This course introduces students to anthropology and its four subdisciplines (archaeological, biological, cultural, and linguistic anthropology), providing a glimpse of the field's history, present status, and importance.  We'll look at the concepts and methods that typify the discipline and frame anthropology's comprehensive, holistic worldview. The course looks especially at cultural and ethnic diversity, and the interactions leading to structures of dominance, inequality, and resistance. It teaches students ways of learning and thinking about the world's many designs for living in time and space. 

Topics covered include:

• the nature of culture, race and ethnicity;
• human genetics, biological evolution, and the fossil record;
• primate (monkey and ape) behavior;
• the emergence of agriculture, cities, and states; 
• language and culture;
• systems of marriage, kinship and family organization;
• sex-gender divisions;
• economics, politics, and religion in global perspective;
• theories of development, power and social change;
• technoscience and emerging media;
• world systems, global assemblages, and contemporary cultural predicaments.

*Please note there is a special discussion section of Anthropology 101 this semester that will focus in particular on activities and discussions informed by dialogic pedagogy:[Section 031]. This section is of interest to students who would like to explore topics of social identity and social justice in more depth, making connections between course content and current conversations around issues of race and ethnicity in a smaller discussion based setting. Students who participate in the section can earn credit towards the Minor in Intergroup Relations Education.

Course materials: Textbook and additional readings.