Cultural Anthropology - Discovering our Past

2018

Anthropology is an academic discipline that was founded in the nineteenth century. It takes as its primary subject the study of humankind. Four different approaches have developed to studying humankind, which are known as: physical / biological anthropology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology, and sociocultural anthropology. Sociocultural anthropology examines how contemporary people experience their social worlds and why they experience them that way. Its methodologies and key theoretical frameworks are the subject of this class. Theoretical topics covered include: fieldwork; worldview; gifts and exchange; belonging; language and communication; sex, gender, and kinship; symbols, ritual, and religion; ethnicity and nationality; and globalization, sustainability, and migration. Readings cover diverse settings including the Americas, Africa, Asia, South Asia, Europe, and the Pacific.

American Anthropological Association, 2022

This paper was presented at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting in 2022, at the invitation of Professor Elizabeth Weiss. It was intended as a challenge to almost everything the AAA stands for in anthropology.

Instructor: Prof. Lourdes Gutiérrez Nájera Office: 303 Silsby Hall Office Hours: M 3-5 and by appointment COURSE DESCRIPTION The goal of cultural anthropology is to understand human diversity in all its various manifestations around the world. Cultural anthropologists are interested in how societies and cultures work – how people in different places adapt to their environment, the various symbolic systems they use to communicate with each other, the political and religious systems that regulate their lives, the ways families are structured, and the ways they make a living. During this class we will learn about people's practices around the world, both to broaden our understanding of how culture structures and patterns the lives of different groups, and to gain a better understanding of ourselves. In an increasingly global world, we need to know who our neighbors are – and what our neighbors see when they look at us. We will begin by looking closely at the concept of culture as the central theme in anthropology, and how culture patterns human behavior. We will explore various aspects of life – including our perceptions of time and space, race, gender, marriage, sexuality, and family – to uncover how what we assume to be natural ways of living are made meaningful and are given value through culture. We will also look at the historical development of social and economic systems, the role of language in culture, and various systems of political power. We will conclude by looking at globalization, the lingering effects of colonialism on power relations across the globe, and we will critically examine projects of international development.

IGNOU, 2022

Broadly, anthropology can be divided into academic anthropology and practicing anthropology considering the career choices pursued by the trained anthropologists. We will be discussing these two domains at length in this unit. The term ‘applied’ or ‘practicing’ anthropologists are used inter-changeably in this unit to keep it simple for the purpose of understanding. However, there are scholars (Baba 2009; Nolan 2003) who make a distinction between ‘applied’ and ‘practicing’ anthropologists too. Applied anthropologists generally oscillate between academic and non-academic settings. Both practicing and applied anthropology have their focal point of policy formulation rather than contributing to pure theoretical knowledge.

American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 1994

When Jere Haas called me up and invited me to address this gathering, I told him that I was honored, but that I had a potentially disqualifying handicap. Since the last time I gave the luncheon talk, at the AAPA meetings in Philadelphia ten years ago, I had become the Editor of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology; and the AJPA's editor is supposed to be impartial and not harbor any ulterior preferences for one set of ideas over another. I hesitated to run the risk of being seen in public having any opinions about anything. After thinking it over, I felt that I ought to talk about something that would be interesting to the members of this Association, but not have any direct bearing on anybody's scientific research. So I decided to talk about anthropology.

This course will introduce students to the basic concepts anthropologists use to describe human interactions. We will acquire a vocabulary of terms, a sense of the history of the discipline and a chance to debate specific points of view proposed by the discipline. The relevance of anthropological systems approach to current events is a central challenge of the course. The instructor is committed to helping students formulate and express their own views and to consider what kinds of possibilities for involvement and responsibilities might be associated with their viewpoint.

Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology - Volume 10, 2019

Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology recognizes that the research conducted by students throughout the course of their undergraduate and graduate education is a valuable resource. Therefore, Field Notes exists to give students of anthropology a forum to showcase original, high quality scholarship. The journal is reviewed, edited, and published entirely by anthropology students and is sponsored by the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee's Anthropology Student Union (ASU). The ASU serves anthropology students by encouraging interaction across the four subfields of anthropology in both social and professional environments.

Book, 1953

This is a classic text by one of the pioneers, Nirmal Kumar Bose, of Indian anthropology. The book has become rare but not dated.

Instructor: Prof. Lourdes Gutiérrez Nájera Office: 303 Silsby Hall Office Hours: M 3-5 and by appointment