The Anthropology Program | Academic Requirements & Concentrations | Student Learning Outcomes | Double Major in Anthropology & Sociology | Minor in Anthropology | Courses | Faculty

The Anthropology Program: Courses

ANT 1000–1999 (lower level, freshman)
ANT 2000–2999 (lower level, sophomore)
ANT 3000–3999 (upper level, junior)
ANT 4000–4999 (upper level, senior)

ANT 1000–1999:

Nigerian/Hausa Language and Culture I
ANT 1010 / 4 credits / Alternate years (Fall)
Hausa is one of the most important African languages, spoken by more than 50 million people in Nigeria and numerous other countries. This course offers intensive first-year instruction in the Hausa language while introducing students to the customs, beliefs, and concerns of Nigerian Hausa speakers as expressed through various media. Also offered as HAU 1010.

Nigerian/Hausa Language and Culture II
ANT 1020 / 4 credits / Alternate years (Spring)
In this continuation of ANT 1010, development of oral skills remains the primary objective. This course completes an intensive first-year of instruction in the Hausa language and the customs, beliefs, and concerns of Nigerian Hausa speakers as expressed through various media. Also offered as HAU 1020.

Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology
ANT 1500 / 3 credits / Fall
The major fields of interest and contributions of social and cultural anthropologists. Accounts of life in different societies are read to illustrate how institutions vary in different cultural settings and to explore what it means to be a member of a culture different from one’s own.

ANT 2000–2999:

Urban Life in Africa
ANT 2055 / 3 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
Introduces students to the everyday lives of people in African cities. Topics include urbanization in Africa from ancient times to the present; migration to and from African cities; wealth and poverty; work and leisure; gender and sexuality; and responses to African city life as expressed in art, religion, and politics.

Social Issues
ANT 2140 / 3 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to a topic of broad interest or concern; examples include (but are not limited to) violence and terror, the global AIDS crisis, poverty, and racism. It is team taught by faculty members in at least two distinct disciplines. Lectures are supplemented by visual presentations and guest lectures.

Culture and Personality
ANT 2170 / 3 credits / Alternate years
Ruth Benedict’s pioneering work, Patterns of Culture, laid the foundations for investigation into the relationship between cultural ethos and individual personality. Starting with Benedict, this course considers a variety of approaches to this general question, including those suggested by Mead, Linton, LaBarre, and others.

MSA crosslisting added Spring 2012 (8/10/11):
Language, Culture, and Society
ANT 2175 / 3 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
Explores the different roles that language plays in the lives of people, communities, and nations. Topics include language and thought, language and power, poetics and verbal art, bilingualism, African-American English (“Ebonics”), pidgin and creole languages, Native American language revitalization, “politically correct”; language, and the rise of English as a global language. Also offered as MSA 2175.

American Culture
ANT 2180 / 3 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
A sociocultural perspective on American life from de Tocqueville’s time to the present. Major emphasis is placed on the contradiction between equality, the highest American value, and the historical realities of race, class, gender, and kinship. Also offered as SOC 2180.

American Identities
ANT 2190 / 3 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
What makes one white, black, Hispanic, or Asian? Far from being inherent, racial and ethnic identities are socially constructed. This class explores the construction of U.S. identities, looking at the ways in which immigrants and native-born Americans come to see themselves and others as they negotiate life with each other and with their environment.

The Origins of Society
ANT 2210 / 3 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
The processes and events of social change, with emphasis on three basic transitions in human history: the emergence of village society; the origins of food production; and the growth of social and economic stratification, urbanism, and the state. Theoretical approaches to social change are studied.

Sociology of Gender
ANT 2211 Refer to SOC 2210 in Sociology Courses for description.

Islam in the American Imagination
ANT 2235 / 3 credits / Alternate years (Spring)
An introduction to the representations of Muslims in the U.S. and abroad during the 20th and the 21st centuries. Topics include the place of Islam in the American imagination; the relationships among race, gender, religion, and citizenship in the U.S.; public and popular discourse on Muslim immigrants; U.S. foreign policy and the Muslim world.

Film and Anthropology
ANT 2250 / 3 credits / Alternate years (Spring)
How useful a tool is film for the study of peoples who come from cultures entirely different from one’s own? Appropriate readings accompany the visual material, in addition to ethnographic accounts of the societies viewed in class and discussions of the problems encountered in filming non-Western peoples.

Performing Arts in Cross-Cultural Perspective
ANT 2320 / 3 credits / Spring
An introductory survey of music, theatre, and dance in Western and non-Western cultures, including the relationships between music and religion, dance and weddings, theatre and curing. The course also explores the performing arts as aesthetic phenomena in their own right. Live performances by non-Western performers and optional field trips are planned. Also offered as MSA 2320.

LST crosslisting added Spring 2012 (9/27/11):
New Immigrants in the United States
ANT 2330 / 3 credits / Alternate years
Drawing on anthropological studies, students examine how refugees, immigrants, guest workers, and undocumented workers have shaped U.S. society through their interaction with the U.S. government, with communities already in the U.S., with each other, and with communities and ideologies originating beyond the borders of the U.S. The focus is on the contemporary Muslim, Asian, and Latino immigrant experience. Also offered as LST 2330.
Prerequisite: ANT 1500 or permission of instructor

Drugs, Bodies, Design
ANT 2340 / 3 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
Using texts and films, students analyze how street drugs and legitimated pharmaceuticals become entangled with the economic and aesthetic practices of marginal and mainstream social worlds. Topics include rural Midwestern methamphetamine production as a cottage industry; the ways that steroids and methamphetamine refashion the HIV+ body and identity; and the designs of “performance enhancers”; like Adderall that make machines out of bodies. Also offered as MSA 2340.

Anthropology of South Asia
ANT 2400 / 3 credits / Alternate years
Using ethnographic case studies, this course introduces students to a broad range of anthropological research on South Asia. Topics include colonial forms of knowledge and early descriptive accounts of the region; the caste system; constructions of transgender, feminine, and masculine identities and communities; postcolonial and diasporic identities and communities; and globalization and ethnoreligious conflict in India and Pakistan.

Environment and Sustainable Development in South Asia
ANT 2410 / 3 credits / Alternate years (Fall)
An introduction to environmental issues and sustainable development in South Asia. Topics include relationships among geography, natural environment, and cultural life and traditions; “Mother Earth”; and human ecology in India; sacred cow complex; ecofeminism and the Chipko Movement; ecotourism in the Himalayas; environmental security, impact assessments, and large-scale industrial projects; and international development agencies and sustainable development projects in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal. Also offered as ENV 2410.
Prerequisite: ANT 1500 or an introductory-level course in environmental studies

Museum Anthropology
ANT 2470 / 3 credits / Alternate years (Fall)
An introduction to the poetics of representation, display, and performance in museums. Students critically analyze museums as spaces of encounter and culture contact; consider the political economy of museums and their links to the education, tourism, and entertainment industries; and participate in and report on curatorial projects at the Neuberger Museum of Art. Also offered as MSA 2470 and ARH 2470.
Prerequisite: ANT 1500 or MSA 1050

Urban Sociology
ANT 2500 Refer to SOC 2500 in Sociology Courses for description.

Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion
ANT 2550 / 3 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
Magic, witchcraft, and religion from an anthropological perspective, including theories about the origins and functions of religious beliefs and practices in different cultures. Readings include theoretical writings and ethnographic studies.

Introduction to Ethnomusicology
ANT 2610 / 3 credits / Alternate years (Fall)
A survey of theoretical orientations and methodologies for the study of musical production, performance, and consumption in particular cultural contexts and within global flows of materials, ideas, cultural forms, and people. Focuses on music as a communication medium and collective poetic process. Students attend and critically engage musical performances and/or engage directly in musical production and performances. Also offered as MSA 2610 and MUS 2610.
Prerequisite: ANT 1500 or MSA 1050

Global Sexualities
ANT 2755 / 3 credits / Alternate years
Explores and compares the diverse ways in which sexuality and gender are practiced, experienced, and regulated in different communities around the world. Particular attention is paid to how sexual identities and practices have influenced, and been influenced by, global political, economic, and cultural movements, including colonialism, capitalism, feminism, queer activism, and the spread of world religions. Also offered as GND 2755.

ANT 3000–3999:

Myth and Ritual
ANT 3070 / 4 credits / Alternate years (Spring)
The social anthropology of myths and rituals in both simple and complex societies. Some attention is given to the approaches of Durkheim, Lévi-Strauss, Edmund Leach, Victor Turner, and Clifford Geertz, who have made contributions within the theoretical schools of structuralism and symbolic anthropology.

Classics in Anthropological Literature
ANT 3150 / 4 credits / Spring
Theoretical concepts and their use in analyzing empirical data. Students read and critically analyze the work of some of the major thinkers in anthropology, including Benedict, Mead, Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, Geertz, Turner, and Lévi-Strauss. Recommended for majors only.

Media Representations and Identity
ANT 3175 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
Many ideas that people develop about others and self come from the media; think for a moment about one’s source of information on Native Americans or one’s own ethnic group. This class takes a cross-cultural look at the role of media in shaping identity. Different sources of representation, including museums, film, literature, and performance media, are examined. Also offered as MSA 3175.
Prerequisite: MSA 1050

Global Media, Local Cultures
ANT 3185 / 4 credits / Spring
Explores how media technologies and genres are produced, used, and interpreted in different cultural contexts around the world. Emphasis is placed on the effect of different media on people’s social identities and communities, including families, nations, and religions. Anthropological theories of media and performance are applied to ethnographic research projects in and around the Purchase College community. Also offered as MSA 3185.
Prerequisite: ANT 1500 or MSA 1050 or permission of instructor

Urban Anthropology
ANT 3190 / 4 credits / Fall
The experiences and problems of city dwellers in the Third World and migrants from Third World countries to Western cities, including New York. Topics include urbanization and family life, adaptation of migrants, ethnicity and class, the culture of poverty, and methods of urban anthropologists.
Prerequisite: ANT 1500 or 2055

Los Angeles/Mumbai: Cinematic City Cross-Culturally
ANT 3275 / 4 credits / Alternate years (Fall)
Examines the relationship between the city and cinema through case studies of Los Angeles and Mumbai, global cities that are home to two of the largest film industries in the world. Students explore the interconnections between the city and cinematic representations of Los Angeles and Mumbai, and the relationship between cinema and urban life, cultural forms and traditions. Also offered as MSA 3275.
Prerequisite: ANT 1500 or MSA 1050 or permission of instructor

Theatre and Performance in Africa
ANT 3345 / 4 credits / Alternate years
Explores how African performing artists and audiences have responded to the cultural, political, and economic circumstances of the times and places in which they live. Performance media include music, song, dance, and the spoken word, with a special focus on western and southern Africa. Students draw on anthropological theories to produce, perform, and critique their own versions of African theatrical texts.
Prerequisite: ANT 1500 or MSA 1050 or permission of instructor

Critical Perspectives on Language and Culture
ANT 3390 / 4 credits / Alternate years (Spring)
Students perform close readings and engage in in-depth discussions of theoretical texts, illustrative ethnographic works, and audio/video recordings on the relationships between language and culture. Questions explored include: What assumptions about culture are implicit in any given method of analyzing language practices? What lies beyond the reach of language? Topics covered include affect, gesture, semiotics, and symbolic violence. Also offered as MSA 3390.
Prerequisite: ANT 1500

Culture and Values
ANT 3405 / 4 credits / Alternate years (Spring)
Examines how culture is represented and sustained. Through this examination, the meaning given to some sociocultural systems is identified, including the role of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class. Students also study how values are transformed by contestation and resistance. Also offered as GND 3405.
Prerequisite: ANT 1500

Anthropology of Art and Aesthetics
ANT 3410 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
An exploration of the arts of a variety of cultures, both Western and non-Western. Topics include the relationship of art to other social institutions; the role of the artist in society; the ways that people make aesthetic judgments; and the evolutionary significance of art.

Anthropology of Music and Sound
ANT 3415 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
An anthropological and ethnomusicological approach to sound, listening, and modernity, with emphasis on recent scholarship concerning aural/audio cultures. Topics include avant-garde sound poetry, noise and war, soundscapes and urban noise, silence and deafness, listening practices and mobility in urban space (Walkman, iPod), background music (Muzak), and sound art and installations. Also offered as MSA 3415.
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor

Rebels, Freaks, and Prophets: Deviance Revisited
ANT 3430 / 4 credits / Spring
An interdisciplinary course that examines the lives of people who were considered extraordinary or different. Problems of stigma and “freakishness” are linked to individual and collective rebellion. Various sociological theories of “deviance” are considered. Also offered as SOC 3430 and GND 3430.

Peoples of the Southwest
ANT 3450 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
An overview of the prehistory and history of the region sets the stage for a comprehensive analysis of three distinct cultures (Native American, Hispanic, and Anglo) and their interrelationships, using annual ceremonies and rituals as a focus for analysis.

Added Summer 2012 (8/18/11):
Archaeological Issues in the Southern Levant
ANT 3455 Refer to JST 3455 in Jewish Studies Courses (School of Humanities) for description.

Added Summer 2012 (8/18/11):
Methods and Techniques in Field Archaeology
ANT 3456 Refer to JST 3456 in Jewish Studies Courses (School of Humanities) for description.

Anthropology of Europe
ANT 3490 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
An examination of the contemporary cultures of Europe, with a special focus on Eastern Europe in the post-communist era. The cultures studied in depth include Croatian, Turkish, and Finnish enclaves in the Russian Federation and Britain. Emphasis is placed on the tension between nationalism and ethnic identity. Indigenous performing arts, especially as they relate to issues of ethnic and national identity, are also highlighted.
Prerequisite: ANT 1500 or permission of instructor

Performing Arts and Social Analysis
ANT 3510 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
A practicum course, comparable to MSA 3410. Students design and execute projects reflecting their own interests by combining the tools of social science inquiry with the problems of a particular performing arts field. Analysis of general topics in this area directs the formulation and completion of individual projects.

Fieldwork: Qualitative Methods
ANT 3560 / 4 credits / Fall
The methodological, political, and ethical issues of participant observation. Students read and discuss classical examples of participant-observation research. Each student conducts a participant-observation field research study and presents a preliminary version of the results to the seminar before submitting the written report.

Contemporary Japan: Aesthetics, Politics, Modernity
ANT 3600 / 4 credits / Alternate years (Fall)
Drawing on scholarly texts, novels, films, and music, this course critically examines the aesthetics and politics of modernity in Japan. Topics include fascism and aesthetics in interwar Japan; folk art and Japanese imperialism; criminality and the everyday in postwar Japan; public spectacles (Tokyo Olympics, Osaka Expo); postwar avant-garde movements; consumer culture and department stores.
Prerequisite: ANT 1500

Gender and Popular Culture in South Asia
ANT 3610 / 4 credits / Fall
Drawing on anthropology, sociology, history, and cultural studies, students examine the relationship between constructions of gender identities and popular culture in two major South Asian nations, India and Pakistan. “South Asian popular culture” is broadly and inclusively conceptualized to incorporate lived and textual cultures, the mass and new media, different ways of life, and discursive modes of representation. Also offered as GND 3610.

Anthropology of Poverty
ANT 3715 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
Examines poverty, primarily in the U.S., with a focus on theoretical explanations for the persistence of poverty. Through close reading of ethnography, particular emphasis is placed on the strategies people use to address poverty in their lives.
Prerequisite: ANT 1500 or 3190

Sexuality in Western Culture
ANT 3750 / 4 credits / Fall
Historical and anthropological approaches to prescribed and proscribed forms of sexuality (i.e., homosexuality, pornography) from classical times to the present are examined, with special emphasis on the Anglo-American tradition. Readings consider new social theories of sexuality. Also offered as GND 3750.
Prerequisite: SOC 2020 or GND 1520

Culture and Society in South Africa
ANT 3760 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
An examination of social and cultural anthropological approaches to understanding the varied and diverse population of South Africa. From classic monographs to the struggle against apartheid and current debates over nonracialism, topics include: colonialism, Bantu homelands, migration, witchcraft, HIV/AIDS, gender, sexuality, urbanization, poverty, and ethnicity.

Human Ecology
ANT 3801 Refer to ENV 3800 in Environmental Studies Courses for description.

ANT 4000–4999:

Current Anthropological Literature
ANT 4070 / 4 credits / Fall
For senior anthropology majors and students with a substantial background in anthropology. The first half of the course focuses on recent theoretical texts in cultural anthropology. Students are expected to present short oral reports on these texts and to lead class discussion. The second half of the course features presentations by the students on their senior project research.

Added Spring 2012 (9/01/11):
Informal Economies
ANT 4100 Refer to MSA 4100 in Media, Society, and the Arts Courses (School of Film and Media Studies) for description.

Added Fall 2012 (1/05/12):
Material Culture
ANT 4160 Refer to MSA 4160 in Media, Society, and the Arts Courses (School of Film and Media Studies) for description.

Special Topic: Geographic Area
ANT 4860 / 4 credits / Special topic (offered irregularly)
Special anthropological topics by geographic area.
Topic: Culture and Media in Italy
Focuses on cultural forms drawn from literature, film, music, and the visual arts across two centuries of Italian history to the present. Students examine, in Italy and elsewhere, various representations and performances of gender, race and ethnicity, region, and diaspora that produce “Italians.”

Senior Project in Anthropology
ANT 4990 / 4 credits (per semester) / Every semester
Students are required to submit a senior project in order to complete the major in anthropology. Students work with individual faculty members to develop a project design that focuses on some substantive problem in anthropology. The project may be based on fieldwork or library research. Must be taken for two semesters (8 credits total).

Updated Jan. 5, 2012

Updates
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