Introduction to Cultural Anthropology course calendar using the open textbook Perspectives: http://sacc.americananthro.org/publication/open-source-textbook/

Course Description
Considers contemporary human cultures from an anthropological perspective. Covers fieldwork, language, race, gender, sex and marriage, kinship, politics, world view, religion, economics, and globalization from a cross-cultural perspective. This course compares cultures found around the globe, focusing closely upon at least two specific cultures, with extended discussion of additional cultures and societies as appropriate. Greater understanding of particular cultures will be achieved through an application of the comparative method.

Upon completion of the course students should be able to:

Describe basic concepts, methods, and theories associated with cultural anthropology.
Use an understanding of anthropology to identify and compare values, beliefs, norms, economic systems, and social organization or institutions in a variety of societies in different world regions.
Examine systems of power and social justice issues related to U.S. society and other cultures from an anthropological perspective.
Explore fieldwork methods and ethical considerations of doing anthropological fieldwork.

An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology: Perspectives on Humanity Reading List and Schedule

ANTH 213

Introduces a comparative study of human culture. Covers kinship systems, politics, economics, language, ritual, cultural change, ecological adaptations, and ethnographic methodology. Explores cultural similarities and differences and the linkages among cultural, social, political, and economic institutions.

An Anthropological and Comparative Approach

Word Count: 49859

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Introduction to Paleoanthropology covers the various species and subspecies that gave rise to human beings. Paleoanthropology is a subdiscipline of physical anthropology that focuses on the fossil record of humans and non-human primates.

This course explores the ways that music is both shaped by and gives shape to the cultural settings in which it is performed, through studying selected musical traditions from around the world. Specific case studies will be examined closely through listening, analysis, and hands-on instruction. The syllabus centers around weekly listening assignments and readings from a textbook with CDs, supplemented by hands-on workshops, lecture/demonstrations and concerts by master musicians from around the world.

Members of the Islamic Center of Washington, DC discuss the religious and spiritual significance of Ramadan and the celebration that concludes it, Eid al-Fitr, in this video segment from Religion & Ethics Newsweekly.

This activity is a set of student-centered exercises that enable students to learn about the individual stories of Goldman environmental prize winners, the activism and organizing that grounds their work, and the underlying political and social contexts from which their struggles emerge. The lesson inspires critical reflection about justice, power, and democracy in green politics, and encourages ways to make personal connections to activism and environmental work.

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This is a fun assignment for Cultural Anthropology students. They can research one or both parents, and/or step parents. 

A unique perspective on the confluence of the three basic conceptual frameworks in human experience. Contains several studies, with data, of remarkable world views of disparate cultures based on their specific cultures language. The premise is that how people experience the world, then think about it, then create a language around it, alters their perception of the world in very fundamental ways. The radical notion is that thought and language, creates the circumstances of, and contribute to significantly different realities for different peoples.

The internalization and realization of this concept is significant and can possibly radically alter and change how different cultures assess their ability to, at the most basic levels, understand other cultures realities.

This Evolution video segment describes how the famous track fossils known as the Laetoli footprints might have been formed and what they can reveal about the creatures who left them.

Students learn about the subjective value of objects in this Moveable Museum lesson plan by "interpreting" each other's important cultural artifacts. The 11-page PDF guide has educator materials with background information, teacher strategies, assessment guidelines, and detailed notes about the curriculum standards addressed.

In this activity, learners explore the "nuts and bolts" of gene chips. Learners construct a simple model of a DNA microarray (also known as gene chips) and learn how microarrays can be used to identify and treat disease--including cancer. This resource includes references and an explanation of microarrays.

This video from Religion & Ethics Newsweekly gives a primer on the history and evolution of madrasahs, institutes of higher learning in Islamic studies.

Spiritual, magical, and “occult” aspects of human behavior in anthropological and historical perspective: magic, ritual curing, trance, spirit possession, sorcery, and accusations of witchcraft. Material drawn from traditional nonwestern societies, medieval and early modern Europe, and colonial and contemporary North America.

This assignment is designed as a mini-research project with the purpose of having students engage with marginalized actors in history. The purpose is to help students find themselves in the archives by focusing on self-representation that is important to their own socio-economic and ethnic groups. By providing historical research in the form of primary and secondary documents on figures that have been historically "left out" of the historical narrative, the students will help fill the gaps in the archive, be active in the creation of new curriculum, and gain a better understanding of marginalization and the power of historical memory in the process.

Everyday we are bombarded with the word “global” and encouraged to see globalization as the quintessential transformation of our age. But what exactly does “globalization” mean? How is it affecting the lives of people around the world, not only in economic, but social and cultural terms? How do contemporary changes compare with those from other historical periods? Are such changes positive, negative or simply inevitable? And, finally, how does the concept of the “global” itself shape our perceptions in ways that both help us understand the contemporary world and potentially distort it? This course begins by offering a brief overview of historical “world systems,” including those centered in Asia as well as Europe. It explores the nature of contemporary transformations, including those in economics, media & information technologies, population flows, and consumer habits, not through abstractions but by focusing on the daily lives of people in various parts of the world. This course considers such topics as the day-to-day impact of computers in Silicon Valley and among Tibetan refugees; the dilemmas of factory workers in the US and rural Java; the attractions of Bombay cinema in Nigeria, the making of rap music in Japan, and the cultural complexities of immigrant life in France. This course seeks not only to understand the various forms globalization takes, but to understand its very different impacts world-wide.

This presentation talks about anthropological perspectives of relevance to mass drug administration. Anthropology is a social science discipline focused on studying culture, including norms, values, perceptions and practices and how people enact these in their daily lives.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Dental calculus, or mineralized dental plaque, preserves various microfossils and biomolecules, including DNA. Dental calculus from ancient human remains therefore contains information about the oral microbiomes, health, and diets of our ancestors. However, little is known about the non-bacterial microbes in ancient calculus. In a new study, researchers used metagenomics to study calculus from 20 sets of human remains dating to the Neolithic period through the Early Middle Ages. Compared with modern calculus in publicly available datasets, the ancient calculus had a much higher abundance of archaea belonging to the phylum Euryarchaeota. Compared with modern calculus in publicly available datasets, the ancient calculus had a much higher abundance of archaea belonging to the phylum Euryarchaeota, specifically archaea in the genus Methanobrevibacter. The only known Methanobrevibacter species in modern calculus, M..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This OLogy activity explores the symbolic and archaeological importance of coins. The activity opens by introducing kids to the elements of coins: dates, names, images, mottoes, and materials. Then, kids are given step-by-step illustrated directions for designing a coin. The activity includes a Global Coin Collection, a printable PDF handout with photographs of coins from 14 countries, and an introduction to the kid who has collected these coins.

In this video segment from Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, learn about the daily prayer rituals of the Muslim faith and their significance in the life of a Muslim living in America.