Human Variation

Catalog description

Humans vary in many important and interesting ways. Unfortunately, this variation is frequently misunderstood and used to classify, divide, and justify the oppression of minority groups. We will explore the basics of evolutionary biology so we can understand how humans vary biologically and why. We will discuss topics such as sex and gender, skin color, and racism to better understand how evolution impacted our biology and deconstruct harmful stereotypes about sex and race. By doing so, the course will attend to anthropology’s role in scientific racism and the faulty notions of human variation that still need to be dismantled in society at large.