This course will examine mental health issues from the perspectives of biomedicine and anthropology, emphasizing local traditions of illness and healing as well as evidence from epidemiology and neurobiology. Included topics will be psychosis, depression, PTSD, Culture Bound Syndromes, and suicide. We will also examine the role of pharmaceutical companies in the spread of western based mental health care and culturally sensitive treatment.

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.

Explores the major recent theoretical approaches in current anthropology, with attention to their histories and to their political contexts and implications.

What is a corporation? Contrary to wide belief, the corporation is a very ancient social form that arose in diverse world regions and is the heritage of many civilizations. In this course, we explore its history and relation to culture, economics, and law. How has financialization shaped today's major business corporations and theories of corporate social responsibility? How might we improve the corporations of the future?

An intro to the broad field of Native Studies, this class focuses on themes of representation and erasure. We read Indigenous scholars and draw from current events, pop culture, and historical narrative to explore complex relationships between historical and contemporary issues that Indigenous peoples face in the US. We examine the foundations of Native representations and their connections to critical issues in Native communities.

In this course, students rethink assumptions about what "language" and "environment" are. Both depend on living systems to be rendered meaningful, and together we will wrestle with how these two ideas can be brought into relation and the implications associated with different frames of understanding. There are many perspectives on the issues raised in this course, and you will receive a broad introduction to that diversity.

Surveys the classification and typological characteristics of Native American languages and the history of their study, with intensive work on one language by each student. Some linguistics background is helpful.

Who identifies as Indigenous in Latin America today? What are the implications of self-identifying or being identified as Indigenous? How do Indigenous peoples relate to and interact with nation states in this region? Together, we will explore these and many more important questions, as this course provides an overview of contemporary Indigenous cultures in Latin America and introduces you to the main issues that Indigenous peoples in the region are confronting. 

When colonial empires invaded the Americas in the 16th century, Europeans marveled at the Indigenous cities distributed across the continent. This course examines the ancient cities of the Americas: their origins, their configurations, their operations, and their representations. It considers how archaeologists define urbanism among ancient societies, and why not every human settlement qualifies as a city.

This course will examine anthropological perspectives on tourism practices and imaginaries. We will analyze how tourism imaginaries have come to shape our perceptions of different landscapes and peoples. We will also discuss the economic, political, cultural, and environmental impacts of the industry on different countries and communities around the world. We will pay special attention to how tourism shapes how local and Indigenous communities negotiate and accommodate outside expectations.