Welcome first year students! There are numerous introductory classes available to you this semester. Below are titles and descriptions. You can take any one of our intros in whichever order you prefer.
Credit: 0.5
Biological anthropology studies the biological diversity of our species and the evolutionary history that has led us to our present condition. The course includes: (1) examination of the genetics underlying evolution and the mechanisms by which change occurs; (2) variation and adaptation among living humans; (3) living primate populations as keys to understanding our evolutionary past; and (4) human evolution. This course is designed to expose students to the breadth of biological anthropology and to prepare them for upper-level classes in anthropology and related disciplines. Enrollment is limited to first-year students and sophomores. This foundation course is required for upper-level work in biological anthropology courses. Offered every semester.
Credit: 0.5
Today people increasingly live in highly industrialized and urban civilizations. But how long have humans had "civilization"? What is "civilization" and how can it be recognized? This course will address these questions through looking at the basic elements of archaeology and its place in anthropology. Topics we will cover include the history of archaeology, fundamental aspects of fieldwork and analysis and the prehistoric record from the first humans to the origins of civilization. This foundation course is required for upper-level work in archaeology courses. Offered every semester.
Credit: 0.5
This course introduces students to the discipline that studies and compares cultures. Students will learn about the main concepts used in anthropology and how anthropologists conduct research, while also discovering how people live in other times and places. Students will learn about theories that provide frameworks for understanding and comparing cultures. Ethnographic descriptions of life in particular places give students factual materials with which to apply and critique such theories. Through this introduction to the study of culture in general, and an exposure to specific cultures, students inevitably come to re-examine some of the premises of their own culture. This foundation course is required for upper-level work in cultural anthropology courses. Offered every semester.
Credit: 0.5
We live in a country where some 40 percent of the population does not accept the theory of human evolution. Concurrently, the state of Ohio has seen a rise in Bigfoot sightings that makes us the fifth "squatchiest" state in the nation. This course will examine how we know about the world around us and what passes for knowledge of a particular type. In the process, we will explore scientific literacy, pseudoscientific belief, anthropology's response to such pseudoscience, and its effects on our culture. This course can be paired with another anthropology course to fulfill a social science distribution requirement. This course does not count toward the anthropology major but will count toward minor. Prerequisite: open to first-year and sophomore students only. Offered every other year.
Credit: 0.5
This special topics course considers the central, if often unstated, role of whiteness in the operation of race in the United States. The historical and cultural construction of whiteness is highlighted along with the many ways whiteness is understood and reproduced today. The ultimate point of the course is to encourage students of all backgrounds to see that which is hidden, i.e., the centrality of whiteness in all constructions of race, and to use those insights to make sense of the social and political turmoil through which we are living. There are no prerequisites for this course which is open to first and second year students.