Fall 2020 / Spring 2020 / Fall 2019 / Spring 2019 - ANTH 202 - Dr. Mark Dolson 

Course Description 

If it works (playing off the picture added above), let’s liken our course to a scenic bus- ride through some interesting places—both in a social and geographic sense. As we move along through some different terrain (both smooth and bumpy) in our introduction to socio-cultural anthropology course, we’ll be taking stock of our own similarities and differences as a class in relation to the other peoples with whom we’ll come in contact.  

As such, we’ll be learning as much about ourselves in this course as we will about others—especially when it comes to public issues like poverty, disease and other forms of social exclusion. To this end, some of the questions we’ll tackle based on the sights we’ll see will be: what are the different meanings human groups and individuals have of society and culture? How do people interpret, understand and explain their social and local moral worlds—as well as the values that orient and define them? What is the relationship between individual and society? What exactly is culture, and how does it influence the lived-experience of individuals and groups?  

In the 21st Century, a time when the world’s communities are not only increasingly diverse, but also riven by sharp inequalities—not just economically and financially, but also with respect to health and well-being—understanding the sheer diversity of human social life can be a tremendous challenge. While disciplines like sociology, psychology, economics and geography have their different ways of understanding the individual, society and culture, socio- cultural anthropologists offer a very distinctive approach to understanding people in context. Through ethnographic fieldwork or participant observation, we have developed a particularly effective and long-term approach to immersing (maybe socially “mooring” is a better term?) ourselves in the local moral worlds (in all of their complexity and strangeness) of those we conduct our research with.  

As somewhat of a loose map, the bus-route we’ll be following in this course will take us through different readings, lectures and ethnographically-oriented films in order to gain appreciation for the unique perspective anthropology has afforded us on topics such as: culture, history, religion, language, the violence(s) of economic stratification and inequality, health and well- being, suicide, drug-abuse, sex and gender, globalization, etc.  

 

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Fall 2018 - ANTH 202 - Dr. Nicole Hayes 

Course Description 

This course introduces students to the history and key concepts of social and cultural anthropology through the examination of classic works as well as contemporary ethnographic texts and films. Topics include anthropological approaches to understanding cultural identity and difference, social structure, kinship, politics, and exchange. 

Course Goals and Learning Outcomes 

This course will use lectures, slides and films to introduce students to the fundamentals of social and cultural anthropology. Students will demonstrate knowledge of ethnography, communication, cultural ecology, economic anthropology, kinship, identity, legal and political anthropology, worldview, globalization and applied anthropology in one written midterm examination, one final examination and a prepared parliamentary-style debate.