A comparative approach to the concept of culture and an analysis of how culture structures the worlds we live in. The course examines human societies from their tribal beginnings to the postindustrial age. We will consider the development of various types of social organization and their significance based on family and kinship, economics, politics, and religion.

This course is intended to provide a theoretical framework as to how anthropologists construct questions, design research strategies, and produce anthropological knowledge. Students will discuss and explore major framing questions for anthropological methods while pursuing an independent project of their choice. Working with a faculty advisor, students will engage in independent research, while using the class as a workshop and discussion environment to refine their project. Students will be exposed to issues of positionality, ethical obligations in research, mixed qualitative and quantitative methods, and writing for specific audiences. This course is required of all anthropology majors and will provide a bridge between introductory and advanced courses.

This course offers an introduction to the anthropological study of human religious experience, with particular emphasis on religious and ritual practice in a comparative perspective. What is the relationship between religion and society? Can categories such as “religion” and “the sacred” be legitimately applied to all cultures? Does religion necessarily imply belief in a God or sacred beings? We will concentrate on a range of small-scale, non-Western, cultures for much of the semester, returning to religious experience in the modern industrial world and the concept of "world religions" at the course’s end.

This course traces a series of conversations in theory and method in anthropology from a broadly thematic perspective. It provides students with a foundation for situating contemporary anthropology and its many theoretical approaches and debates by tracing the field's historical development. It examines the social context in which various "paradigms" took hold and the extent that they gained traction, were critiqued and discredited, or were reconfigured and reinvigorated. We will explore the development of contemporary theory as internal to the discipline and as a response to changing intellectual climates and social milieus. Our discussions will be aimed at identifying both shifts and continuities in the thematic foci, methodological stance, and guiding concerns of the discipline.

A comparative approach to the concept of culture and an analysis of how culture structures the worlds we live in. The course examines human societies from their tribal beginnings to the postindustrial age. We will consider the development of various types of social organization and their significance based on family and kinship, economics, politics, and religion.

This course will examine the evolutionary foundations of human variability. This theme is approached broadly from the perspectives of anatomy, paleontology, genetics, primatology, and ecology. For this purpose, the course will address the principles of human evolution, fossil evidence, behavior, and morphological characteristics of human and nonhuman primates. Explanation of the interrelationships between biological and sociobehavioral aspects of human evolution, such as the changing social role of sex, are discussed. In addition, human inter-population differences and environmental factors that account for these differences will be evaluated.

The hominin fossil record provides direct evidence for the evolution of humans and our ancestors through the past 5 million to 7 million years. This course will provide an overview of human evolutionary history from the time of our last common ancestor with the living great apes through the emergence of "modern" humans. Emphasis is placed on evolutionary mechanisms, and context is provided through hands-on examination of the hominin fossil record and its history. The human story begins with origins and the appearance of unique human features such as bipedality, the gradual beginnings of an expanded brain and durable material technology, increased social complexity, and eventually the emergence of a human-like ecology. The emergence of contemporary humans is examined through the interaction of environmental, evolutionary, genetic, fossil, and archaeological evidence.

The course will examine epidemics and pandemics and how they shape society and culture. It will explore catastrophic disease events such as the 4th century BC Ancient Greek plague, the Black Death of Medieval Europe, the European infectious diseases that killed native populations of the Americas, the Spanish flu of 1918, the AIDS/HIV epidemic in the late 20th century, and the present-day coronavirus pandemic. Key questions that will guide the course are: 1. Who holds the bio-political power to guide the population through the danger of widespread morbidity, and how is this power used and/or abused? 2. What kind of socioeconomic, gender, ethnic ,and racial disparities are perpetuated and constructed in times of disease? 3. How do individual political entities cooperate and coordinate in their efforts to curtail disease? 4. How is the rhetoric of “war” employed to describe epidemic and pandemic diseases? 5. What are the effects of actual war, violence, and genocide that often follow epidemics? 6. What are the uses and the limitations of international public health organizations in addressing pandemics?

This course explores anthropological, religious, and psychiatric perspectives on mental health and mental illness, with careful attention to varied constructions of "madness", treatment, and healing across human cultures. We begin with comparative questions: are there universal standards of positive mental and emotional functioning? Are there overall commonalities in approaches to psychic and emotional disturbances? What is the role of spirituality? After considering the history of ‘madness’ in the West, we consider early anthropological and religious models of "madness" elsewhere. We next turn to ritualized therapeutic interventions in small-scale indigenous societies and consider a range of case studies from around the world. We conclude with a unit on culture and mental health in the United States and the ‘globalization” of American models of the psyche

Do you like to "people watch"? Do you wish you could translate your real-world experiences into narratives that are readable and relatable, and also intellectually rigorous? If so, you probably have an ethnographic writer hiding somewhere inside you, and this class will give them the opportunity to emerge. Ethnography, a “written document of culture,” has long been a key component of a cultural anthropologist’s tool-kit, and scholars in other fields have recently begun to take up this practice. We will read classic and contemporary ethnographies to better understand the theoretical and practical significance of these texts. Students will also have the unique opportunity to be the authors and subjects of original ethnographic accounts, and at various stages in the semester they will act as anthropologists and as informants. Although this course will emphasize an anthropological method, it is appropriate for students from various disciplines who are looking to expand their research skills and develop new ways to engage in scholarly writing.

This seminar will immerse students in current developments in Museum Anthropology through an exploration of the history of museum development, the role of museums in society, and the ethical considerations of preservation and education. Under an anthropological lens, the history of development of museums in the global North can be used to contextualize recent movements to decolonize the collection, curation, and display of ethnographic and archaeological material. After researching up-to-date international exhibitions, students will critically assess museum curation practices and then develop their own outreach projects in small groups. This course will include virtual visits to New England area museums–including the MFA Boston, Harvard Peabody Museum, and the Mashantucket Pequot Museum.

This seminar critically examines the use of prehistory and antiquity for the construction of accounts of national origins, historical claims to specific territories, or the biased assessment of specific peoples. The course begins with an examination of the phenomenon of nationalism and the historically recent emergence of contemporary nation-states. It then proceeds comparatively, selectively examining politically motivated appropriations of the remote past that either were popular earlier in this century or have ongoing relevance for some of the ethnic conflicts raging throughout the world today. The course will attempt to develop criteria for distinguishing credible and acceptable reconstructions of the past from those that are unbelievable and/or dangerous.