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ANTH B101 Introduction to Biological and Archaeological Anthropology

Fall 2025

An introduction to the place of humans in nature, evolutionary theory, living primates, the fossil record for human evolution, human variation and the issue of race, and the archaeological investigation of culture change from the Old Stone Age to the rise of early agricultural societies in the Americas, Eurasia and Africa. In addition to the lecture/discussion classes, students must select and sign up for one lab section.

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Scientific Investigation (SI)

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ANTH B102 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

Fall 2025, Spring 2026

This course explores the basic principles and methods of sociocultural anthropology. Sociocultural anthropology examines how many of the categories we assume to be "natural," such as kinship, gender, or race, are culturally and socially constructed. It examines how people's perceptions, beliefs, values, and actions are shaped by broader historical, economic, and political contexts. It is also a vital tool for understanding and critiquing imbalances of power in our contemporary world. Through a range of topically and geographically diverse course readings and films, and opportunities to practice ethnographic methodology, students will gain new analytical and methodological tools for understanding cultural difference, social organization, and social change.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Child and Family Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies.

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ANTH B204 North American Archaeology

Not offered 2025-26

For millennia, the North American continent has been home to a vast diversity of Native Americans. From the initial migration of big game hunters who spread throughout the continent more than 12,000 years ago, to the complex Pueblos of the Southwest and urban Cahokia in the East, there remains a rich archaeological record that reflects the ways of life of these cultures. This course will introduce the culture history of North America as well as explanations for culture change and diversification.

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

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ANTH B205 Rumor, Secrecy, and Conspiracy Theory

Not offered 2025-26

What's true, and how can we be sure? Why do misfortunes happen? And who-or what-is really in control? This course explores fundamental questions of power and knowledge through the interlinked categories of rumor, secrecy, and conspiracy theory. Rather than dismissing such phenomena as illegitimate or ridiculous, we will approach them as social processes infused with meaning and intention. We will consider how people hearing and spreading rumors might see themselves as connected to, or excluded from, generally accepted forms of communication and authority. We will interrogate the relationship between secrets and power. We will examine theories of conspiracy in their social, cultural, political, and economic contexts, and ask what happens when conspiracies are not just theorized but confirmed. Drawing on ethnographic case studies from around the world, we will use the concepts of rumor, secrecy, and conspiracy theory as starting points for understanding human experiences of politics, media, violence, illness, injustice, exclusion, and more. Finally, through original research projects, students will practice applying theoretical and ethnographic insights from course readings to contemporary events as shared and interpreted through social media. Throughout the semester, we will investigate how the very labels of rumor and conspiracy theory are constructed and applied, and how whether something seems reasonable or paranoid is often a matter of perspective-and of power.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

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ANTH B208 Human Biology

Spring 2026

This course will be a survey of modern human biological variation. We will examine the patterns of morphological and genetic variation in modern human populations and discuss the evolutionary explanations for the observed patterns. A major component of the class will be the discussion of the social implications of these patterns of biological variation, particularly in the construction and application of the concept of race. Prerequisite: ANTH 101 or permission of instructor.

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Biology; Health Studies; Health Studies.

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ANTH B210 Medical Anthropology

Fall 2025

Medical Anthropology is one of the most dynamic subfields in anthropology with relevance for health professionals and researchers interested in the complexity of disease, diagnostic categories, treatment modalities, especially in multicultural contexts. This course examines the relationships between culture, society, disease and illness in light of global, historical, and political and economic forces, in anthropological perspective. It considers a broad range of health-related experiences, discourses, knowledge and practices among different cultures globally and among diverse individuals and groups in different positions of power. We will explore illness experiences, disease etiologies, practices and rituals surrounding healing, patients and social groups, practitioners, biomedicine, traditional medicine and other forms of medical knowledge cross-culturally, epistemologies and practices, and the production of health and medical knowledge in a variety of settings, among other topics. While disease may appear to be a matter of biology, health and illness are culturally constructed and socially conditioned and essential in anthropological approaches to understanding human experiences of affliction and well-being. In this course we will ask: how are ideas of health, illness, and healing intertwined with belief, ideas about culture, concerns of social relations and social organization, and how they influence or are influenced by political and economic relations?

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Environmental Studies; Health Studies; Health Studies.

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ANTH B213 Anthropology of Food

Not offered 2025-26

Food is part of the universal human experience. But everyday experiences of food also reveal much about human difference. What we eat is intimately connected with who we are, where we belong, and how we see the world. In this course, we will use a socio-cultural perspective to explore how food helps us form families, national and religious communities, and other groups. We will also consider how food may become a source of inequality, a political symbol, and a subject of social discord. Examining both practical and ideological meanings of food and taste, this course will address issues of identity, social difference, and cultural experience.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Child and Family Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies; International Studies; International Studies.

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ANTH B218 Activist Imaginaries& Conflict Management

Not offered 2025-26

How do activists understand injustice, and how does this understanding inform activist efforts to imagine and build a more just future? What results from these activist efforts? In this class, we will examine how activists develop a kind of qualitative analysis, similar to anthropology, through which they understand social problems and seek solutions to those problems. In contrast to the frequent description of activist projects as "utopian," we will explore how activists rely on a grounded analysis and, as such, often contribute to change even when they fail to realize their ultimate goal. We will also reflect on our role as anthropologists, asking how we can learn from and/or contribute to activist analyses and their resulting political projects. One 100-level course in any humanities or social sciences field, or permission of the instructor.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

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ANTH B223 The Global Middle East: Colonialism, Oil, the War on Terror

Spring 2026

A central premise of this course is that European colonial intervention in the Middle East did not just impact the Middle East, but mobilized social, material, and ideological projects which fundamentally transformed Europe itself, producing the modern "West" and the contemporary globe. Challenging tendencies to think of the Middle East as distant and different, students will explore the ways that Euro-American intervention in the Middle East shapes our everyday lives in the contemporary U.S. We will explore how the economy, culture, identity, and social organization of contemporary life in Europe and the U.S. builds off of, and is dependent upon, this history of intervention. We will conclude with an examination of global solidarity movements, with a focus on Black American activists' solidarity work in the Arab world, to ask how this global interconnection makes the Middle East an important site for building and imagining a more just world.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities; M Eastern/C Asian/N African St; Middel Eastern Central Asian; Middle Eastern Central Asian.

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ANTH B237 Anthropology of Environmental Health In Global Perspective

Spring 2026

In what ways can environmental and medical anthropology work with public health and other disciplines, communities, and more to create knowledge and resources to address global health and environmental changes as the planet increases in population and temperature, diseases change, and people get sicker? This course will introduce students to the anthropological study of the relationships between society, health, environment, and public health in cross-cultural perspective. It also will introduce key principles and concepts in environmental health and anthropology. In this class we will explore changing patterns of chronic and infectious disease related to environmental and climate change; entanglements between humans and non-human life forms; inequality, marginalization, and environmental justice in cross-cultural perspective; gender inequity and climate change; environmental racism; the intersection of environment and migration, and displacement due to armed conflict; urbanization changes in the relationship between humans and the built-environment; chemical pollution, land use, food systems, health, and sustainability; governance and planetary health, and more, for a greater understanding of the dynamic relationships between the environment, health, and disease in the 21st Century.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Health Studies.

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ANTH B244 Global Perspectives on Early Farmers and Social Change

Spring 2026

Throughout most of human history, our ancestors practiced lifestyles centered on gathering wild plants and hunting non-domesticated animals. Today, however, a globalized agricultural economy supports a population of over eight billion people. The widespread adoption of agriculture changed the course of history and is described by many as the most consequential cultural transition ever undertaken by humans. This course draws on information produced by archaeologists around the world to examine this major historical shift, while asking big questions such as: What impact did the adoption of agriculture have on past communities and cultures, and how did farming spread to different world regions? Did farming contribute to population growth, inequality, urbanization, and/or warfare? Did it set the stage for our own societies today?

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Environmental Studies.

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ANTH B246 The Everyday Life of Language: Field Research in Linguistic Anthropology

Not offered 2025-26

This course provides hands-on experience in linguistic anthropological methods of data collection and analysis. We will explore various methods employed by linguistic anthropologists, including: ethnographic observation of language use in context; audio-recording of spoken discourse; working with a linguistic corpus; online research methods; conducting linguistic and ethnographic interviews; and learning how to create a transcript to use as the basis for ethnographic analysis. This is a Praxis 1 course. For the praxis component of the course, in the first half of the semester, the class will work with a high school language arts teacher to design a lesson and project for a high school language arts class that incorporates linguistic-anthropological concepts and student-driven research on language. The purpose of this is to move beyond the prescriptivist approach to language commonly taken at the high school level, toward a more descriptive, ethnographic approach that learns from young people's creativity and agency as speakers of language. In the second half of the semester, the class will work collaboratively on a research project that we develop as a class. Class time will be used to discuss the results of student work, read and discuss relevant literature in linguistic anthropology, synthesize insights that develop from bringing different ethnographic contexts together; and work collaboratively on a way of presenting the findings.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Gender Sexuality Studies; Linguistics; Praxis Program.

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ANTH B252 The politics of belonging and exclusion in India

Fall 2025

Since India's economic liberalization in the early 1990s, the globalizing dynamics of cultural and economic liberalization have been accompanied by renewed articulations of who belongs in the "New India" and who doesn't. In this context, caste, class, religious community, language, and gender have become crucial sites for claiming citizenship, articulating distinctions among people, and constructing senses of what and who can inhabit the public sphere. Using materials from different regions of India, our focus will be on how fine-grained ethnographic study can be a tool to examine the broader dynamics of belonging and exclusion and its political and social effects. This course fulfills the BMC Anthropology major/minor ethnographic area requirement.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: International Studies.

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ANTH B254 Anthropology and Social Science Research Methods

Spring 2026

This course is designed for students interested in learning ethnographic and qualitative social science methods, and how to analyze qualitative results. Through hands on fieldwork, students will learn and practice ethnographic field methods, for example, observation, participant observation, interviewing, use of visual media and drawing, life stories, generating and analyzing data, and ways to productively transform qualitative data into contextual information. Ethics in ethnographic research will be a central theme, as will envisioning and designing projects that protect human subjects. The purpose of this course is to provide anthropology majors and students in social sciences, humanities, as well as STEM majors with interests in multi-method research, an opportunity to learn methods in advance of their thesis proposal and research, Hanna Holborn Gray summer research, and other social science independent research opportunities during their undergraduate experience, and post-graduation.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Environmental Studies.

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ANTH B259 The Creation of Early Complex Societies

Fall 2025

In the last 10,000 years, humans around the world have transitioned from organizing themselves through small, egalitarian social networks to living within large and socially complex societies. This archaeology course takes an anthropological perspective to seek to understand the ways that human groups created these complex societies. We will explore the archaeological evidence for the development of complexity in the past, including the development of villages and early cities, the institutionalization of social and political-economic inequalities, and the rise of states and empires. Alongside discussion of current theoretical ideas about complexity, the course will compare and contrast the evolutionary trajectories of complex societies in different world regions. Case studies will emphasize the pre-Columbian histories of complex societies in the Americas as well as some of the early complex societies of the Old World.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities.

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ANTH B281 The Power in Language: Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology

Spring 2026

Ongoing debates over free expression, hate speech, and changing norms of public and political discourse have heightened our awareness of language and its power. This course provides an introduction to the conceptual tools of linguistic anthropology, which can help us understand the role language plays in constructing identities, creating social and political hierarchies, and shaping understandings and experiences of the world. The course begins by considering the relationship between language and race, gender, and socioeconomic inequality in the US context. Then, using ethnographic materials from a variety of cultural contexts, it explores three theoretical perspectives that are central to linguistic anthropology: -Language, power, and the linguistic market: how different languages and ways of speaking get associated with particular social groups and become valued or devalued; -linguistic ideologies and semiotic processes: how language as a system of signs becomes meaningful, to whom, and in what ways; -performance and poetics: what kinds of acts are possible in and through linguistic expression; and how the non-referential (sonic, poetic) aspects of language matter in constructing meaning.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Linguistics.

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ANTH B289 Islam in North America

Not offered 2025-26

How has Islam shaped and been shaped by North America? How do race, gender, and social class influence the practice of Islam in the United States? What can Muslims in North America teach us about Islam, North America, and religion more generally? These questions will guide our exploration of lived Islamic tradition in North America. This course focuses on the complex and diverse ways that Muslims in North America have enacted Islamic tradition in various times, places, and communities. Our course materials combine secondary scholarship with books, films, music, poetry, and digital media. In the process of learning about the history and practice of Islam in North America, you will also engage with a set of conceptual tools and research skills that will serve you in the classroom and beyond. This course will be especially useful for anthropologists specializing in religion and students interested in Islamic traditions and/or American studies.

Course does not meet an Approach

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ANTH B303 History of Anthropological Theory

Fall 2025

This course provides a topically oriented and roughly chronological overview of the development of anthropological thought from the late 19th to the close of the 20th century. We will examine major themes that anthropology sought to address in its first century: the individual and the social; societal cohesion and conflict; value and exchange; human difference and cultural universals; materialist vs. mentalist explanations; and power and the production of knowledge. Throughout the course, we will be concerned with the development of anthropology as a discipline in relation to the historical background of colonialism, slavery, and systemic racism; war, nationalism, decolonization and nation-building; and the spread of capitalism. We will approach each theoretical perspective in terms of: (1) the context of the social and historical circumstances in which it emerged; (2) its analytical or explanatory power for understanding human behavior and the social world; (3) the kind of methodology it proposes; (4) its contribution to subsequent anthropological research and thought.

Writing Attentive

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ANTH B305 Public Anthropology

Fall 2025

What good is anthropology in the world today? How are anthropological perspectives relevant for understanding contemporary issues, and how can those perspectives be made accessible not only to an academic audience but to a broader public? This course explores how anthropologists use their methods, theories, and knowledge to engage in public conversations and intervene in public debates. We will read and analyze work that anthropologists have written for popular audiences, from books to other forms of media, on a range of topics including health, immigration, politics, and experiences of difference. We will attend to the writing styles that anthropologists use when writing for public readerships, and we will practice clearly and precisely applying anthropological insights through our own writing projects. Taking into consideration the ethical questions and obligations surrounding public anthropological engagement of the past and present, we will discuss how today's students might draw on their anthropological training both in their future careers and as concerned citizens. Prerequisite: ANTH B101, B102, H103 or permission of the instructor.

Writing Attentive

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

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ANTH B317 Disease and Human Evolution

Not offered 2025-26

Pathogens and humans have been having an "evolutionary arms race" since the beginning of our species. In this course, we will examine how natural selection and other evolutionary forces shape our susceptibility to disease, and how we have adapted to resist disease. We will also address how concepts of Darwinian medicine impact our understanding of how people might be treated most effectively. We will focus on infectious and chronic diseases, and the anthropogenic effects contributing to the observed distribution of various diseases and illnesses, such as climate change and racism, and their interactions.

Counts Toward: Biology; Health Studies.

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ANTH B319 Performance, Culture, and Power

Not offered 2025-26

This course will develop an understanding of performance as a mode of social and political action. Examining performance in a variety of modalities (sonic, visual, kinesthetic, verbal) and in both embodied/live and mediated contexts, we will ask: What forms of agency, representation, memory, and consciousness can be cultivated through performance? How do performances reinforce cultural norms and sociopolitical hierarchies, and conversely, how can performance work as cultural critique and political protest? What theoretical perspectives become possible when we view social action and expressive acts through the lens of performance? We will engage with ethnographic studies and selected performances across different contexts: ritual, theater, politics, social movements, popular culture, social media, and everyday life. Pre-requisite(s): Sophomore standing or higher

Writing Attentive

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ANTH B320 Archaeological Theory and Practice

Spring 2026

What is archaeological theory? Is there an archaeological theory, or only various theories used by archaeologists? This course will examine the history of theoretical approaches in the field and the practices used by archaeologists through time, including recent developments and concerns in anthropological archaeology and beyond. We will interrogate the nature of the archaeological record and question how practitioners transform materials into information about the past. Theory and methodological developments in archaeology are considered alongside broader changes in academia, culture, and politics. This course was previously taught as ANTH B220. Prerequisite: ANTH 101 or permission of instructor.

Writing Attentive

Counts Toward: Classical & Near Eastern Arch.

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ANTH B322 Anthropology of Bodies

Fall 2025

This course examines meanings and interpretations of bodies in anthropology. It explores anthropological theories and methods of studying the human body and social difference via a series of topics including the construction of the body in medicine, identity, race, gender, sexuality and as explored through cross-cultural comparison.  Bodies and their forms are intertwined in debates both in academia and in current affairs and politics. These concerns range from surveillance and movements of bodies, disappearance and erasure of some bodies and fortification of others, to biological and technological modification of individual bodies that arise in moral and political debates and action. Although "the body" is frequently assumed to be "natural," indeed it appears unstable and destabilizing, especially in particular times and in particular places. We will discuss, for instance the body as a focus of the biomedical gaze, as commodity, in creative expression, in relations to non-human primates, across the age spectrum, and in historical political, economic, and colonial and post-colonial regimes, among other topics. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing and higher.

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Child and Family Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies; Health Studies; Health Studies.

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ANTH B325 The Arab Spring

Not offered 2025-26

In the early 2010s, a series of popular revolts transformed the political landscape of the Middle East. In Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen, longstanding dictatorships were overthrown. In Syria, mass protest and its brutal suppression led to a long, devastating civil war. Smaller, still significant, protest movements shook the political order in several other countries. In this course, we will look at scholarly works and primary documents to examine this period of upheaval. We will seek to understand the sources of revolt, the various experiments with new forms of government and society which took shape in this revolutionary moment, and the continuing legacies of the so-called "Arab Spring."

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

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ANTH B339 Migrants, Refugees, and Life Across Borders

Fall 2025

Borders are often taken for granted as natural divisions in the world, but they are actually the products of political, historical, and social processes. Border crossing is often framed as an aberration or even a crisis, but people have moved for as long as humans have existed. This course approaches borders from an anthropological perspective by foregrounding the experiences of the people who move across them. We explore the interconnected categories of migrants and refugees to understand how people cross borders under different kinds of circumstances: some voluntary, others fleeing conflict or persecution, and still others that seem to fall between these ideal types. We will critically examine how migrants and refugees are qualitatively described and quantitatively defined, as these discursive constructions often determine legal status and reception in host countries, and also inform governmental and humanitarian responses. We will examine ethnographic case studies focusing migrant and refugee movements within and between Africa, Europe, and the Americas, considering how these particular stories help us understand the broader phenomenon of human mobility. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing and higher.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; International Studies; International Studies.

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ANTH B345 Voices of the Dead: Seminar in Bioarchaeology

Spring 2026

Bioarchaeology is the study of human skeletal remains from archaeological sites, with the goals of reconstructing the lifeways of past peoples. In this course we will learn about the methods used to reconstruct both individual lives and collective population histories, including human osteology, paleopathology, stable isotope analysis, mortuary analysis, and demography. We will study processes that leave their marks in/on bones and teeth, including behavioral features (such as occupation, inequality and social hierarchies, and interpersonal violence); ecological features (e.g., differences in landscape, diet, and naturally available resources); and biological features (e.g., growth and development, and physiological stress). This exploration will be firmly rooted in the contemporary cross-cultural ethical and legal frameworks surrounding research using human remains, from excavation to repatriation.

Writing Attentive

Course does not meet an Approach

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ANTH B354 Political Economy, Gender, Ethnicity and Transformation in Vietnam

Not offered 2025-26

Today, Vietnam is in the midst of dramatic social, economic and political changes brought about through a shift from a central economy to a market/capitalist economy since the late 1980s. These changes have resulted in urbanization, a rise in consumption, changes in land use, movement of people, environmental consequences of economic development, and shifts in social and economic relationships and cultural practices as the country has moved from low income to middle income status. This course examines culture and society in Vietnam focusing largely on contemporary Vietnam, but with a view to continuities and historical precedent in past centuries. In this course, we will draw on anthropological studies of Vietnam, as well as literature and historical studies. Relationships between the individual, family, gender, ethnicity, community, land, and state will pervade the topics addressed in the course, as will the importance of political economy, nation, and globalization. In addition to class seminar discussions, students will view documentary and fictional films about Vietnamese culture. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing or higher or first years with ANTH 102.

Writing Attentive

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities; International Studies; International Studies.

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ANTH B357 Narratives of Illness, Healing, and Medicine

Spring 2026

This course will explore the construction of narratives around illness, healing, and medicine cross-culturally and across a variety of media including through graphic novels, video drama series, primary source diaries, audio accounts, and anthropological texts. Illness narratives have figured prominently in the study and practice of medical anthropology, and increasingly in the teaching of medicine. We will ask: What is the role of illness narratives in the healing process for patients, healers, and caregivers in cross-cultural comparison? How can illness narratives destabilize dominant discourses, and provide an avenue of expression for those who are unable to easily speak or be heard, particularly in biomedical contexts? Who gets to speak, in what ways, and who remains unheard? What does it mean to tell a story of illness? What roles do illness stories play in illuminating and complicating understandings of illness, disability, trauma, and caregiving? How do illness narratives relate to suffering, hope, and healing, and how they differ for chronic or terminal illness? What do they tell us about making and remaking the self? Students will have the opportunity to explore frameworks and cross-cultural experiences through media beyond standard text. Prerequisite: Sophomore-standing or above.

Writing Attentive

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Child and Family Studies; Health Studies.

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ANTH B366 Waves of Power: Sound in Culture, Politics, and Society

Not offered 2025-26

From the chants of protesters to the hum of engines, from the ring of church bells to the background tracks of our favorite songs, sound matters. It is not just a background to what we see, but a crucial and powerful part of social life. This course builds an understanding of sound through anthropological investigation, as a product of human creativity, human conflict, and human interaction with the material world. We will explore the ways that sound is conceptualized and endowed with meaning; how sound becomes linked to identity; and how sound can become a call to action in different cultural and historical contexts. The kinds of sounds we will encounter in this course include, but are not limited to, music and spoken language; we will also be studying environmental, industrial, and religious sounds. You will also be learning about different ways to record, document, and write about sound by engaging in your own sound-based ethnographic research. Prerequisite: Sophomore Standing or higher.

Counts Toward: Music at Haverford.

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ANTH B368 The Anthropology of Art

Spring 2026

The idea that "art is what makes us human" has a long lineage and is a key concept of enlightenment philosophy. The anthropology of art historically drew inspiration from this idea, with anthropologists arguing that creative expression was a universal feature of human society - proof of universal human equality. But if art is evidence of humanity's common creative drive, art has also often been a profound site of inequality - the development of art was closely connected to colonial exploitation, racial segregation, gendered violence, and contemporary gentrification. In this course we will draw on anthropological scholarship to investigate this tension between art as a feature of common humanity and art as a site for the production of difference. If art makes us human, does some art make some of us more human than others? Prerequisite: Sophomore standing (minimum of at least 8 units) or higher.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; History of Art; Museum Studies.

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ANTH B398 Senior Conference

Research design, proposal writing, research ethics, empirical research techniques and analysis of original material. Class discussions of work in progress and oral and written presentations of the analysis and results of research are important. A senior thesis proposal is the most significant writing experience in the seminar. Prerequisite: Senior Anthropology majors only.

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ANTH B399 Senior Conference

Coding research notes, discussion of ongoing field work and research. A senior's thesis is the most significant writing experience in the seminar. Senior requirement.

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AFST B204 #BlackLivesMatterEverywhere

Spring 2026

#BlackLivesMatterEverywhere: Ethnographies & Theories on the African Diaspora is a interdisciplinary course closely examines political, cultural, intellectual, and spiritual mobilizations for Black Lives on local, global and hemispheric levels. We will engage an array of materials ranging from literature, history, oral histories, folklore, dance, music, popular culture, social media, ethnography, and film/documentaries. By centering the political and intellectual labor of Black women and LGBTQ folks at the forefront of the movements for Black Lives, we unapologetically excavate how #BlackLivesMatterEverywhere has a long and rich genealogy in the African diaspora. Lastly, students will be immersed in Black queer feminist theorizations on diaspora, political movements, and the multiplicities of Blackness.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; Anthropology; General Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities; Latin American Iberian Latinx; Museum Studies.

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BIOL B236 Evolution

Spring 2026

A lecture/discussion course on evolutionary biology. This course will cover the history of evolutionary theory, population genetics, molecular and developmental evolution, paleontology, and phylogenetic analysis. Lecture three hours a week.

Scientific Investigation (SI)

Counts Toward: Anthropology; Biochemistry & Molecular Bio; Biochemistry Molecular Biology; Geology.

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CITY B185 Urban Culture and Society

Fall 2025

Examines techniques and questions of the social sciences as tools for studying historical and contemporary cities. Topics include political-economic organization, conflict and social differentiation (class, ethnicity and gender), and cultural production and representation. Philadelphia features prominently in discussion, reading and exploration as do global metropolitan comparisons through papers involving fieldwork, critical reading and planning/problem solving using qualitative and quantitative methods.

Course does not meet an Approach

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Anthropology; International Studies.

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CITY B229 Topics in Comparative Urbanism

Spring 2026

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

Writing Intensive

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Anthropology; International Studies; Latin American Iberian Latinx.

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HART B365 Exhibiting Africa: Meaning Making across the African Diaspora

Spring 2026

At the turn of the 20th century, the Victorian natural history museum played an important role in constructing and disseminating images of Africa to the Western public. The history of museum representations of Africa and Africans reveals that exhibitions-both museum exhibitions and "living" World's Fair exhibitions- has long been deeply embedded in politics, including the persistent "othering" of African people as savages or primitives. While paying attention to stereotypical exhibition tropes about Africa, we will also consider how art museums are creating new constructions of Africa and how contemporary curators and conceptual artists are creating complex, challenging new ways of understanding African identities.This course was formerly numbered HART B279; students who previously completed HART B279 may not repeat this course.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; Anthropology; Museum Studies; Visual Studies.

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HIST B200 The Atlantic World 1492-1800

Not offered 2025-26

The aim of this course is to provide an understanding of the way in which peoples, goods, and ideas from Africa, Europe. and the Americas came together to form an interconnected Atlantic World system. The course is designed to chart the manner in which an integrated system was created in the Americas in the early modern period, rather than to treat the history of the Atlantic World as nothing more than an expanded version of North American, Caribbean, or Latin American history.

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; Anthropology; International Studies; International Studies; Latin American Iberian Latinx; Peace Justice and Human Rights.

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INST B201 Themes in International Studies

Fall 2025

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Anthropology; Environmental Studies.

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INST B315 Humans & Non-Humans

Spring 2026

Anthropology is the study of humans, but the idea of the "human" always implies the category of the "non-human." Humanity is defined in its relation to "non-humans": ranging from tools and technology, to domesticated (and undomesticated) animals, to agricultural crops, our local ecologies, and the global environment. What does it mean to be human? What is the agency of non-humans in human worlds? Do forests think? Do dogs dream? What is the agency of a mountain? What are the rights of a river? What is the cultural significance of DNA? This course will trace Anthropological debates over the "human" and "non-human" in contexts ranging from Amerindian cosmology, to political ecology, and science and technology studies.

Counts Toward: Anthropology; Latin American Iberian Latinx.

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