UW Bothell Course Descriptions
UW Tacoma Course Descriptions
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Detailed course offerings (Time Schedule) are available for
ANTH 100 Introduction to Anthropology (5) SSc
Introduction to the subfields of archaeology, biocultural anthropology, and sociocultural anthropology through the examination of selected problems in human physical, cultural, and social evolution. Not recommended for students who have had other courses in anthropology, archaeology, or biocultural anthropology. Course equivalent to: T ANTH 101.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 100
ANTH 101 Exploring Sociocultural Anthropology (5) SSc, DIV
Introduces perspectives from sociocultural anthropology on the diversity and the dynamics of collective human life. Examines how individual lives are shaped by broader social and cultural contexts, how people make meaning, and how power relations work. Introduces ethnography as a method for documenting and understanding social and cultural life.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 101
ANTH 150 Culture and Rights: Exploring the Meaning and Practice of Human Rights (5) SSc, DIV
Examines social justice issues with the aim of obtaining deeper understanding of human rights. Analyzes historical and theoretical foundations and introduces international and regional institutions designed to implement and enforce human rights. Case studies in sovereignty, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, genocide, torture, truth commissions, and forgiveness.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 150
ANTH 202 Principles of Sociocultural Anthropology (5) SSc
Comparison of life ways of various non-Western and Western peoples. Introduction to basic theories and methods used in the field.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 202
ANTH 203 Introduction to Anthropological Linguistics (5) SSc/A&H
Linguistic methods and theories used within anthropology. Basic structural features of language; human language and animal communication compared; evidence for the innate nature of language. Language and culture: linguistic relativism, ethnography of communication, sociolinguistics. Language and nationalism, language politics in the United States and elsewhere. Offered: jointly with LING 203.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 203
ANTH 204 Reading Ethnography (5) SSc
Introduction to the descriptive and analytic literature of cultural anthropology. Extended examination of representative accounts of the lifeway of peoples from selected areas of the world with an emphasis on methods of observation and analysis.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 204
ANTH 206 The Cultural Animal (5) SSc/NSc
Examination of the interaction between biology and culture in shaping human social behavior. Basic principles of natural selection, gene-environment interaction, cultural transmission, learning, and cultural evolution; application of these to various topics, including gender, violence, politics, kinship, and religion.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 206
ANTH 207 Class and Culture in America (5) SSc, DIV
Anthropological view of the contemporary United States with emphasis on social class. Through ethnographic readings examines education, work, political economy, working class experience and the ideology of the middle class, and relations between class and race, gender, ethnicity, language, place, sexuality, and culture.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 207
ANTH 208 The Culture Concept (5) SSc
History of the culture concept and its use in the field of cultural anthropology. History of its emergence in European colonial expansion and contemporary debates about its place as the central concept defining the field of anthropology.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 208
ANTH 209 Anthropology through Visual Media (5) A&H/SSc
Theories of culture and cultural variation, as seen and understood through visual media such as films, video, and photography.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 209
ANTH 210 Introduction to Environmental Anthropology (5) NSc/SSc
Introduction to human/environment interactions from various anthropological perspectives. Intellectual history of anthropological approaches to environment, emphasizing the mutual interconnectedness of people and nature. Survey of evolutionary models; cultural ecology; systems approaches; indigenous knowledge; ethnoecology; nature and the state; political ecology; ecofeminism; and environmentalism.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 210
ANTH 211 Environmental Justice (5) SSc, DIV
Examines introductory studies of environmental racism and ecological injustice in the United States and select areas of the world. Reviews environmental justice theories and methods applied to risk science, ecosystem management, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable development. Includes comparative studies of social movements for "eco-justice." Offered: jointly with AES 211/ENVIR 211.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 211
ANTH 213 Anthropology and Sport (5) SSc, DIV
Introduces theories, methods, and findings of sociocultural anthropology through a focus on sport. Considers sport as linked to identities, nationalism, gender, race, class, religion, and other issues. Explores cultural rituals of sport, potentials and obstacles to sport transcending social differences, and sport's role in education, youth development, and community building.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 213
ANTH 215 Introduction to Medical Anthropology and Global Health (5) SSc, DIV
Explores influences of global processes on health of U.S. and other societies from a social-justice perspective. Emphasizes inter-relationships between cultural, environmental, social-economic, political, and medical systems that contribute to health status, outcomes, policies, and healthcare delivery. Focuses on health disparities within and between societies and communities around the world.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 215
ANTH 228 Identities: Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality in Anthropology (5) SSc, DIV
An introduction to the study of race, class, gender, and sexuality in anthropology. Through ethnographic and theoretical readings, students are introduced to the concept of identity as intersectional construction and social performance.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 228
ANTH 233 Introduction to Language and Society (5) A&H, DIV
Introduces the study of sociolects, the varieties of language that arise from differences in cultural and societal groups, often reflective of power inequalities. Raises awareness of the role that society and the individual play in shaping sociolects via the systematic observation and critical discussion of linguistic phenomena. Offered: jointly with COM 233/LING 233; A.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 233
ANTH 235 Global Feminist Art (5) SSc/A&H, DIV
Introduces feminism as a way of thinking about visual art practice in terms of social hierarchy, aesthetic form, and ideology. Explores how feminist artists working in diverse locations and cultural traditions challenge, at the local and global level, artistic conventions and representations of gender, sexuality, race, class, and nationality. Offered: jointly with GWSS 235.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 235
ANTH 236 The Mystery behind the Material World (5) SSc
Things are everywhere. We make them and they also make us. Things are evocative, aesthetic, and unnerving. They define us. We need them to communicate, to remember, to govern. But things need us too. This course is an introduction to the study of things, architecture, and so on from an interdisciplinary perspective. Topics such as identity, memory, commodities/gifts, cognition, and agency are explored through the analysis of the material world. Offered: jointly with ARCHY 236.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 236
ANTH 269 Special Topics in Anthropology (3-5, max. 10) SSc
Delineation and analysis of a specific problem or related problems in anthropology.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 269
ANTH 280 Cultures of Global Capital (5) SSc
Designed to introduce students to the study of cross-border phenomenon including global capital, migration, international philanthropy, and terrorism from an anthropological perspective. Introduces theories of globalization and the approaches anthropologists have taken in studying patterns of movement and circulation.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 280
ANTH 289 Identities: Service Learning (3) SSc
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 289
ANTH 301 Human Nature and Culture (3) SSc
Comparison of various anthropological perspectives on the sources of variation in customs, values, and beliefs of human groups, including non-Western peoples and contemporary Americans.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 301
ANTH 302 Body and Soul: Introduction to Medical Anthropology and Global Health as Social Justice Praxis (5) SSc, DIV
Examines health/sickness patterns as intersecting cultural norms, ideology, social structure, life course, political economy, and environmental conditions unfolding on terrains of inequality mediated by power and representations. Critical analysis of med-anthropology ethnography as practice and theory. Surveys the field across ranging global contexts. Students build frameworks for solving urgent human problems.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 302
ANTH 303 Technologies of Health (5) SSc/A&H
Ethnographic, historical, and philosophical approaches to the study of technologies in biomedical sciences and care. Topics include infrastructures, colonialism development, reproduction, race, gender, disability, subjectivities, visualization, and diagnosis. Prerequisite: ANTH 208, ANTH 215, or ANTH 302. Offered: AWSp.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 303
ANTH 304 Anthropology of Beauty (5) SSc, DIV
What is beautiful? Who creates the standard(s)? How have the standards changed? How does race/ethnicity, gender, class, age, sexuality and (dis)ability intersect with this notion of beauty? Explores the augmentation/modification/transformation of the 'abnormal' body. Includes a critical look at structures and institutions that create and perpetuate beauty ideals.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 304
ANTH 305 Anthropology of the Body (5) SSc
Surveys classic anthropological literature examining the relationship between culture and the body. Examines Euroamerican body culture historically. Explores how the body is represented in mass media and the effects this has on everyday body ideologies.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 305
ANTH 306 The Power of Representation: Pacific Islander Voices (5) A&H/SSc, DIV
Focuses on how Pacific Islands and Islanders are being represented by Pacific Islander artists, writers, performers, poets, filmmakers, and scholars. By creatively challenging older dominant misrepresentations in ways these individuals are fashioning new identities that transform images and identities, as well as extend the boundaries of "the Pacific."
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 306
ANTH 307 U.S. Pacific Islander Contemporary Culture (5) SSc, DIV
Examines United States Pacific Islander culture as informed by Pacific history, social and cultural organization. Emphasis on understanding contemporary experience in the United States and other diaspora communities. Major themes include post-colonialism, migration, family, religion, politics, gender, education, and transnational identify. Offered: jointly with AAS 300; Sp.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 307
ANTH 308 The Anthropology of Gender, Women's Health, and Reproduction (5) SSc, DIV
Examines anthropological approaches to improving women's health by surveying women's health history, status, and participation in healthcare. Analyzes a range of health issues, including reproductive healthcare problems, women's body images and sexuality, current health policies, as related to daily structures and relationships of gender, race/ethnicity, class.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 308
ANTH 309 Indigenous Epistemologies and Oceanic Canoes (5) A&H/SSc, DIV
Like a western textbook, outrigger canoes carry scientific knowledge and ingenuity holistic in scope, and intertwined with community and environmental relationships. Centers on Oceanic writers, artists, weavers, and canoe builders. Students engage in group research to help celebrate and build awareness for the intellectual contributions of Pacific Islanders.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 309
ANTH 310 Native North American Societies (5) SSc, DIV
Traditional cultures of America north of Mexico, emphasizing diversity of North American Indian and Eskimo societies. Origins of Native-American culture areas and language groupings; subsistence systems; levels of social organization; European conquest and colonialism; and description of representative cultures from the ten culture areas.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 310
ANTH 311 The Cultural Politics of Diet and Nutrition (5) SSc
Examines current debates within the United States about what dietary guidelines are optimal for human health; how changing conceptions of individual responsibility and political life are framing these debates; how social movements for food sovereignty are changing food practices: and how eaters define their ethics through food. Offered: AWSpS.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 311
ANTH 312 Pacific Islands Literature and Film (5) A&H/SSc, DIV
Examines the Pacific through a detailed consideration of creative works by contemporary Pacific writers and filmmakers. Topics include cultural identity; colonialism and its effects on Indigenous peoples, land, wellness, family, and community; and the importance of knowing where you come from.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 312
ANTH 313 Peoples of Africa (5) SSc
Survey of the many cultures of pre- and post-colonial sub-Saharan Africa. Appreciation of the adaptability, strength, and creativity of African peoples.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 313
ANTH 314 Ethnography, Transnationalism, and Community in Island Southeast Asia/Asian America (5) SSc, DIV
Ethnographic exploration of the transformative processes of transnationalism in relation to identity and community formation in Southeast Asia and among Southeast Asian Americans. Experiential learning format concentrates on mini-ethnographic projects, field trips, and group presentations. Prerequisite: either one 200-level ANTH course or one AAS/AES course. Offered: jointly with AAS 314.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 314
ANTH 315 Southeast Asian Civilization: Buddhist and Vietnamese (5) SSc, DIV
Civilizations of Theravada Buddhist societies in Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos and in Vietnamese societies of Southeast Asia. Culture of tribal peoples who live on peripheries of these societies. Cultural transformations consequent upon the war in Indochina and resettlement of Indochinese refugees in United States. Offered: jointly with JSIS A 315.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 315
ANTH 316 Modern South Asia (5) SSc
Twentieth-century history and society of Indian subcontinent. Topics include nationalism, rural and urban life, popular culture, gender, and environmental politics. Offered: jointly with JSIS A 316.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 316
ANTH 317 Anthropology of Tibetan Civilization (5) SSc
Introduces the basic features of Tibetan society and culture, exploring how the global debate over Tibet's past, present, and future relates to contemporary concerns in anthropology, through the examination of Tibetan history, social and political organization, religion, and other cultural themes in both traditional and contemporary contexts.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 317
ANTH 318 Anthropology of Islam and Muslim Societies (3/5) SSc
Examines diverse expression and experiences of Islam from anthropological perspective. Considers Islam as a lived experience by emphasizing everyday lives of Muslims in context through ethnographic accounts. Covers range of issues including identity, rituals, gender, and political Islam. Prerequisite: one 200-level anthropology course.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 318
ANTH 321 Comparative Religion (3/5) SSc
Anthropological approaches to religious experience and belief with emphasis on conceptual issues such as ritual, symbolism, identity, ecstatic experience, and revitalization movements in the context of globalization. Also addresses the diversity of religious expression in American culture and how that compares with other societies. Offered: jointly with RELIG 321.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 321
ANTH 322 Comparative Study of Death (5) SSc
Death analyzed from a cross-cultural perspective. Topics include funerary practices, concepts of the soul and afterlife, cultural variations in grief, cemeteries as folk art, and medical and ethical issues in comparative context. American death practices compared to those of other cultures. Offered: jointly with RELIG 320.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 322
ANTH 323 Human Rights Law in Culture and Practice (5) SSc, DIV
Introduces the complexities of issues surrounding human rights. Examines human rights concerns through critical analyses, taking into account legal, social, economic, and historical variables. Offered: jointly with LSJ 321.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 323
ANTH 324 Current Issues in Medical Anthropology and Global Health (2, max. 4) SSc
Guest speakers showcase local expertise in the field. Speakers share information about the path that led them to research in MAGH, and raise current research questions in their field of expertise. Credit/no-credit only.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 324
ANTH 325 Indigenous Knowledge and Public Health in Mexican and Latinx Origin Communities (5) SSc, DIV
Critical medical anthropologies of public health through environmental justice/decolonial methods and groundings in ethnoscientific knowledge. Forces impinging on 'racialized' health regimes in Mexican/Latinx communities through study of structural violence, historical trauma and related disparities and inequities. Emphasis on healthcare and caring labor via decolonial critiques of settler colonialism, commodification, and indigenous survivance. Recommended: CHSTU 101 or ANTH 215. Offered: jointly with CHSTU 322; W.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 325
ANTH 328 Gender and Sexuality in China (5) SSc, DIV
Explores gender and sexuality in China's process of modernization, from the late Qing dynasty through the building of the Republic, Communist revolution, and post-Mao economic reform. Examines, through historical, anthropological, and cultural studies scholarship, the centrality of these social constructs in terms of family, state, labor, body, and ethnicity. Offered: jointly with GWSS 328/JSIS A 328.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 328
ANTH 330 Religion, Identity, and Cultural Pluralism (5) SSc, DIV
The role of religion in shaping personal and communal identity in a pluralistic society. Themes include current dimensions of American pluralism, effects of ethnicity, immigration, and electronic communication on building religious communities, and issues of conflict, violence, and reconciliation. Offered: jointly with RELIG 329.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 330
ANTH 331 Topics in Critical Sport Studies and Research (5) SSc
Sport-related research. Students apply theory to critique the practices and global impacts of sport with emphasis on making sport more democratic, inclusive, accessible, and humane. Prerequisite: ANTH 213.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 331
ANTH 339 Social Movements in Contemporary India (5) SSc, DIV
Covers issues of social change, economic development, and identity politics in contemporary India studied through environmental and women's movements. Includes critiques of development and conflicts over forests, dams, women's rights, religious community, ethnicity, and citizenship. Offered: jointly with GWSS 339/JSIS A 339.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 339
ANTH 341 Political Violence and the Post-Colonial State in South Asia (5) SSc, DIV
Examines theoretical approaches to the analysis of collective, state, and anti-state violence in post-colonial South Asia through the study of specific cases of political violence in modern India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. Offered: jointly with JSIS A 341.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 341
ANTH 345 Women and International Economic Development (5) SSc, DIV
Questions how women are affected by economic development in the Third World and celebrates redefinitions of what development means. Introduces theoretical perspectives and methods to interrogate gender and development policies. Assesses current processes of globalization and potential for changing gender and economic inequalities. Offered: jointly with GWSS 345/JSIS B 345.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 345
ANTH 352 Buddhism and Society: The Theravada Buddhist Tradition in South and Southeast Asia (5) SSc
Religious tradition of Theravada Buddhism (as practiced in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia). Variations in ethical orientations developed through Theravada Buddhist ideas. Offered: jointly with RELIG 356.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 352
ANTH 353 Feminist Anthropology (5) SSc, DIV
Explores the history and contemporary practice of feminist ethnography at the interdisciplinary intersection of anthropology and gender studies. Examines how the inclusion of women, as subjects and researchers, has influenced anthropological knowledge production, and how the cross-cultural imperative of anthropology has influenced understandings of gender, sexuality, and race. Offered: jointly with GWSS 353.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 353
ANTH 356 Visual Anthropology (3/5) A&H/SSc
Introduction to the history of Visual Anthropology as a sub-discipline. Students will learn to critically analyze ethnographic film and still photographs, and will become familiar with a range of approaches anthropologists use in producing visual ethnography.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 356
ANTH 357 Cultures of Central Eurasia (5) SSc, DIV
Introduces Central Eurasia with a focus on the cultural diversity and societies of the Central Asian republics and Inner Asia (Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Tibet) as well as the adjacent areas of Afghanistan and Iran. Addresses intercultural dynamics, historic inequities, centers of power vs. margins, impact of colonialism on traditional cultures, contemporary inequalities, marginalities and their sociological and political ramifications. Offered: jointly with JSIS A 357/MELC 357.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 357
ANTH 358 Culture and Cognition (5) SSc/NSc
Surveys anthropological theories and research on the relationship between language, thought, and behavior. Examines the influence of cultural inheritance on perception, classification, inference, and choice. Describes relevant cross-cultural research methods and evaluates theoretical models used by cognitive anthropologists. Prerequisite: either ANTH 203, LING 203, or PSYCH 355.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 358
ANTH 359 Linguistic Ethnography (5) SSc
Language use in cultural contexts. How language reflects world view. Language use in culturally significant settings. Analyzes sets of culturally specific terms in semantic domains. Includes projects demonstrating application of theory and method to data addressing specific problems. Workshop format.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 359
ANTH 360 Anthropology of Popular Culture (5) SSc
Analysis of the forces that shape popular culture. Examination of the local meanings of global trends in music, clothing, and leisure activities through case studies around the world. Students learn ethnographic methods and conduct an original research project.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 360
ANTH 361 Anthropology of Food (5) SSc
Explores how foods reproduce social relations, the meanings food acquires within culture, how food systems are intertwined with structures of power and economic inequality, national cuisines and restaurant cultures, the global marketing of foods, controversies surrounding GMO foods, and alternative food communities. Prerequisite: one 200-level ANTH course.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 361
ANTH 362 Anthropology of Tourism (5) SSc, DIV
Anthropological approaches to tourism. Debates about cultural encounters and cultural change, authenticity, economic development, social inequalities, identity, gender, ethnicity, nationality, and cultural representation. Prerequisite: one 200-level ANTH course.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 362
ANTH 363 Applied Visual Anthropological Practices (5) A&H/SSc
Using applied visual anthropological practices in hands-on training students will learn and gain field experience in using photographic techniques before going out to do research.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 363
ANTH 368 Mythical Figures and Cultural Formations (3) SSc
Anthropological perspective on the social and cultural formation of a variety of mythical figures. Examines their emergence and historical specificity, cultural meaning, and social implications. Emphasizes narrative in considering how contemporary institutions and public perceptions of danger are shaped by notions of "character" and the "monstrous."
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 368
ANTH 369 Special Problems in Anthropology (3-5, max. 10) SSc
Delineation and analysis of a specific problem or related problems in sociocultural anthropology.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 369
ANTH 370 Han Chinese Society and Culture (5) SSc
Themes in the society and culture of the Han Chinese people. Concepts of self; personal interaction; family, gender, and marriage; communities and the state; religion and ritual; class, social categories, and social mobility; culturalism, nationalism, and patriotism. Offered: jointly with JSIS A 370.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 370
ANTH 371 Anthropology of Development (5) SSc
Development refers to social, economic, cultural, political transformations viewed as progress. Studied from anthropological perspectives. Historical, social context for emergence of ideas of development. Role of development in promoting national cultures. Impact of development on individual citizenship, families, rural-urban relations, workers, business, environment. Prerequisite: one 200-level ANTH course. Offered: jointly with ENVIR 371.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 371
ANTH 373 Labor, Identity, and Knowledge in Healthcare (5) SSc
Presents anthropological perspectives on provision of healthcare as a complex social phenomena. Examines division of labor, and how social groups come to occupy particular positions. Considers how knowledge and skills are gained, how they are recognized and valued, and may become sources of identity. Prerequisite: one 200-level ANTH course.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 373
ANTH 374 Narrative, Literature, and Medical Anthropology (5) SSc
Introduces anthropological perspectives on the workings of narrative in illness, healing, and medicine. Considers writings in medical anthropology alongside other genres of writing about similar topics. Readings include memoirs and fiction as well as scholarly articles.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 374
ANTH 375 Comparative Systems of Healing (5) SSc
Introduction to the anthropological study of healing. Examines local approaches to healing, considering their similarities and differences, and addresses their place within global systems. Includes anthropological theories of healing.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 375
ANTH 376 Anthropology of Disability (5) SSc, DIV
Introduces anthropological perspectives on disability. Considers disability as produced through the interaction of bodily impairments with social structures, political economies, cultural norms and values, individual and group identities, institutional orders, medical practices, assistive technologies, and other factors. Considers ethnographic studies of disability in international as well as U.S. settings.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 376
ANTH 377 Anthropology and International Health (5) SSc
Explores international health from medical anthropological perspective, focusing on serious health problems facing resource-poor societies around the globe and in the United States. Develops awareness on political, socio-economic, ecological, and cultural complexity of most health problems and anthropology's consequent role in the field of international health.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 377
ANTH 378 Sustainability, Resilience, and Society (5)
Introduction to concepts of sustainability and resilience and their relevance to environment and society in the current Anthropocene era. Understanding sustainability and resilience through ecological footprints, lessons from small-scale societies, case studies of resource management, theory of common property regimes, philosophies of environmental stewardship, and implications of climate change.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 378
ANTH 380 Subject, Person, Place: Introduction to Social Theory (3) SSc
Introduces contemporary critical thinkers in anthropology. Includes works on governmentality and discipline; politics and bare life; race and recognition; gender and embodiment; and capitalism and subjectivity. Develops an understanding of how contemporary theory frames anthropology and skills in critical spoken and written analysis.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 380
ANTH 394 Embodied Liberation Theory and Praxis (3/5) A&H/SSc, DIV
Explores critical theories, methodologies, pedagogies. Transdisciplinary approach to decolonizing self, research, and society. Performance as pedagogy and research method, and the embodied self as instrument of inquiry. Gain fluency in a spectrum of communicative, healing, expressive modalities. Performances as sites of political struggle, social movements as performative, and performance as transformational practice for justice.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 394
ANTH 399 Junior Honors Seminar (5) SSc
Teaches skills required to write senior Honors thesis, including evaluation of academic and scientific writing, formulation of problem, collection of bibliographic and other resources, evaluation of research proposals, and research proposal preparation. Final product is a formal thesis prospectus.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 399
ANTH 401 Museum Decolonization and Cultural Collections (5) SSc, DIV
Focuses on the need for museums to acknowledge and dismantle ongoing colonial violence. Opportunities for active student research with cultural collections at the Burke Museum. Readings, guest speakers, and assignments center on Indigenous research methods and ethics.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 401
ANTH 402 Introduction to Experiential Ethnography: Towards a Critical Re-Enchantment of Every Day Life (5) SSc
Develop or continue ethnographic research, gain skills and theoretical frameworks from auto-ethnographic, phenomenological, experimental, post-experimental and experiential approaches, and contribute to what an 8th, or future moment in ethnography/anthropology might look/feel like as it bends towards the sacred and moral in social science research for a free democratic society.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 402
ANTH 403 Qualitative Research Methods in Sociocultural Anthropology (5) SSc
Introduces qualitative research methods of anthropology, and data generated. Methods covered include interviewing, focus groups, participant-observation, discourse analysis, and use of visual materials. Addresses ethics as relevant to every phase of research. Explores methods through focus on a specific thematic topic, which varies from year to year. Offered: W.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 403
ANTH 404 South America (5) SSc
Survey of anthropological research among the traditional peoples of South America. Historical background and contemporary life of cultural groups of the Amazonian Basin. Transformation of traditional lifestyles through the process of European conquest and the aftermath of colonialism. Detailed study of selected societies. Prerequisite: either one 200-level ANTH course or LING 203.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 404
ANTH 405 Urban Health Methodologies: Ethnography of the Invisible in search of New Urban Commons (5) SSc
Conduct urban anthropology field-research and examine paths for human liberation while exploring connections between contemporary urban anthropology theoretical perspectives, critical medical anthropology, and new and emerging social possibilities for new urban commons. Emphasis placed on ethnographic methods, introduced through field exercises that require the application of one or more techniques.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 405
ANTH 406 China's Environment (5) SSc
Analysis of contemporary environmental problems in China, including population, food, water supply, pollution, biodiversity, and environmental activism. Combines natural science and social science perspectives. Prerequisite: either ANTH 210, ENVIR 201, JSIS 200, JSIS 201, or JSIS 202. Offered: jointly with JSIS A 406.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 406
ANTH 407 Global Futures in East Asia (5) SSc
Explores interlinked modernity projects in China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan and how the education of youth figures in projects of national development and international economic competition. Offered: jointly with JSIS A 407; AWSpS.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 407
ANTH 408 Experiments in Southeast Asia (5) SSc
Exploration of science, health, development, and politics in Southeast Asia through ethnographic and historical case studies.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 408
ANTH 409 Queer Health (5) SSc, DIV
Examines the relationship between Western biomedicine and Queer theory. Critically analyzes the modes of thinking, caring, being, and expressing that emerge as a result of the "merger" of these two fields with contradicting views of gender, sex, health, wellbeing, and sexuality. Offered: jointly with GWSS 409.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 409
ANTH 410 Discourse and Health (5) SSc, DIV
Intersection of language and health. Topics include discourse analysis of health narratives and media; cross-cultural differences in naming illnesses; narrative medicine; dynamics of doctor-patient encounters; and linguistic discrimination, racism, and inequities in healthcare access.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 410
ANTH 411 The Culture and Politics of Food: Study Abroad in Italy (8-12) SSc
Study Abroad program at the UW Rome Center focusing on the organization, politics, economy, and culture of the local food system at increasing scales of analysis: the city of Rome, the region of Lazio, the nation of Italy, the European Union, and the world.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 411
ANTH 412 South Asian Social Structure (5) SSc, DIV
Examines caste, class, and community in modern India. Transitions from colonial typology to analysis of social change, diversity, stability, and caste hierarchy in rural society. Current debates on class and community in Indian society, rural and urban, explored through themes of identity, structure, and mobility. Prerequisite: one 200-level ANTH course. Offered: jointly with JSIS A 412.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 412
ANTH 413 Anthropology of the Modern Middle East and North Africa (5) SSc
Presents an anthropological perspective on social/cultural aspects of contemporary Middle East and North Africa. Explores how anthropologists examine key issues in region including identity, politics, economics, religion, and conflict. Considers how ethnographic representations challenge assumptions about people's politics of region and elucidate contemporary manifestations of local, national, regional, and global power.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 413
ANTH 414 Applied and Public Anthropology (5) SSc
Considers the practical application of anthropology's methods and theories to the challenges and research needs of communities and organizations. Concentrates on a specific topic each quarter. Includes a required service-learning component that helps students connect classroom learning beyond the University.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 414
ANTH 415 Visual Anthropology Methods: Video (5) A&H
Visual forms of communication as tools for understanding and communicating anthropological concepts. Requires weekly readings and film viewings. Central component is the production of a video for public engagement and consumption. Offered: A.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 415
ANTH 416 Comparative Social Movements: Mexico and the United States (5) SSc, DIV
Historical, ethnographic, and theoretical perspectives in the study of Mexican-origin communities in social movements in Mexico and the United States with a focus on workers, immigrants, peasants, women, indigenous peoples, and students as forces of collective mobilization and social, cultural, and political change. Offered: jointly with CHSTU 416.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 416
ANTH 417 Surfacing the Stories of Hanford: Local and Global Health Disparities (5) SSc, DIV
Stories and experiences of people whose lives and land are shaped by the Hanford plutonium processing facility in central Washington. Students conduct research, including interviews and critical discourse analysis, and contribute to public education regarding health disparities and the intergenerational impacts of radiation exposure.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 417
ANTH 418 Indian Heritage of Mexico and Central America (5) SSc, DIV
Indian civilizations of Mexico and Guatemala, their origins and ecological foundations. Contemporary communities of Mexico and Guatemala, focusing on creative adaptation of pre-Columbian traditions to modern national realities. Prerequisite: either one 200-level ANTH course or LING 203.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 418
ANTH 419 Collective Memory and Violence (5) SSc
Present perspectives on cultural aspects of collective memory and relationship to violence. Explores how memories shape meaning of identity and community and influence contemporary conflict. Considers representations of the past in relation to collective violence, suffering, and trauma, including genocide. Considers relationship between memory and potential for justice and peace.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 419
ANTH 420 The Social Life of Psychiatry (5) SSc
Anthropological perspective on social and cultural aspects of contemporary psychiatry. Explores psychiatry as a social practice, an arena for competing cultural assumptions about mental illness and treatment, and a source of diagnostic categories and interpretive methods that influence larger society. Considers how psychiatry influences and is influenced by the cultural history of Europe and the United States.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 420
ANTH 421 Belief, Ritual, and the Structure of Religion (5) SSc
Systematic survey of concepts, models, and theories that characterize the anthropological study of religion. Consideration of the human universal basis of religion and of diverse ways in which religions are constructed and related to social experience. Prerequisite: either ANTH 321 or JSIS C 201; JSIS C 202.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 421
ANTH 422 Visuality and Medicine (3/5) SSc, DIV
Explores techniques and imaginaries of vision and making visible related to medicine, health, and the body. Introduces vision as social and embodied practice, and images as consequential for medical knowledge and understandings of the human. Prerequisite: either ANTH 209 or ANTH 215.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 422
ANTH 423 Traffic Across Cultural Boundaries (5) SSc
Focuses on the movement of cultural patterns and processes across boundaries, examining the "contact zones" in colonial encounters, moving to borrowing and blendings along ethnic and national borders. Examines border crossing of immigration and diasporas. Ethnographic examples from the Americas and Africa. Prerequisite: one 200-level ANTH course.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 423
ANTH 424 Hunter-Gatherer Societies (4) SSc
Comparative examination of human foraging societies, emphasizing ethnographic cases and socioecological analysis. Foraging and human evolution; rationality of foraging societies; population and reproductive strategies; variability in social organization and land use; power relations between the sexes; ritual and belief; contemporary status of hunter-gatherer populations. Prerequisite: either one 200-level ANTH course or LING 203.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 424
ANTH 425 Anthropology of the Post-Soviet States (5) SSc
Analysis of Soviet and post-Soviet culture and identity. Historical transformations in Soviet approaches to ethnicity and nationality; contemporary processes of nation building and interethnic conflict. Examination of culture through the intersection of social ritual, government policies, language, economic practices, and daily life. Regional focus varies. Offered: jointly with JSIS A 427.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 425
ANTH 427 Anthropology in Urban Settings (3) SSc
Cross-cultural examination of theoretical issues in anthropology as studied in urban places. Focuses on ethnic identity and the formation of urban ethnic groups; migration and its rural and urban consequences; family and kinship organization as an adaptation to urban complexity; the nature of urban voluntary associations; law and politics; and the developments in anthropological method. Prerequisite: either one 200-level ANTH course or LING 203.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 427
ANTH 428 Anthropological Perspectives on Ethnicity (5) SSc, DIV
Anthropological approaches to ethnicity and ethnic group relations with reference to other models including race, caste, class, regional groupings, nations, religion, and stratification. Data drawn from precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial periods. Prerequisite: either one 200-level ANTH course or LING 203.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 428
ANTH 429 Expressive Culture (5) A&H
Anthropological view of one expressive aspect of culture: plastic and graphic arts, myth and folktale, music, dance, humor and tragedy, or play and games. Prerequisite: either one 200-level ANTH course or LING 203.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 429
ANTH 430 The Anthropology of Music (3) A&H/SSc
Analysis of aspects of anthropological thought influential in ethnomusicology. Critical evaluation of dominant theoretical schools and modes of explanation, e.g., evolutionist, diffusionist, historical particularist, structuralist, functionalist, symbolist, and semiotic, through detailed examination of seminal texts. Offered: jointly with MUSIC 480.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 430
ANTH 432 Sociolinguistics I (5) SSc/A&H, DIV
Interrelationships between social and linguistic factors influencing variation in speech production and perception, morphology, syntax, lexicon. Considers contribution of ethnic, regional and socioeconomic group memberships to dialect differentiation and progression of language change. Nonstandard language, diglossia, pidgins, creoles, gender differences, bi- and multilingualism, ethnography of speaking, pragmatics, and language attitudes. Prerequisite: either LING 200 or LING 400. Offered: jointly with LING 432.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 432
ANTH 433 Sociolinguistics II (5) A&H/SSc
Examines field methods linguists use in socially oriented studies of language variation and change. Includes language attitudes, study of urban dialects, syntactic variation, sampling and interview design. Discussion of issues related to recording, ethics, and analysis of large bodies of data. Prerequisite: LING 432. Offered: jointly with LING 433.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 433
ANTH 435 Economic Anthropology (5) SSc
Chief features of nonmonetary and simple monetary economics. Impact of central or metropolitan market economy and industrial technology as peripheral systems, especially of small-scale and limited monetary circulation. Development and application in anthropology of economic concepts, including Marxian. Prerequisite: either one 200-level ANTH course or LING 203.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 435
ANTH 437 Political Anthropology and Social Change (5) SSc
Study of politics from different anthropological perspectives, especially processual approaches to political change. Focused examination of cultural aspects of modern state formation in local and regional contexts. Themes: colonialism and nationalism, regime and transitions, local politics and global processes, social construction of bureaucracy. Prerequisite: one 200-level ANTH course.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 437
ANTH 439 Pidgin and Creole Languages (5) SSc/A&H
Explores aspects of the linguistic structure, history, and social context of pidgin and creole languages. Creolization as one possible outcome of language contact. Examines theories of creole genesis, similarities and differences between creole and non-creole languages. Prerequisite: either ANTH 203, LING 200, LING 201, LING 203, or LING 400. Offered: jointly with LING 430.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 439
ANTH 442 Global Asia (5) SSc, DIV
Explores how Asia has been constructed through transnational interactions such as imperialism, anti-colonialism, tourism, diaspora, and global capitalism. Topics include the cultural construction of similarity and difference, politics of representation, and political economy of global circulations of people and things. Prerequisite: one 200-level ANTH course. Offered: jointly with GWSS 446/JSIS A 452; W.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 442
ANTH 443 Anthropology of Modern Japan (5) SSc
Examines the problem of modernity in Japan since the late nineteenth century, with emphasis on contemporary Japan. Critically addresses previous anthropological work concerning patterns of Japanese "culture." Particular focus on the influence of modern forms of power, media, and exchange in the construction of present-day Japan. Offered: jointly with JSIS A 449.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 443
ANTH 444 Politics of Representation in Modern China (5) SSc, DIV
Focuses on issues of representation and power in twentieth century China. Combines substantive information on modern Chinese society and culture with recent debates in social theory and the politics of representation. Major themes include Chinese nationalism, body politics, popular culture, and everyday practice. Offered: jointly with JSIS A 403.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 444
ANTH 445 Literature and Society in Southeast Asia (5, max. 10) SSc/A&H
Focus on either Vietnam or Thailand. Provides students with opportunity to explore how those living in Southeast Asia have reflected on the radical social changes their societies have undergone through novels, short stories, and poetry. Prerequisite: either one 200-level ANTH course or LING 203. Offered: jointly with JSIS A 447.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 445
ANTH 446 Class and Culture in East Asia (5) SSc, DIV
Examines the nexus between culture and systems of social stratification/class in East Asia, with an emphasis on Taiwan, Korea, Japan, and China. Topics include class formation, mechanisms of social mobility and reproduction, markers of status and hierarchy, resistance, and the formation of class identity. Offered: jointly with JSIS D 443.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 446
ANTH 448 Modern Korean Society (5) SSc
Social organization and values of twentieth-century Korea. Changes in family and kinship, gender relations, rural society, urban life, education, and industrial organization since 1900. Differences between North and South Korea since 1945. Offered: jointly with JSIS A 448.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 448
ANTH 449 Social Transformation of Modern East Asia (5) SSc
Comparative study of social change in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam since 1945. Concentration on small-scale social units in rural and urban areas under both communist and capitalist political systems. Offered: jointly with JSIS A 405.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 449
ANTH 450 Language and Gender (5) SSc/A&H, DIV
Survey of the theoretical trends, methods, and research findings on the relationship between language and gender. Focus on power relations in gendered language use. Extensive study of research based on conversational analysis. Prerequisite: LING 200; either LING 201, LING 203, or ANTH 203. Offered: jointly with GWSS 450/LING 458.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 450
ANTH 452 Explorations in Biopower (5) SSc
Explores Foucault's concept of biopower - power organized around life - from the perspectives of its theoretical mediations and its anthropological interventions. Looks at specific descriptions of what biopower is and ethnographic extensions of the concept to particular settings and experiences taking place within the modern state.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 452
ANTH 453 Culture, Controversy, and Change: The Case of Female Circumcision (5) SSc
With female circumcision and its surrounding debates as "a tool to think with," develops a number of skills: identifying stakeholders and rhetoric in loaded debates, assessing opposing arguments, critically evaluating scientific evidence, and situating controversial issues in their proper political, historical, social, and cultural contexts.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 453
ANTH 454 Women, Words, Music, and Change (5) A&H/SSc, DIV
Comparative analysis of use of myths, tales, music, and other forms of expressive culture to account for, reinforce, and change women's status and roles. Offered: jointly with GWSS 454.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 454
ANTH 455 Areal Linguistics (3, max. 6) A&H/SSc
Issues involved in classification of languages. Systems of classification based on structure, word order, areal features. Ways in which languages may be classified for different purposes. Processes such as borrowing, vocabulary specialization, lexical change, and language death and revival. Prerequisite: either LING 200, LING 201, ANTH/LING 203, or LING 400. Offered: jointly with LING 455.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 455
ANTH 456 Contemporary Ethnography (5) SSc
Discusses several contemporary ethnographies. Focuses on what constitutes ethnography and how ethnography is done, as well as the relationship between ethnographic description, methodology, and theory. Covers a range of geographical areas, theoretical perspectives, and literary styles.. Prerequisite: either a 100- 200-level ANTH course or LING 203.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 456
ANTH 457 Ecological Anthropology (5) SSc
Survey of anthropological research on interaction between human societies and their environments. Logic of different subsistence systems; intensification and transformation of subsistence strategies; population regulation; ecological aspects of human nutrition, disease, spatial organization, ethnicity, social stratification, conflict, and cooperation; historical roots of current ecological crisis.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 457
ANTH 458 Ethnobiology: Plants, Animals, and People (5) SSc
Culturally mediated relationships between human and natural environment studied in a comparative and evolutionary framework. How do peoples in diverse cultures recognize and name plants and animals and understand their relationship with nature? How is this traditional ecological knowledge applied in people's daily lives? Prerequisite: either BIO A 201, ARCHY 205, or one 200-level ANTH course.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 458
ANTH 459 Culture, Ecology, and Politics (5) SSc, DIV
Critical studies of class, gender and race differences in environmental politics. The political-economic dimensions of ecological change. Contemporary environmental movements including the varieties of bioregionalism, deep ecology, ecofeminism, ecosocialism, environmental justice, and social ecology. Offered: jointly with ENVIR 459.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 459
ANTH 460 History of Anthropology (5) SSc
Sources and development of leading concepts, issues, and approaches in anthropology. Findings of anthropology in relation to scientific and humanistic implications and to practical application. Main contributors to field; their work and influence. Past, present, and future perspectives, including anthropology of modern life.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 460
ANTH 461 Historical Ecology (5) SSc/NSc
Explores a global range of case studies in the historical dimension of the environment, human adaptation, and cultural change. Investigates the co-evolution of environment and culture in archaeological and historical contexts. Develops a better understanding of modern human-environmental dynamics as historically situated. In
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 461
ANTH 462 Italian Food Culture (5) SSc
Introduces the historical evolution of Italian foodways; tensions shaping contemporary food politics; new social movements around the re-localization of food among citizen activist groups. Includes experiential learning through hands-on activities, with food and field trips to local producers and markets. Offered: AWSpS.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 462
ANTH 463 Critiques of Contemporary Capitalism (5) SSc
Karl Marx inaugurated radical reworkings of both social theory and political action. Begins with some of his seminal writings, then considers the Frankfurt School, British labor theory, and postcolonial theory. Uses these readings to understand economy and subjectivity produced through the aporias of late capitalism. .
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 463
ANTH 464 Language Politics and Cultural Identity (3) A&H/SSc
Theories and case studies of the power of language and how it is manipulated. Multilingualism, diglossia. Role of language and linguistics in nationalism. Standardization, educational policy, language and ethnicity. World languages, language death and revival. Prerequisite: either LING 200, LING 201, ANTH/LING 203, or LING 400. Offered: jointly with LING 464.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 464
ANTH 465 Critical Anthropology of Mass Culture (5) SSc
Critical overview of theories of mass culture and their relationship to current anthropological practice. Analyses of the historical interconnections among capitalism and commodity fetishism, modernity and representation, and media and consumption.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 465
ANTH 466 Anthropology Honors Thesis ([1-9]-, max. 18) SSc
Individual research under the direction of a thesis adviser, culminating in a senior honors thesis. Open only to upper-class students in departmental honors program.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 466
ANTH 467 Anthropology of Education (5) SSc, DIV
Uses a wide range of social theory and philosophy to investigate mechanisms which reproduce inequality and asymmetry in American education.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 467
ANTH 468 Anthropology of Care (5) SSc
Introduces the anthropology of care, with an emphasis on ethnographic studies of care practices. Considers how care practices generate patterns of relationality and visions of the human. Explores where caring happens, who is involved in care, what counts (or does not count) as deserving of care, and how politics shapes care.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 468
ANTH 469 Special Studies in Anthropology (3-5, max. 15) SSc
Delineation and analysis of a specific problem or related problems in anthropology. Offered occasionally by visitors or resident faculty.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 469
ANTH 470 Minority Peoples of China (5) SSc
Interaction between China and the peoples of its periphery, including inner Asia, Tibet, northern mainland Southeast Asia, and aboriginal peoples of Taiwan. Emphasis on ethnicity, ethnic group consciousness, and role of the Chinese state. Prerequisite: one 200-level ANTH course; LING 203; either ANTH 370/JSIS A 370 or HSTAS 454. Offered: jointly with JSIS A 470.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 470
ANTH 471 Colonialism and Culture (5) SSc, DIV
Explores the cultural, political, and historical implications of the power to colonize. Readings include ethnographic, historical, and literary works on colonialism, nationalist responses, and postcolonial positions.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 471
ANTH 472 Case Studies in Medical Anthropology and Global Health (5) SSc
Uses multidisciplinary case studies to analyze quantitative parameters of diseases; contrast the description and analytic approaches of health sciences, anthropology, and other social sciences; integrate divers disciplinary perspectives into cohesive information; organize class presentations; and apply critical thinking in approaches to complex health issues. Offered: Sp.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 472
ANTH 473 Anthropology of Science and Technology (5) NSc/SSc
Introduces the study of science, technology, and data as social and cultural phenomena. Considers both theoretical and methodological questions. Readings include key texts from interdisciplinary field of science studies as well as selected ethnographic texts. Examples taken from U.S. society and other local contexts.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 473
ANTH 474 Social Difference and Medical Knowledge (5) SSc, DIV
Explores relations between medical and social categories: how social differences become medicalized; how medical conditions become associated with stigmatized social groups; and how categories become sources of identity and bases for political action. Considers classifications (race, gender, sexuality, disability) and how each has shaped and/or been shaped by medical science/practice.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 474
ANTH 475 Perspectives in Medical Anthropology (5) SSc
Introduction to medical anthropology. Explores the relationships among culture, society, and medicine. Examples from Western medicine as well as from other medical systems, incorporating both interpretive and critical approaches. Offered: jointly with HSERV 475.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 475
ANTH 476 Culture, Medicine, and the Body (5) SSc
Explores the relationship between the body and society, with emphasis on the role of medicine as a mediator between them. Case study material, primarily from contemporary bio-medicine, as well as critical, postmodern, and feminist approaches to the body introduced within a general comparative and anthropological framework.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 476
ANTH 477 Medicine in America: Conflicts and Contradictions (3) SSc
Introduction to the pragmatic and theoretical dilemmas of current biomedical practice with emphasis on social and cultural context. Case studies in technological intervention, risk management, and other health-related issues used to explore connections among patients' experiences, medical practices, and the contemporary social context.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 477
ANTH 478 Introduction to the Anthropology of Institutions (5) SSc
Historical, theoretical, and ethnographic perspectives on the study of total institutions, with an emphasis on prisons and psychiatric facilities. Includes issues of subjection and subjectivity, institutional social dynamics, and social justice concerns.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 478
ANTH 479 Advanced Topics in Medical Anthropology (3-5, max. 15)
Explores theoretical and ethnographic advanced topics in medical anthropology.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 479
ANTH 483 Africa Living with HIV/AIDS (5) SSc
Examines the epidemiological, historical, political-economic, and social-cultural dimensions of Africa living with HIV/AIDS and the current challenges and debates in international HIV/AIDS policy and programming. Various approaches and analytical models help students grasp the complicated and multiple effects, responses, conditions, and debates surrounding the African HIV/AIDS pandemic.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 483
ANTH 484 Ideologies and Technologies of Motherhood (5) SSc, DIV
Examines how motherhood is culturally constituted, regulated, and managed within various ideological and technological milieus. Uses ethnographies from anthropology and case studies from feminist legal theory. Topics include slave mothers, surrogate mothers, lesbian mothers, transracial mothers, co-mothers, teen mothers. Prerequisite: GWSS 200. Offered: jointly with GWSS 458.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 484
ANTH 487 Cultures and Politics of Environmental Justice (5) SSc, DIV
Comparative survey of environmental justice movements in the world with focus on critical studies of environmental racism, risk, and sustainable development. Provides theoretical knowledge and research methods incorporating the study of equity and autonomy in environmental impact and risk assessment and other aspects of environmental policy politics. Offered: jointly with AES 487.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 487
ANTH 488 Agroecology (5) SSc/NSc
Cross-cultural survey of agroecological research methods, theoretical problems, policy issues, and ethical debates. Local knowledge and ethnoscientific bases of alternative agriculture. Comparative political ecology of agroecosystems with a focus on indicators of social equity and ecological sustainability. Recommended: ANTH 210. Offered: Sp.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 488
ANTH 489 Anthropology Practicum (2-9, max. 15)
Faculty-supervised internships, either on or off campus, in organizations utilizing anthropological skills in nonacademic settings. Settings may include museums, academic journals, social service or other governmental agencies, and private nonprofit service agencies.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 489
ANTH 490 Healthcare and Aging (5) SSc
Explores healthcare and aging in anthropological perspective. Introduces population aging as global phenomenon, and its social and health consequences. Considers local variations in meaning and social organization of aging and the life course Focuses on health challenges of aging and how they are understood and addressed. Readings emphasize ethnographic studies.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 490
ANTH 491 Honors Colloquium (2, max. 12) SSc
Introduction to anthropological research. Students read original articles and papers and discuss them with authors. Research presenters include department faculty, visiting faculty, and advanced graduate students. Credit/no-credit only.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 491
ANTH 492 Settler Colonialism (3)
Explores the varied impact of late 20th and early 21st century European settlement across the globe. Focuses on both the global legacies of colonialism and the continued socio-political movements of indigenous populations. Encourages a broad perspective on what settler colonialism is like today.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 492
ANTH 494 Feminist Performance Ethnography: Performing Art As and At the Site of Feminist (5) A&H/SSc
Explores the relationship between ideas and practices of feminism, performance, and ethnography through readings, writing, movement, and artistic expression. Students conduct fieldwork and use personal narrative and everyday life performance techniques to create performances that explore the potential of performance ethnography to contribute to equity, liberation, and justice.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 494
ANTH 495 Advanced Problems in Ethnology (3-5, max. 10) SSc
Current problems in ethnology. Seminar format.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 495
ANTH 496 Alter/Native Power: Exploring Alternative Strategies from Inside Anthropology Out (5) SSc, DIV
Explore, question and challenge externally-assigned identities and approaches to ethnography and social inquiry as a means to unpack and challenge the political and economic consequences of them, such as enslavement, poverty, or genocide, in service of re-creating and re-tooling a new anthropology for liberation.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 496
ANTH 497 Domesticating International Human Rights: Perspectives on U.S. Asylum and Refugee Law (5) SSc, DIV
Examines the creation, production, and proliferation of law and legal categories relating to the status of refugees and asylum-seekers in the United States. Integrates anthropological perspectives of law's ability to create meaning in the examination of deeper implications of asylum and refugee law in American society. Offered: jointly with LSJ 425.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 497
ANTH 498 Women's Rights and Politics in Islamic Society (5) SSc, DIV
Human rights theory with women's legal rights and practice within context of the Islamic state. Introduction to debates regarding universality of human rights through examination of women's rights in Muslim context. Considers journalistic notions of homogeneity among Muslims, political nature of the Islamic state, and its mobilization of human rights. Offered: jointly with LSJ 421.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 498
ANTH 499 Undergraduate Research (*, max. 12)
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 499
ANTH 500 Preceptorial Reading (6)
For beginning graduate students who have not had adequate training in the problems, principles, and methods involved in the analysis and comparison of social and cultural systems. Not open to graduate students in the sociocultural anthropology program.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 500
ANTH 503 Preceptorial Reading in Linguistic Anthropology (6)
For beginning graduate students who have not had prior training in the problems, principles, and methods involved in linguistic anthropology. See also course description for ANTH 203. Not open to graduate students in the linguistics program.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 503
ANTH 507 Current Issues in Sociocultural Anthropology (2)
Biweekly presentations by participants and guest lecturers of current literature and ongoing research in topics pertaining to social, cultural, and linguistic anthropology. Prerequisite: first-year sociocultural graduate students in good standing or permission of sociocultural faculty. Credit/no-credit only.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 507
ANTH 508 Current Issues in Sociocultural Anthropology (2)
Biweekly presentations by participants and guest lecturers of current literature and ongoing research in topics pertaining to social, cultural, and linguistic anthropology. Prerequisite: first-year sociocultural graduate students in good standing or permission of sociocultural faculty. Credit/no-credit only.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 508
ANTH 509 Sociocultural Anthropology Problem Paper (4)
All first-year graduate students in sociocultural anthropology select a topic for independent research, conduct that research, and prepare a paper of about 25-50 pages on the topic chosen. Prerequisite: first-year sociocultural graduate students in good standing or permission of sociocultural faculty.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 509
ANTH 510 Seminar on North American Indians (3)
Advanced comparative treatment of selected aspects of the Indian cultures and societies of North America.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 510
ANTH 514 Regional Seminar (3-5, max. 15)
Comparative treatment of selected aspects of cultures and societies of a particular region or area.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 514
ANTH 515 Visual Anthropology Methods: Video (5)
Visual forms of communication as tools for understanding and communicating anthropological concepts. Requires weekly readings and film viewings. Central component is the production of a video for public engagement and consumption. Offered: A.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 515
ANTH 516 Rethinking Area Studies (5)
"Area study" is critiqued for its sources of funding, relationship to governmentality, and for ignoring other forms of global linkage in its particular framing of cultural, social, and political connectivity. Designed for graduate students conducting research on, in, or across such an "area." Attempts to rethink regions.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 516
ANTH 517 Seminar on South Asia (3)
Advanced analysis of selected problems in South Asian ethnology and social structure. Prerequisite: ANTH 412.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 517
ANTH 518 Advanced Qualitative Methods in Anthropology and Public Health (5)
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 518
ANTH 521 Seminar on the Anthropological Study of Religion (3, max. 9)
Advanced seminar in the anthropological study of religion designed for students who have a background in the theory and applications of theory developed in the anthropological study of religion. Seminar topics vary each quarter. Prerequisite: ANTH 422 and graduate standing; permission of instructor for graduate students in Comparative Religion.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 521
ANTH 522 Cultures of Central Eurasia (5)
Introduces Central Eurasia with a focus on the cultural diversity and societies of the Central Asian republics and Inner Asia (Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Tibet) as well as the adjacent areas of Afghanistan and Iran. Addresses intercultural dynamics, historic inequities, centers of power vs. margins, impact of colonialism on traditional cultures, contemporary inequalities, marginalities and their sociological and political ramifications. Offered: jointly with JSIS D 572/MELC 558.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 522
ANTH 523 Seminar on Religious and Political Violence (5)
Employs ethnographic studies and anthropological theory to examine the relationships between culture and power in the analysis of religious and political violence. Topics include modernity; secularisms and fundamentalisms; ritual, sacrifice, and martyrdom; law, rights, and subject-making. Offered: jointly with JSIS B 523.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 523
ANTH 524 Current Issues in Medical Anthropology and Global Health (2)
Guest speakers showcase local expertise in the field. Speakers share information about the path that led them to research in MAGH, and raise current research questions in their field of expertise. Credit/no-credit only.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 524
ANTH 525 Seminar in Culture Processes (3, max. 6)
The concept of process and its application to the study of culture.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 525
ANTH 526 Political Islam and Islamic Fundamentalism (3/5)
Examines political Islam as a modern phenomenon produced at the intersections between localized and globalized political cultures and between political, religious, and social authority. Focuses on anthropological studies to examine how Islamic publics produce moral judgments about political practices. Offered: jointly with JSIS B 526.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 526
ANTH 527 Ethnicities, Nations, and Cultural Identities (3)
Exploration of how cultural differences have been represented in ethnic and national narratives and how these narratives have shaped identities and social relations.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 527
ANTH 528 Gender and Sexuality in China (5)
Explores gender and sexuality in China's process of modernization, from the late Qing dynasty through the building of the Republic, Communist revolution, and post-Mao economic reform. Examines, through historical, anthropological, and cultural studies scholarship, the centrality of these social constructs in terms of family, state, labor, body, and ethnicity. Offered: jointly with GWSS 528/JSIS A 528.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 528
ANTH 530 Dialectology (3)
The principles of dialect deviation as related to linguistic structure and usage. Prerequisite: LING 452, LING 462, LING 508, or permission of instructor. Offered: jointly with LING 530.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 530
ANTH 532 Sociolinguistics I (5)
Examines social variation in the phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon of languages and dialects. Includes nonstandard language, diglossia, pidgins and creoles, gender differences, bi- and multilingualism, ethnography of speaking, and language attitudes. Prerequisite: either LING 200 or LING 400. Offered: jointly with LING 532; S.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 532
ANTH 533 Law, Liberalism, and Modernity (5)
Examines relationships between law, culture, and power through post-structuralist theories that consider subjectivity, agency, and identity. Explores connections between modern liberal law and the body, possessive individualisms, and discourses of rights. Topics include rights-talk, globalization, biopolitics, subject-making, modern nation-states, the rule of law, neo-liberalism, and legal cultures.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 533
ANTH 535 Research Issues in Demography and Population Studies (1-2, max. 7)
Interdisciplinary seminar on current research issues in demography and population studies. Critical analysis and discussion of readings drawn from anthropological, economic, geographic, and sociological approaches. Credit/no-credit only. Offered: AWSp.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 535
ANTH 536 Seminar in Visual Anthropology (3-5)
Significance of anthropological cinema and photography placed in historical perspective. Screening of films to determine the role of the anthropologist as filmmaker, as well as the role of the filmmaker as anthropologist.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 536
ANTH 537 Political Anthropology and Law (3, max. 6)
Seminar on special topics in politics and law and their interrelationships.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 537
ANTH 539 Social Movements in Contemporary India (5)
Covers issues of social change, economic development, and identity politics in contemporary India studied through environmental and women's movements. Includes critiques of development and conflicts over forests, dams, women's rights, religious community, ethnicity, and citizenship. Offered: jointly with GWSS 539/JSIS A 531.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 539
ANTH 540 Anthropology of Place (5)
Explores a variety of ways that "place" has been studied and theorized. Attention paid to places as they are sensed, inscribed, practiced, narrated, scripted, created, and reclaimed. "Place" also discussed in relation to issues of the environment, travel, diaspora, race, class, and gender.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 540
ANTH 541 Cultural Aspects of International Development (3)
Emergence of development as an aspect of late colonialism and the decolonization process. Ways in which development came to visualize social change in sectoral terms like rural land use, cities, and education, while objectifying people in target groups. Relationships between development and modernity, and development and globalization.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 541
ANTH 543 Seminar in Anthropology and Political Theory (5)
Examines the role of political theory in contemporary anthropology. Designed to work through particular thinkers or constellations of thought that inform anthropological thinking today. Content dependent upon instructor, but may include such topics as Marx, Weber, and Durkheim; Foucault, the Anthropology of Reason; and Frankfort School.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 543
ANTH 549 Dance Performance Ethnography (3)
Theoretical and practical experience in dance and performance ethnography, ethnology, and oral history. Introduces theories and methods of ethnographic fieldwork, ethnographic writing, and ethnologic analysis. Focuses on dance methods and theories. Also discusses methods and theories applicable to other physical practices such as music, theatre, sports, and performance art. Offered: jointly with DANCE 550; W.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 549
ANTH 550 Field Techniques in Ethnography (5)
Techniques of collecting, ordering, and utilizing ethnographic data in the field. Problems of rapport, elicitation, observation, interpretation, and ethics. Credit/no-credit only.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 550
ANTH 551 Research Design (5)
Focuses on the basic components, format, and writing style of grant proposals. Works through various stages of proposal writing, including titles, abstracts, introduction, theoretical orientations, significance, methodology, data analysis, etc. Discusses funding sources, human subjects reviews, and preparing budgets. Prerequisite: permission of instructor.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 551
ANTH 552 Practicum in Ethnographic Research (3)
Techniques of data recording, analysis, and writing for the field ethnographer. Not recommended for non-anthropology graduate students. Prerequisite: ANTH 550; ANTH 551.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 552
ANTH 556 The Evolution of the Family (3)
Biological evolution of species-specific behaviors and forms of sociality linked to human mating, reproduction, and parenting. Cultural evolution of human systems of kinship and marriage as fitness-maximizing adaptations to a wide range of habitats. Prerequisite: upper-division course in evolutionary theory, population genetics, behavioral ecology, primatology, or animal behavior.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 556
ANTH 559 Seminar in Language and Culture (3, max. 9)
Theoretical and methodological problems in language and culture.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 559
ANTH 560 Discourse and Culture (5)
Exploration of discourse and narrative as culturally constitutive activities. Critical examination of the social implications of cultural variation in discourse. Techniques of discourse analysis in anthropological research.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 560
ANTH 561 Seminar in Methods and Theories (3, max. 9)
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 561
ANTH 562 Clinically Applied Anthropology (3)
Anthropology as it relates to interdisciplinary delivery of culturally relevant healthcare. Cultural variation in illness beliefs and behavior, types of healing practices, illness prevention, social support networks. Prerequisite: graduate standing, permission of instructor. Offered: jointly with NURS 562.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 562
ANTH 565 History of Sociocultural Anthropological Theory (5)
First year core class that examines concepts at the heart of contemporary anthropological theory - race, culture, indigeneity, gender and sexuality, experience, ethnography, meaning, rationality, and representation, among others - emerged as foundational categories of analysis from the late nineteenth century onwards as anthropology came to be gradually defined as a distinct discipline of study. Prerequisite: graduate standing in anthropology or permission of instructor. Offered: A.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 565
ANTH 566 Theory of Sociocultural Anthropology (5)
Second core-course sequence for the beginning graduate student in sociocultural anthropology in which the development of theory is analyzed and emphasis is placed on the relation between theory and a growing body of ethnographic data. Prerequisite: ANTH 565.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 566
ANTH 567 Theory of Sociocultural Anthropology (5)
Third core-course sequence for the beginning graduate student in sociocultural anthropology in which the development of theory is analyzed and emphasis is placed on the relation between theory and a growing body of ethnographic data. Prerequisite: ANTH 566.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 567
ANTH 569 Special Topics in Sociocultural Anthropology (3-5, max. 15)
Delineation and analysis of a specific topic or set of related topics in sociocultural anthropology.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 569
ANTH 570 Environmental Anthropology (5)
Current issues in the study of human environment interaction from a cross-cultural perspective: ecological adaptation and maladaptation; ethnoecology and indigenous knowledge; anthropogenic environmental change; political ecology of "development;" interrelations of cultural and biological diversity; conflicts over indigenous land use and property rights, environmental justice, resource conservation, and sustainability.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 570
ANTH 572 Environmental Anthropology Research Methodology Colloquium (2, max. 10)
Environmental anthropology research methodology and practice. Presentations by faculty and advanced students, hands-on exercises, and extensive discussion. Students at various stages in the program learn practical details of current methods. Limited to environmental anthropology PhD students. Credit/no-credit only.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 572
ANTH 573 Current Issues in Environmental Anthropology (2, max. 10)
Presentation and discussion of current research and scholarly literature in environmental anthropology and related fields. Prerequisite: graduate standing in any field of anthropology or permission of instructor. Credit/no-credit only.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 573
ANTH 574 Culture, Society, and Genomics (3)
Examines social and cultural issues of human genome sequencing and control of genetic expression. Attitudes and behaviors toward health, illness, and disability are studied using historical, contemporary, and cross-cultural case study material. Offered: jointly with NURS 582/PHG 521; Sp.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 574
ANTH 575 Cultural Construction of Illness: Seminar in Medical Anthropology (5)
Historical and comparative examination of depression, neurasthenia, somatization, hypochondriasis, and hysteria. Anthropology of psychosomatics and psychiatry, including cultural analysis of selected biomedical, indigenous folk medical, and popular common-sense conceptualizations of illness.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 575
ANTH 578 Special Topics in the Anthropology of Institutions (5)
Explores theoretical issues.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 578
ANTH 580 Presenting Research Effectively (2)
Designed to help advanced graduate students develop the ability to present research projects effectively in a variety of formats relevant to the academic job-search process (c.v., job letter, interview, etc). Faculty and alumni speakers share information, advice, and guidance regarding the job-search and the various paths toward meaningful employment. Credit/no-credit only.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 580
ANTH 581 Dissertation Writing (3)
Students experiment with different styles of anthropological writing. They apply writing techniques and styles to their own material. Students peer review for one another. Credit/no-credit only.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 581
ANTH 583 Africa Living with HIV/AIDS (5)
Examines the epidemiological, historical, political-economic, and social-cultural dimensions of Africa living with HIV/AIDS and the current challenges and debates in international HIV/AIDS policy and programming. Various approaches and analytical models help students grasp the complicated and multiple effects, responses, conditions, and debates surrounding the African HIV/AIDS pandemic.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 583
ANTH 592 Settler Colonialism (3)
Explores the varied impact of late 20th and early 21st century European settlement across the globe. Focuses on both the global legacies of colonialism and the continued socio-political movements of indigenous populations. Encourages a broad perspective on what settler colonialism is like today.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 592
ANTH 599 Effective Teaching of Anthropology (1)
Class required of all graduate students who accept teaching assistantships: instruction in teaching methods and issues, e.g., professional ethics, preparing and delivering lectures, leading discussion groups, test writing and grading, diversity in the classroom. Credit/no-credit only.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 599
ANTH 600 Independent Study or Research (*-)
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 600
ANTH 700 Master's Thesis (*-)
Credit/no-credit only.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 700
ANTH 800 Doctoral Dissertation (*-)
Credit/no-credit only.
View course details in MyPlan: ANTH 800
