Anthropology

• CAS AN 363: Food and Water: Critical Perspectives on Global Crises
  The multiple causes and consequences of global food and water crises. Examines production, consumption, and distribution of food, and studies a range of water management systems--and the politics of water--in different parts of the world.
• CAS AN 368: Introduction to Australia
  This course has a major focus on Australia's global and national development as a multicultural nation with European roots, traditional western alliances and an imagined future in the Asia-Pacific region. The themes of continuity and change in relation to the Aboriginal population are explored in some detail. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • Research and Information Literacy
• 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. (Counts towards the East Asian Studies minor.)
• CAS AN 379: China: Tradition and Transformation
  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. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry II, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • Social Inquiry II
  • Research and Information Literacy
• CAS AN 382: Wealth, Poverty, and Culture
  Explores vital cultural dimensions of production, exchange, and consumption in varied settings. Asks how social ties relate to property, wealth, and poverty. Examines how people classify, control, and allocate resources, and how resources in turn influence people.
• 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. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry I.
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  • Historical Consciousness
  • Social Inquiry I
• 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 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 1
  Discussion and analysis of major concepts, methods, and theories in social anthropology using case studies on ritual, politics, leadership, social control, and kinship belief. Anthropology majors in the Socio-cultural track are encouraged to take this course during their junior year; this course is required of all majors in the Socio-cultural track.
• CAS AN 462: Ethnography and Anthropological Theory 2
  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. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry II, Writing-Intensive Course.
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  • Social Inquiry II
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• 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. (Counts towards the Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies minor and the East Asian Studies minor.)
• 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 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. Also offered as CAS LX 341 and GRS LX 641.
• 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 530: Global Intimacies: Sex, Gender, and Contemporary Sexualities
  Explores theoretical and ethnographic approaches to gender, sex, and sexuality as linked to globalizing discourses and transnational mobilities. Readings and discussion emphasize intersections of sex, gender, labor, love, and marriage in a globalized world. Also offered as CAS WS 530.
• 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 549: Savagery Fact, Fiction, and Factual Fiction
  Imaginings about animalistic humans, much changed over time, are compared against real cultures and societies. Looking beyond "savagery within civilization" and vice versa, an examination of episodes of romantic stereotyping and of "barbaric" interaction, for motives and for strategies of resolution.
• CAS AN 550: Human Skeleton
  Function, development, variation, and pathologies of the human musculoskeletal system, emphasizing issues of human evolution. Basic processes of bone biology and how they are affected by use, age, sex, diet, and disease. Meetings are predominantly lab oriented.

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