Catalog of Courses for 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.
Anthropology of Globalization
New course in the subject of anthropology.
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.
This course explores anthropological understandings of culture and the environment, particularly with respect to the ecology of human perception, histories of colonialism and related inequalities, food production, consumerism, nature conservation, the Anthropocene concept, and pervasive environmental logics of globalizing capitalism.
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.
Introductory course in which the concepts of culture, multiculturalism, race, racism, and nationalism are critically examined in terms of how they are used and structure social relations in American society and, by comparison, how they are defined in other cultures throughout the world.
This course examines the many ways that people have managed, shared and made claim to water¿the construction of water worlds. It also looks at waterscapes, dam projects, water in cities, and wastewater and sewage systems globally. Importantly, the course addresses conflicting notions of how to value water, including contemporary debates about the sale of water and water rights, and examines the notion that water will be the locus of future wars.
Explores the social and cultural dimensions of biomedical practice and experience in the United States. Focuses on practitioner and patient, asking about the ways in which race, gender, and socio-economic status contour professional identity and socialization, how such factors influence the experience, and course of, illness, and how they have shaped the structures and institutions of biomedicine over time.
The course introduces medical anthropology, and contextualizes bodies, suffering, healing and health. It is organized thematically around a critical humanist approach, along with perspectives from political economy and social constructionism. The aim of the course is to provide a broad understanding of the relationship between culture, healing (including and especially the Western form of healing known as biomedicine), health and political power.
This course explores anthropological writings on development and humanitarianism to better understand the historical context and contemporary practice of these distinct modes of world saving. We will attend to critiques of development and humanitarianism, and will also consider writings by anthropologists who champion the humanitarian project
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.
Introduces the interrelationships of linguistic, cultural, and social phenomena with emphasis on the importance of these interrelationships in interpreting human behavior. No prior knowledge of linguistics is required.
Reviews key findings in the study of language variation. Explores the use of language to express identity and social difference.
Examines the evolution of our capacity for language along with the development of human ways of cooperating in engaged social interaction. Course integrates cognitive, cultural, social, and biological aspects of language in comparative perspective. How is the familiar shape of language today the result of evolutionary and developmental processes involving the form, function, meaning and use of signs and symbols in social ecologies?
An introduction to the study of language relationships and linguistic structures. Topics covered the basic elements of grammatical description; genetic, areal, and typological relationships among languages; a survey of the world's major language groupings and the notable structures and grammatical categories they exhibit; and the issue of language endangerment. Prerequisite: One year study of a world language or permission of instructor.
Looks historically at speech and language in Hollywood movies, including the technological challenges and artistic theories and controversies attending the transition from silent to sound films. Focuses on the ways that gender, racial, ethnic, and national identities are constructed through the representation of speech, dialect, and accent. Introduces semiotics but requires no knowledge of linguistics, or film studies.
As AI technology expands, so do the questions surrounding its use and implications. In this course we will focus on AI and its relationship with language and language users (i.e., us!). We will cover the basics of how things like LLMs operate including the biases that are baked into the data upon which they are trained. We will discuss the unseen labor the enables the "magic" of tools like Chat GPT. And we will debate the ecological pros and cons of the proliferation of such tools.
In this course, students rethink assumptions about what "language" and "environment" are. Both depend on living systems to be rendered meaningful, and together we will wrestle with how these two ideas can be brought into relation and the implications associated with different frames of understanding. There are many perspectives on the issues raised in this course, and you will receive a broad introduction to that diversity.
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. This course is cross-listed with MEST 2470.
Intensive studies of particular world regions, societies, cultures, and civilizations.
Topics to be announced prior to each semester, dealing with linguistics.
Topics to be announced prior to each semester covering the diversity of human cultural worlds and the field of anthropology as presented through film. A variety of ethnographic and commercial films will be viewed and discussed in conjunction with readings.
New course in the subject of anthropology.
Provides an anthropological perspective on relations of inequality, subordination, and class in diverse societies, along with consideration of American ideas of egalitarianism, meritocracy, and individualism. Specific topics will be announced prior to each semester.
Topics to be announced prior to each semester, dealing with migration and migrants, and the experience of ethnic and racial minorities.
Topics to be announced prior to each semester, dealing with archaeology.
Topics to be announced prior to each semester, dealing with social and cultural anthropology.
Examines the manner in which ideas about sexuality and gender are constructed differently cross-culturally and how these ideas give shape to other social phenomena, relationships, and practices.
Africa is commonly imagined in the West as an unproblematically bounded and undifferentiated entity. This course engages and moves beyond western traditions of story telling about Africa to explore diverse systems of imagining Africa's multi-diasporic realities. Imagining Africa is never a matter of pure abstraction, but entangled in material struggles and collective memory, and taking place at diverse and interconnected scales and locales. Prerequisite: ANTH 1010
Who identifies as Indigenous in Latin America today? What are the implications of self-identifying or being identified as Indigenous? How do Indigenous peoples relate to and interact with nation states in this region? Together, we will explore these and many more important questions, as this course provides an overview of contemporary Indigenous cultures in Latin America and introduces you to the main issues that Indigenous peoples in the region are confronting.
Topics include alternative theories of prehistoric culture change, dating methods, excavation and survey techniques, and the reconstruction of the economy, social organization, and religion of prehistoric societies.
This course offers a survey of topics and methods used by biological anthropologists to study human evolution, from our earliest ancestors to present-day population variation. Topics include the development of biological characteristics such as bipedalism and large brain sizes, extinct hominins, comparative study of primates, early tool use, human genomics, environmental adaptations, the origins of agriculture, the development of urban societies, and evolutionary medicine.
Surveys patterns in the development of prehistoric civilizations in different areas of the world including the Inca of Peru, the Maya, the Aztec of Mexico, and the ancient Middle East.
When colonial empires invaded the Americas in the 16th century, Europeans marveled at the Indigenous cities distributed across the continent. This course examines the ancient cities of the Americas: their origins, their configurations, their operations, and their representations. It considers how archaeologists define urbanism among ancient societies, and why not every human settlement qualifies as a city.
Overview of the major theoretical positions which have structured anthropological thought over the past century.
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.
This course engages with ways that historical process are inscribed in landscapes, which are the traditional territories of indigenous communities and have also been shaped by colonialism, extractive enterprise, and nature conservation. It challenges students to examine their assumptions to examine ways in which dominant values and stories are inscribed in landscapes and made to appear natural, and how indigenous people contest these processes.
Explores the ways that culturally formed systems of values and family organization affect population processes in a variety of cultures.
This course explores how photographs, films, art, and digital media are used to represent and study human cultures. Students will engage with core concepts including visual ethnography, representation, and the ethics of visual storytelling. Through film screenings, guest lectures, museum visits, and hands-on activities, students will develop both a critical understanding of visual anthropology and practical experience with visual research methods.
This course approaches food from various social science perspectives, focusing on historically and culturally variable forms of food production, exchange, preparation and consumption as the means through which both individual and social bodies are constructed and reproduced. We examine food and the environment; food and colonialism; the globalization of food and food production; food and identities; and food and bodies.
What is a corporation? Contrary to wide belief, the corporation does not begin and end with entrepreneurs and investors but also has a different story. Diverse peoples across the Near East, Asia, Africa, and the Indigenous Americas have built long-lasting corporate bodies of many kinds since antiquity. In this course, we explore what corporations are as a social form, an inquiry that helps us understand how they are reshaped by the stock market.
An intro to the broad field of Native Studies, this class focuses on themes of representation and erasure. We read Indigenous scholars and draw from current events, pop culture, and historical narrative to explore complex relationships between historical and contemporary issues that Indigenous peoples face in the US. We examine the foundations of Native representations and their connections to critical issues in Native communities.
The scientific and administrative focus on life and the centrality of technology to it have become defining features of the contemporary condition. This course will explore various theoretical approaches for understanding this condition, and will explore case studies to elucidate them.
This course introduces students to one of the key frameworks in anthropology's "ethical turn": moral experience. The investigation of moral experience explores questions of ethics from a phenomenological-hermeneutic perspective and attends closely to subjectivity, affect, and embodiment. We will explore moral experiences such as ethical self-cultivation, empathy, love, hope, breakdown, mood, and moral transformation.
A cross-cultural study of sport and competitive games. Prerequisite: ANTH 101 or instructor permission.
What is distinctive about being human in a capitalist economy? This course considers the broad experience of living in a particular economic moment, with a focus on understanding what 'kinds' of people capitalism both creates & emerges from. As we consider both contemporary life & examples of the transition to capitalism, students will actively engage various modes of procuring goods & services to understand what makes capitalism distinct, & what those characteristics mean for humans of capitalism.
This course will examine anthropological perspectives on tourism practices and imaginaries. We will analyze how tourism imaginaries have come to shape our perceptions of different landscapes and peoples. We will also discuss the economic, political, cultural, and environmental impacts of the industry on different countries and communities around the world. We will pay special attention to how tourism shapes how local and Indigenous communities negotiate and accommodate outside expectations.
Disabled people are considered the "world's largest minority," but does a shared disability experience exist? In this course we examine the diverse ways disability is understood in different social contexts. We use disability studies as a critical lens to examine issues of power and to ask key questions of anthropology, including; What does it mean to have an anthropology of embodied experience? An anthropology of the mind?
The neurodiversity movement reframes existing medical diagnostic categories (i.e. Autism, ADHD, intellectual disability, mental health) as natural variation in cognitive abilities and brain function. In this course we examine how this has impacted the social and medical lives of neurodiverse individuals, their families and allies. We also explore how cognitive variation and mental health are understood in different cultural contexts.
Forges a synthesis between culture theory and historical ecology to provide new insights on how human cultures fashion, and are fashioned by, their environment. Although cultures from all over the world are considered, special attention is given to the region defined by South and East Asia, and Australia. Prerequisite: At least one Anthropology course, and/or relevant exposure to courses in EVSC, BIOL, CHEM, or HIST or instructor permission
Anarchy - organizing society through horizontal relations of free association - has a modern European history contemporary with Anthropology and has Indigenous histories in many places where people decided together to organize society against the state and hierarchy. Readings survey anthropology of non-state societies and engage questions of how non-European anarchies of Black and Indigenous authors and organizers critique anthropological methods.
Topics include the politics of cultural representation in history, anthropology, and fine arts museums; and the museum as a bureaucratic organization, as an educational institution, and as a nonprofit corporation.
Studying the cultural representations and interpretations of the body in society. Prerequisite: ANTH 1010 or permission of the instructor.
There's no debate that human reproduction is a biological universal, but it's also an intensely cultural phenomenon with widely disparate, & often contested, specific cultural routines, symbolic systems, ideas & practices whether focused on mothers, fathers, infants or communities or who is recognized as a birthing expert. Course examines variations in physiological & cultural processes globally & explores both the individual experiences & and systemic patterns associated with the phases of reproduction from pregnancy through to post-partum.
The study of pidgins and creoles emerged as a subfield of linguistics in the latter half of the 20th century. Its ideas have been borrowed, notably by anthropologists, to analyze the increased diversity and fusion we confront in a globalizing world. Where did such ideas come from? What are their (un)intended consequences? This course will trace the epistemological development of Creole studies and consider its historical and contemporary impacts.
Introduces the native languages of North America and the methods that linguists and anthropologists use to record and analyze them. Examines the use of grammars, texts and dictionaries of individual languages and affords insight into the diversity among the languages.
Introduction to peoples, languages, cultures and histories of the Middle East. Focuses on Israel/Palestine as a microcosm of important social processes-such as colonialism, nationalism, religious fundamentalism, and modernization-that affect the region as a whole. This course is cross-listed with MEST 3470. Prerequisite: Previous course in anthropology, linguistics, Middle East Studies or permission of instructor.
Language and Thought
Topics to be announced prior to each semester, dealing with linguistics.
New course in the subject of Anthropology.
Topics to be announced prior to each semester, dealing with archaeology.
Topics to be announced prior to each semester, dealing with social and cultural anthropology.
This course teaches the importance of understanding cultural meanings when curating items, whether material or intangible, drawn from social worlds other than one's own. It provides a general introduction to collection, preservation, and display through study of a specific collection held by the instructor or by a local institution such as the Fralin Museum of Art.
This class studies the intersection of anthropology, art and material culture focusing on Australian Aboriginal art. We examine how Aboriginal art has moved from relative obscurity to global recognition over the past thirty years. Topics include the historical and cultural contexts of invention, production, marketing and appropriation of Aboriginal art. Students will conduct object-based research using the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection. Prerequisite: ANTH 1010 or instructor permission.
Historical archaeology is the archaeological study of the continental and transoceanic human migrations that began in the fifteenth century, their effects on native peoples, and historical trajectories of the societies that they created. This course offers an introduction to the field. It emphasizes how theoretical models, analytical methods, and archaeological data can be combined to make and evaluate credible inferences about the past.
This course will review the history of South America from its earliest population to the Spanish Conquest. Emphasis will be placed on tracing the rise of civilization in the Andes. The Inka empire was only the last of a long sequence of states and empires. Comparison of the Inka state with earlier polities such as the Moche and Tiwanaku will reveal the unique and enduring traditions of Andean political organizations.
This course surveys transformations in the African past, from the Middle Stone Age emergence of modern humans, to the florescence of lifeways in the Late Stone Age, to the broad mosaic of small-, medium-, and large-scale Iron Age societies, to the archaeology of colonial encounters. We also consider how archaeological methods work to produce knowledge in combination with studies of genetics, climate and environment, and historical methods.
A survey of European archaeology beginning with the Neanderthal debate, and including interpretations of Upper Paleolithic cave painting, the spread village farming from the Near East, the role of megalithic monuments, the interaction of Rome and the `Barbarians', the growth of urban centers, the Iron Age, and the Viking expansion.
This course introduces students to research methodology in medical anthropology by participating in a faculty member's ongoing research project. It will include: formulating research questions, ethical review and IRB approval, partnering and collaboration, data collection, analysis, and presenting project findings. This practice-oriented course emphasizes learning by doing and mentored reflection. The topic and methodological approach will vary according to faculty interests.
Survey of modern schools of linguistics, both American and European, discussing each approach in terms of historical and intellectual context, analytical goals, assumptions about the nature of language, and relation between theory and methodology.
New Course in the subject of Anthropology.
Topics to be announced prior to each semester, dealing with social and cultural anthropology.
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.
Examines the quantitative analytical techniques used in archaeology. Includes seriation, regression analysis, measures of diversity, and classification.
Independent study conducted by the student under the supervision of an instructor of his or her choice.
Independent research, under the supervision of the faculty DMP thesis readers, toward the DMP thesis. Prerequisite: Admission to the Distinguished Majors Program in Anthropology.
Writing of a thesis of approximately 50 pages, under the supervision of the faculty DMP thesis readers. Prerequisite: ANTH 4998.
This graduate seminar, also open to advanced undergraduates, engages interdisciplinary theory, case material, and intersecting knowledge production networks to approach indigenous landscapes as spaces of cultural production, land rights advocacy, and environmental care. It challenges students to examine their assumptions about how dominant values and stories are inscribed in landscapes, as well as the locations and perspectives from which these processes are experienced, narrated, and theorized.
Examines the ways in which the forms of kinship have been reconfigured in contemporary societies, and the ways in which traditional kinship studies have been reconfigured by their intersection with culture theory, feminist theory, gender studies, postmodern theory, gay and lesbian studies, and cultural studies of science and medicine. Prerequisite: ANTH 5200 or instructor permission.
Considers Western economic theories and their relevance to non-Western societies. Includes a comparative analysis of different forms of production, consumption, and circulation.
This course is an introduction to legal anthropology for graduate students or advanced undergraduates. This course investigates law systems, legal argumentation, and people's interactions with these thoughts and forms. Rather than taking as given the hegemonic power that legal structures might hold over people's lives and thought, this course questions how people use, abuse, subvert, and leverage legal structures in which they find themselves.
In this seminar, we will examine how we can use our training in the social sciences and humanities to further the goals of a collaborating community, as well as to engage with different publics. The focus of this course will be on anthropology and its subdisciplines. Our discussions on how to engage with non-academic communities and publics will be applicable to a broad range of disciplines.
This course will examine mental health issues from the perspectives of biomedicine and anthropology, emphasizing local traditions of illness and healing as well as evidence from epidemiology and neurobiology. Included topics will be psychosis, depression, PTSD, Culture Bound Syndromes, and suicide. We will also examine the role of pharmaceutical companies in the spread of western based mental health care and culturally sensitive treatment.
A hands-on seminar in myth interpretation designed to acquaint the student with the concept and techniques of obviation.
Investigates the grammatical structure of non-European language on the basis of data collected in class from a native speaker. A different language is the focus of study each year.
An introduction to the theory and analysis of linguistic sound systems. Covers the essential units of speech sound that lexical and grammatical elements are composed of, how those units are organized at multiple levels of representation, and the principles governing the relation between levels.
Considers how languages change as part of social systems and affected by historical processes. We will contrast language change through internal processes of drift and regular sound change with contact-induced language change involving multilingualism and code switching, language shift and lexical borrowing, the emergence of pidgin, creole, and intertwined languages, language endangerment, and computational tools for historical linguistics.
This course explores the theoretical, practical, and ethical foundations of language documentation and linguistic fieldwork, forms of research that can hardly be separated in this era of global language loss.
This course introduces students to the literature pertaining to the development of Artificial Intelligence, especially as this pursuit entails questions of Language, Data, Ecology, and Epistemology. Together we will discuss touchstone pieces tied to these issues and work towards developing resources that will eventually inform the development of an undergraduate gateway course on Language, AI, and Society.
There is more to language acquisition than learning vocabulary and grammar; one also becomes an appropriate user of language as one is socialized into being a competent member of a speech community. This course explores learners¿ understandings of what speech is and how it functions, and how communicative encounters shape speakers sense of who they are and how they should act or feel, thereby serving as a locus for the transmission of culture.
In anthropology, where identity has become a central concern, language is seen as an important site for the construction of, and negotiation over social identities. In linguistics, reference to categories of social identity helps to explain language structure and change. This seminar explores the overlap between these converging trends by focusing on the notion of discourse as a nexus of cultural and linguistic processes.
Students build knowledge and practice of analysis of peoples' joint-engagement in embodied interactions. How does action weave together multiple sensory modalities into semiotic webs linking interactions with more durative institutions of social life? Course includes workshops on video recording, and the transcription and coding of verbal and non-verbal actions. Prior coursework in Linguistics, Anthropology or instructor permission recommended.
This course surveys ethnographic and linguistic literature on literacy, focusing on the social meanings of speaking vs. writing (and hearing vs. reading) as opposed communicative practices, looking especially at traditionally oral societies.
Discourse analysis looks at the patterns in language and language-use above the level of sentence grammar and seeks to apply the micro-level analysis of communicative interactions to understanding the macro-level processes of social and cultural reproduction. Topics include: symbolic interactionism, conversation analysis, critical discourse analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, discourse prosody, and digital analysis techniques.
This course examines theories and practices of race and otherness, in order to analyze and interpret constructions, deconstructions and reconstructions of race from the late 18th to the 21st centuries. The focus varies from year to year, and may include 'race, 'progress and the West,' 'gender, race and power,' and 'white supremacy.' The consistent theme is that race is neither a biological nor a cultural category, but a method and theory of social organization, an alibi for inequality, and a strategy for resistance. Cross listed as AAS 5528. Prerequisite: ANTH 1010, 3010, or other introductory or middle-level social science or humanities course
Topics to be announced prior to each semester, dealing with linguistics.
Seminars in topics of specific interest to faculty and advanced students will be announced prior to each semester.
New course in the subject of anthropology.
Seminars in topics announced prior to each semester.
Topics to be announced prior to each semester, dealing with social and cultural anthropology.
Africa is commonly imagined in the West as an unproblematically bounded and undifferentiated entity. This course engages and moves beyond western traditions of story telling about Africa to explore diverse systems of imagining Africa's multi-diasporic realities. Imagining Africa is never a matter of pure abstraction, but entangled in material struggles and collective memory, and taking place at diverse and interconnected scales and locales. Prerequisite: ANTH 1010
Laboratory training in techniques and methods used in analyzing animal bones recovered from archaeological sites. Include field collection, data analysis, and the use of zooarchaeological materials in reconstructing economic and social systems.
This course explores theories and techniques underlying spatial analysis and use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in archaeological research. Topics covered in this hands-on course include construction and manipulation of spatial data, basic spatial statistics and landscape studies. Students are expected to work on their own research projects, involving the construction, analysis and modeling of environmental and social variables.
Exploration of the archaeology of frontiers, expansions and colonization, focusing on European expansion into Africa and the Americas while using other archaeologically-known examples (e.g., Roman, Bantu) as comparative studies. Prerequisite: For undergraduates, ANTH 4591 senior seminar or instructor permission.
The focus of this class is the nature of sociopolitical interaction across boundaries and imperial frontier regions, using multidisciplinary research and different scales of analysis. Among other disciplines, this includes archaeology, ethnohistory and history. Some of the case studies comprise the ancient frontiers of imperial formations in the ancient World, the pre-Columbian Americas, and those in the US and beyond.
Independent study conducted by the student under the supervision of an instructor of his or her choice.
Introduces major historical figures, approaches, and debates in anthropology (sociocultural, linguistic, archaeological), with a focus on understanding the discipline's diverse intellectual history, and its complex involvement with dominant social and intellectual currents in western society.
Explores the major recent theoretical approaches in current anthropology, with attention to their histories and to their political contexts and implications.
Seminar on ethnographic methods and research design in the qualitative tradition. Surveys the literature on ethnographic methods and explores relations among theory, research design, and appropriate methodologies. Students participate in methodological exercises and design a summer pilot research project. Prerequisite: Second year graduate in anthropology or instructor permission.
Seminar on the craft of ethnographic writing and the ethical, political, and practical challenges of describing studied people in scholarly books and articles. What can student researchers do during fieldwork to help them write better dissertations more easily? How should they analyze and present field data? Prerequisite: ANTH 7040 or instructor permission. Suitable for pre- and post-field graduate students.
A workshop for graduates preparing dissertation proposals and writing grant applications. Each student prepares several drafts of a proposal, revising it at each stage in response to the criticisms of classmates and the instructor.
This course engages with ways that historical process are inscribed in landscapes, which are the traditional territories of indigenous communities and have also been shaped by colonialism, extractive enterprise, and nature conservation. It challenges students to examine their assumptions to examine ways in which dominant values and stories are inscribed in landscapes and made to appear natural and how indigenous peoples contest these processes. Prerequisite: Graduate status or instructor permission.
This seminar examines how photographs, films, art, and digital media are used to represent and study human cultures. Students will engage critically with visual ethnography, representation, and the ethics of visual storytelling. Through film screenings, guest lectures, museum visits, and independent research, students will develop advanced theoretical grounding and methodological expertise in visual anthropology, preparing them to contribute original scholarship to the field.
Analyzes the ways in which a spirit of national or ethic solidarity is mobilized and utilized.
Disabled people are considered the "world's largest minority," but does a shared disability experience exist? In this course we examine the diverse ways disability is understood in different social contexts. We use disability studies as a critical lens to examine issues of power and to ask key questions of anthropology, including; What does it mean to have an anthropology of embodied experience? An anthropology of the mind?
Anarchy - organizing society through horizontal relations of free association - has a modern European history contemporary with Anthropology and has Indigenous histories in many places where people decided together to organize society against the state and hierarchy. Readings survey anthropology of non-state societies and engages questions of how non-European anarchies of Black and Indigenous authors and organizers critique anthropological methods.
Topics include the politics of cultural representation in history, anthropology, and fine arts museums; and the museum as a bureaucratic organization, as an educational institution, and as a nonprofit corporation.
Study of the cultural representations and interpretations of the body in society.
An advanced introduction to the study of language from an anthropological point of view. No prior coursework in linguistics is expected, but the course is aimed at graduate students who will use what they learn in their own anthropologically-oriented research. Topics include an introduction to such basic concepts in linguistic anthropology as language in world-view, the nature of symbolic meaning, language and nationalism, universals and particulars in language, language in history and prehistory, the ethnography of speaking, the nature of everyday conversation, and the study of poetic language. The course is required for all Anthropology graduate students. It also counts toward the Theory requirement for the M.A. in Linguistics.
Survey of modern schools of linguistics, both American and European, discussing each approach in terms of historical and intellectual context, analytical goals, assumptions about the nature of language, and relation between theory and methodology.
The study of pidgins and creoles emerged as a subfield of linguistics in the latter half of the 20th century. Its ideas have been borrowed, notably by anthropologists, to analyze the increasing diversity and mixedness we confront in a globalizing world. But where did such ideas come from, and what are their (un)intended consequences? In this course, we trace the epistemological development of Creole studies and consider its historical and contemporary impacts.
Surveys the classification and typological characteristics of Native American languages and the history of their study, with intensive work on one language by each student. Some linguistics background is helpful.
Language and Culture in the Middle East
This course covers the basic principles of diachronic linguistics (the study of how languages change over time) and the uses of linguistic data in the reconstruction of prehistory. Considered is 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. Fulfills the comparative-historical requirement for Linguistics graduate students.
Analyzes particular aspects of language structure and use. Topics vary from year to year.
New course in the subject of anthropology.
Topics to be announced prior to each semester, dealing with archaeology.
Topics to be announced prior to each semester, dealing with social and cultural anthropology.
This course examines the quantitative analytical techniques used in anthropology and archaeology. Topics include seriation, regression analysis, measures of diversity, and classification.
New course in the subject of anthropology.
For master's research, taken before a thesis director has been selected.
For master's thesis, taken under the supervision of a thesis director.
Directed Readings
Directed Readings
Research Practicum
For doctoral research, taken before a dissertation director has been selected.
For doctoral dissertation, taken under the supervision of a dissertation director.
An Independent Study in Archaeology. Subject to be determined by student and instructor.
Research for a thesis of approximately 50 written pages undertaken in the fall semester of the fourth year by archaeology majors who have been accepted into the Interdisciplinary Archaeology Distinguished Majors Program. Prerequisite: acceptance into Archaeology DMP
Writing of a thesis of approximately 50 written pages undertaken in the spring semester of the fourth year by archaeology majors who have been accepted into the Interdisciplinary Archaeology Distinguished Majors Program. Prerequisite: acceptence into DMP program
The course introduces students to the Cherokee language, which has been spoken for hundreds of years in North Carolina by Cherokees & their neighbors but is now in danger of disappearing because Cherokee children no longer learn it at home. The course develops Cherokee speaking & listening skills & allows students to participate in revitalizing Cherokee language & culture. The course is offered as part of the UVa-Duke-Vanderbilt consortium for distance learning in less commonly taught languages.
An introduction to the study of language relationships and linguistic structures. Topics covered the basic elements of grammatical description; genetic, areal, and typological relationships among languages; a survey of the world's major language groupings and the notable structures and grammatical categories they exhibit; and the issue of language endangerment. Prerequisite: One year study of a world language or permission of instructor.
Studies the theory, problems, and methods in teaching English as a second language, with attention to relevant areas of general linguistics and the structure of English.
Through this course, students focus on teaching oral English as another language, while gaining experience in the practice of English-language teaching to international students, faculty, and staff at the University. This is an excellent opportunity to gain teaching experience under the supervision of an experienced mentor. For every 1 hour of credit, students must meet with an instructor for 5 classroom & practice 33 hours.
Through this course, students focus on culture in ESL, while gaining experience in the practice of English-language teaching to international students, faculty, and staff at the University. This is an excellent opportunity to gain teaching experience under the supervision of an experienced mentor. For every 1 hour of credit, students must meet with an instructor for 5 classroom & practice 33 hours
Through this course, students focus on the topic of writing in an L2, while gaining experience in the practice of English-language teaching to international students, faculty, and staff at the University. This experience is an excellent opportunity to gain teaching experience under the supervision of an experienced mentor.
Introduces students to the descriptive grammar of English and applied methods for reasoning about linguistic structure through community-engaged group research introducing linguistics to Virginia High School students. Covers units of sound and phonemic transcriptions, word building and inflection, lexical categories, basic sentence types, common phrase and clause patterns, and syntactic transformations structural analysis and use of evidence.
New course in the subject of linguistics
New course in the subject of linguistics.
Linguistic typologists study the patterns of grammatical forms and relations as they vary and converge across the diversity of the world's languages. Students in this course examine and critically evaluate definitions, methods and results of typological research, and gain practice analyzing linguistic data through typological lenses.
In this course, we explore the cognitive faculties that enable us to interpret language in context. This requires us to critically examine a variety of linguistic theories which fall into two basic categories: those that ask what kinds of categories words/constructions denote (semantics) and those that ask how linguistic form is related to discourse context (pragmatics). Studying patterns cross-linguistically allows us to critically analyze the theories and arrive at generalizations on meaning.
Conducted by students under the supervision of an instructor of their choice.
In this course students will work closely with a professor on an ongoing research project.
A two-semester course in which the student prepares a thesis under the supervision of a Linguistics faculty member. Prerequisite: Participants in the Distinguished Majors Program in Linguistics.
A two-semester course in which the student prepares a thesis under the supervision of a Linguistics faculty member. Prerequisite: Participants in the Distinguished Majors Program in Linguistics.
Studies the theory, problems, and methods in teaching English as a second language, with attention to relevant areas of general linguistics and the structure of English.
Through this course, students focus on the topic of language in an L2, while gaining experience in the practice of English-language teaching to international students, faculty, and staff at the University. This experience is an excellent opportunity to gain teaching experience under the supervision of an experienced mentor. For every 1 hour of credit, students must meet with an instructor for 5 classroom & practice 33 hours. Prerequisite: 3250
Through this course, students focus on the topic of culture in ESL, while gaining experience in the practice of English-language teaching to international students, faculty, and staff at the University. This experience is an excellent opportunity to gain teaching experience under the supervision of an experienced mentor. For every 1 hour of credit, students must meet with an instructor for 5 classroom & practice 33 hours. Prerequisite: 3250
Through this course, students focus on the topic of writing in an L2, while gaining experience in the practice of English-language teaching to international students, faculty, and staff at the University. This experience is an excellent opportunity to gain teaching experience under the supervision of an experienced mentor. For every 1 hour of credit, students must meet with an instructor for 5 classroom & practice 33 hours.
Investigates the grammatical structure of non-European language on the basis of data collected in class from a native speaker. A different language is the focus of study each year.
In this course on phonetics, students will explore the acoustic properties of different segment types, formants, pitch, intensity, spectra, and voice pulsing, among other phenomena. The emphasis is on parameters that influence speech intelligibility, the correlates of language variation (comparison between languages, effects of dialects), as well as some aspects of phonetic pathology. Prerequisites: LNGS 3250 or Instructor Permission
An introduction to the theory and analysis of linguistic sound systems. Covers the essential units of speech sound that lexical and grammatical elements are composed of, how those units are organized at multiple levels of representation, and the principles governing the relation between levels.
Independent study conducted by the student under the supervision of, and with agreement of, instructor.
New course in the subject of linguistics.
Course explores cognitive faculties that enable people to interpret and use language. We look closely and critically at theories that ask what categories, words and constructions denote (semantic theories) and theories that ask how linguistic form relates to discourse-conversation (pragmatic theories). Students should have taken a prior Linguistics class to succeed in this course.
Linguistic typologists study the patterns of grammatical forms and relations as they vary and converge across the diversity of the world's languages. Students in this course examine and critically evaluate definitions, methods and results of typological research, and gain practice analyzing linguistic data through typological lenses.
This course focuses on the psychological processes that underlie the use of language and speech. Is language competence different from other human skills? Is language a biological, a psychological, a cultural phenomenon, or all of these? Why do people speak with an accent? Why do we forget words (and why do we remember them)?
This course provides students with a foundation in the grammar of the English language. Topics include phonology, morphology, syntax, with a focus on structural analysis. Students will gain confidence in discussing the form, function, & usage of linguistic structures. These topics will also be related to the teaching & tutoring of English as a second language including error correction & feedback which will be reflected in advanced final papers.
New course in the subject of linguistics.
Examines such topics as American deaf history; ASL linguistics; deaf education; cultural versus pathological views of deaf people; controversies over efforts to eliminate sign language and cure deafness; ASL poetry and storytelling; deafness in mainstream literature, film, and drama; deafness and other minority identities; and the international deaf community.
Preparation for Master's Research, no thesis director.
For Master's thesis, taken under the supervision of a thesis director.
Special Areas Students should choose electives in one or more of the following areas: anthropology, Asian and Middle Eastern languages and Cultures, comparative Latin and Greek, English language study, Germanic linguistics, Indic linguistics, philosophy, psychology, Romance linguistics, Slavic linguistics.
Prerequisite: limited or no previous knowledge of Swahili.
Prerequisite: SWAH 1010.
Develops skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing, and awareness of the cultural diversity of the Swahili-speaking areas of East Africa. Readings drawn from a range of literary and journalistic materials. Prerequisite: SWAH 1020
Further develops skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing, and awareness of the cultural diversity of the Swahili-speaking areas of East Africa. Readings drawn from a range of literary and journalistic materials.