Anthropology

• ANTH 102: Cultural Anthropology
• ANTH 142: Local Cultures, Global Forces
• ANTH 277: Gender and Culture

ANTH 102: Cultural Anthropology

Offered fall 2013

This course begins with a look at how cultural anthropologists study cultural settings around the world, and considers the questions of what culture is (as well as what culture is not) and why language is so important. The course also includes an examination of the role of political systems and forms of exchange in cultural variation; a review of how different people are grouped according to social status, including race, gender, class, and age; a look at how religion and ideology play an important role in the conceptualization of culture and our place in the world; and an exploration of the many manifestations of marriage and family across cultures. The final section of the course looks at contemporary manifestations of research in cultural anthropology, including the study of urban culture, applied anthropology, and understanding situations of world conflict. By the end of this course, students will have a greater appreciation for the wonderful variety of human life on Earth, and for everything that we call "human."

Required Texts

• Saitoti, The Worlds of a Maasai Warrior (1988), ISBN 978-0520063259
• Spradley and McCurdy, eds., Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology, 12th edition (2008), ISBN 978-0205449705

The textbooks are not available at Friday Center Books & Gifts. You may purchase them from any local or online bookseller, using the ISBNs to make sure you get the right editions.

Course Details

• Instructor: Karaleah Reichart, PhD
• Department: Anthropology
• Credit hours: 3
• View a sample course syllabus.

How to Enroll

ANTH 142: Local Cultures, Global Forces

Offered fall 2013

This is an introductory level course to a prominent subject in cultural anthropology—how local cultures respond to increasing global pressures. Using a wide array of examples from different cultures around the world, this course will encourage students to think critically about the current world order. Completing this course will help students understand key concepts anthropologists use to examine the tension between local and global interests, critique many standard assumptions about cultural diversity and modernity, and increase their awareness of hidden prejudices and the ways that inequalities operate on a global scale.

Required Texts

• Deng, Deng, and Ajak, They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys from the Sudan (2005)
• Robbins, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, 5th edition (2010)
• Wilson, The Intimate Economies of Bangkok: Tomboys, Tycoons, and Avon Ladies in the Global City (2004)
• NACLA Report on the Americas: The Social Origins of Race: Race and Racism in the Americas, Part I, Volume 34 (6), 2001. (one issue of this journal)

You may purchase the textbooks and journals at Friday Center Books & Gifts in person, online, or by mailing or faxing in the book order form. Refer to the online ordering site for current book prices. Please see Textbooks for textbook purchase dates.

Course Details

• Instructor: Amy Mortensen, PhD
• Department: Anthropology
• Credit hours: 3
• View a sample course syllabus.

How to Enroll

ANTH 277: Gender and Culture

Offered fall 2013

Because all human populations across the world have some things in common and some things that differ, the focus of this course will be to make analytical distinctions among gender ideologies across global societies. By evaluating the “other,” the class will address how human behaviors, including traditions and customs associated with gender, are transmitted through cultural learning. Writing assignments and exams will critically examine the ethnocentrism of gender, the attitude that the arbitrary conventions of how one's own culture defines gender roles are “correct” or “natural,” and that all other cultural patterns are immoral or unnatural.

Course readings deal with important contemporary issues, including how gender is defined cross-culturally; the formation of gay, lesbian, and bisexual identity in non-Western cultures; sexuality and the expression of masculinity and femininity; the dynamic interplay among definitions of kinship and the assignment of gender roles; the conflicting obligations of work and the multifarious manifestations of family and domestic life; and the complicated management of often conflicting identities of gender and ethnicity in modern society.

When you have completed this course, you should be able to

• understand and dispel ethnocentric ideas of gender roles
• evaluate the characteristics of gender in modern culture
• identify and discuss key issues in the cross-cultural study of gender, including race, ethnicity, economics, political systems, and ideology.

Required Texts

• Brettell and Sargent, Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 6th edition, ISBN 978-0205247288.
• Hochschild, The Second Shift (2003 reissue edition)
• Nanda, Neither Man Nor Woman, 2nd edition (1998)
• Lamphere, Ragone, and Zavella, Situated Lives: Gender and Culture in Everyday Life (1997)
• Weston, Families We Choose (1997)
• Mullings, On Our Own Terms: Race, Class, and Gender in the Lives of African-American Women (1996).

Optional Texts

• Allison, Nightwork: Sexuality, Pleasure, and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club (1994)
• Shostak, Nisa: The Life of an !Kung Woman (2000)

The textbooks are not available at Friday Center Books & Gifts. You may purchase them from any local or online bookseller, using the ISBNs to make sure you get the right editions.

Course Details

• Instructor: Karaleah Reichart, PhD
• Department: Anthropology
• Credit hours: 3
• View a sample course syllabus.

How to Enroll