to engage deeply with a topic of anthropological concern. Through these courses anthropology students gain experience in doing an independent research project on a topic they care about and produce a significant paper or other major work. Enrollment for majors and minors is preferred.

Independent study conducted by the student under the supervision of an instructor of his or her choice.

Independent research, under the supervision of the faculty DMP thesis readers, toward the DMP thesis. Prerequisite: Admission to the Distinguished Majors Program in Anthropology.

New course in the subject of anthropology.

Investigates current theory, models, and research methods in anthropological archaeology.

Introduces major historical figures, approaches, and debates in anthropology (sociocultural, linguistic, archaeological), with a focus on understanding the discipline's diverse intellectual history, and its complex involvement with dominant social and intellectual currents in western society.

A workshop for graduates preparing dissertation proposals and writing grant applications. Each student prepares several drafts of a proposal, revising it at each stage in response to the criticisms of classmates and the instructor.