Courses

Spring Semester information

290B: Topics:Language, Culture, and Society

In this course, we approach language -- verbal and nonverbal -- as a deeply cultural and social phenomenon with concrete cultural, economic, political, and social implications. Drawing from everyday interactions at personal and broader levels alongside diverse case studies, theoretical perspectives, and anthropological methods, the course analyzes, interprets, and compares how people use language/ communication as social action. This includes using language to make meaning, reflect and shape relationships and interactions, construct and perform identities, negotiate power dynamics and relations, and navigate cultural norms, beliefs, and values, among others. Students will study what language comprises; examine language diversity and variation; analyze how language relates to identity, power, and ideology; investigate how language interacts with other modalities (e.g., social media) and means of expression; and critically consider the reality of language endangerment in today's world. Through readings, discussions, lectures, audiovisual content, and hands-on activities within and beyond the classroom, students will: i.) gain key insights and hone skills to engage more holistically and critically with language as a fundamental part of every culture and society; and ii.) apply these insights and skills to pertinent real-life issues.

290C: Topics:The Undead, Monsters, and the Paranormal

Anthropology seeks to understand how humans imagine, construct, and relate to the world around them, often through encounters with the Other. This course investigates one of humanity's most revealing creations--the monster--as a lens for exploring fear, morality, and cultural meaning. Drawing on examples of zombies, witches, ghosts, and spirits across global traditions, we examine how monstrous figures embody the anxieties and values of the societies that imagine them. Through anthropology's four subfields--cultural, linguistic, archaeological, and biological--we consider monsters as symbolic expressions of identity and alterity, as material and visual artifacts, as elements of discourse, and as possible biological phenomena. By tracing the ways in which monsters both reflect and challenge social norms surrounding race, gender, class, power, and belief, students learn to think anthropologically about what it means to be human. Ultimately, this course uses the monstrous to reveal how we define, fear, and understand both Us and Them.