An introduction to Modern Standard and colloquial Arabic, using a proficiency-based approach to develop communicative skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing. The course begins with a focus on reading, pronouncing and recognizing Arabic alphabet, and progresses quickly toward developing basic reading, writing, speaking and listening proficiencies, and cultural competence using the Al-Kitaab series and a variety of authentic materials. Students acquire these skills through a combination of interactive classroom activities, take-home assignments and group work.

An introduction to Modern Standard and colloquial Arabic, using a proficiency-based approach to develop communicative skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing. The course begins with a focus on reading, pronouncing and recognizing Arabic alphabet, and progresses quickly toward developing basic reading, writing, speaking and listening proficiencies, and cultural competence using the Al-Kitaab series and a variety of authentic materials. Students acquire these skills through a combination of interactive classroom activities, take-home assignments and group work.

This course harnesses students’ current and previous coursework to address a real life ethnographic design problem. Working in conjunction with students enrolled in ANT 200, students help to design and carry out a qualitative research project led by an anthropology faculty member and gain insight into anthropology’s practical applications. Students are expected to take leadership roles, think creatively and concretely, work well collaboratively and see projects through to completion. Enrollment limited to 10. Instructor permission required.

Offered as MUS 258 and ANT 258. This course analyzes cultural performances as sites for the expression and formation of social identity. Students study various performance genres such as rituals, festivals, parades, cultural shows, music, dance and theater. Topics include expressive culture as resistance; debates around authenticity and heritage; the performance of race, class and ethnic identities; the construction of national identity; and the effects of globalization on indigenous performances. Enrollment limited to 30.

A laboratory designed to facilitate student exploration of how species are defined and where they belong. Focus is on weedy plants from Earth’s most diverse and cosmopolitan plant family, the Compositae, beginning with the common dandelion. Students gain experience learning technical and descriptive skills from botany as well as critical thinking skills from the humanities and social sciences to interpret geographic patterns of diversity in a world of profound human disturbance.

What is a species? Where do species belong? These questions are central to nature conservation, and answering them has profound implications. For a few hundred million years since the supercontinent Pangea split, movement between continents was severely restricted. In just a few centuries, these oceanic barriers were all but erased by intercontinental trade and travel. Ecologists deem this reconnected world “New Pangea,” fearing that nonnative organisms might displace native ones, but anthropologists have long shown that belonging is rarely binary.

This course is a general introduction to anthropological analysis of politics and the political. Through a broad survey of anthropological texts and theories, this course explores what an ethnographic perspective can offer to the understandings of power and government. Special emphasis is placed on the role of culture, symbols and social networks in the political life of local communities.

This course introduces students to the variety of methods of inquiry used for research in anthropology. Throughout the semester, students are introduced to methods of locating and analyzing information and sources, developing research questions and writing. Normally taken in the sophomore or junior year. Prerequisite: ANT 130. Restrictions: Anthropology majors only. Enrollment limited to 20. Instructor permission required.

This seminar combines historical, theoretical and material cultural sources about housing justice, and housing injustice, in the United States. A significant component of the course involves teaching students how to build a tiny house, while critically considering scholarly and popular cultural sources engaging the present, past and (potential) future roles of small homes in America.