Courses in anthropology help students develop all six essential capacities outlined by BU’s Hub program. Browse our courses by Hub essential capacity below. To learn more about Hub requirements for anthropology students, visit our Hub Resources page here .
Philosophical, Aesthetic, and Historical Interpretation
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 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 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 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 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.
Scientific and Social Inquiry
CAS AN 321 4 credits. Fall and Spring
This class explores the relationship between culture and cognition. We place emphasis on the mechanisms of cultural change and how these affect features of human cognition. In turn, culture itself is shaped and constrained by human cognition. Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry I, Critical Thinking.
CAS AN 323 4 credits. Fall and Spring
Explores East Africa and its people's ways of understanding time, space, and social order. Topics include issues such as settlement order, birth order, inter-generational relations, ritual and ceremony -- as challenged, upheld, and reformed -- and questions of power, authority, belief, and ethics. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry I.
CAS AN 330 4 credits. Fall and Spring
Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASAN102 OR CASBI107) - Life History is the story of the human lifespan. This course uses an evolutionary and comparative framework to understand fundamental features of the human life course, such as birth, growth, sexual maturity, and death. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Scientific Inquiry II, Research and Information Literacy.
CAS AN 331 4 credits. Fall and Spring
Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASAN102 OR CASAR101 OR CASBI107) or equivalent. - Introduction to human paleontology and methods for reconstructing the ancestry, structure, diet, and behavior of fossil primates and humans. Survey of primate and hominid fossils, primate comparative anatomy, radioactive dating, molecular and structural phylogenies, climactic analyses, and comparative behavioral ecology. Effective Spring 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Scientific Inquiry I, Critical Thinking.
CAS AN 333 4 credits. Fall and Spring
BU Hub Learn More Quantitative Reasoning II Research and Information Literacy Scientific Inquiry II
Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CAS AN102 OR AN233 OR CAS BI108 AND either BI206 OR BI216). - This course uses human genomic variation as a framework for better understanding our evolutionary history. Using hands-on population genetic analyses, we will analyze real human genomic data from the 1000 Genomes Project to investigate the evolutionary patterns underlying human diversity. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Quantitative Reasoning II, Scientific Inquiry II, Research and Information Literacy.
Diversity, Civic Engagement, and Global Citizenship
CAS AN 319S 4 credits.
BU Hub Learn More Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy Historical Consciousness
Prereq: (CAS AN 101) or other anthropology course. Examines Muslim societies' ongoing struggle over the forms and meanings of Muslim culture and politics, as well as its implications for religious authority, gender ideals, and new notions of citizenship, civil society, and democracy.
CAS AN 320 4 credits.
BU Hub Learn More Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy Research and Information Literacy Social Inquiry I
A cross-cultural approach to the diversity and complexity of women's lives in the Muslim world, including the United States. Looks at issues such as gender equality, civil society and democracy, sex segregation and sexual politics, kinship and marriage, and veiling. Effective Spring 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry I, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Research and Information Literacy.
CAS AN 327 4 credits. Fall and Spring
BU Hub Learn More Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy Historical Consciousness Research and Information Literacy
Examines the Islamization of Africa and the processes of adaptation of Islam in the continent. It examines the religious beliefs, cultures, and histories of Muslim communities in Morocco, Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Ethiopia, Senegal, and the Sudan, among others. Effective Spring 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Historical Consciousness, Research and Information Literacy.
CAS AN 344 4 credits. Fall
BU Hub Learn More Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy Historical Consciousness Writing-Intensive Course
Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120) - Contemporary Japanese society examined through social institutions such as family, school and workplace. Looking at social and historical change through critical moments in Japan's modern history, we examine the experiences of individuals through social class, gender, and the impact of globalization. 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, Historical Consciousness.
CAS AN 347 4 credits.
Ethnographic and historical examination of Afghanistan's traditional social, political and economic organization as a basis for understanding an era of political turmoil, civil wars and foreign interventions in that country over the past 50 years and the country’s future. Effective Fall 2023, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU HUB area: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy.