Today's public institutions and community organizations operate in complex societies and serve an increasingly diverse set of constituents and stakeholders. Anthropological research provides tools for understanding diverse perceptions, practices, and social problems in cultural and historical context. The centerpiece of this course is an actual group research project here in western Mass: students will act as a team to design a research project, conduct field research with a partner organization, organize and analyze data, and present research findings.

In this course we will explore the emerging field of Evolutionary Medicine which seeks to provide evolutionary answers to why humans are vulnerable to certain diseases or conditions. Topics to be examined include human anatomy from an evolutionary perspective, "evolutionary obstetrics", host-pathogen relationships in the evolution of infectious disease, human nutritional needs, the evolutionary context of cancer, and psychiatric conditions. Along the way we will be making comparisons across species, across populations, and between the approaches of evolutionary and clinical medicine.

This course applies the conceptual tools of cultural anthropology to trace these struggles, focusing on contestation around: 1) Gender and sexuality: roles, expectations, performance; 2) feminism and activism; 3) Reproductive politics. We will consider these themes as we explore diverse data and modes of representation, including ethnographic writing, film, first-hand accounts, fiction, digital archives, as well as oral history. This course responds to 2 shocks: Russia?s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the global illiberal authoritarian resurgence.

This course introduces the practice of critical, engaged pedagogy, and trains students in a methodology of facilitating academically rigorous, community-engaged learning circles in the context of the university. The aim of critical teaching/learning is to promote the practice of critical solidarity, justice and community. Through this course, students will learn to apply theoretical concepts of critical pedagogy as they develop specific skills in preparation for acting as peer facilitators of critical, self-reflective learning about structural injustice and community organizing.

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.

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 provides and introduction to linguistic anthropological research methods. Over the course of the semester, we will read about different methods used in the field and familiarize ourselves with examples of how such methods have been used in ethnographic research on language, culture, and communication. Most importantly, however, students will have the opportunity to practice utilizing a range of methodological approaches in a collective research project on The Everyday Politics of Language Use at UMass Amherst.

The conditions that we find ourselves in - extreme social inequalities, dislocations, and violence as part of increasingly unstable ecologies - implore us to rethink the very nature of our economies and ourselves. Yet, even as our economic activity pushes towards runaway climate change, there is a cynical sense of inevitability; the very foundations of our dominant economy are largely taken for granted and often explained away as the result of human nature.