ANTH 250 - Understanding Cultures

For over a century, the “ethnography” has been the often unique, staple product of Anthropology. In the early 20th century, the West began to understand the workings and structures of different cultures in large part through the fieldwork and subsequent books published by anthropologists. Even in the 21st century, Anthropology distinguishes itself as a field through our reliance on both the ethnographic method, and the writing of ethnographies. Noted anthropologists like Boas, Mead, Evans-Pritchard, Malinowski and Lévi-Strauss developed diverse ethnographic styles still essential to the field today. In this course, students will gain skills in reading and analyzing ethnographies. Classic and new ethnographic texts will be closely read for their contributions to theory and method in Anthropology.

Pre-req: One 100 or 200-level ANTH course.
3 credits