Introduction to Anthropology

Catalog description

Anthropologist Ruth Benedict claimed that anthropology's mission is truly to "make the world safe for human difference." Cultural anthropologists "make the strange familiar and the familiar strange," attempting to understand the internal logic of cultures which might, at first glance, seem bizarre to us. At the same time, anthropologists probe those aspects of our own society which might appear equally bizarre to outsiders. The goal of this course is to raise questions basic to the study of culture and social relationships in a multitude of contexts. We will also discuss the particular research methods informing anthropology, as well as anthropologists' relationship to the people they study, and the responsibilities informing those relationships. The readings focus on topics that have long captured anthropologists' attention and that continue to be intensely debated: social inequality, race, colonialism, body, kinship, religion, gender, social lives of things, globalization and migration. Through written work, including ethnographic readings and a novel, films, and in-class discussions, we will examine how anthropology makes us more aware of our own culturally ingrained assumptions, while broadening our understanding of human experiences. This course is structured as a combination of lectures and seminar discussions. In the first part of the course, I will give a lecture every week, followed by a class session that will focus solely on discussing the readings and key concepts. In the second part of the course, I will introduce the readings by placing them within larger debates, but the course will become more discussion oriented. This course meets the Dietrich Gen Ed "Social Sciences" requirement. This class also satisfies one of the core requirements for the Anthropology minor. Course Website: https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/history/