Global Arc

A continuation of BCS 101. This course continues to develop and refine the four language skills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing), concentrating on conversational practice, advanced grammar points, oral drilling, increased reading (BCS literature, folklore, and expository prose, including works chosen according to students' interests), and viewing films. Prerequisite: BCS 101. Five classes.

Intermediate-level class with emphasis on communication and comprehension skills. Advanced grammar topics, speaking, and reading texts of interest to students; films.

A continuation of BCS 105. Advanced-level class with emphasis on oral and written communication; reading literary texts of interest to students; films

An introduction to anthropology and key topics in becoming and being human. Anthropology examines human experience through diverse lenses integrating biology, ecology, language, history, philosophy, and the day to day lives of peoples from across the globe. Anthropology has things to say about being human, it seeks to make the familiar a bit strange and the strange quite familiar. We will take critical reflexive and reflective approaches in asking about key aspects of being human (like war/peace; race/racism; sex/gender; childhood/parenting; religion and the human imagination; human relations to other species).Two lectures, one preceptorial.

This course explores the social and cultural contexts of economic experience in the US and around the world. It considers how the consumption, production, and circulation of goods--today and in times past--become invested with personal and collective meanings. It pays special attention to symbolic and political dimensions of work, property (material, intellectual, and cultural), wealth, and "taste" (i.e., needs and wants). Additionally, course participants do a bit of anthropological fieldwork by learning to draw everyday experiences systematically into conversation with more familiar academic and media sources.

This course explores the meaningful social contexts of objects, relationships, and values deemed "economic" in American culture. Employing anthropological, sociological, and historical strategies of interpretation, and drawing on comparative research from around the globe, participants will consider the embeddedness of the "economic" in historically specific sociocultural experience, and their mutual influences. Participants will also get an introductory feel for ethnographic "fieldwork", using their own everyday experience systematically and integrating it with other kinds of research.

An assessment and understanding of the evolutionary history and processes in our lineage over the last 7 to 10 million years, with a focus on the ~2.5 million year history of our own genus (Homo).This outline of the history of our lineage offers an anthropological and evolutionary context for what it means to be human today. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

From wearable devices that count our steps, to social media platforms that monetize our interactions, to iris scanners and ID cards at airports/prisons, our world is abundant with objects designed to classify, catalogue, and altogether surveil us. In this class, we apply anthropological theories and perspectives to track how systems and sites of surveillance shape what is considered normal, healthy, safe, pathological, dangerous, deviant throughout the world. In turn, we explore surveillance as a fruitful lens for thinking about the relationship between science, technology, perception, the body, cultural context, social relations, and power.

This course explores anthropology's engagement with environmental questions, beyond binaries of "nature" and "culture." How do anthropologists' engagement with environment force rethinking of both the given terms of environmental politics and the anthropocentrism of "anthropology"? We explore, across international and global contexts, how anthropological work challenges contemporary environmental thinking, all while exploring new formulations of environment and politics. Topics include climate, materiality, cosmologies, more-than-human ethnography, and environmental justice.

Human adaptation focuses on human anatomy and behavior from an evolutionary perspective. Lectures and weekly laboratory sessions focus on the evolution of the human brain, dentition, and skeleton to provide students with a practical understanding of the anatomy and function of the human body and its evolution, as well as some of its biological limitations. No science background required. Two 90-minute lectures, one three-hour laboratory.