Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the Student Link for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

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  • CAS AN 558: The Evolutionary Biology of Human Sex Differences
    Are sex and gender instantiated in the body? This seminar explores evolutionary approaches to investigating sex differences in human behavior and physiology from phylogenetic, mechanistic, and developmental perspectives. Topics include gender expression, non-binary sex/gender, aggression, mate choice, cognition, and more.
  • CAS AN 559: Evolutionary Endocrinology
    Focuses on current research in the field of evolutionary endocrinology. Hormones circulate systemically to signal diverse cells and tissues, influencing and coordinating nearly all aspects of the phenotype, including behavior, morphology, physiology, and life history. The field of evolutionary endocrinology emphasizes ultimate explanations, such as how hormones act as mediators of a variety of fundamental evolutionary phenomena from circadian rhythms to sexuality. Explores how and why natural selection shaped the "inputs" and "outputs" of the endocrine system. Effective Fall 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Scientific Inquiry II, Teamwork/Collaboration.
    • Scientific Inquiry II
    • Oral and/or Signed Communication
    • Teamwork/Collaboration
  • CAS AN 563: Public Religion and Politics Across Cultures
    Examines the role of religion, religious movements, and secularism in modern politics, citizenship, and public life. Devotes special attention to the implications of the global religious resurgence for democracy, multicultural tolerance, and gender equality, both in Western liberal democracies and the global south.
  • CAS AN 568: Symbol, Myth, and Rite
    Historical overview of ritual behavior, the role of symbolism in the study of culture, and the narrative quality of worldview and belief. Emphasis on verbal performance and public display events in specific cultural contexts.
  • CAS AN 571: Anthropology of Emotion
    Advanced seminar on the study of emotion as culturally and historically specific experience, cognition and symbolic system. Focus on specific emotions including shame, anger, melancholy, hope, hate, and love. Special attention to affect and the politics of emotion.
  • CAS AN 573: The Ethnography of China and Taiwan (area)
    Reading of major ethnographies and modern histories as a basis for examining changing Taiwanese and Chinese culture and society. Attention to ethnography as a genre, as well as to the dramatic changes of the past century. (Counts towards the East Asian Studies minor.) Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Social Inquiry II.
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Social Inquiry II
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • CAS AN 585: Advanced Readings in African Ethnography (area)
    Explores ecological adaptation, kinship, social organization, religious thought and practice, and creative expression. Special focus is placed on the history of theory, method, and narrative style in the construction of African ethnographies
  • CAS AN 589: The Anthropology of Development Theory & Practice
    Explores the uncomfortable relationship between anthropology and international development. Examines anthropology's sustained and multidimensional critiques of the development enterprise; also considers whether, amidst these critiques, anthropology can imagine an alternative discourse and practice of betterment for historically disenfranchised peoples.
  • CAS AN 590: Theory, Method, and Techniques in Fieldwork
    Traditional and modern methods of ethnographic field research: data collection, research design, and analyses.
  • CAS AN 593: Special Topics in Cultural Anthropology (Fall)
    Selected issues and debates in current anthropology. Two topics are offered Fall 2020. Section A1: Migration, (Im)mobilities & Precarity. Addresses the regulation of human mobility and practices of inclusive exclusion in a globalized era, with an ethnographic focus on undocumented migrants. Explores the interconnections between legal status, economic precarity, cultural marginalization and political mobilization as well as their impact on differentiated citizenship and belonging. Section A2: Desiring Memorials: Afterlives of Mass Violence and the Pursuit of Justice. An exploration of key debates in anthropology on mass violence, genocide, memory, history and justice. Discussion examines the ways that memory and memorials are being mobilized to make human rights arguments. Engagement with works by political and legal theorists, historians, anthropologists and novelists in order to survey and examine the human condition at stake in a course on mass violence and the pursuit of justice.
  • CAS AN 594: Seminar: Topics in Cultural Anthropology
    Selected issues and debates in current anthropology.
  • CAS AN 595: Methods in Biological Anthropology
    An exploration of field and laboratory methods used in biological anthropology, with students participating in hands-on exercises. Topics include health assessment, body composition, diet, energetics, morphological adaptations, reproductive status, habitat composition, spatial movements, and conservation. Professional skills are also developed. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Quantitative Reasoning II, Scientific Inquiry II, Teamwork/Collaboration.
    • Scientific Inquiry II
    • Quantitative Reasoning II
    • Teamwork/Collaboration
  • CAS AN 596: Anthropology and History
    Examines the use of ethnographic materials and models of alternative social or economic organization to interpret historical materials as well as the use of history to provide dynamic models of change in anthropological analysis.
  • CAS AN 597: Special Topics in Biological Anthropology (Fall)
    Special issues and debates in current biological anthropology. Past topics have included human growth and development; primate and human sexuality; evolution of the human family; project design and statistics in biological anthropology; and evolutionary endocrinology.
  • CAS AN 598: Special Issues in Biological Anthropology (Spring)
    Special issues and debates in current biological anthropology. Past topics have included human growth and development; primate and human sexuality; evolution of the human family; project design and statistics in biological anthropology; and evolutionary endocrinology.
  • CAS AR 500: Public Archaeology in the United States
    Introduction to the practice of public archaeology in the United States: historical and legal background; federal, state, and local programs; archaeology and Native Americans; contract archaeology; survey, evaluation, and mitigation projects; professional employment in U.S. cultural resource management. This course cannot be taken for credit in addition to the course entitled "U.S. Archaeological Heritage Management" that was previously numbered GRS AR 805.
  • CAS AR 503: Archaeological Field Methods: Survey and Excavation
    Archaeology field school intense archaeological techniques and procedures. Direct involvement in field excavation, data recording, description and inventory of artifacts and specimens. Field, lab and lecture involvement; seven hours a day, five days a week. Locations around the world. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry II, Teamwork/Collaboration.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Social Inquiry II
    • Teamwork/Collaboration
  • CAS AR 505: Digital Archaeology
    Lecture/laboratory course that introduces students to a broad range of digital techniques for collecting, visualizing, and analyzing objects, spaces, and landscapes. In addition to technical lab instruction, the course presents a series of research questions and case studies that explore how digital techniques can be used to investigate the material dimensions of social life. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Digital/Multimedia Expression, Social Inquiry II, Research and Information Literacy.
    • Digital/Multimedia Expression
    • Social Inquiry II
    • Research and Information Literacy
  • CAS AR 506: Regional Archaeology and Geographical Information Systems (GIS)
    Use of advanced computer (GIS) techniques to address regional archaeological problems.This applied course examines digital encoding and manipulation of archaeological and environmental data, and methods for testing hypotheses, analyzing, and modeling the archaeological record. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry II, Research and Information Literacy.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Social Inquiry II
    • Research and Information Literacy
  • CAS AR 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 AN 510.

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