(Offered as EUST 203 and ARCH 203.)  Cities, the largest human artifact, have been at the center of Europeans’ relationships with nature, gods, and their own kind since their first appearance. With the advent of capitalist energy, the European city went through radical change. The resultant invention, re-invention and growth of major metropolises will be the subject of this course.

This year-long course continues the study of Modern Standard Arabic.  The course concentrates on all four skills:  reading, writing, speaking, and listening.  Students will read and discuss authentic texts by writers throughout the Arab world.  Topics address a variety of political, social, religious, and literary themes and represent a range of genres, styles, and periods.

Requisite:  ARAB 202 or equivalent. Limited to 18 students.  Fall semester. Five College Lecturer Al-Shalchi.

This course expands the scope of the communicative approach, as new grammatical points are introduced (irregular verbs), and develops a greater vocabulary for lengthier conversations. Emphasis is placed on reading and writing short passages and personal notes. This second-year of Arabic completes the introductory grammatical foundation necessary for understanding standard forms of Arabic prose (classical and modern literature, newspapers, film, etc.) and making substantial use of the language.

This year-long course introduces the basics of Modern Standard Arabic, also known as Classical Arabic. It begins with a coverage of the alphabet, vocabulary for everyday use, and essential communicative skills relating to real-life and task-oriented situations (queries about personal well-being, family, work, and telling the time). Students will concentrate on speaking and listening skills, as well as on learning the various forms of regular verbs, and on how to use an Arabic dictionary. 

Limited to 18 students. Fall semester. Five College Senior Lecturer Hassan.

Independent Reading Courses. A full course.

Fall and spring semesters. The Department.

What does it mean to take a phenomenological approach in anthropology? In this class, we will examine a series of ethnographies that seek to describe and theorize lived experience in various ways, with particular attention to sensory perception, subjectivity, and inter-subjectivity. We will also look into the philosophical tracts that inspire such work, as well as the historical contexts in which they arise. Topics to be explored include: caregiving and healing; violence and humanitarian aid; aging, dying, and death; religious experience; emotion; and embodiment.

Because food is necessary to sustain biological life, its production and provision occupy humans everywhere. Due to this essential importance, food also operates to create and symbolize collective life. This seminar will examine the social and cultural significance of food.

(Offered as ANTH 331 and ASLC 341 [WA].)  In an era where “terrorism” has eclipsed the nuclear fears of the Cold War and become associated with a radicalism that is portrayed as at once militant, anti-Western, and bound to a particular region (the Middle East) and religion (Islam), the task of this seminar--to examine the everyday realities of people living throughout the Middle East--has become all the more critical.  Beginning with an historical eye toward the ways that the “West” has discovered, translated, and written about the “Orient,” thi

Anthropologists have long been active in making sense of the numerous ways in which people attach meanings, desires, and hierarchical worth to material objects and economic processes.  This course will explore a core topic in this discussion: money.  Focusing an ethnographic examples across scales of exchange (e.g., from colonization to household budgeting), the course will re-examine the classic social theoretical argument that money alienates and abstracts social relations.  We will consider money’s link to various aspects of moral and epistemic calculation, and ultim

(Offered as ANTH 317 and ASLC 317 [C].)  This course teaches students how to design research projects, collect data, and analyze data about people in China. Students will read about and discuss previous findings from the instructor’s longitudinal project about Chinese only-children and their families, and findings from comparable projects in China and elsewhere, as well as help to design new interview and survey questions for research participants to answer in the future.