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 518 4 credits.
Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASAR101) - Introduction to the study of archaeological animal bones. Provides theoretical background and methodological skills necessary for interpreting past human- animal interactions, subsistence, and paleoecology. Laboratory sections focus on skeletal identification. Effective Fall 2023, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Quantitative Reasoning I, Social Inquiry II.
CAS AN 519 4 credits.
BU Hub Learn More Quantitative Reasoning II Scientific Inquiry II Teamwork/Collaboration
Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASAR307) - Problem-based course where students apply quantitative methods across archaeological datasets to address complex problems of human-environmental relationships rooted in deep time. Through teamwork-based research projects students develop marketable skills in research design, theory integration, and data analysis and visualization. Effective Spring 2023, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Scientific Inquiry II, Quantitative Reasoning II, Teamwork/Collaboration.
CAS AN 520 4 credits. Spring
Undergraduate Prerequisites: senior standing or consent of instructor. - Explores classic and contemporary studies of Nilotic and Bantu speaking cultures of the middle and upper Nile (Nuer, Dinka, Shilluk, Luo, and others) and, through them, the centrality to anthropology of a British African tradition of ethnography and theory.
CAS AN 521 4 credits. Fall and Spring
Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASAN351 OR CASLX250) or consent of instructor. - Introduction to language in its social context. Methodological and theoretical approaches to sociolinguistics. Linguistic variation in relation to situation, gender, socioeconomic class, context, and ethnicity. Integrating micro- and macro-analysis from conversation to societal language planning.
CAS AN 524 4 credits.
Undergraduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor. - Focuses on language and culture contact in Africa. Provides students with a foundation in the research on contact linguistics, language and culture change, and the relationship between language variation and gender, ethnicity, religion, and youth culture.
CAS AN 530 4 credits.
Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior or senior standing or consent of instructor. - 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.
CAS AN 531 4 credits.
Explores the emergence, expansion, and social dynamics of new middle classes across the developed and developing world. Situates the phenomenon within the context of widespread globalization and against the backdrop of varied on-the-ground ¿conditions of possibility.¿
CAS AN 532 4 credits. Fall
BU Hub Learn More Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy Historical Consciousness Research and Information Literacy
Examines the Islamization of Africa and literary traditions. Students learn about African texts written in the Arabic script (Ajami) and the spread of Islam and its Africanization throughout the continent. Texts written by enslaved Africans in the Americas are examined. Effective Fall 2024 fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship, Historical Consciousness, Research and Information Literacy.
CAS AN 533 4 credits. Fall and Spring
This course offers close readings of classic and recent ethnographic texts to ask: what distinguishes ethnography from other disciplinary traditions of writing about culture and human behavior' How do we see changes in anthropology's theoretical interests reflected (or not) in ethnographic writing' What are the different structural conventions, rhetorical tropes, allegorical patterns, and stylistic strategies used by authors considered to be master ethnographers' Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Social Inquiry II.
CAS AN 534 4 credits. Fall and Spring
Undergraduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor. - Topics in the behavioral evolution of Homo sapiens including social and sexual behavior, tool traditions, diet and hunting, language and intelligence, and locomotion. This course considers (inferred) behavioral traditions that characterized the origin of our genus and of our species.
CAS AN 538 4 credits. Fall and Spring
Four themes of twentieth-century change are explored: demographic growth, the redistribution of population through migration and urbanization, the intensification of resource use, and disasters and recoveries. Classic theories of the processes are related to African data.
CAS AN 548 4 credits.
An introduction to the main themes, states, empires, faiths, and ideologies of the Muslim world.
CAS AN 549 4 credits. Fall and Spring
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 4 credits. Fall and Spring
Undergraduate Prerequisites: CASAN 102 or CASAN 331 or consent of instructor. - Development and structure of the human skeleton in anthropological and archaeological contexts. Basic processes of bone biology and how they are affected by lived experience. Meetings are lab-oriented and develop skill in whole and fragmentary skeletal identification. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Scientific Inquiry I. Effective Fall 2024, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub areas: Ethical Reasoning, Scientific Inquiry I.
CAS AN 551 4 credits.
Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASAN102 OR CASAN233) and consent of instructor. - What can our genes say about who we are' This course surveys the theory and methods of evolutionary genetics and genomics as applied to human diversity, and their intersection with social issues such as racism, bioethics, and eugenics.
CAS AN 552 4 credits. Fall and Spring
Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASAN331 OR CASAN332 OR CASBI302) or consent of instructor. - The evolutionary history of the primate radiation- particularly that of non-human primates -is examined through investigation of the musculoskeletal anatomy of living primates and their fossil relatives. Comparative and biomechanical approaches are used to reconstruct the behavior of extinct species. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Scientific Inquiry I, Critical Thinking.
CAS AN 553 4 credits.
BU Hub Learn More Critical Thinking Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings Scientific Inquiry I
Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASAN102) or consent of instructor. - Language, labor, culture, self-awareness, symbolizing, and other traits have been called uniquely human. But if these things have no animal antecedents, how could they have evolved' Course participants examine this "continuity paradox" and its proposed solutions from Darwin onward. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings, Scientific Inquiry I, Critical Thinking.
CAS AN 554 4 credits.
Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASAN263) or consent of instructor. - Graduate Prerequisites: (CASAN263) or consent of instructor. - Considers ecological perspective on human reproduction Provides a basic understanding of human reproductive biology and discusses current issues about reproduction from a biocultural perspective. Topics: biocultural aspects of sexual behavior, sexually transmitted diseases, and cultural knowledge and practices surrounding reproduction.
CAS AN 555 4 credits.
BU Hub Learn More Oral and/or Signed Communication Scientific Inquiry II Teamwork/Collaboration
Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASAN102 OR CASBI107) or equivalent, and one additional biological anthropology course; or c onsent of instructor. - Why do we get sick' Evolutionary medicine seeks to answer this question by applying modern evolutionary theory to understanding health and disease among contemporary human populations. Topics include chronic and infectious disease, mental illness, allergies, autoimmunity, and drug addiction. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Scientific Inquiry II, Teamwork/Collaboration.
CAS AN 556 4 credits.
BU Hub Learn More Research and Information Literacy Scientific Inquiry II Writing-Intensive Course
Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASAN102 OR CASBI107 OR CASBI108) or consent of instructor. - An investigation of human dietary evolution including primate and human dietary adaptations, nutritional requirements, optimal foraging, digestive physiology, maternal and infant nutrition, hunting and cooking in human evolution, and impacts of food processing and agriculture on modern diets and health. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Scientific Inquiry II, Research and Information Literacy.
CAS AN 556S 4 credits. Summer
BU Hub Learn More Research and Information Literacy Scientific Inquiry II Writing-Intensive Course
Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASAN102 OR CASBI107 OR CASBI108) or consent of instructor. - An investigation of human dietary evolution including primate and human dietary adaptations, nutritional requirements, optimal foraging, digestive physiology, maternal and infant nutrition, hunting and cooking in human evolution, and impacts of food processing and agriculture on modern diets and health. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Scientific Inquiry II, Research and Information Literacy.
CAS AN 557 4 credits. Fall and Spring
Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASAN101 OR CASAN210) or consent of instructor. - Advanced seminar examining global and local challenges and connections that shape patterns of illness/health around the world, including international responses to mental health crises and moral quandaries through ethnographies of mental health care in different settings and treating different conditions. Effective Spring 2023 this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Ethical Reasoning.
CAS AN 558 4 credits.
BU Hub Learn More Oral and/or Signed Communication Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings Research and Information Literacy
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. Effective Spring 2024, 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, Research and Information Literacy.
CAS AN 559 4 credits.
BU Hub Learn More Oral and/or Signed Communication Scientific Inquiry II Teamwork/Collaboration
Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASAN102) or equivalent. - Focuses on current research in the field of evolutionary endocrinology. Examines 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.