This was the homepage for Introduction to Anthropology 2021. The textbook was Anthropology: What Does it Mean to Be Human? by Robert Lavenda and Emily Schultz. In the words of Haitian anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot, this course attempted to “show an underlying faith in the richness and variability of humankind” (Global Transformations 2003, 139). For recorded lectures, see the YouTube Playlist:
Part 1: Evolving
Anthropology explores what it means to be human
- Chapter 1, “What is anthropology?”
Evolution & Myths
- Module 1, “Anthropology, Science, Storytelling”
Evolution is Life in Process
- Chapter 2, “Why is evolution important to anthropologists?”
Primate Flexibility
- Chapter 3, “What can the study of primates tell us?”
- Barbara Smuts, “What are Friends For?” Natural History (1987)
Learning to Move
- Chapter 4 (part 1), “What can the fossil record tell us about humankind?”
Survival of the Generalist
- Chapter 4 (part 2), “Fossil record”
Part 2: History & Culture
Human variation is more complicated than biological race
- Chapter 5, “How does the evolutionary study of human variation undermine notions of biological race?”
Archaeology Methods
- Chapter 6 (part 1), “How do we know about the human past?”
- Module 2, “Dating Methods in Paleoanthropology & Archaeology”
Gender Archaeology
- Chapter 6 (part 2), “How do we know about the human past?”
- “Women’s Art in the Upper Paleolithic”
- April Nowell and Melanie Chang, “Science, the Media, and Interpretations of Upper Paleolithic Figurines.” American Anthropologist (2014)
Auditioning Domestication
- Chapter 7 (part 1), “Why did humans settle down?”
- Jared Diamond, “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race.” Discover (1987).
Stratified Complexity
- Chapter 7 (part 2), “Why did humans build cities and establish states?”
- Michael Wilcox, “Marketing conquest and the vanishing Indian: An Indigenous response to Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse.” Journal of Social Archaeology (2010)
Social Life
- Chapter 8, “Why is the concept of culture important?”
- Meredith Small, “Our Babies, Ourselves.” Natural History (1997)
Cultivating Reflexivity
- Module 3, “On Ethnographic Methods”
- Laura Bohannan, “Shakespeare in the Bush.” Natural History (1966)
Language
- Chapter 9, “Why is understanding human language important?”
- Module 4, “Components of Language”
Part 3: Humankind Today
Meaning
- Chapter 10, “How do we make meaning?”
Economies
- Chapter 11,“Why do anthropologists study economic relations?”
- Richard Borshay Lee, “Eating Christmas in the Kalahari.” Natural History (1969)
Politics
- Chapter 12,“How do anthropologists study political relations?”
Sex-Gender-Sexuality
- Chapter 13, “What about sex, gender, and sexuality?”
- Alexandra Kralick, “What Our Skeletons Say About the Sex Binary.” Sapiens (2018)
Kinship
- Chapter 14 (part 1), “Where do our relatives come from?”
Marriage
- Chapter 14 (part 2), “Why do our relatives matter?”
Inequality
- Chapter 15, “What about social inequality?”
Medical Anthro
- Chapter 16, “What is medical anthropology?”
This course is part of a series of Intro-to-Anthropology courses online. My latest attempt from 2022 is one that outlines Human Problems & Human Potential. There were three other courses that used previous editions of the textbook Anthropology: What Does it Mean to Be Human? (2018, 2017, and 2016). In 2020 I used the textbook Through the Lens of Anthropology.