Anthropology (ANTH)

ANTH 507. Space, Place and Culture3 Units

Term Typically Offered: Occasionally Offered

Prerequisite(s): Graduate status, or consent of instructor.

Description: This course is organized around the question of how culture is spatially distributed. How are specific spaces and places constructed, connected, and interpreted through cultural practices?

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 508. History of Anthropology - CUE, WR3 Units

Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring

Prerequisite(s): Senior status, and 18 hours of Anthropology credits.

Description: The course provides an integrated introduction to a history of theory and practice in anthropology. Interleaving examples from cultural, archaeological, and biological anthropology, the course delves into understanding anthropological work as the production of knowledge. Encountering elements from the traditional corpus of anthropological literature, as well as contrarian pieces, students will refine their abilities to hold an informed anthropological perspective, even as they reconcile and come to understand inconsistencies in the past practice of anthropology. This course is designed to furnish a strong basis for postbaccalaureate study and applied anthropological practice.

Note: Anthropology graduate students cannot enroll in this class.
Note: Approved for the Arts and Sciences upper-level requirement in written communication (WR).

Course Attribute(s): CUE - This course fulfills the Culminating Undergraduate Experience (CUE) requirement for certain degree programs. CUE courses are advanced-level courses intended for majors with at least 90 earned credits/senior-level status.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 509. Archaeological Theory and Methods - WR3 Units

Prerequisite(s): Junior or senior status, and 18 hours of Anthropology credits.

Description: Archaeological theory and methods emphasizing basic practices and procedures in research skills and writing in archaeology.

Note: Approved for the Arts and Sciences upper-level requirement in written communication (WR).
Note: Anthropology graduate students cannot enroll in this class.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 510. Methods in Biological Anthropology - WR3 Units

Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring

Prerequisite(s): ANTH 202, and either ANTH 303 or ANTH 353 or Junior status.

Description: Bio-anthro methods, general approaches to research, and data management skills. Covers anthropometric variation and analysis of molecular data.

Note: Approved for the Arts and Sciences upper-level requirement in written communication (WR).
Note: Anthropology graduate students may not enroll in this course.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 511. Ethnographic Methods - WR3 Units

Term Typically Offered: Occasionally Offered

Prerequisite(s): Junior or senior status, and 18 hours of Anthropology credits.

Description: Explores the range of qualitative research methods and techniques. Emphasis is on designing and developing a research project and conducting ethnographic fieldwork.

Note: Approved for the Arts and Sciences upper-level requirement in written communication (WR).
Note: Anthropology graduate students cannot enroll in this class.

Course Attribute(s): CBL - This course includes Community-Based Learning (CBL). Students will engage in a community experience or project with an external partner in order to enhance understanding and application of academic content.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 512. Methods in Skeletal Forensics - WR3 Units

Term Typically Offered: Occasionally Offered

Prerequisite(s): ANTH 202 or ANTH 204, and ANTH 327, and ANTH 410.

Description: This course trains students in the methods for documenting and preparing a skeletal forensics analysis report. Students will analyze a set of skeletal remains of an "unknown" individual or individuals, catalog and enter each element into a database for analysis, analyze the results, and write a report of the unknown individual(s) including species, age, ancestry, stature, sex and any trauma or pathologies present. Students will produce a documented report of the remains that could be entered as evidence and stand scrutiny of a court or coroner's rendering.

Note: Approved for the Arts and Sciences upper-level requirement in written communication (WR).

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 517. Anthropology of China3 Units

Term Typically Offered: Fall Only

Prerequisite(s): Graduate standing or permission of the instructor.

Description: It is widely acknowledged that China is a rising power in the global political economy. However, with the coexistence of tradition and modernity, the nature of Chinese culture and society remains heavily debated. This course explores a wide range of topics and issues that constitute the socio-cultural fabric of contemporary mainland Chinese society. These topics include, but are not limited to, family, gender, ethnicity, religion, education, politics, and economics. Our investigation will focus on two broad themes: 1) the unity and diversity of Chinese society, and 2) the continuity and change that took place from late traditional China to the present. The goal of this course includes learning various aspects of Chinese culture and society, studying diverse anthropological approaches to the study of China, and examining the political dimensions of representation.

Note: Cross-listed with AST 517.
Note: Students may not receive credit for this course and ANTH 317 or AST 317.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 522. Ecology, Politics and Culture3 Units

Description: This course examines the relations between ecology, economic system, culture, ideology and power relations. The focus moves back and forth between theoretical synthesis and case studies. The case studies are both ethnographic and historical. A few of the themes treated in detail: the role of religious ritual in regulating certain environments; the mutual influences of ecology and political economy in the making of "the Third World"; the local and global politics of national parks; combined and uneven development. Stress is laid on political ecology as a complex, shifting, analytical framework. Questions of sustainability weave in and out of the proceedings. Also emphasized: the story of ecological analysis over the last seventy years is a story about changing relations between anthropology and other social sciences.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 526. Archaeology as Practice3 Units

Prerequisite(s): ANTH 204.

Description: This course focuses on the analytical techniques that archaeologists use to study the past. Students will learn the practice of archaeology emphasizing modern methods of survey, excavation and analysis used to investigate the past. By the end of the course, students will have learned how to construct their own research plan, collect and analyze their data and draw inferences about the past.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 528. Animals and Humans3 Units

Description: This course explores the complex and often contradictory ways that humans interact with animals. We cover a range of topics emerging from a multidisciplinary perspective including the origins of hunting and domestication: modern animal economies; cross-cultural attitudes toward animals; symbolic representations of animals in art, literature, religion and folklore; animals as companions; and the status of animals, both wild and domestic, in contemporary society. Students will gain a broad, cross-cultural perspective on the relationship humans have with the rest of the animal kingdom, focused mainly on other mammals.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 529. Zooarchaeology3 Units

Prerequisite(s): Graduate student status.

Description: The course will provide basic instruction in the identification of animal remains commonly recovered from archaeological sites. It will follow a taphonomic approach to zooarchaeology with an emphasis on understanding and interpreting the formation of archaeological faunal assemblages. The course examines approaches to using bone data to construct and investigate archaeological questions. Students will engage in hands-on identification and interpretation of animal remains commonly found in archaeological sites.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 530. Human Impacts on Past Environments3 Units

Prerequisite(s): Graduate status, or consent of instructor.

Description: This course is about the archaeological and paleoecological record of past human impacts on Earth. We will explore a number of concepts regarding socio-natural systems including land degradation, perception, resilience and sustainability. The course will provide a background for understanding the ways archaeologists and paleoecologists reconstruct past environments and recognize human impacts. We will examine a number of global case studies and discuss the possible lessons for current and future decision-making in human land-use.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 531. Anthropology of Water3 Units

Description: Explores the political ecology of water from prehistory to present; integrates the archaeological and historical record with contemporary examples of water management; emphasis on privatization, globalization, and health.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 534. Food and Farm Movements in the Americas3 Units

Description: An overview of social and political activism associated with agriculture and food.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 535. Nutritional Anthropology3 Units

Description: This course provides students with a broad overview of topics in nutritional anthropology; an area of study that is highly multidisciplinary. Students will learn to critically think about the impact of culture concerning the current understanding of nutrition in a biocultural context. The course will range over nutritional aspects of human evolution, federal perspectives on nutrition, aspects of nutritional epidemiology, food and ethnicity, food and self, and obesity as culture bound syndrome.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 536. The American South: History, Culture, Political Economy3 Units

Description: An examination of the anthropological literature of the American South focusing on its history and the intersection of race, class and political economy through time and space.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 540. Health and Civilization3 Units

Term Typically Offered: Occasionally Offered

Prerequisite(s): Graduate status, or consent of instructor.

Description: The central goal of this course is to understand how at multiple bio-cultural levels human populations (past and present) respond to their surroundings and social contexts, and how their responses can affect human health, the environment, and their own adaptation. To achieve this goal, the course will be focused on human lifestyle changes, the emerging of new diseases, and epidemiological transitions developed after the agricultural revolution and after the rise of complex, interdependent, and crowded societies.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 549. Modes of Consiousness3 Units

Term Typically Offered: Occasionally Offered

Description: This course is devoted to examining how consciousness mediates between humans and the wider material world. While all of the concepts central to anthropology and the other social sciences-culture, society, evolution, history, mind, politics, economics-are premised in consciousness, the premise receives attention only sporadically. The attention that has been paid reveals that consciousness is not uniform. It has various modes. Thus the course focuses on these.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 555. Black Death: The Pandemic that Changed Human History3 Units

Term Typically Offered: Fall Even Years

Description: The Black Death of the fourteenth century is, perhaps, one of the most studied and discussed pandemics in human history, but still we are trying to answer different questions such as: Where did it start? How accurate is retrospective diagnosis? How did different societies and countries react against the Black Death? What were the religious and social responses to the Black Death? How did the Black Death change human populations and lifestyles? The interplay and dialogue among disciplines such as history, anthropology, and biology help us to understand how infectious diseases affect our species, and a bio-cultural approach will create a more comprehensive and holistic scenario when reconstructing the impact of epidemics on human populations.

Note: Cross-listed with ANTH 355.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 562. Special Topics in Cultural Anthropology3 Units

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.

Description: An examination of one or more specific areas of social-cultural anthropology. Details announced each semester.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 563. Special Topics in Biological Anthropology1-3 Units

Description: An examination of one or more specific areas of biological anthropology. Details announced each semester.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 564. Special Topics in Archaeology1-3 Units

Term Typically Offered: Occasionally Offered

Prerequisite(s): ANTH 202 and ANTH 204.

Description: An examination of specific areas of archaeology. Details announced each semester.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 576. Quantitative Analysis in Anthropology3 Units

Term Typically Offered: Fall Even Years

Description: This course provides an introduction to the use of quantitative analysis methods in anthropological research. Topics will include descriptive statistics, hypothesis testing, and multivariant statistics. The course will focus on choosing the appropriate statistical tests to answer specific research questions, proper interpretation of results, and visual and graphical methods for displaying results. This course is not intended to be an advanced math class, and derivation of statistical tests will not be covered in detail. However, students will be expected to gain an understanding of the logic and assumptions behind each test, when it should be used, and how results should be interpreted.

Note: Cross-listed with ANTH 376.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 578. Lithic Technology3 Units

Prerequisite(s): Graduate status or consent of instructor.

Fee: An additional $25.00 is charged for this course.

Description: This course provides an introduction to the study of stone tool technology. Topics to be covered include broad examination of major changes in stone tool technology during the course of human prehistory (~3.3 million - 10,000 years ago), analytical approaches commonly employed by archaeologists to interpret the lithic record, and experiential learning through knapping and lab exercises. In addition to the hands-on exercises, the course material is supported by films, and readings from the textbooks, and journal articles. Students are required to submit a literature based term paper focusing on ethnographic or archaeological case studies that incorporate lithic datasets.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 579. Ceramic Analysis3 Units

Description: Pottery is abundant in many archaeological sites, and the study of pottery has a long history in archaeology. Analysis and interpretation of ceramics has been used by archaeologists to accomplish varied ends: to establish a time scale, to document interconnections between different areas, sites or groups of people,and to suggest what activities were carried out at particular sites. Archaeologists also use ceramics as a basis to understand the organization of ceramic production itself as an important activity. The varied means that archaeologists use to bridge the gap between the recovery of ceramics and their interpretation is the focus of this course.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 581. Geoarchaeology3 Units

Term Typically Offered: Spring Even Years

Description: A firm grasp of geologic principles is essential for interpreting prehistoric archaeological sites, and this course provides students with a basic understanding of geoarchaeology. No prior geologic or archaeological knowledge is required to take this course. The course begins with the basics of sediments, soils, stratigraphy, and dating. This is followed by discussion of different depositional environments and their impacts on the archaeological record. Key topics include site formation processes, landscape reconstruction, and interpretation of climate change.

Note: Cross-listed with ANTH 381.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 582. Kentucky Archaeology3 Units

Description: This course introduces students to the archaeology of Kentucky with a focus on the precontact record. We begin with Paleoindian hunter-gatherers and end with Euro-American Settlement, Antebellum, Civil War, and Postbellum Records. We review key sites and assemblages and discuss models of cultural change. We situate past populations on the landscape by learning about biotic and geographic variation across the Commonwealth and consider how changes in resource availability impacted humans through time. We also visit archaeological sites and/or research laboratories.

Note: Cross-listed with ANTH 682.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 583. Who Owns the Past?3 Units

Prerequisite(s): Instructor approval required.

Description: This course explores the complexity of how the past and cultural heritage are used in political, professional, and everyday contexts, focusing on archaeological case studies from the 19th-21st Centuries. Over the course of the semester, students explore questions like: How is the past defined, and who should own objects and information about it? How are these questions culturally determined, and how do nationalism and issues of representation factor into the discussion? Why should we preserve the past, and how do we do so in meaningful and culturally sensitive ways? Through readings, written assignments, and discussion with peers, students examine these key ethical and epistemological issues in anthropology. Students apply principles learned throughout the course to develop a research project that explores a particular issue in cultural heritage.

Note: Cross-listed with ANTH 683.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 584. Anthropology of Death3 Units

Description: Students will learn how anthropologists (cultural anthropologists, biological anthropologists, and archaeologists) employ theory, methods, and data to understand past and present societies through their treatment of the dead. Through in-class discussions, community-engaged activities, and culminating projects, students will learn how death is fundamentally transformative - how it physically transforms human landscapes, how it inevitability transforms societies, and how its passage transforms populations directly and indirectly affected.

Note: Cross-listed with ANTH 384.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 607. Emergence of Human Culture3 Units

Prerequisite(s): Graduate status.

Description: Traces of the origins and development of human culture; focus on technology, social organization, language, food acquisition and sharing, religion and art in both Old and New World.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 608. Social and Cultural Theory3 Units

Prerequisite(s): Graduate status.

Description: Examination of how social and cultural theorists construct accounts of human existence that compliment and diverge from one another.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 609. Research Design: Archaeology3 Units

Prerequisite(s): Graduate status.

Description: Basic practices and procedures in research skills and writing in archaeology; focus on preparing grant proposals; publications and oral presentations.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 610. Research Design: Biological Anthropology3 Units

Prerequisite(s): Graduate status and consent of instructor.

Description: Review of methods, models, and theory from seminal papers and new research in anthropological genetics.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 611. Research Design: Socio-Cultural Anthropology3 Units

Prerequisite(s): Graduate status.

Description: Course focuses on developing a substantive research project in cultural anthropology; students will integrate a literature review, theoretical and methodological approaches, and data collection strategies to produce a research proposal.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 612. Seminar: Contemporary Issues in Anthropology3 Units

Prerequisite(s): Graduate status.

Description: Team taught course focused on the intertwined contributions of archaeology, biological and cultural anthropology to understandings of theory and method in anthropology. Themes will vary year to year.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 622. Anthropology of Violence3 Units

Prerequisite(s): Graduate status.

Description: Seminar on anthropological approaches to the study of violence and human suffering, including political, structural, domestic, and criminal violence. Case studies come from different regions of the world.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 624. Black Cultural Traditions3 Units

Prerequisite(s): Graduate status.

Description: Intensive and interdisciplinary approach to production of African-based traditions in the Diaspora; explores sociocultural implications of African-based literacy and arts.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 625. Globalization, Transnationalism, and Anthropology3 Units

Prerequisite(s): Graduate status.

Description: Focus on globalization at the local level; how it bears on identities and how subjects construct identities in transnational spaces.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 626. Food Justice3 Units

Prerequisite(s): Graduate status.

Description: This course explores the political, economic, cultural dimensions of hunger, food security, and food justice globally and locally. The concept of food justice has been deployed to capture consumption-based inequalities in access to tasty and nutritious food. The course considers not only justice in terms of dietary and culinary consumption but also such matters as land rights, intellectual patrimonies, migrant farm labor, restaurant working conditions, the concentration of grocery chains, food regulation, international trade rules related to agricultural commodities, and the environmental impacts of farming. The course concludes with a look at transnational efforts to build more just and sustainable food systems.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 627. Political Economy and Culture3 Units

Prerequisite(s): Graduate status.

Description: Examines how anthropologists have used concepts and methods derived from political economy to understand markets, production, power, and cultural practices.

Course Attribute(s): CBL - This course includes Community-Based Learning (CBL). Students will engage in a community experience or project with an external partner in order to enhance understanding and application of academic content.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 640. Linguistic Anthropology3 Units

Prerequisite(s): LING 325 or LING 327 or graduate standing.

Description: This course provides an introduction to the field of linguistic anthropology. Topics include: the semiotic properties of human language; principles of linguistic and cultural categorization; language use in social interaction; markers of social identity and relationship; registers of social conduct; the textual organization of discourse; the role of discourse in the formulation of norms, and the institutionalization of modes of conduct.

Note: Cross-listed with LING 640.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 650. Health and Disease: A Bio-Cultural Approach3 Units

Prerequisite(s): Graduate student.

Description: Focus on the adaptations that made us human and may not fit as well at the present; how human biology and evolution were and are shaped by lifestyles, health, and disease.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 651. Seminar in Biological Anthropology3 Units

Prerequisite(s): Graduate status.

Description: Discusses current issues and debates in biological anthropology; discuss selected papers that have made a fundamental contribution to understanding human evolution.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 653. Human Molecular Evolutionary Genetics3 Units

Prerequisite(s): Graduate status and consent of instructor.

Description: Introduction to population genetics theory and a review of the peopling of the world as conceptualized using both molecular and anthropometric data.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 661. Special Topics in Anthropology3 Units

Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring, Summer

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor, or department chair.

Description: Outlines vary as to area of expertise of instructors; objectives aim at the maximum of staff utilization and meeting program needs within the University which call for studies in anthropology as that discipline interrelates with other special knowledge.

Note: Students may take the course as often as topics vary, up to 6 hours.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 662. Special Topics in Cultural Anthropology3 Units

Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.

Description: An examination of one or more specific areas of social-cultural anthropology.

Note: Details announced each semester.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 663. Special Topics in Biological Anthropology1-3 Units

Description: An examination of one or more specific areas of biological anthropology.

Note: Details announced each semester.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 664. Special Topics in Archaeology3 Units

Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring, Summer

Description: An examination of one or more specific areas of archaeology.

Note: Details announced each semester.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 670. Independent Study (Reading)1-6 Units

Prerequisite(s): Graduate status.

Description: Intensive reading course under the supervision of a faculty member.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 671. Independent Study (Research)1-6 Units

Prerequisite(s): Graduate status.

Description: Intensive research course under the supervision of a faculty member.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 672. Thesis1-6 Units

Prerequisite(s): Graduate status.

Description: Reading, research, and writing of thesis under the supervision of a faculty member.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 673. Internship1-6 Units

Prerequisite(s): Graduate status.

Description: Internship in a social service, governmental, or NGO under the supervision of a faculty member. A substantial paper related to the internship is required.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 682. Kentucky Archaeology3 Units

Description: This course introduces students to the archaeology of Kentucky with a focus on the precontact record. We begin with Paleoindian hunter-gatherers and end with Euro-American Settlement, Antebellum, Civil War, and Postbellum Records. We review key sites and assemblages and discuss models of cultural change. We situate past populations on the landscape by learning about biotic and geographic variation across the Commonwealth and consider how changes in resource availability impacted humans through time. We also visit archaeological sites and/or research laboratories.

Note: Cross-listed with ANTH 582.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes

ANTH 683. Who Owns the Past?3 Units

Prerequisite(s): Instructor approval required.

Description: This course explores the complexity of how the past and cultural heritage are used in political, professional, and everyday contexts, focusing on archaeological case studies from the 19th-21st Centuries. Over the course of the semester, students explore questions like: How is the past defined, and who should own objects and information about it? How are these questions culturally determined, and how do nationalism and issues of representation factor into the discussion? Why should we preserve the past, and how do we do so in meaningful and culturally sensitive ways? Through readings, written assignments, and discussion with peers, students examine these key ethical and epistemological issues in anthropology. Students apply principles learned throughout the course to develop a research project that explores a particular issue in cultural heritage.

Note: Cross-listed with ANTH 583.

For class offerings for a specific term, refer to the Schedule of Classes