Courses

• CAS AN 371: Political Anthropology of the Modern World
  Examines the concepts of political anthropology and applies them to the analysis of the origins and development of the modern political world. Special attention to nations and nationalism, the state and modern development, comparative political culture, and urban and agrarian political change.
• CAS AN 372: Psychological Anthropology
  Introduces students to some key theoretical perspectives and controversies in the cross-cultural study of psychology. Readings from classic texts and cross-cultural studies of emotion, sexuality, concepts of the person, national character, consciousness, authority, and religion.
• CAS AN 375: Culture, Society, and Religion in South Asia (area)
  Ethnographic and historical introduction to the Indian subcontinent with a focus on the impact of religion on cultural practices and social institutions.
• CAS AN 379: China: Tradition and Transition (area)
  Examines daily life in China and Taiwan, tracing how opposed economic and political paths transformed a common tradition. Topics include capitalism and socialism; politics and social control; dissidence; gender relations; religion, arts, and literature; and pollution.
• CAS AN 384: Anthropology of Religion
  Myth, ritual, and religious experience across cultures. Special attention to the problem of religious symbolism and meaning, religious conversion and revitalization, contrasts between traditional and world religions, and the relation of religious knowledge to science, magic, and ideology. Also offered as CAS RN 387.
• CAS AN 397: Anthropology and Film: Ways of Seeing
  Considers the history and development of anthropological, ethnographic, and transcultural filmmaking. In-depth examination of important anthropological films in terms of methodologies, techniques, and strategies of expression; story, editing, narration, themes, style, content, art, and aesthetics.
• CAS AN 401: Senior Independent Work
  
• CAS AN 402: Senior Independent Work
  
• CAS AN 438: Ethnography of American Culture (area)
  Provides a theoretical basis for the anthropological investigation of American culture. After an introduction to the classical literature, readings focus on the suburban experience, sexuality and family life, and class in the contemporary United States.
• CAS AN 461: Ethnography and Anthropological Theory I
  Discussion and analysis of major concepts, methods, and theories in social anthropology using case studies on ritual, politics, leadership, social control, and kinship belief.
• CAS AN 462: Ethnography and Anthropological Theory II
  Required of majors. Examines the background and philosophy of current anthropological theory and method. Discussion focuses on current issues in evolutionary, linguistic, and sociocultural theory.
• CAS AN 491: Directed Study in Anthropology
  Individual instruction and directed research in anthropology.
• CAS AN 492: Directed Study in Anthropology
  Individual instruction and directed research in anthropology.
• CAS AN 505: Asian Development: The Case of Women (area)
  How women's lives in China, Japan, and India have been affected by economic development and social change. Women's education, health, child rearing, and labor force participation are considered in the context of socioeconomic and cultural influences.
• CAS AN 510: Proposal Writing for Social Science Research
  The purpose of this course is to turn students' intellectual interests into answerable, field-based research questions. The goal is the production of a project proposal for future research. Also offered as CAS AR 510.
• CAS AN 515: Authenticity and Identity
  Explores the idea of the authentic self in Western culture in readings from authors such as Montesquieu, Hegel, Rousseau, Diderot, Molière, and Nietzsche. Historical and cross-cultural perspective is provided through examples from medieval Europe, Pakistan, America, Bali, and China.
• CAS AN 521: Sociolinguistics
  Introduction to language in its social context. Methodological and theoretical approaches to sociolinguistics. Linguistic variation in relation to situation, gender, socioeconomic class, linguistic context, and ethnicity. Integrating micro- and macro-analysis from conversation to societal language planning.
• CAS AN 524: Seminar: Language and Culture Contacts in Contemporary Africa
  Focuses on language variation and change in Africa. Provides students with a foundation in the scholarship on contact linguistics, language variation and change, and the relationships between language variation and gender, ethnicity, religion, and youth culture.
• CAS AN 532: Literacy and Islam in Africa
  Examines the Islamization of Africa and the development of local literary traditions. Students learn about the sources of knowledge called Ajami (African texts written in the Arabic script) and gain a deeper understanding of the spread of Islam and its Africanization throughout the continent. Selected texts written by enslaved Africans in the Americas are also examined.
• CAS AN 541: Modernity Seminar I
  This seminar looks at the phenomenon of modernity from a multidisciplinary point of view. Discussed are the cultural foundations of modernity, specifically and primarily nationalism but also Romanticism, science, and major political ideologies. Also analyzed are modernization and development as studied by the social sciences, modernism, and postmodernism in literary and cultural studies; and the nature of human beings and society in the perspectives of modern philosophy. Also offered as CAS SO 541. Either or both of AN 541 and AN 543 may be taken for credit.

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