Graduate Course Listing
A comprehensive listing of graduate courses in anthropology can be found here.
To find out when a particular class may be offered, please check Testudo.
UMCP students can take courses at other colleges and universities through the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area in place of their classes here at Maryland.
Recent and upcoming graduate courses offered by the Department of Anthropology are listed below (Fall 2019 - Spring 2023):
ANTH 601 Applied Anthropology (3 credits)
An overview of the history and current practices of applied anthropology. This includes relationships between applied anthropology and other major subfields of the profession; the interdisciplinary and public context of applied anthropology; and problems of significance, utility, and ethics associated with applied anthropology.
ANTH 603 Queer Anthropology (3 credits)
An introduction to anthropological perspectives on non-normative genders and sexualities in transnational context. The focus on these identities and practices will involve ethnographic and theoretical examinations of how power and control are exerted on gender and sexuality in addition to how individuals and communities respond. The ways in which sexuality and gender intersect with class, nation, and race will be examined along with the effects of globalization, transnational mass media, as well as cross-border economies and activisms on local or "traditional" genders and sexualities. Ethnography will be used to illuminate important cultural and national differences between people and thus unsettle North Atlantic-centric approaches to gender, sexuality, and queer studies.
ANTH 604 Culture, Media, and the Production of Knowledge (3 credits)
The social lives, or 'cultures' of media will be examined: namely, how people have adopted, adapted, signified, and interacted through media - both in theory and in practice. In this seminar, students will learn about 'media anthropology' as a subfield. They will also discuss various media making practices and media forms in relation to issues of racial, gender and sexual identity; self-definition; religiosity; war and intergroup conflict; advertising; and nationalism among others.
ANTH 605 Anthropology of Human Rights (3 credits)
Examines human rights through four policy domains: inequality, migration, indigenous resource rights, and climate change. Combines fine-grained, ethnographic accounts with considerations of international human rights institutions and practices to weigh the strengths and limitations of a human rights framework for achieving social justice.
ANTH 606 Qualitative Methods in Applied Anthropology (3 credits)
An introduction to the use of ethnography and qualitative methods in applied and policy contexts. Qualitative methods discussed include informal and systematic approaches. Students undertake fieldwork in local settings to practice the qualitative methods and to develop analysis and report writing skills.
ANTH 607 Anthropology and Development (3 credits)
An approach to the theory and practice of international development through its transformation from humanitarian and voluntarist actions to the professionalization of aid and transformation in an important instrument of foreign policy.
ANTH 611 Anthropology of Immigration and Health (3 credits)
The United Nations estimates that some 230 million people around the world are migrants who live outside their country of birth. This course focuses on these migrant populations, considering the implications of movement across borders and settlement in new societies on their health and well-being. We will investigate the social, political, and economic structures that shape disease and illness and produce differential access to health care for migrants. Within that context, we will explore the health effects of migration itself and particular health conditions from which migrants suffer. We will also examine how migrants interface with differently configured health care systems as well as strategies they and their advocates use to promote health and well-being.
ANTH 612 Hypermarginality and Urban Health (3 credits)
Using perspectives from medical and urban anthropology, we examine the phenomenon of hypermarginality--the clustering of extreme poverty, chronic disease, addiction, violence and trauma in certain social and spatial contexts, often urban. We will explore both the broader social, political, and economic structures of exclusion that produce hypermarginality, as well as the illness experiences associated with these conditions. As we consider both social suffering and the related institutional responses, we will also discuss the role of anthropological approaches in national discussions about health inequities.
ANTH 613 Health Disparities in the United States (3 credits)
Powerful economic, political, social, and cultural forces shape who gets sick, what illnesses/diseases they get, how they are treated while seeking care, what treatment options they have, and what their ultimate health outcomes are. The goal of the course is to understand these processes through the lens of critical medical anthropology.
ANTH 615 Advanced Studies in Global Health (3 credits)
Extends understandings of diverse health conditions facing world populations today and the science being made around them. Critically examines key issues in global aid and public health, with an emphasis on the theories, concepts, and methods of anthropology.
ANTH 616 Anthropology of Global Violence (3 credits)
An examination of anthropological approaches to the study of violence, drawing from key texts to analyze how violence operates along a continuum: from routine, sometimes invisible forms of violence embedded in everyday life, to more overt and exceptional forms. Consideration of the role of ethnography in elucidating both the subjective experiences of violence and the ways in which violence is embedded in institutions, structures, and global political-economic processes. Analysis of the specific relationships between violence, health, mental health, and trauma in local and global contexts.
ANTH 620 Environment and Society (3 credits)
Students will obtain foundational knowledge of core social science theories and approaches dealing with coupled natural-human systems. Key topics include: cultural models of the environment, social networks, ecological economics, political ecology, environmental justice, and science communication.
Taught at UMCP and over the Interactive Video Network (IVN).
ANTH 630 Quantification and Statistics in Applied Anthropology (3 credits)
An intensive overview of key quantitative and statistical approaches used by social scientists in applied ad policy research. This includes nonparametric and parametric statistical approaches. Students utilize statistical software and analyze existing and student-created databases. Anthropological case studies are emphasized.
ANTH 632 Three-Dimensional Digital Documentation: Using Laser-based Measurement Systems (3 credits)
This course focuses on the fundamentals of documenting components of the built environment and the landscapes in which they are located. Also, on the use of lasers to calculate 3-D measurements at various scales, from objects, to buildings, and landscapes. Data management and archiving, field documentation processes, and post-processing of scan point cloud are covered. This includes the production of deliverables for clients or project partners, such as plans, elevations, orthoimagery, and cleaned exported point clouds in formats that are compatible with Autodesk software and other CAD or rendering software platforms. This course is intended for students working in fields that rely on accurately documenting components of the built environment in three dimension, including architects, engineers, preservationists, archaeologists, or digital designers.
ANTH 633 Archaeology of Slavery: Classical, Caribbean and North American Contexts (3 credits)
Has slavery always existed? Does it come and go? North American plantation archaeology has become one of the foundations for understanding African American culture from the 1960s. Slavery in Antiquity existed in Greece and Rome on large scales and was essential to making commercial agriculture profitable work. Slavery in the Caribbean showed Europeans how to make a profit from African bodies. Trafficking in human persons today is recorded by the U.S. State Department annually and is regarded as modern slavery. These varying contexts of slavery will be compared in an attempt to understand slavery scientifically.
ANTH 636 Norse Archaeology (3 credits)
The archaeology of the Norse world from the 8th century through to the end of the 11th century. We will investigate the possible causes of the Norse expansion out of Scandinavia. The various settlements and colonies of Norse Russia, the Baltic, Britain, Ireland and the North Atlantic Islands (Orkney, the Shetlands, the Faroes, Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland) will be examined. While we will look at the Norse in detail we will also attempt to put their raiding, trading, and settlements into a larger Eurasian context through a study of the archaeology of this period.
ANTH 640 Advanced Studies in Theory and Practice of Historical Archaeology (3 credits)
Historical archaeology enhances cultural heritage by providing voice for groups who were often unable to record their own histories, such as women, laborers, working class families, and enslaved people. The course provides insight into issues related to race, gender, and ethnicity as they relate to multicultural histories.
ANTH 641 Introduction to Zooarchaeology (3 credits)
Zooarchaeology is the study of animal remains, especially bones, from archaeological contexts. This course will address both methodology as well as many of the main issues in contemporary zooarchaeology. Zooarchaeology stands at the intersection of a number of social and biological sciences, such as Biology, Osteology, Ecology, History, Anthropology and Economics. We will discuss basic animal osteology and the concepts and practices behind the identification of animal remains from archaeological contexts. We will cover the nature of the data in zooarchaeology, especially issues around using proxy data.
ANTH 647 Advanced Material Culture Studies in Archaeology (3 credits)
An in-depth introduction to the world of material culture studies with a focus on the methods and theories in historical archaeology. Students will look at archaeological data as historical documents, commodities and as symbols expressing ideas.
ANTH 651 Environmental Archaeology (3 credits)
An overview of modern environmental archaeology as a tool for the interdisciplinary investigation of past and present global change and to engage the long term past with current issues of sustainability and rapid environmental change.
ANTH 652 Anthropology and Climate Change (3 credits)
Human activities now influence ongoing global climatic change, and the outcome remains uncertain for communities and cultures around the world. This interaction between humans and climate provides a rich area of study for anthropologists in an interdisciplinary context. Case studies of historic and contemporary evidence will be used to understand impacts of global climate change and assess opportunities and barriers to successful responses and adaptation.
ANTH 653 Archaeology of the Modern City (3 credits)
The course provides an overview of how social scientists, in particular historical archaeologists, approach modern cities as being part of the materiality of the social structure and order. It uses a multidisciplinary approach that includes various aspects of social history, anthropology, sociology, to understand the use of space, living conditions, and the material remains of past communities. The history of cities and accompanying social issues provide the grounding to understand how the creation and use of urban landscapes can segregate ethnic, class, and racial factions. The outcome of the course is to show how such social policies and concepts of space within a city can have an impact on the type of materials recovered during the course of archaeological inquiry.
ANTH 654 Political Ecology (3 credits)
The use of the environment is contested and negotiated within historic and contemporary societies. Incorporating methods and perspectives from across the social sciences through specific case studies in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa, this course offers a survey to coupled human-environmental systems.
ANTH 655 Introduction to Museum Scholarship (3 credits)
Provides students a basic understanding of museums as cultural and intellectual institutions. Topics include the historical development of museums, museums as resources for scholarly study, and the museum exhibition as medium for presentation of scholarship.
ANTH 657 Approaches to Sustainable Development (3 credits)
An overview of the history of sustainable development, major development and environmental theories, and development strategies as they relate to an anthropological concern for an integrated, holistic, comparative, and humane approach to sustainable development.
ANTH 661 Language as Practice (3 credits)
An introduction to linguistic variation and the construction of identity, relationship, and community membership through language use. The approach emphasizes language as community-based practice and examines the dynamic construction of social relations through linguistic interactions.
ANTH 663 Climate Cultures (3 credits)
Climate change is an inherently global problem. To a significant degree, its causes and consequences are cultural in nature: Climate change impacts, mitigation and adaptation efforts are perceived and addressed in culture-specific ways. This course will be an overview of the holistic and anthropological approaches to the study of how culture frames what we know and how we respond to climate change. Readings,lectures, and discussions will focus on how culture is expressed through the interplay of processes and practices in specific economic, social and political contexts.
ANTH 664 Anthropology of Cultural Heritage (3 credits)
A global exploration of how the past is remade in the present. Covers the breadth of scope and specific interventions of heritage practice at the global scale, including the social, political, economic, and ethical dimensions of cultural heritage.
ANTH 665 Ethnoecology: Nature, Knowledge and People (3 credits)
Introduces theory and methodology from ethnoecology, the study of human relationships with and knowledge about the environment. Students will examine human relationships with both biotic (e.g. plants and animals) and abiotic (e.g. glaciers, weather) elements of ecological systems to better understand how knowledge frameworks and cultural practices shape human experiences of the natural world. The history of ethnoecology as a discipline will be covered, before moving to case studies where different ecological knowledge systems come into contact via conservation projects, bioprospecting, and other contemporary issues. Involves both discussion and project-based learning with GIS, cultural domain analysis, and ethnographic methods.
ANTH 666 Anthropology of Work (3 credits)
Examines the concept and meaning of work, the different types of work, and how the development of time discipline became essential for the creation of capitalist labor. Explores the contemporary social justice movement and its impact on gender and racialized inequities. Includes an exploration of deindustrialized regions in the Rust Belt.
ANTH 667 Researching Environment and Culture (3 credits)
In this applied course, students use mixed methods to research a locally-based, environmental sustainability issue. Classroom time will be split between seminar discussions of theory, methods, and relevant case studies, and lab work focused on project development, data analysis, and report write up. Students are expected to spend additional time outside class on data collection, analysis, and writing.
ANTH 673 Native American Languages and Cultures (3 credits)
An introduction to Native American Languages and Cultures from a linguistic anthropological perspective. Topics to be explored include Native American identities, the stucture of Native languages, oral traditions, narrative story-telling, Native language and thought (Sapir/Whorf), language shift, linguistic revitalization, documentation of endangered languages, indigenous representation and appropriation, and racializing discourses.
ANTH 674 Language Racism & Identity (3 credits)
An exploration of the relationship between language, identity and racism in a variety of social contexts, in the U.S. and elsewhere.
ANTH 677 Science Technology, and Medicine (3 credits)
How does something become a scientific fact? What is the social impact of new technologies and medical innovations? Who benefits and who is harmed by the rapid development of modern science, technology, and medicine? These questions are explored by drawing on the fields of anthropology, history, sociology, cultural studies, and science and technology studies to understand the inherent connections between science, technology, medicine, and society.
ANTH 681 Environmental Ethnographies of Asia (3 credits)
Examines social and ecological environments in Asia through the lens of classic and contemporary ethnographies from across the continent. Considers how cultural, political and economic dynamics interact with ecological systems in both recurring and unexpected ways. Ethnographies include case studies of global commodity chains, technoscientific management, borders and migration, conservation, and local knowledge as they intersect with changing environments.
ANTH 688C Current Developments in Anthropology; Climate Cultures (3 credits)
ANTH 689A Special Problems in Anthropology (1-6 credits)
ANTH 689C: Language and Culture
This course focuses on key issues in the study of language in its cultural context. We will highlight some contemporary ethnographic approaches in linguistic anthropology, by considering the phenomenon of bilingualism and multilingualism, focusing on linguistic diversity in the U.S. and internationally, through the study of the use and structure of such codes as African American speech, Spanish, Native American Languages, American Sign Language, and Pidgins and Creoles. Students will learn about the importance of the oral tradition and verbal art in cultures (i.e. African-American and indigenous cultures). This online class will also study technology-mediated communication, including language and internet cultures. We will consider the implications of linguistic diversity for education, and the effects of language change over time, sometimes culminating in the language endangerment and potential death of minority (heritage & native) languages. We will consider communication that is both verbal and non-verbal, can vary according to gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and other social factors.
ANTH 689P Special Problems in Anthropology; Political Anthropology: Violence, Social Suffering & Reconciliation (3 credits)
Addresses human experiences under political violence in light of locally specific political, economic and institutional power. Explore the foundations of political anthropology examining from cross cultural perspectives social suffering under cultural hegemony of totalitarian political systems. Considers reconciliation and remaking of the world after violence and social justice.
ANTH 689S Special Problems in Anthropology; Music, Language, and Signs (3 credits)
How do people communicate through and about music? Why is music often considered a "universal language"? How does music mean? This graduate seminar examines the intersections of music, language, and signs more broadly, with special attention to the human voice. Students will build a foundation in linguistic and semiotic anthropology and will explore how ideas about music and communication shape practices and relationships across various cultural groups.
ANTH 696 Field Methods in Archaeology (6 credits)
Field training in the techniques of archaeological survey and excavation.
ANTH 701 Anthropology Internship Preparation (3 credits)
Preparation for internship includes practicum training in development, presentation and evaluation of position papers, proposals and work plans; literature search and use of secondary data sources in decision making the effect cultural analysis and resource management; ethics and professional development for work in non-academic settings.
ANTH 712 Anthropology Internship Analysis (3 credits)
Prerequisite: ANTH789.The preparation and presentation of internship results, and the development of skills in report writing and presentation. Includes the completion of a professional quality report or publishable paper based on the internship experience.
ANTH 722 Advanced Studies in Theory and Practice of Applied Ecological Anthropology (3 credits)
An overview of important approaches to ecological anthropology. Population, systems, community, political, behavioral and evolutionary ecology will be examined as they have been applied to a range of anthropological questions. Complexity theory (nonlinear dynamics) and topics in game theory will also be addressed. Students will map the field of ecological anthropology and to assess the strengths and weaknesses of contemporary approaches, methods and theories.
ANTH 740 Theories of the Past and Accomplishments of Archaeology (3 credits)
The primary purpose is to highlight some of the key achievements made by archaeologists in informing questions of interest to society from 1850 on. Key achievements include how archaeologists understand elements of the past thought to be central to the development of modern socieity. A secondary purpose is to introduce students to the theories used to understand the place of the past in society and the function of answers to questions thought central to modern social life.
ANTH 760 Development of Social/Cultural Theory (3 credits)
A broad perspective of the history of social cultural theory in anthropology and the critical skills needed for understanding the subdiscipline is provided. An overview of the history of theorizing about society and culture will help outline the past, present, and future of anthropology and its relations with other scientific and humanistic disciplines.
ANTH 789 Internship (3-6 credits)
ANTH 856 Museum Research Seminar (3 credits)
A research seminar focusing on the practice and presentation of cultural and historical scholarship in museums and historical sites. Students will complete an original research project on the challenges and opportunities of public exhibition and interpretation of cultural and historical research.
ANTH 857 Museum Scholarship Practicum (3-6 credits)
Students devise and carry out a research program using the collections at the Smithsonian Institution or some other cooperating museum, working under joint supervision of a museum professional and a university faculty member.
ANTH 898 Pre-Candidacy Research (1-8 credits)
ANTH 899 Doctoral Dissertation Research (6 credits)