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

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  • CAS AN 563: Religion and Politics across Cultures
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior or senior standing; or consent of instructor. - Explores the role of religion, religious movements, and secularism in modern politics, citizenship, gender politics, and public life. Case studies draw from Muslim-majority lands, Africa and Latin America, East-Southeast Asia, and the modern West. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Social Inquiry II.
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Social Inquiry II
  • CAS AN 565: Memory in 3-D: Memorials, Then and Now
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing. - Memorials and the spaces around them are charged zones, time portals where past and present co-exist. In this course we focus on the development of memorial culture in America, along with a comparative examination of the worlds of ancient Greece and Rome. The distance afforded by stepping outside our own time and place provides perspectives on aspects of form and message, as well as on how the meanings of memorial can change. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Digital/Multimedia Expression, Historical Consciousness, Creativity/Innovation.
    • Creativity/Innovation
    • Digital/Multimedia Expression
    • Historical Consciousness
  • 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. Effective Spring 2024, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Social Inquiry II, Research and Information Literacy.
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Research and Information Literacy
    • Social Inquiry II
  • 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. Effective Fall 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Social Inquiry II, Creativity/Innovation.
    • Creativity/Innovation
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Social Inquiry II
  • CAS AN 573: The Ethnography of China and Taiwan (area)
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior or senior standing or consent of instructor; First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR100 or WR120). - 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 588: Project Design and Statistics in Biological Anthropology
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASAN102 OR CASBI107 OR CASBI108 OR CASAR101) or consent of instructor. - This seminar teaches students project design and statistics using R and Rstudio. Students will become competent in coding, version control, data reports and commenting code, and implement both basic and advanced statistics to be used in student research projects. Effective Fall 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Quantitative Reasoning II, Scientific Inquiry II, Teamwork/Collaboration.
    • Quantitative Reasoning II
    • Scientific Inquiry II
    • Teamwork/Collaboration
  • CAS AN 590: Theory, Method, and Techniques in Fieldwork
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor. - Graduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor. - Hands-on experimentation with and theoretical implications of a variety of methods for anthropological ethnographic field research, including posing research questions, research design and ethics, data collection, analysis, and initial write-up.
  • CAS AN 593: Special Topics in Cultural Anthropology
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior or senior standing or consent of instructor. - Selected issues and debates in current anthropology. Topic for Fall 2023, Section A1: Migration, (Im)mobilities and Precarity. Addresses the regulation of human mobility and practices of inclusive exclusion in a globalized era and given the immediacy of climate displacement. Explores the interconnections between differentiated citizenship, economic precarity, cultural marginalization and political mobilization.
  • CAS AN 594: Seminar: Topics in Cultural Anthropology
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior or senior standing of consent of instructor. - Selected issues and debates in current anthropology.
  • CAS AN 595: Methods in Biological Anthropology
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASAN102 OR CASBI107 OR CASBI108) or consent of instructor. - 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.
    • Quantitative Reasoning II
    • Scientific Inquiry II
    • Teamwork/Collaboration
  • CAS AN 596: Anthropology and History
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior or senior standing, or consent of instructor. - 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)
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASAN102) and consent of instructor. - 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)
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASAN102) and consent of instructor. - 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 640: Shadow Empires
    The political, economic and social structures of empires in Eurasia and North Africa from an anthropological perspective that examines how they became and remained the world’s largest polities for 2500 years only to all vanish in the 20th century.
  • CAS AN 701: Anthropology Across Sub-Disciplines
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: Graduate standing or consent of instructor. - An examination of current and historical perspectives across sub-disciplines of Anthropology: Social Anthropology, Biological Anthropology, and Archaeology. Explores how methodologies, theories and interpretations have changed as disciplines have developed.
  • CAS AN 703: Anthropological Theory: History and Practice
    An intensive introduction to the foundations of the discipline focusing on classic works from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries. A critical analysis of the development of the discipline of anthropology, its literature, history, and contemporary research problems.
  • CAS AN 704: Sociocultural Theory: Contemporary Currents
    Graduate Prerequisites: Required of first-year graduate students and open to students in relat ed disciplines with the consent of the instructor. - Examination of major theoretical trends and debates in anthropological theory from the 1970s to present.
  • CAS AN 705: Theory in Evolutionary Anthropology: The Biological and Historical Past
    Examination of major contributions and debates in biological anthropology focusing on human evolution and biology. Topics include evolutionary theory, fossil and living primates, human and primate evolution, life histories, behavioral ecology, physiology and the relationship between biology and culture.
  • CAS AN 707: Turkey & Middle East in Comparative Perspective (Area)
    Explores the social and cultural diversity of the modern Middle East with particular attention to Turkey. Focus on state power, minority governance, gender, sociopolitical change and different articulations of tradition and modernity.
  • CAS AN 708: Food in Place(s): Identity, Location, and Cultures of Taste
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120). - Explores historical and cultural ecologies of foodways. Field trips focus on history, immigration and taste identity in Boston’s neighborhoods. Main text: Wurgaft and White, Ways of Eating: Exploring Food through History and Culture. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Aesthetic Exploration.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Writing-Intensive Course

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