Anthropology
Students may complete a major or a minor in Anthropology.
Anthropology studies the human condition as it has been evolutionarily, historically, and culturally conditioned, ranging from sociocultural and linguistic anthropology, which focus on social, political, and cultural dynamics in contemporary contexts, to biological anthropology and anthropological archaeology, which focus on human evolution and past cultural change. Bryn Mawr's Anthropology major provides an opportunity to explore the social, cultural, biological and linguistic variations that characterize the diversity of humankind in the past and the present.
Cooperation with Other Programs
The Anthropology major curriculum is flexible and pairs well with other majors, minors, and concentrations across the Bi-Co.
In recent years, Anthropology has offered courses that count toward Africana Studies; Biology; Child and Family Studies; Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology; Environmental Studies; Gender and Sexuality Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities; Health Studies; History; History of Art; International Studies; MECANA; and Peace and Conflict Studies. Selected courses from other departments and programs including Africana Studies; Biology; Growth and Structure of Cities; History; International Studies; and Museum Studies also count toward Anthropology.
Major Requirements
| Code | Title | Units |
|---|---|---|
| ANTH B101 | Introduction to Biological and Archaeological Anthropology | 1 |
| ANTH B102 | Introduction to Cultural Anthropology | 1 |
| ANTH B303 | History of Anthropological Theory | 1 |
| ANTH B398 | Senior Conference | 1 |
| ANTH B399 | Senior Conference | 1 |
| Select five additional 200- and 300-level elective courses in anthropology, one of which is an ethnographic area course that focuses on the cultures of a single region | 5 | |
| Total Units | 10 | |
Students are encouraged to select courses from each of the four subfields of anthropology: archaeology, bioanthropology, linguistic, and sociocultural anthropology.
Required courses that must be taken at Bryn Mawr are: ANTH B101, ANTH B303, ANTH B398, and ANTH B399. ANTH H103 at Haverford may be substituted for ANTH B102. Beginning with the class of 2026, students must take at least three out of their five elective courses in the Bryn Mawr Anthropology department.
Writing in the Major
For the class of 2024 and 2025, the major writing intensive requirement is fulfilled by taking ANTH B303 (WI). Beginning with the class of 2026, the major writing intensive requirement is fulfilled by taking two writing attentive (WA) courses: ANTH B303 (WA) and one other 300-level WA course in the Anthropology department at Bryn Mawr.
Honors
Qualified students may earn departmental honors in their senior year. Honors are based on the quality of the senior thesis (ANTH B398, ANTH B399) and grade point average in courses taken for the anthropology major.
Minor Requirements
| Code | Title | Units |
|---|---|---|
| ANTH B101 | Introduction to Biological and Archaeological Anthropology | 1 |
| ANTH B102 | Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (or ANTH H103) | 1 |
| ANTH B303 | History of Anthropological Theory | 1 |
| Select one ethnographic area course | 1 | |
| Select two additional 200- or 300-level courses in anthropology | 2 | |
| Total Units | 6 | |
ANTH B101 Introduction to Biological and Archaeological Anthropology (1 Unit)
An introduction to the place of humans in nature, evolutionary theory, living primates, the fossil record for human evolution, human variation and the issue of race, and the archaeological investigation of culture change from the Old Stone Age to the rise of early agricultural societies in the Americas, Eurasia and Africa. In addition to the lecture/discussion classes, students must select and sign up for one lab section.
ANTH B102 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (1 Unit)
This course explores the basic principles and methods of sociocultural anthropology. Sociocultural anthropology examines how many of the categories we assume to be “natural,” such as kinship, gender, or race, are culturally and socially constructed. It examines how people’s perceptions, beliefs, values, and actions are shaped by broader historical, economic, and political contexts. It is also a vital tool for understanding and critiquing imbalances of power in our contemporary world. Through a range of topically and geographically diverse course readings and films, and opportunities to practice ethnographic methodology, students will gain new analytical and methodological tools for understanding cultural difference, social organization, and social change.
ANTH B204 North American Archaeology (1 Unit)
For millennia, the North American continent has been home to a vast diversity of Native Americans. From the initial migration of big game hunters who spread throughout the continent more than 12,000 years ago, to the complex Pueblos of the Southwest and urban Cahokia in the East, there remains a rich archaeological record that reflects the ways of life of these cultures. This course will introduce the culture history of North America as well as explanations for culture change and diversification.
ANTH B208 Human Biology (1 Unit)
This course will be a survey of modern human biological variation. We will examine the patterns of morphological and genetic variation in modern human populations and discuss the evolutionary explanations for the observed patterns. A major component of the class will be the discussion of the social implications of these patterns of biological variation, particularly in the construction and application of the concept of race. Prerequisite: ANTH 101 or permission of instructor.
ANTH B210 Medical Anthropology (1 Unit)
Medical Anthropology is one of the most dynamic subfields in anthropology with relevance for health professionals and researchers interested in the complexity of disease, diagnostic categories, treatment modalities, especially in multicultural contexts. This course examines the relationships between culture, society, disease and illness in light of global, historical, and political and economic forces, in anthropological perspective. It considers a broad range of health-related experiences, discourses, knowledge and practices among different cultures globally and among diverse individuals and groups in different positions of power. We will explore illness experiences, disease etiologies, practices and rituals surrounding healing, patients and social groups, practitioners, biomedicine, traditional medicine and other forms of medical knowledge cross-culturally, epistemologies and practices, and the production of health and medical knowledge in a variety of settings, among other topics. While disease may appear to be a matter of biology, health and illness are culturally constructed and socially conditioned and essential in anthropological approaches to understanding human experiences of affliction and well-being. In this course we will ask: how are ideas of health, illness, and healing intertwined with belief, ideas about culture, concerns of social relations and social organization, and how they influence or are influenced by political and economic relations?
ANTH B213 Anthropology of Food (1 Unit)
Food is part of the universal human experience. But everyday experiences of food also reveal much about human difference. What we eat is intimately connected with who we are, where we belong, and how we see the world. In this course, we will use a socio-cultural perspective to explore how food helps us form families, national and religious communities, and other groups. We will also consider how food may become a source of inequality, a political symbol, and a subject of social discord. Examining both practical and ideological meanings of food and taste, this course will address issues of identity, social difference, and cultural experience.
ANTH B214 Becoming Unfree: Archaeology of Freedom’s Ontological Status (1 Unit)
Anthropological archaeologists have long taken part in wider discussions of concepts like egalitarianism, inequality, property, and political-economic stratification. Archaeologists have more rarely approached the past to consider the question of freedom. In their 2021 book The Dawn of Everything, anthropologist David Graeber and archaeologist David Wengrow do just this – they place the question of freedom as a central concern of all (pre)history. Their interest in the past is presented as a guide to the present and future, and they search for three kinds of freedom, which they call “primordial”: (1) freedom to move, (2) freedom to disobey, and (3) freedom to change one’s social relationships or form of social organization. The importance of the study of the past, in this way, is not about material or social inequalities but becomes one of asking how we have found ourselves recently “stuck” in systems that deny these freedoms? In this course we will engage the long archaeological and ethnographic records, including that of hunter-gatherers as well as states, to assess the material and social conditions that have opened spaces for freedoms and closed doors on others. We will tease apart various notions of freedom and try to locate them in diverse cultural moments under varying relations of kinship, property, labor, egalitarianism, and material inequality. We will question the ontological (or “primordial”) status of freedom to consider if mobility, disobedience, and social-organizational shifts could also be experienced as “unfreedoms” in the creation and enforcement of both egalitarian and inegalitarian relations. Students will be encouraged to think about the importance of the past from the vantage of their own political desires for the present and future, and we will force ourselves to consider the enduring question: can we even find our future somewhere in the past? In the background, we will also continuously return to the question of our relationship to nature/environment and what human freedom may mean at this enlarging spatial, temporal, and ecological scale.
ANTH B215 Class and Cosmopolitanism in Latin America (1 Unit)
People around the world dream of living better lives, but ideas of what a good life looks like and how to achieve it vary widely. With Latin America as a regional focus, this course explores how aspirations of living a good life are intertwined with notions of middle-class belonging on the one hand, and desires for globally-oriented cosmopolitan engagement on the other. In Latin America, in particular, narratives of a rising middle class have gone hand in hand with reports of persistent poverty and inequality. Through ethnographic case studies set in different Latin American contexts, and with attention to distinctions of nationality, race, indigeneity, gender, and generation, we will investigate a range of possibilities for how people might make claims to better lives. This course fulfills the BMC Anthropology major/minor ethnographic area requirement. Sophomore standing or above.
ANTH B216 Transnational Movements Across the Americas (1 Unit)
Globalization has enabled the movement of people, the trade of goods, and the exchange of culture and ideas but it has also created unprecedented problems such as inequality, exploitation, and environmental crisis. However, the networks formed by globalization have also created exciting opportunities for activists to organize across borders, tackle issues of global concern, and develop creative solutions. This course will introduce students to the study of transnational social movements with a focus on the Americas. We will make use of ethnographic case studies, documentary film, and an interdisciplinary social science literature to examine transnational movements on a variety of themes such as: human rights, the rights of indigenous peoples, the environment, biodiversity conservation, climate justice, the alter-globalization movement, and the rights of nature. Students will learn about the historical context of transnationalism, theories of social movement and collective action, the study of networks of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and the strategies mobilized by transnational actors to advocate on issues of social and environmental justice. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing and up; or first years who have taken Anth 102
ANTH B218 Activist Imaginaries& Conflict Management (1 Unit)
How do activists understand injustice, and how does this understanding inform activist efforts to imagine and build a more just future? What results from these activist efforts? In this class, we will examine how activists develop a kind of qualitative analysis, similar to anthropology, through which they understand social problems and seek solutions to those problems. In contrast to the frequent description of activist projects as “utopian,” we will explore how activists rely on a grounded analysis and, as such, often contribute to change even when they fail to realize their ultimate goal. We will also reflect on our role as anthropologists, asking how we can learn from and/or contribute to activist analyses and their resulting political projects. One 100-level course in any humanities or social sciences field, or permission of the instructor.
ANTH B223 The Global Middle East: Colonialism, Oil, the War on Terror (1 Unit)
A central premise of this course is that European colonial intervention in the Middle East did not just impact the Middle East, but mobilized social, material, and ideological projects which fundamentally transformed Europe itself, producing the modern “West” and the contemporary globe. Challenging tendencies to think of the Middle East as distant and different, students will explore the ways that Euro-American intervention in the Middle East shapes our everyday lives in the contemporary U.S. We will explore how the economy, culture, identity, and social organization of contemporary life in Europe and the U.S. builds off of, and is dependent upon, this history of intervention. We will conclude with an examination of global solidarity movements, with a focus on Black American activists’ solidarity work in the Arab world, to ask how this global interconnection makes the Middle East an important site for building and imagining a more just world.
ANTH B232 Human Diet and Nutrition (1 Unit)
One of the few truly universal aspects of the human experience is our need to consume food for survival. However, while food serves to nourish our bodies, diet and food choices are deeply embedded in the cultures in which we live. This course will combine archaeological, biological, and cultural anthropology studies to explore human diet and nutrition through history. The course will cover the basics of human nutrition, the evolution of the human diet from our hominin ancestors to now, and modern nutritional and diet culture in the United States.
ANTH B234 Forensic Anthropology (1 Unit)
Forensic anthropology is a subfield of biological anthropology that applies methods and techniques developed in skeletal biology, bioarchaeology and forensic sciences to the analysis of human skeletal remains in a medico-legal setting. The goal of this course is to introduce you to the field of forensic anthropology by examining underlying theory and a variety of applied techniques that relate to the challenges of human skeletal identification, while situating the discipline in the broader context of evolutionary theory and ethics. Through practical exercises you will learn the bones of the skeleton, how to create a biological profile of an individual (reconstruct age, sex, ancestry, stature), and identify trauma and pathology. We will also examine broader topics such as crime scene investigation, search and recovery of human remains in various contexts, estimating the postmortem interval, human rights investigations, and ethics and responsibilities of forensic anthropologists.
ANTH B244 Global Perspectives on Early Farmers and Social Change (1 Unit)
Throughout most of human history, our ancestors practiced lifestyles centered on gathering wild plants and hunting non-domesticated animals. Today, however, a globalized agricultural economy supports a population of over eight billion people. The widespread adoption of agriculture changed the course of history and is described by many as the most consequential cultural transition ever undertaken by humans. This course draws on information produced by archaeologists around the world to examine this major historical shift, while asking big questions such as: What impact did the adoption of agriculture have on past communities and cultures, and how did farming spread to different world regions? Did farming contribute to population growth, inequality, urbanization, and/or warfare? Did it set the stage for our own societies today?
ANTH B246 The Everyday Life of Language: Field Research in Linguistic Anthropology (1 Unit)
This course provides hands-on experience in linguistic anthropological methods of data collection and analysis. We will explore various methods employed by linguistic anthropologists, including: ethnographic observation of language use in context; audio-recording of spoken discourse; working with a linguistic corpus; online research methods; conducting linguistic and ethnographic interviews; and learning how to create a transcript to use as the basis for ethnographic analysis.
This is a Praxis 1 course. For the praxis component of the course, in the first half of the semester, the class will work with a high school language arts teacher to design a lesson and project for a high school language arts class that incorporates linguistic-anthropological concepts and student-driven research on language. The purpose of this is to move beyond the prescriptivist approach to language commonly taken at the high school level, toward a more descriptive, ethnographic approach that learns from young people’s creativity and agency as speakers of language.
In the second half of the semester, the class will work collaboratively on a research project that we develop as a class. Class time will be used to discuss the results of student work, read and discuss relevant literature in linguistic anthropology, synthesize insights that develop from bringing different ethnographic contexts together; and work collaboratively on a way of presenting the findings.
ANTH B251 Identity, Borders, and Globalization in Southeast Asia (1 Unit)
This course will explore the complexity and diversity of Southeast Asia and the ways political, economic, and environmental concerns bridge borders of countries in the region. We will examine belief systems, family systems, urbanization, economic change, politics and governance, health, and ecological change, among other topics. We will critically examine colonial, anti-colonial, nationalist, and internationalist meanings by looking at lived experiences that question what does it mean to be bound by regional designation and simultaneously participate in processes of one’s own making that challenge and transcend locality. Through reading ethnographies of cultures in the region, we also will examine anthropologies and knowledge being produced outside of the Western academy in Southeast Asia, problematize area studies and the Western construction of a geopolitical region of nation-states called Southeast Asia, and examine the limits of such a designation, as well as benefits as countries in the region that engage in ASEAN contend with globalization. Prerequisite: Sophomore Standing and Above.
ANTH B252 The politics of belonging and exclusion in India (1 Unit)
Since India's economic liberalization in the early 1990s, the globalizing dynamics of cultural and economic liberalization have been accompanied by renewed articulations of who belongs in the "New India" and who doesn't. In this context, caste, class, religious community, language, and gender have become crucial sites for claiming citizenship, articulating distinctions among people, and constructing senses of what and who can inhabit the public sphere. Using materials from different regions of India, our focus will be on how fine-grained ethnographic study can be a tool to examine the broader dynamics of belonging and exclusion and its political and social effects. This course fulfills the BMC Anthropology major/minor ethnographic area requirement.
ANTH B254 Anthropology and Social Science Research Methods (1 Unit)
This course is designed for students interested in learning ethnographic and qualitative social science methods, and how to analyze qualitative results. Through hands on fieldwork, students will learn and practice ethnographic field methods, for example, observation, participant observation, interviewing, use of visual media and drawing, life stories, generating and analyzing data, and ways to productively transform qualitative data into contextual information. Ethics in ethnographic research will be a central theme, as will envisioning and designing projects that protect human subjects. The purpose of this course is to provide anthropology majors and students in social sciences, humanities, as well as STEM majors with interests in multi-method research, an opportunity to learn methods in advance of their thesis proposal and research, Hanna Holborn Gray summer research, and other social science independent research opportunities during their undergraduate experience, and post-graduation.
ANTH B259 The Creation of Early Complex Societies (1 Unit)
In the last 10,000 years, humans around the world have transitioned from organizing themselves through small, egalitarian social networks to living within large and socially complex societies. This archaeology course takes an anthropological perspective to seek to understand the ways that human groups created these complex societies. We will explore the archaeological evidence for the development of complexity in the past, including the development of villages and early cities, the institutionalization of social and political-economic inequalities, and the rise of states and empires. Alongside discussion of current theoretical ideas about complexity, the course will compare and contrast the evolutionary trajectories of complex societies in different world regions. Case studies will emphasize the pre-Columbian histories of complex societies in the Americas as well as some of the early complex societies of the Old World.
ANTH B281 The Power in Language: Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology (1 Unit)
Ongoing debates over free expression, hate speech, and changing norms of public and political discourse have heightened our awareness of language and its power. This course provides an introduction to the conceptual tools of linguistic anthropology, which can help us understand the role language plays in constructing identities, creating social and political hierarchies, and shaping understandings and experiences of the world.
The course begins by considering the relationship between language and race, gender, and socioeconomic inequality in the US context. Then, using ethnographic materials from a variety of cultural contexts, it explores three theoretical perspectives that are central to linguistic anthropology:
-Language, power, and the linguistic market: how different languages and ways of speaking get associated with particular social groups and become valued or devalued;
-linguistic ideologies and semiotic processes: how language as a system of signs becomes meaningful, to whom, and in what ways;
-performance and poetics: what kinds of acts are possible in and through linguistic expression; and how the non-referential (sonic, poetic) aspects of language matter in constructing meaning.
ANTH B283 The Living Primates: Biology, Bones, and Behavior (1 Unit)
This course provides a comprehensive review of the order Primates, focusing on morphology, biological adaptations, and behavioral diversity characterizing non-human primates. First, we will investigate the morphological traits that characterize major primate groups, and their evolutionary history. As many primate taxa are endangered or vulnerable to extinction, we will explore the approaches and challenges to primate conservation. In the second half of the course, we will focus on primate socioecology, examining how different environments influence primate distribution and social relationships. We will then delve further into primate behavior and cognition, examining interpersonal relationships, social dynamics, communication strategies, and learning modes. In doing this, we will address the questions concerning the recognition and definition of culture, self-awareness, and personhood among non-human primates using a comparative perspective. Prerequisites: ANTH B101 or permission of the instructor
ANTH B287 Sex, Gender, Biology and Culture (1 Unit)
This 200-level anthropology course is an introductory survey of topics in sex, gender, biology, and culture, approached through an intersectional feminist interdisciplinary biocultural anthropological lens. In this course, we delve into the variations of gender in the US and globally, explore the interplay between gender and sex, and examine concepts of biological sex, intersexuality, and sexuality. Students will also explore contemporary issues and research areas where anthropologists and human biologists investigate the intersection of sex and gender. This includes discussions on hormones, sports, and the brain, as well as examinations of sex and gender among non-human animals. This course offers students a unique amalgamation of biocultural anthropology, cultural anthropology, biology research, gender studies, feminist science studies, and health science. Through this course, students will develop skills to discern and assess scientific information and claims and construct a critical feminist toolkit for analyzing scientific knowledge. They will apply these skills to evaluate a diverse array of sources, ranging from peer-reviewed articles to popular media, websites, podcasts, and documentaries. Moreover, students will utilize queer feminist theories to cultivate this intersectional perspective, honing their abilities in analytical and critical thinking. Upon completion of the course, students will leave with enhanced confidence in articulating nuanced thoughts on the complex intersections of sex, gender, sexuality, science, and society.
ANTH B291 Archaeology of Human-Environment Interaction (1 Unit)
For the entirety of our history, humans have been interacting with, responding to, and shaping our environment. In this course, we will discuss how archaeologists study and think about the ways in which people across the globe have engaged with their environments. We will begin with an overview of how archaeologists and anthropologists have theorized about human-environmental interactions. The course will then focus on three methodological frameworks used by archaeologists to study these interactions: geoarchaeology, zooarchaeology, and paleoethnobotany. Students will have the opportunity to study how archaeologists employ these methods together to better understand the relationships between people and the environments in which they live.
ANTH B293 Extractive Violence and Environmental Justice (1 Unit)
This course will introduce students to the study of environmental justice and examine questions of race, ethnicity, indigeneity, gender and inequality within the political ecology of extractive capitalism. Through ethnographic accounts, documentary film, graphic novels, photography and other multimedia, we will examine case studies of environmental justice, conflicts over resources, and the impacts of extractive industries on indigenous and other frontline communities across the Global South and North. How does ecological toxicity manifest as a form of racialized violence deployed across post-colonial geographies? Why do hydrocarbons produce “modern democracy” in some places and “petro-despotism” in others? How do we make sense of our position in a global political ecology of resource extraction? This course will unfold in three parts: the first will situate the problem of environmental justice within the broader context of humans’ impacts on global ecologies; the second will examine the historical context of extractive capitalism; and the third will examine the problem of environmental justice as a legacy of postcolonialism. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing and up; Anth 102 recommended/suggested.
ANTH B294 Culture, Power, and Politics (1 Unit)
What do national politics have to do with culture? Likewise, how are politics hidden below the surface of our everyday social lives? This course explores questions like these through anthropological approaches. Drawing on both classic and contemporary ethnographic studies from the U.S. and around the world, we will examine how social and cultural frameworks help us understand politics in new ways. We will investigate how people perceive the meanings and effects of the state; how nationalism and citizenship shape belonging on the one hand, and exclusion on the other; how understandings of gender, race, and difference converge with political action, ideology, and power; and how politics infuse everyday spaces including schools, businesses, homes, and even the dinner table. Prerequisite: ANTH B102, H103 or permission of the instructor.
ANTH B303 History of Anthropological Theory (1 Unit)
This course provides a topically oriented and roughly chronological overview of the development of anthropological thought from the late 19th to the close of the 20th century. We will examine major themes that anthropology sought to address in its first century: the individual and the social; societal cohesion and conflict; value and exchange; human difference and cultural universals; materialist vs. mentalist explanations; and power and the production of knowledge. Throughout the course, we will be concerned with the development of anthropology as a discipline in relation to the historical background of colonialism, slavery, and systemic racism; war, nationalism, decolonization and nation-building; and the spread of capitalism. We will approach each theoretical perspective in terms of: (1) the context of the social and historical circumstances in which it emerged; (2) its analytical or explanatory power for understanding human behavior and the social world; (3) the kind of methodology it proposes; (4) its contribution to subsequent anthropological research and thought.
ANTH B305 Public Anthropology (1 Unit)
What good is anthropology in the world today? How are anthropological perspectives relevant for understanding contemporary issues, and how can those perspectives be made accessible not only to an academic audience but to a broader public? This course explores how anthropologists use their methods, theories, and knowledge to engage in public conversations and intervene in public debates. We will read and analyze work that anthropologists have written for popular audiences, from books to other forms of media, on a range of topics including health, immigration, politics, and experiences of difference. We will attend to the writing styles that anthropologists use when writing for public readerships, and we will practice clearly and precisely applying anthropological insights through our own writing projects. Taking into consideration the ethical questions and obligations surrounding public anthropological engagement of the past and present, we will discuss how today’s students might draw on their anthropological training both in their future careers and as concerned citizens. Prerequisite: ANTH B101, B102, H103 or permission of the instructor.
ANTH B312 Anthropology of Reproduction (1 Unit)
This course will examine how power in everyday life shapes reproductive behavior and how reproduction is culturally constructed. Through an examination of materials from different cultures, this course will look at how often competing interests within households, communities, states and institutions (at both the local and global levels) influence reproduction in society. We will explore the political economy of reproduction cross-culturally, how power and politics shape gendered reproductive behavior and how it is interpreted and used differently by persons, communities and institutions. Topics covered include but are not limited to the politics of family planning, mothering/parenting, abortion, pregnancy, pregnancy loss, fetal testing and biology and social policy in cross-cultural comparison. Prerequisite: ANTH 8102 (or ANTH H103) recommended
ANTH B317 Disease and Human Evolution (1 Unit)
Pathogens and humans have been having an "evolutionary arms race" since the beginning of our species. In this course, we will examine how natural selection and other evolutionary forces shape our susceptibility to disease, and how we have adapted to resist disease. We will also address how concepts of Darwinian medicine impact our understanding of how people might be treated most effectively. We will focus on infectious and chronic diseases, and the anthropogenic effects contributing to the observed distribution of various diseases and illnesses, such as climate change and racism, and their interactions.
ANTH B320 Archaeological Theory and Practice (1 Unit)
What is archaeological theory? Is there an archaeological theory, or only various theories used by archaeologists? This course will examine the history of theoretical approaches in the field and the practices used by archaeologists through time, including recent developments and concerns in anthropological archaeology and beyond. We will interrogate the nature of the archaeological record and question how practitioners transform materials into information about the past. Theory and methodological developments in archaeology are considered alongside broader changes in academia, culture, and politics. This course was previously taught as ANTH B220. Prerequisite: ANTH 101 or permission of instructor.
ANTH B322 Anthropology of Bodies (1 Unit)
This course examines meanings and interpretations of bodies in anthropology. It explores anthropological theories and methods of studying the human body and social difference via a series of topics including the construction of the body in medicine, identity, race, gender, sexuality and as explored through cross-cultural comparison. Bodies and their forms are intertwined in debates both in academia and in current affairs and politics. These concerns range from surveillance and movements of bodies, disappearance and erasure of some bodies and fortification of others, to biological and technological modification of individual bodies that arise in moral and political debates and action. Although “the body” is frequently assumed to be “natural,” indeed it appears unstable and destabilizing, especially in particular times and in particular places. We will discuss, for instance the body as a focus of the biomedical gaze, as commodity, in creative expression, in relations to non-human primates, across the age spectrum, and in historical political, economic, and colonial and post-colonial regimes, among other topics. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing and higher.
ANTH B326 Sensory Ethnography (1 Unit)
Life engages all of our senses, but much of our sensory experience is filtered out when we put that experience into words. This course approaches the senses and sensory experience together as both an object of ethnographic study and as a means of ethnographic enquiry. Going beyond the notion of the senses as biologically hard-wired individual perception, we will explore how the senses are instead learned and shaped by culture and socialization, not static but changing and transforming over time. We will also examine how sensory knowledge and experience can be political: that is, shaped by and responding to structures of power. Throughout the semester, we will be asking both what can be learned from taking sensory experience seriously, and how sensory ethnography might go beyond traditional ethnographic approaches. Students will conduct projects that explore and engage taste, touch, vision, hearing, and smell, and then experiment with different ways of producing anthropological knowledge, in addition to writing; possibilities include photography, video, audio recording, curated collections of objects, or guided taste or smell experiences.
ANTH B327 Caste and Race: Analogies and Intersections (1 Unit)
With the global spread of the Black Lives Matter movement, and since the publication of American journalist Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of our Discontents, there has been a renewed interest in thinking comparatively about caste and race. This course will examine the intertwined histories and legacies of caste and race as imaginaries deployed both to create and enforce social inequality and hierarchy, and to describe and analyze it. In the first half of the course we will examine how analogies and comparisons between caste and race have been made at various moments over the long 20th century. In the second half of the course, we will explore how caste and race have intersected in lived experience, using historical sources, ethnography, and memoir. In tracking intersections of experience and the production of knowledge, our course will bring together history, anthropology, sociology, and related fields, as well as different world areas– India/South Asia and the U.S./Western hemisphere– that have traditionally been held apart in the modern academy. Prerequisite: One course in Anthropology or History or related Social Science or Humanities departments, or permission of the instructors.
ANTH B331 Medical Anthro Seminar: Critical Thinking for Critical Times (1 Unit)
Advanced Medical Anthropology: Critical Thinking for Critical Times explores theoretical and applied frameworks used in medical anthropology to tackle pressing problems in our world today. Coupled with topical subjects and ethnographic examples, this seminar will enable students to delve deeply into sub-specialization areas in the field of medical anthropology, including: global health inequalities, cross-border disease transmission, genomics, science and technology studies, ethnomedicine, cross-cultural psychiatry/psychology, cross-cultural bioethics, and ecological approaches to studying health and behavior, among others. No prior experience in medical anthropology is required. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing and higher.
ANTH B339 Migrants, Refugees, and Life Across Borders (1 Unit)
Borders are often taken for granted as natural divisions in the world, but they are actually the products of political, historical, and social processes. Border crossing is often framed as an aberration or even a crisis, but people have moved for as long as humans have existed. This course approaches borders from an anthropological perspective by foregrounding the experiences of the people who move across them. We explore the interconnected categories of migrants and refugees to understand how people cross borders under different kinds of circumstances: some voluntary, others fleeing conflict or persecution, and still others that seem to fall between these ideal types. We will critically examine how migrants and refugees are qualitatively described and quantitatively defined, as these discursive constructions often determine legal status and reception in host countries, and also inform governmental and humanitarian responses. We will examine ethnographic case studies focusing migrant and refugee movements within and between Africa, Europe, and the Americas, considering how these particular stories help us understand the broader phenomenon of human mobility. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing and higher.
ANTH B343 Human Growth and Development and Life History (1 Unit)
In this seminar we will examine various aspects of the human life history pattern, highly unusual among mammals, from a comparative evolutionary perspective. First, we will survey the fundamentals of life history theory, with an emphasis on primate life histories and socioecological pressures that influence them. Secondly, we will focus on unique aspects of human life history, including secondary altriciality of human infants, the inclusion of childhood and pubertal life stages in our pattern of growth and development, and the presence of a post-reproductive life span. Finally, we will examine fossil evidence from the hominin lineage used in reconstructing the evolution of the modern human life history pattern. Prerequisite: ANTH B101 or permission of instructor.
ANTH B345 Voices of the Dead: Seminar in Bioarchaeology (1 Unit)
Bioarchaeology is the study of human skeletal remains from archaeological sites, with the goals of reconstructing the lifeways of past peoples. In this course we will learn about the methods used to reconstruct both individual lives and collective population histories, including human osteology, paleopathology, stable isotope analysis, mortuary analysis, and demography. We will study processes that leave their marks in/on bones and teeth, including behavioral features (such as occupation, inequality and social hierarchies, and interpersonal violence); ecological features (e.g., differences in landscape, diet, and naturally available resources); and biological features (e.g., growth and development, and physiological stress). This exploration will be firmly rooted in the contemporary cross-cultural ethical and legal frameworks surrounding research using human remains, from excavation to repatriation.
ANTH B346 Human Rights and Citizenship in Global Perspective (1 Unit)
This course examines the history of “decolonization.” In the 20th century, the global world order transformed from one organized around empires and imperial domination to one of nation-states, self-determination, and human rights. In three parts, this course will explore the history of colonization and imperialism; examine the historical significance and legacy of anti-colonial struggles, global decolonization in the 20th century, and the movement for human rights; as well as investigate the significance of these legacies to contemporary struggles over nationalism, migration, racial justice and citizenship.
ANTH B352 Humans and Non-Humans (1 Unit)
Anthropology is the study of humans, but the idea of the “human” always implies the category of the “non-human.” Humanity is defined in its relation to “non-humans”: ranging from tools and technology, to domesticated (and undomesticated) animals, to agricultural crops, our local ecologies, and the global environment. What does it mean to be human? What is the agency of non-humans in human worlds? Do forests think? Do dogs dream? What is the agency of a mountain? What are the rights of a river? What is the cultural significance of DNA? This course will trace Anthropological debates over the “human” and “non-human” in contexts ranging from Amerindian cosmology, to political ecology, and science and technology studies.
ANTH B354 Political Economy, Gender, Ethnicity and Transformation in Vietnam (1 Unit)
Today, Vietnam is in the midst of dramatic social, economic and political changes brought about through a shift from a central economy to a market/capitalist economy since the late 1980s. These changes have resulted in urbanization, a rise in consumption, changes in land use, movement of people, environmental consequences of economic development, and shifts in social and economic relationships and cultural practices as the country has moved from low income to middle income status. This course examines culture and society in Vietnam focusing largely on contemporary Vietnam, but with a view to continuities and historical precedent in past centuries. In this course, we will draw on anthropological studies of Vietnam, as well as literature and historical studies. Relationships between the individual, family, gender, ethnicity, community, land, and state will pervade the topics addressed in the course, as will the importance of political economy, nation, and globalization. In addition to class seminar discussions, students will view documentary and fictional films about Vietnamese culture. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing or higher or first years with ANTH 102.
ANTH B355 Archaeology of Landscapes (1 Unit)
Traditional archaeology has focused on the “archaeological site” in our attempts to understand past human practices. However, people in the past as with today did not live their lives within the small confines of an archaeological site but rather in the broader landscape surrounding them. In this seminar, students will gain an understanding of different theoretical and methodological approaches to studying the landscape. Using case studies from around the world, we will explore how archaeologists study the ways past people interacted with, modified, and experienced the landscapes in which they dwelt. In doing so, students will gain an appreciation for how the study of landscapes can improve our understanding of peoples lived experiences.
ANTH B356 The Politics of Public Art (1 Unit)
In this class we will explore the politics of public art. While we will look at the political messaging of public art, we will also seek to understand how public art, through its integration into a social geography, has a political impact beyond its meaning. We will see how art claims public space and structures social action, how art shapes social groups, and how art channels economic flows or government power. By tracing the ways that art is situated in public space, we will examine how art enters into urban contest and global inequality. Class activity will include exploration of public art and students will be introduced to key concepts of urban spatial analysis to help interrogate this art. One 200-level course in Social Sciences, Humanities, or Arts fields, or permission of the instructor
ANTH B357 Narratives of Illness, Healing, and Medicine (1 Unit)
This course will explore the construction of narratives around illness, healing, and medicine cross-culturally and across a variety of media including through graphic novels, video drama series, primary source diaries, audio accounts, and anthropological texts. Illness narratives have figured prominently in the study and practice of medical anthropology, and increasingly in the teaching of medicine. We will ask: What is the role of illness narratives in the healing process for patients, healers, and caregivers in cross-cultural comparison? How can illness narratives destabilize dominant discourses, and provide an avenue of expression for those who are unable to easily speak or be heard, particularly in biomedical contexts? Who gets to speak, in what ways, and who remains unheard? What does it mean to tell a story of illness? What roles do illness stories play in illuminating and complicating understandings of illness, disability, trauma, and caregiving? How do illness narratives relate to suffering, hope, and healing, and how they differ for chronic or terminal illness? What do they tell us about making and remaking the self? Students will have the opportunity to explore frameworks and cross-cultural experiences through media beyond standard text. Prerequisite: ANTH B102 or permission of instructor.
ANTH B363 Gender and Human Evolution (1 Unit)
In this anthropology course, students will investigate the gender/sex/sexuality in the study of human ancestors and their non-human primate relatives. Students will gain familiarity with foundational texts considered to be classic in the field of biological anthropology. This course will operate with a structure of paired texts: one early work that spoke to naturalized sex differences or gender roles and a feminist science piece intervening in that space or a piece from feminist science studies or women and gender studies in conversation with the first work. This course structure allows students time to really sit with each argument. These texts will prompt students to ask questions such as- what narratives are mobilized to naturalize the evolution gender norms, sex differences, and where do they come from? How has gender has been conceived of in the study of human ancestors and our non-human primate relatives? How are scholars intervening? How effective or ineffective have these interventions been? What ideas of gender/sex/sexuality persist despite interventions, and why might that be? Students will develop skills in explaining their thoughts on those questions in both discussion and writing. This course will also involve works external to biological anthropology written by feminist or women and gender studies scholars providing a critical commentary of that feminist science intervention, with a primary focus on Donna Haraway’s Primate Visions. In the end, students will find a work in the study of human variation, human ancestors, or non-human primates, write their own paired piece of commentary. Students will be supported in the develop of their own intervention. This cross-disciplinary course will leave students will skillsets they can apply outside of this course in having hard conversations around gender, sex, and sexuality and to explicate their perspectives with care and intention. Prerequisite: ANTH B101
ANTH B364 Anthropology of Global Public Health (1 Unit)
This course will use an anthropological lens to explore the field of contemporary global public health. Through readings and ethnographic case studies in cultural anthropology, medical anthropology, applied and critical anthropology, and related social sciences, the class will examine the participants and institutions that make up the production of global health, as well as the knowledge, and value production that have shaped agendas, policies and practices in global health, both historically and in the contemporary. The course will also explore anthropology’s relationship to and perspectives on the history of global health. We will examine how local communities, local knowledge and political forces intersect with, shape, and are shaped by global initiatives to impact diseases, treatments, and health care delivery. As well, what the effects are on individuals, families and children, communities, urban and rural areas, and nations. Among other topics, the course will explore health disparities, epidemics/pandemics, global mental health, climate change and infectious diseases, chronic illness, violence, and diseases such as polio, HIV/AIDS, Covid-19, Tuberculosis, etc. Prerequisite(s): ANTH B102/H103 recommended; sophomore standing or higher
ANTH B366 Waves of Power: Sound in Culture, Politics, and Society (1 Unit)
From the chants of protesters to the hum of engines, from the ring of church bells to the background tracks of our favorite songs, sound matters. It is not just a background to what we see, but a crucial and powerful part of social life. This course builds an understanding of sound through anthropological investigation, as a product of human creativity, human conflict, and human interaction with the material world. We will explore the ways that sound is conceptualized and endowed with meaning; how sound becomes linked to identity; and how sound can become a call to action in different cultural and historical contexts. The kinds of sounds we will encounter in this course include, but are not limited to, music and spoken language; we will also be studying environmental, industrial, and religious sounds. You will also be learning about different ways to record, document, and write about sound by engaging in your own sound-based ethnographic research. Prerequisite: Sophomore Standing or higher.
ANTH B367 Policing the Crisis 2020: Police Narrative and Black Lives Matter (1 Unit)
The Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, sparked by the police murder of George Floyd, led to a collapse in public support for the police. Radical demands to defund or abolish the police gained prominence and public legitimacy. This course studies the ways that police and their allies have worked to reassert police authority in the years since 2020. We will draw on Stuart Hall’s classic essay, “Policing the Crisis,” which examined police propaganda after a similar upheaval in the 1970s. Using Hall’s work as a model, we will design and conduct a research project, using archival and qualitative methods to track the reassertion of police authority since 2020. At the end of the course, we will publicize our findings.
ANTH B368 The Anthropology of Art (1 Unit)
The idea that “art is what makes us human” has a long lineage and is a key concept of enlightenment philosophy. The anthropology of art historically drew inspiration from this idea, with anthropologists arguing that creative expression was a universal feature of human society – proof of universal human equality. But if art is evidence of humanity’s common creative drive, art has also often been a profound site of inequality – the development of art was closely connected to colonial exploitation, racial segregation, gendered violence, and contemporary gentrification. In this course we will draw on anthropological scholarship to investigate this tension between art as a feature of common humanity and art as a site for the production of difference. If art makes us human, does some art make some of us more human than others? Prerequisite: Sophomore standing (minimum of at least 8 units) or higher.
ANTH B398 Senior Conference (1 Unit)
Research design, proposal writing, research ethics, empirical research techniques and analysis of original material. Class discussions of work in progress and oral and written presentations of the analysis and results of research are important. A senior thesis proposal is the most significant writing experience in the seminar. Prerequisite: Senior Anthropology majors only.
ANTH B399 Senior Conference (1 Unit)
Coding research notes, discussion of ongoing field work and research. A senior’s thesis is the most significant writing experience in the seminar. Senior requirement.
ANTH B425 Praxis III: Independent Study (1 Unit)
Praxis III courses are Independent Study courses and are developed by individual students, in collaboration with faculty and field supervisors. A Praxis courses is distinguished by genuine collaboration with fieldsite organizations and by a dynamic process of reflection that incorporates lessons learned in the field into the classroom setting and applies theoretical understanding gained through classroom study to work done in the broader community. Note: Students are eligible to take up to two Praxis Fieldwork Seminars or Praxis Independent Studies during their time at Bryn Mawr.
AFST B204 #BlackLivesMatterEverywhere (1 Unit)
#BlackLivesMatterEverywhere: Ethnographies & Theories on the African Diaspora is a interdisciplinary course closely examines political, cultural, intellectual, and spiritual mobilizations for Black Lives on local, global and hemispheric levels. We will engage an array of materials ranging from literature, history, oral histories, folklore, dance, music, popular culture, social media, ethnography, and film/documentaries. By centering the political and intellectual labor of Black women and LGBTQ folks at the forefront of the movements for Black Lives, we unapologetically excavate how #BlackLivesMatterEverywhere has a long and rich genealogy in the African diaspora. Lastly, students will be immersed in Black queer feminist theorizations on diaspora, political movements, and the multiplicities of Blackness.
ARCH B260 Daily Life in Ancient Greece and Rome (1 Unit)
The often-praised achievements of the classical cultures arose from the realities of day-to-day life. This course surveys the rich body of material and textual evidence pertaining to how ancient Greeks and Romans -- famous and obscure alike -- lived and died. Topics include housing, food, clothing, work, leisure, and family and social life.
ARCH B570 Geoarchaeology (1 Unit)
Societies in the past depended on our human ancestors’ ability to interact with their environment. Geoarchaeology analyzes these interactions by combining archaeological and geological techniques to document human behavior while also reconstructing the past environment. Course meets twice weekly for lecture, discussion of readings and hands on exercises. Prerequisite: one course in anthropology, archaeology or geology.
BIOL B236 Evolution (1 Unit)
A lecture/discussion course on evolutionary biology. This course will cover the history of evolutionary theory, population genetics, molecular and developmental evolution, paleontology, and phylogenetic analysis. Lecture three hours a week.
CITY B185 Urban Culture and Society (1 Unit)
Examines techniques and questions of the social sciences as tools for studying historical and contemporary cities. Topics include political-economic organization, conflict and social differentiation (class, ethnicity and gender), and cultural production and representation. Philadelphia features prominently in discussion, reading and exploration as do global metropolitan comparisons through papers involving fieldwork, critical reading and planning/problem solving using qualitative and quantitative methods.
CITY B229 Topics in Comparative Urbanism (1 Unit)
This is a topics course. Course content varies.
CITY B356 The Politics of Public Art (1 Unit)
In this class we will explore the politics of public art. While we will look at the political messaging of public art, we will also seek to understand how public art, through its integration into a social geography, has a political impact beyond its meaning. We will see how art claims public space and structures social action, how art shapes social groups, and how art channels economic flows or government power. By tracing the ways that art is situated in public space, we will examine how art enters into urban contest and global inequality. Class activity will include exploration of public art and students will be introduced to key concepts of urban spatial analysis to help interrogate this art. One 200-level course in Social Sciences, Humanities, or Arts fields, or permission of the instructor.
CITY B365 Topics: Techniques of the City (1 Unit)
This is a topics course. Course content varies.
EALC B231 Topics in Modern Chinese Culture (1 Unit)
This a topics course. Course topics vary.
HART B365 Exhibiting Africa: Art, Artifact and New Articulations (1 Unit)
At the turn of the 20th century, the Victorian natural history museum played an important role in constructing and disseminating images of Africa to the Western public. The history of museum representations of Africa and Africans reveals that exhibitions—both museum exhibitions and “living” World’s Fair exhibitions— has long been deeply embedded in politics, including the persistent “othering” of African people as savages or primitives. While paying attention to stereotypical exhibition tropes about Africa, we will also consider how art museums are creating new constructions of Africa and how contemporary curators and conceptual artists are creating complex, challenging new ways of understanding African identities.This course was formerly numbered HART B279; students who previously completed HART B279 may not repeat this course.
HIST B200 The Atlantic World 1492-1800 (1 Unit)
The aim of this course is to provide an understanding of the way in which peoples, goods, and ideas from Africa, Europe. and the Americas came together to form an interconnected Atlantic World system. The course is designed to chart the manner in which an integrated system was created in the Americas in the early modern period, rather than to treat the history of the Atlantic World as nothing more than an expanded version of North American, Caribbean, or Latin American history.
HIST B334 Caste and Race: Analogies and Intersections (1 Unit)
With the global spread of the Black Lives Matter movement, and since the publication of American journalist Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of our Discontents, there has been a renewed interest in thinking comparatively about caste and race. This course will examine the intertwined histories and legacies of caste and race as imaginaries deployed both to create and enforce social inequality and hierarchy, and to describe and analyze it. In the first half of the course we will examine how analogies and comparisons between caste and race have been made at various moments over the long 20th century. In the second half of the course, we will explore how caste and race have intersected in lived experience, using historical sources, ethnography, and memoir. In tracking intersections of experience and the production of knowledge, our course will bring together history, anthropology, sociology, and related fields, as well as different world areas– India/South Asia and the U.S./Western hemisphere– that have traditionally been held apart in the modern academy.
INST B201 Themes in International Studies (1 Unit)
This is a topics course. Course content varies.
INST B210 Popular Uprisings in Global Perspective (1 Unit)
In recent years, popular uprisings and protest movements have mobilized hundreds and thousands of people in different parts of the world to demand a radical overhauling of existing systems and changes in political leadership. These uprisings have raised a series of questions that will be the focus of this class. What are the catalysts, underlying causes and demands of these protest movements? What can we learn from the grassroots organizing that allowed these movements to gain momentum? All too often popular uprisings in the Global South in particular, are seen as representing the failures and limits of revolutionary action and politics rather than their potential and promise. What then, do recent popular uprisings reveal about the limitations and relevance of various theoretical approaches to explaining revolutionary phenomena and action? How might local scholars and activists analyzing the popular uprisings taking place in their countries, allow us to develop new vocabularies and frameworks for understanding popular protests and revolutionary action elsewhere? Students will explore these questions through a series of case studies including Sudan, Hong Kong, Chile, Lebanon, France, Ethiopia and India.
INST B220 Political Ecology and Environmental Justice (1 Unit)
This course is an introduction to the fields of Political Ecology and Environmental Justice. Through ethnographic accounts, documentary film, graphic novels, photography and other multimedia, students will be introduced to ethnographic case studies of environmental justice struggles, conflicts over resources, and the impacts of extractive industries on indigenous and other frontline communities across the Global South and North. How, we will ask, do environmental problems, such as climate change, pollution and toxicity, biodiversity loss and extinctions, and struggles over resource extraction intersect with questions of identity and inequality, such as race, ethnicity, nation, indigeneity, and gender? Students will make use of the theoretical and methodological tools offered by environmental justice and political ecology to critically examine: processes of globalization, development, and the racialized postcolonial geographies of resource extraction; the problem of environmental racism, and social movements for indigenous sovereignty and climate justice; and science and technology studies inquiries into the relations between humans and non-humans. Together, we will trace the historical roots, colonial logics, and contemporary effects of extractive capitalism and learn from the legacies of movements social and environmental justice in order to interrogate our own positionality within the global political ecology of resource extraction and consumption. Prerequisite: Intro to International Studies recommended as preparation
INST B315 Humans & Non-Humans (1 Unit)
Anthropology is the study of humans, but the idea of the “human” always implies the category of the “non-human.” Humanity is defined in its relation to “non-humans”: ranging from tools and technology, to domesticated (and undomesticated) animals, to agricultural crops, our local ecologies, and the global environment. What does it mean to be human? What is the agency of non-humans in human worlds? Do forests think? Do dogs dream? What is the agency of a mountain? What are the rights of a river? What is the cultural significance of DNA? This course will trace Anthropological debates over the “human” and “non-human” in contexts ranging from Amerindian cosmology, to political ecology, and science and technology studies.