Anthropology

• MET AN 101: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
  This course is an introduction to the field of cultural anthropology. Cultural anthropology seeks to understand the variety of ways that humans organize their experience and live in the world, including different configurations of kinship, sex, gender, ethnicity, race, religion, politics, and economics. This course introduces students to some of that variety by examining how societies in different regions of the world differ and how both global and local social processes transform them. The course also explores the ways that anthropologists frame their inquiries and how over time they developed new approaches to these issues and to core concepts like culture and society.
• MET AN 102: Human Behavioral Biology and Evolution(N)
  Where did humans come from? How old is the Earth? Who are our closest living animal relatives and how does their behavior help us understand our own? When did our ancestors start walking on two legs? When did humans control fire? This course explores these and related questions through the examination of the scientific evidence for human origins and evolution. Lectures take up the most recent discoveries in genetics, primates, and human fossils and consider how they inform the human story. The laboratory portion of the class provides students with a hands-on experience, working with casts of human and ape bones, including some of the most famous human fossils ever found. NS (with lab)
• MET AN 210: Medical Anthropology
  An investigation of the social dimensions of health and illness, exploring the diverse ways in which humans use cultural resources to cope with disease and develop medical and healing systems. The course also examines variations in the definition, diagnosis, experience, and treatment of illnesses across cultures, including the critical examination of biomedicine. Course materials facilitate the exploration of beliefs regarding some common assumptions about health and human behavior, using the tools provided by anthropological theories and concepts. SS
• MET AN 340: Folksongs as Social History
  Anglo-American folk songs and singing styles are considered as expressions of personal, social, and cultural history. The class involves finding and using regional and thematic song collections, the performance of traditional music, and preparation and presentation of song materials in selected projects. SS
• MET AN 348: Investigating Contemporary Globalization
  This course examines the various processes that have created a more interconnected "globalized" world, including the greater movement of peoples, ideas, goods, and capital across cultural and national borders; new communication technologies; a growing international division of labor; and increased attention to issues such as universal human rights and the experiences of women. Key debates include the question of whether these processes produce global cultural homogenization or greater cultural diversity and whether globalization reproduces power dynamics or allows for new freedoms and opportunities. SS

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