Foundations Courses
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ANTH 1010 Introduction to Anthropology
This is a broad introductory course covering race, language, and culture, both as intellectual concepts and as political realities. Topics include race and culture as explanations of human affairs, the relationship of language to thought, cultural diversity and cultural relativity, and cultural approaches to current crises.
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ANTH 3010 Theory and History of Anthropology
This course is designed for students who are majoring in anthropology. It presents a broad historical outline of major theoretical approaches in the field, from the late 19th century to the present. These approaches will be examined in relation to both evolving debates within the discipline, and the larger historical, cultural and intellectual contexts in which they were produced, and which they to some degree reflect; we will also discuss the enduring relevance of these theories. The course stresses close reading of primary texts and emphasizes in particular the critical analysis of these texts' arguments. The discussion section is obligatory. This is a required course for anthropology majors. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 3020 Using Anthropology
The theoretical, methodological and ethical practice of an engaged anthropology is the subject of this course, We begin with a history of applied anthropology. We then examine case studies that demonstrate the unique practices of contemporary sociocultural, linguistic, archaeological and bioanthropological anthropology in the areas of policy and civic engagement.
Socio-cultural
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ANTH 2120 The Concept of Culture
Culture is the central concept that anthropologists use to understand the striking differences among human societies and how people organize the meaningful parts of their lives. In this course we explore this diversity, examine its basis in neuroplasticity and human development, and consider its implications for human nature, cognition, creativity, and identity. By learning about other cultures, we gain new understanding of ourselves.
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ANTH 2190 Desire and World Economics
This course offers an insight into the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services practiced by peoples ignored or unknown to classic Western economics. Its principle focus will open upon the obvious differences between cultural concepts of the self and the very notion of its desire. Such arguments as those which theorize on the "rationality" of the market and the "naturalness" of competition will be debunked. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 2210 Marriage and Family
This course compares domestic groups in Western and non-Western societies. Considers the kinds of sexual unions legitimized in different cultures, patterns of childrearing, causes and effects of divorce, and the changing relations between the family and society. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 2280 Medical Anthropology
Medical Anthropology is a growing and important new subfield within general anthropology. Medical Anthropology compares different cultures' ideas about illness and curing. Although disease is a concept referring to a pathological condition of the body in which functioning is disturbed, illness is a cultural concept: a condition marked by deviation from what is considered a normal, healthy state. Treatment of illness in Western industrial societies focuses on curing specific diseased organs or controlling a specific virus. In many so-called "traditional" societies greater emphasis is placed on the social and psychological dimensions of illness. In this course we will learn that different cultures, even in the United States have different ways to talk about illness, and that the American medical community is at times as "culture bound" as anywhere. "Science" does not stand outside culture. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 2291 Global Culture and Public Health
This course is an introduction to the rapidly expanding anthropological subfield of medical anthropology. It explores how social, cultural, economic, and political factors shape experiences of illness and health in a comparative and transnational manner. This course will show students how illness is understood and perceived in different socio-cultural contexts. It will address how notions of the body, practices of care, and socio-political conditions influence illness experiences and health outcomes. By considering biomedicine alongside other cultural medical systems, students will learn that there is more to health and illness than biology. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 2320 Anthropology of Religion
Ritual provides the characteristic approach of anthropology to the comparative study of religion, and the analysis of ritual is anthropology's major contribution to that project. Everywhere ritual permeates social life, yet in no other category of behavior is the exoticness of other cultures more in evidence. This course asks commonsense questions about religion and ritual, and shows how far we have come towards answering them in a century of theorizing. There are no prerequisites for this course, which is designed to be accessible to those with no background in anthropology. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 2325 Anthropology of God
How does the study of society and culture create an intellectual space for any explanation and experience of the Divine? How does anthropology deal specifically with explaining (rather than the explaining away) knowledge and understanding about divinity? Is God an American? If God has a gender and race, what are they? These and many other pertinent questions will be engaged and tackled in this cross-cultural study of the divine. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 2340 Anthropology of Birth and Death
Relevant anthropological approaches, studies and perspectives are discussed for understanding crucial human life-cycle events and related issues in today's social life. Comparative social-religious-ritual, bio-cultural, and medical anthropological approaches will be pursued to explicate (a) human reproduction issues, birthing and child-rearing practices; (b) race, caste, gender and aging inequalities; (c) food, nutrition and self-image issues; and (d) qualities of life, dying, death and afterlife issues. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 2365 Art and Anthropology
The course will emphasize art in small-scale (contemporary) societies (sometimes called ethnic art or “primitive art”). It will include a survey of aesthetic productions of major areas throughout the world (Australia, Africa, Oceania, Native America, Meso-America). We will also read about and discuss such issues as art (and architecture) and cultural identity, tourist arts, anonymity, authenticity, the question of universal aesthetic cannons, exhibiting cultures, the difference between the bellas artes and arte popular, and the impact of globalization on these arts. The class will visit the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection, the Inuit Study Gallery, the Fralin Museum storage facility on Millmont, and the Object Study Gallery at the UVA Art Museum. (The student should also try and travel to Washington D.C. to visit the National Museum of the American Indian and the National Museum of African Art [extra credit possible]. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 3129 Marriage, Mortality, Fertility
This course will explore the ways that culturally formed systems of values and family organization affect population processes in a variety of cultures. Topics to be discussed will include (1) marriage strategies and alternatives, the problem of unbalanced sex ratios at marriageable age, systems of polygamy and polyandry, divorce, widowhood and remarriage; (2) fertility decision making, premodern methods of birth control and spacing, infanticide; (3) disease history, the impact of epidemics and famine, the differential impact of mortality by gender, age, and class, the impact of improved nutrition and modern medicine; (4) migration, regional systems, and variation through time and space in the structure of populations. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 3320 Shamanism, Healing, and Ritual
The course delves into the sources of shamanism and ritual healing. It provides understanding of their different logic, and therefore why they communicate and heal. The class brings to life the reports and experiences of contemporary non-Western shamanic and healing rituals, maintaining respect for native interpretations in order to understand the effectiveness of their rituals. We will emphasize the human, personal experience of the events as living processes, and will use the in-depth studies of scholars who have become more than academics and who sometimes participate as practitioners of the crafts about which they seek knowledge. The experiencing and practicing of shamanism and healing being the actual life of these crafts, we will learn how to approximate a sense of these rituals by enacting them. A term paper is required, also a book presentation and short papers during the term. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 3152 Rainforests of Flesh, Peoples of Spirit
Native Lowland South American people have been portrayed as "animistic", "totemic", "shamanic", "mythologic", "Dreauduan", "slash and burn horticulturalists", "stateless", "gentle", "fierce", and much more. What do these anthropological portraits mean and what do they contribute to the collective body of Western intellectual thought? Is there any relation between such thinking and the experience of being "Indian" in Amazonian societies? Are there any other ways of understanding the Amazonian social experiences? This course addresses these questions through a reading of the ethnography of the region. This course will satisfy the non-western perspectives requirement. (3.0 Units)
Archaeology
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ANTH 2800 Introduction to Archaeology
This course introduces the history and goals of archaeological research, different theoretical approaches to the study of ancient societies and culture change, and archaeological methods. Alongside this study of archaeological method and theory, we will explore major transformations in human history through archaeological case studies and discoveries from important sites worldwide. The class meets as a lecture on Monday and Wednesday and students take an additional mandatory discussion section. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 3840 Archaeology of the Middle East
We explore the prehistory and early history of the Middle East and Egypt, focusing mainly on the period from ca. 11,000 to 4000 BP. Through both lectures and discussion, we will examine archaeological research and findings on the origins of food production (the domestication of plants and animals), the earliest village communities, the origins of social ranking, the advent of state societies, urbanism and the origins of writing systems. (3.0 Units)
Linguistic Anthropology
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ANTH 2400 Language and Culture
A survey of topics having to do with the relationship between language, culture, and society. We will consider both how language is described and analyzed by linguists and how evidence from language can shed light on a variety of social, cultural, and cognitive phenomena. Topics include: nature of language, origins of language, how languages change, writing systems, use of linguistic evidence to make inferences about prehistory, the effects of linguistic categories on thought and behavior, regional and social variation in language, and cultural rules for communication. Course includes an plus obligatory discussion section. Satisfies the College Non-Western perspectives requirement. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 2410 Sociolinguistics
Every "single" living language is in practice an unbounded array of linguistic forms, functions, and feelings distributed unequally among speakers. Sociolinguists take such variety and inequality as starting points for investigating language as a crucially social (rather than essentially mental) phenomenon. In this introductory course, we will survey how languages vary through time, across space, and among social groups while also thinking about how times, spaces, and social groups are themselves shaped by linguistic variation. No background in linguistics or anthropology is required. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 2420 Language and Gender
In many societies, differences in pronunciation, vocabulary choice, and/or communicative style serve as social markers of gender identity and differentiation. We will compare gender differences in our own society with those in other societies including non-Western ones. Topics to be addressed include: the relation between gender difference and gender inequality (in scholarly discussion of language as well as in language itself); intersection of gender, race, and social class in language use; gender and non-verbal communication (including representations of gender in advertising and the media); issues of nature vs. nurture in explaining these differences. Requirements will include one or two papers based on fieldwork conducted jointly with a working group, participation in the required discussion section, and a take-home essay question exam focusing on the course readings and lectures. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 2470 Reflections of Exile: Jewish Languages and their Communities
Covers Jewish languages Yiddish, Judeo-Arabic, Ladino, and Hebrew from historical, linguistic, and literary perspectives Explores the relations between communities and languages, the nature of diaspora, and the death and revival of languages. No prior knowledge of these languages is required. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 3480 Language and Prehistory
This course covers the basic principles of diachronic linguistics - the study of how languages change over time - and discusses the uses of linguistic data in the reconstruction of prehistory. We will consider the use of linguistic evidence in tracing prehistoric population movements, in demonstrating contact among prehistoric groups, and in the reconstruction of daily life. To the extent that the literature permits, examples and case studies will be drawn from the Mayan language area of Central America, and will include discussion of the pre-Columbian Mayan writing system and its ongoing decipherment. This course fulfills the linguistics distribution requirement for Anthropology majors and for Cognitive Science majors. It also fulfills the comparative-historical requirement for Linguistics majors. (3.0 Units)
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ANTH 3490 Language and Thought
There is almost always more than one way to think about any problem. But could speaking a particular language make some strategies and solutions seem more natural than others to individuals? Can we learn about alternative ways of approaching the external world by studying other languages? The classic proposal of linguistic relativity as enunciated by Benjamin Lee Whorf is examined in the light of recent cross-cultural psycholinguistic research. This class fulfills the Linguistics requirement for Anthropology and for Cognitive Science majors. It fulfills the Theory requirement for Linguistics majors. (3.0 Units)
Majors Seminar
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ANTH 4591 Majors seminar
The majors seminars in anthropology offer majors and minors an opportunity to engage deeply with a topic of anthropological concern. Through these courses anthropology students gain experience in doing an independent research project on a topic they care about and produce a significant paper or other major work. Enrollment for majors and minors is preferred.