Associate Professor Rosalind H. Shaw, Chair; Sociocultural anthropology, ritual and
religion, gender; West Africa, South Asia
Associate Professor Stephen M. Bailey, Biological and nutritional anthropology;
the Americas, Southeast Asia, China
Associate Professor David M. Guss, Aesthetic anthropology, theory,
cultural performance, myth and ritual, folklore, popular culture, urban
anthropology; Latin America
Associate Professor Deborah Pacini Hernandez, Sociocultural anthropology,
popular music and culture, comparative Latino studies; Spanish Caribbean
Assistant Professor Sarah Pinto, Medical
anthropology, gender, reproduction, health care, body, caste; India
Lecturer Lauren A. Sullivan, Prehistoric archaeology, origins of
complex societies; Mesoamerica
Anthropology provides an understanding of the forms and causes of worldwide human diversity. This diversity, both cultural and biological, is seen in the widest comparative and evolutionary framework. Customarily, the field is divided into cultural anthropology (a social science) and physical anthropology (a natural science). Cultural anthropology in turn is separated into ethnology, archaeology, and linguistics. The anthropology major enables students to view contemporary social and biological problems from an anthropological perspective as part of a liberal education. It also prepares students to pursue graduate studies in anthropology or related fields.
Undergraduate Concentration Requirements
Major in Anthropology
Eleven courses, including Anthropology 10, 20, 30, and 130. Five
additional anthropology courses, at least one of which must be an area course (110 to 123)
and two of which must be seminars (160 or higher). One sociology course; and one course
directly related to the major from another field. The theory course (130) should be taken
no later than the junior year. The department encourages majors to elect a senior thesis,
particularly if they hope to graduate magna or summa cum laude.
Undergraduate Courses
10 Introduction to Sociocultural Anthropology. Cross-cultural analysis of the varieties of human experience in social life. Topics include belief systems and symbolic forms, politics, warfare and social control, family and kinship, subsistence, economic production, and cultural critique. Emphasizes problems inherent in understanding unfamiliar cultures on their own terms. Members of the department
20 Physical Anthropology. Introduction to human biological diversity in living and prehistoric populations. Emphasis is on application of basic evolutionary principles. Topics include the human and primate fossil record, the interplay of biology and culture, adaptation to environmental stresses, basic Mendelian and population genetics, primate behavior, and sociobiology. Bailey
30 Prehistoric Archaeology. (Cross-listed as Archaeology 30.) Survey of human culture from the earliest paleolithic hunters and gatherers to the formation of states and the beginnings of recorded history. Course provides an introduction to archaeological methods, a worldwide overview of prehistoric ways of life, and a more detailed analysis of cultural development in the New World. Sullivan
50 Freshman Seminar. Introductory-level, discussion-based investigation of a selected issue in contemporary sociocultural anthropology, linguistics, physical anthropology, or archaeology. Freshmen only. Members of the department
Courses for Undergraduate and Graduate Students
115 Native Peoples of South America. Indigenous peoples of South America, Andean as well as lowland, with focus on issues of origin, adaptation, language, gender, mythology, art, shamanism, and religion. Attention also on deforestation, indigenous activism, and millennialism. Prerequisite: sophomore standing or consent. Guss
116 Introduction to Latino Cultures. Survey of the social and cultural histories of the various Latino communities currently residing in the United States. Topics include a variety of important issues affecting U.S. Latinos, such as immigration, bilingual education, citizenship and political participation, race, class, gender, ethnicity, and representations in the media. No prerequisites. Pacini Hernandez
118 Culture and Power in Africa. Creative reshaping of African cultural ideas and practices in new historical circumstances. How people address conditions of unequal power such as colonialism, labor migration, and globalization through the dynamic production of religion, ritual, music, art, drama, and other cultural forms. Prerequisite: sophomore standing or consent. Shaw
119 Peoples of the Middle East. Cultures, religious practices, social institutions, and political economies of contemporary Middle Eastern and North African societies. Specific contributions of Middle Eastern ethnography to the understanding of self and society; kinship and politics; tribalism and development of urban life; sexuality and gender roles; religion and worldview. Anthropological contributions to understanding contemporary social change and relationships with the West. Prerequisite: sophomore standing or consent. Members of the department
120 Contemporary Chinese Society. A descriptive and analytical survey of Chinese society in traditional, contemporary, and overseas contexts. China serves as a case study in the anthropological analysis of a complex non-Western society. Topics include family and kinship, religion, political and economic systems, and social change. Prerequisite: sophomore standing or consent. Members of the department
122 Women and Modernity in Asia. Position of women within Asian social systems, as shaped by social structure, economics, and ideology. Examines traditional systems of China, Japan, and Southeast Asia and the impact of widespread literacy and formal education, market penetration, multinational labor recruitment, and nonindigenous ideologies (Christianity, Islam, socialism) on women's lives in contemporary Asia. Prerequisite: sophomore standing or consent. Members of the department
124 American Diversity. Sources, range, and maintenance of human biological variation, using case studies of populations from throughout the Western hemisphere. Impact of changing fertility and mortality; biological effects of social and geographic isolation; inbreeding analyses; relations of assimilation to admixture, problems in correlating ethnicity, race, and appearance; ethnic differences in disease risk. Prerequisite: Anthropology 20 or one biology course. Bailey
126 Food, Nutrition, and Culture. Interplay of the act of eating with its biological and cultural correlates. Topics include subsistence strategies, sex differentials in food intake, and the nutritional impact of modernization; hunger and malnutrition in the developing world; historical and symbolic attributes of food, including taboo, valences, and national cuisines; and the relation of normal and abnormal eating behavior to gender and cultural norms of attractiveness. Prerequisite: one lower-level anthropology course or consent. Bailey
128 Mesoamerican Archaeology. (Cross-listed as Archaeology 128.) An introduction to the archaeology of pre-Columbian cultures of Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico. Focus is on the origins of village life, the development of social complexity, emergence of states, ritual, religion, and culture collapse. Cultures studied include the Olmec, the Maya, the Zapotec, and the Aztec through artifacts, architecture, murals, inscribed monuments, hieroglyphs, and codices. Sullivan
130 The History of Anthropological Thought. The development of anthropological thought in American, British, and French schools of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Historical, evolutionary, materialist, functionalist, structuralist, and symbolic perspectives. Prerequisite: Anthropology 10 or consent. Members of the department
131 Anthropology of Religion. Mid-level course exploring how religious practice and identities are shaped in specific histories, localities, and diasporas in two or more non-western world civilizations. Topics include theories of religion, “religious” ideas and practices among peoples who do not use Western concepts of “religion” or “belief,” politics of religious experience, and religion in the construction of personhood, communities, and ethnic, national, and diasporic identities. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing or consent. Shaw
132 Myth, Ritual, and Symbol. (Cross-listed as Religion 134.) Various approaches to myth, ritual, and symbol including functionalist, structuralist, and psychological. Topics include dreams, landscape shamanism, and fairy tales, along with issues of performance, representation, authenticity, and history. Prerequisite: Sophomore Standing. Guss
135 Visual Anthropology. Development of visual anthropology from early travel documentary forms to more recent multivocal works on video. Relationship between written and visual documents. Viewing classic ethnographic films as well as contemporary films that challenge the classic genre of ethnographic films. Special attention to ethical issues in visual anthropology. Members of the department
137 Language and Culture. Mid-level exploration of social dynamics of interpersonal communication and interaction between language and culture. Examination of linguistic theories, structuralist and semiotic approaches, and discourse analysis. Topics may include gender, ethnicity, race, bilingualism, language acquisition, oral narrative and testimony, organization of informal speech communication, and impact of language on other areas of Anthropology. May include a fieldwork-based project on language use. Members of the department
145 Power, Politics, and Protest. Anthropological perspective on power and authority, and on the economic and social bases of politics. Varieties of political forms, from societies without a formal political sphere to state systems. The colonial encounter. Nationalism in a multiethnic context. Local politics and protest in the context of overarching power systems, both national and global. Prerequisite: Anthropology 10 or consent. Members of the department
146 Latino Music, Migration, and Identity. Analysis of the production, dissemination, and consumption of the most important forms of popular music--mambo, boogaloo, salsa, conjunto, corrido, banda, contemporary rock, and rap--listened to and danced by U.S. Latinos from World War I to the present. Readings, films, and recordings examine the historical and social contexts from which these musical forms have emerged, highlighting the intricate relationship between popular music, migration, and the formation of social and cultural identities. Prerequisites: sophomore standing, plus either one sociocultural anthropology course or one Latin American or Latino studies course. Pacini Hernandez
148 Medical Anthropology. Cultural models of illness, health, deviance, and normality. Institutions of medicine and healing in non-Western contexts and in the contemporary U.S. Using a critical medical anthropological approach, special topics (such as AIDS, madness, and gender-related concerns) will be explored. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing and consent. Members of the department
149 Current Topics in Anthropology. Prerequisites: Anthropology 10 or 20, depending on whether the class focuses on cultural or physical anthropology. Members of the department
150 Human Evolution. Current problems in hominid evolution and adaptation. Topics include hominid origins; paleoecology; competing molecular and anatomical models of H. sapiens; relations between technology, language, and neuroanatomical evolution; range of morphological and physiological variation over time and space; and adaptation to extreme environments. Prerequisite: Anthropology 20 or consent. Bailey
162 Anthropological Approaches to Art and Aesthetics. Aesthetic systems in cross-cultural perspective, including the works of art in societies often having no categories for differentiating such work. Issues of specialization, gender, embeddedness, symbolism, craft versus fine art, and representation (the invention of the "primitive") via examples from the Amazon, the American Northwest, Aboriginal Australia, and the twentieth-century avant-garde. Prerequisite: junior standing or consent. Guss
181 Anthropology and Feminism. Implications of feminist perspectives for anthropological studies of ritual and symbolism, work and exchange, "development," the environment, self and personhood, colonialism, apartheid, class, and sexuality. Relationship between feminist anthropology, postmodernism, and experiments in anthropological fieldwork and writing. Critiques of dominant forms of Western feminism by Third-World feminists. Prerequisites: junior standing and one sociocultural anthropology course, or consent. Shaw
182 Human Physique. Our bodies as adaptive biological landscapes. Growth from conception to adulthood. Genetic and intrauterine determinants of prenatal growth and birth size; impact of extreme environments, undernutrition, and disease on size and shape; sexual dimorphism; quantitative assessment of body composition; interplay between biological and cultural bodies. Prerequisite: Anthropology 20 or consent. Bailey
183 Urban Borderlands: Latino Interethnic Identity. Analysis of the impact of changing patterns of immigration from Latin America to the U.S. on interethnic relations, using as case studies three major U.S. cities (Los Angeles, New York, and Miami). Readings introduce a variety of approaches used for interpreting the increasingly complex ethnic diversity characterizing contemporary urban areas. Students conduct ethnographic field research in selected Latino communities in Boston, documenting their articulation with and contributions to Boston's changing ethnic landscape. Prerequisites: junior standing, plus either one sociocultural anthropology course or one Latin American or Latino studies course. Pacini Hernandez
184 Festivals and Politics in Latin America. Expressions and functions of festive behavior throughout Latin America. The course will penetrate an apparently homogeneous Roman Catholic ideology and demonstrate how widely differing ethnic and political groups use public performance in a non-Western context to express their varied interests. Examples will include Carnival, Corpus Christi, San Juan, Qollur Rit'i, and Yawar Fiesta. Prerequisites: junior standing and one sociocultural anthropology course, or consent. Guss
185 Current Topics in Anthropology. Detailed analysis of a selected issue in contemporary sociocultural anthropology, linguistics, physical anthropology, or archaeology. Open to advanced undergraduate majors and qualified graduate students. Prerequisite: consent. Members of the department
186 Theatres of Community and the Social Production of Place. Project-oriented seminar exploring relation between cultural institutions and creation of a sense of place and community. Examples of built environment such as college campuses, theatres, parks, and monuments explored for their symbolic meanings as well as the charged activities and performances that occur within them. Ethnographic training will enable students to carry out fieldwork to be used in final project presentations. Prerequisites: Junior standing or consent. Guss
187 Place, Race, Memory: The West Medford Afro-American Remembrance Project. Upper-level seminar exploring social memory and memorials through partnership with an African American community initiative in West Medford, the home of one of the oldest African American communities in the U.S. Students document lives and legacies of African American pioneers, entrepreneurs, artists, and community leaders through oral-historical research and through places and objects of memory. Drawing on anthropological perspectives, students examine how broader historical processes structured by race were experienced in specific people’s lives, and the “work” that memories of these people and processes perform today. Prerequisites: Junior standing or consent. Shaw
190 Directed Reading in Anthropology. Prerequisite: consent and at least one anthropology course. Members of the department
197 Directed Research in Anthropology. Areas for directed research may include physical anthropology, social anthropology, and archaeology. Prerequisite: consent. Credit to be arranged. Members of the department
198 Apprenticeship in Anthropological Research. An intensive application of research techniques to projects currently under way with direct supervision. Prerequisite: consent. Credit to be arranged. Members of the department
199 Senior Honors Thesis.