Introduction to major issues in anthropological theory. Focus on key concepts in the discipline, important authors, and development of and debates over theoretical issues. Required for and limited to anthropology majors; satisfies the Junior Year Writing requirement for anthropology majors.

Introduction to major issues in anthropological theory. Focus on key concepts in the discipline, important authors, and development of and debates over theoretical issues. Required for and limited to anthropology majors; satisfies the Junior Year Writing requirement for anthropology majors.

This course examines key questions about the role of law and courts in American democracy, focusing in particular on the ability of American courts to fulfill the goals of democratic governance. Issues we address include: judicial review and the countermajoritarian difficulty; judicial policy making and the implementation and impact of court decisions; the response of courts to public opinion, and the responses of citizens and institutions to court decisions; social movement litigation; and methods of judicial selection and the representativeness of legal institutions.

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This course examines central works and figures in classical and modern Islamic social and political thought. We will discuss the works of classical Islamic jurists, theologians and philosophers, as well as modern religious reformers to discern the similarities and differences between them, and connect them to major currents of thought in the Islamic world today.

The Integrative Experience at UMass Amherst is a required upper-division course that asks students to reflect on and integrate their learning, from their major to their General Education courses to their extracurricular experiences; to further practice key Gen Ed objectives, such as oral communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and interdisciplinary perspective-taking; and to begin to apply what they've learned at UMass to new situations, challenging questions, and real world problems.