The following courses are offered within the anthropology department. Please see the BU Bulletin for the most up-to-date information regarding course offerings, meeting times, and locations.
CAS AN 375E 4 credits.
BU Hub Learn More Aesthetic Exploration Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
CLTR/RN S.ASIA
CAS AN 379 4 credits. Fall and Spring
BU Hub Learn More Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy Research and Information Literacy Social Inquiry II
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.
CAS AN 379S 4 credits.
BU Hub Learn More Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy Research and Information Literacy Social Inquiry II
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.
CAS AN 382 4 credits. Fall and Spring
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 4 credits. Fall and Spring
Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASAN101) or consent of instructor. - Introduction to the anthropological study of 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. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry I.
CAS AN 384S 4 credits.
Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASAN101) or consent of instructor. - An introduction to the anthropological study of 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.
CAS AN 390 4 credits.
May be repeated for credit as topics vary. Topic for Fall 2023: Slavery and the In-Between. Examines the space between freedom and enslavement known as recaptivity. Course discussions focus on historical and social conceptions of freedom, and how these conceptions relate to recaptive status. Reviews recaptivity contexts documented in both the historical and archaeological record. Also examines the theme of return in recaptives' journeys and the contemporary journeys of Afro-descendants to the African continent. This course complements anthropological training in topics of race/racism and identity and coursework in African American & Black Diaspora Studies, but it is open to undergraduate students in any field.
CAS AN 397 4 credits. Fall and Spring
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. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
CAS AN 400 4 credits.
TPCS: ANTHRO
CAS AN 438 4 credits. Fall and Spring
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 440 4 credits. Spring
Examines the political, economic and social structures of empires in Eurasia and North Africa from an anthropological perspective and explains how they became and remained the world’s largest polities for 2500 years only to collapse worldwide in the 20th century. Effective Spring 2025, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Research and Information Literacy, Social Inquiry II.
CAS AN 461 4 credits. Fall and Spring
BU Hub Learn More Oral and/or Signed Communication Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior or senior standing in the major. Required of majors. - Examines foundational social scientific and anthropological theories and methods from the late 19th century through the mid-20th century. Discussion focuses on precursors to contemporary anthropological thought, including historical materialist, evolutionist, functionalist, structuralist, symbolic, and culture-and-personality theories and approaches. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings.
CAS AN 462 4 credits. Spring
Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASAN461) and First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120) - Required of majors. Examines current anthropological theory and method. Discussion focuses on recent ethnographies and the anthropological debates they have provoked. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry II, Writing-Intensive Course.
CAS AN 491 Var credits. Fall and Spring
Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior or senior status in major, consent of instructor, and approval of the CAS Academic Advising Center. - Individual instruction and directed research in anthropology.
CAS AN 492 Var credits. Fall and Spring
Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior or senior status in major, consent of instructor, and approval of the CAS Academic Advising Center. - Individual instruction and directed research in anthropology.
CAS AN 505 4 credits. Fall and Spring
Examines how women have affected andbeen affected by economic and cultural changes in China, Japan, and India. Particular attention paid to women's education, health, child rearing, and labor force participation. (Counts towards the Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies minor and the Asian Studies minor.)
CAS AN 506 4 credits. Fall and Spring
BU Hub Learn More Historical Consciousness Research and Information Literacy Social Inquiry II
Undergraduate Prerequisites: one archaeology course or consent of instructor. - Graduate Prerequisites: one archaeology course or consent of instructor. - 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 2023, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry II, Research and Information Literacy.
CAS AN 508 4 credits. Fall and Spring
Undergraduate Prerequisites: First-Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or 120) - A seminar-style introduction to "landscape archaeology," a theoretical and methodological approach that explores how past and present communities create (and are in turn affected by) "cultural landscapes" formed through the interplay of sociocultural values and the natural environment. Effective Spring 2024, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU HUB areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Social Inquiry I, Critical Thinking.
CAS AN 510 4 credits. Spring
Undergraduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor. - Graduate Prerequisites: graduate student standing in the social sciences or humanities. - Workshop-based course designed to turn students' intellectual interests into answerable, field-based research questions. Goal is the production of a doctoral level research project proposal and/or dissertation prospectus.
CAS AN 515 4 credits.
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.