Anthropology Course Descriptions for Courses taught at USF St. Petersburg

Required

ANT 2000 Intro to Anthropology -(4) is not required but can count toward

the credits needed for the major and is a wonderful introduction to the field.

Instructors: Dr. Arthur,  Dr. Weedman or adjunct

Anthropology is the study of human biology, society, material life, and language. This course is a four credit class designed to present the subfields of American anthropology. Specifically, I use class lectures, assigned readings, and films to enhance your understanding of Biological Anthropology, Archaeology, Socio-cultural Anthropology, and Linguistic Anthropology. Anthropology brings to the forefront an enhanced awareness and understanding of human similarities and differences essential for people preparing to take their place in the increasingly interconnected world of the twenty-first century. I hope that you take with you a better understanding of the universal human characteristics as well as a tolerance for diversity in human physiology, language, and culture.

ANT 2410 Cultural Anthropology (3).

Instructors: Dr. Sokolovsky, Dr. Weedman or adjunct

This course is designed to expose students to cultural diversity. Specifically, I use class lectures, assigned readings, and films to enhance your understanding of cultural anthropology. The first third of this course will provide students with: a basic definition of cultural anthropology, research and field methods, ethics, the concepts of culture and how people acquire culture, and the history of anthropological theories of culture. In the remaining portion of the class, we will explore anthropological issues through the study of several specific cultures including: the Yanomamo, Trobriand Islanders, Navajo/Dene, Khoisan, Central African foragers, Gamo, Konso, Maasai, and the Wodaabe. The second part of the course will focus on the symbolic aspects and interpersonal relationships that affect everyday life including: language, material culture, kinship, gender, and religion. In the last weeks of class, we will discuss the different means by which anthropologists universally study and organize human societies including political, social, and economic systems through global and temporal lens. We will especially focus on how these relationships have altered with Western expansionism.

ANT 2511 Biological Anthropology (3)

Instructor: Dr. Dixon

ANT 3101 Archaeology (3)

Instructor: Dr. Arthur

ANT 3610 Anthropological Linguistics (3)

Instructor: Dr. Schmidt

This course follows a seminar format and is designed to introduce students to the comparative study of language in its cultural and social contexts, giving special attention to issues of class, gender, and ethnicity.  Besides providing a basic understanding of various approaches to language and culture, this course also focuses on the role of language as a tool of power.  Finally, this course is aimed at teaching students to think critically.  Developing critical thinking includes learning to differentiate sources of information (facts, opinions, and theories) and understanding the premises and implications of ideas.  Organizing information and ideas you gather through the readings and discussions is an important step in the process of critical thinking. 

ANT 4034 Theories of Culture (3)

Instructor: Dr. Sokolovsky

ANT 4935 Rethinking Anthropology (3)

Instructor: Dr. Weedman

This course is taught in a seminar format and will encourage students to rethink and evaluate current issues in the four-fields of American anthropology through readings and assignments.  Students will be exposed to the experiences, voices, and practices of anthropologists in relationship to ethics, writing (articles, books, and grant proposals), film, and graduate school.  In addition, we will create a dialogue grounding theoretical issues such as cultural relativism, race, globalism, development, gender, representation and symbolism.  

Electives

ANT 4241 Magic and Religion (3)

Instructor: Dr. Weedman

A cross-cultural study of indigenous non-western religions. We will consider mystical beings and their associated mythologies and symbolic forms.   Students will learn how religious practitioners as well as commoners communicate, honor, and embody their mystical beings through rituals of rites of passage, music, dance, healing, magic, “witchcraft”, and the mundane.  We also will explore indigenous religions as they reflect contact between indigenous and global cultures in revitalization movements and syncretism.

ANT 4302 Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective (3)

Instructor: Dr. Schmidt

This course follows a seminar format based on class discussions.  It will focus on the social constructions of gender based on particular historical and cultural processes of four specific social formations (a. Pre-colonial societies; b. Agrarian societies; c. Pastoralist societies; and d. State societies). The goal of this course is to give students the opportunity to explore the connections between different socio-economic formations and the gender systems they created through multiple ‘bargains with patriarchies.’  In fact, the ultimate goal of this course is to understand that gender systems are products of particular histories and particular peoples.

ANT 4312 North American Indians (3)

Instructor: Dr. Arthur

ANT 4316 Ethnic Diversity in the United States (3)

Instructor: Dr. Schmidt

ANT 4316 is an exit course in Anthropology which will follow a seminar format based on class discussions.  It will focus on ethnicity and ethnic diversity in the U.S. as social constructions that respond to specific moments in the history of the U.S. Focusing on specific case studies (Native American, African American, Asian American, Hispanics and white) this course affords students the opportunity to explore different theoretical perspectives dealing with the dynamics of history, class, and ethnicity in the U.S.  Students will be encouraged to look at what specific national discourses express about ethnic, gender, and class realities and how these constructions reflect particular hegemonic interests.

ANT 4323 Mexico and Central America (3)

Instructor:Dr. Schmidt

ANT 4316 is an exit course in Anthropology which will follow a seminar format based on class discussions.  It will focus on ethnicity and ethnic diversity in the U.S. as social constructions that respond to specific moments in the history of the U.S. Focusing on specific case studies (Native American, African American, Asian American, Hispanics and white) this course affords students the opportunity to explore different theoretical perspectives dealing with the dynamics of history, class, and ethnicity in the U.S.  Students will be encouraged to look at what specific national discourses express about ethnic, gender, and class realities and how these constructions reflect particular hegemonic interests.

ANT 4432 The Individual and Culture (3)

Instructor:Dr. Sokolovsky

ANT 4442 Urban Life and Culture (3)

Instructor:Dr. Sokolovsky

ANT 4462 Health, Illness, and Culture (3)

Instructor: Dr. Dixon

ANT 4495 Methods in Cultural Research (3)

Instructor: Dr. Sokolovsky

ANT 4930 Peoples of Africa (3)

Instructor:Dr. Arthur

ANT 4930 Women and Development in Latin America

Instructor: Dr. Schmidt

The impact of development and modernization efforts on what are usually perceived as ‘traditional’ societies has profound effects, especially when efforts to bring traditional societies into the ‘modern’ era are forced from the outside and imposed in a top-down fashion.  While change--=imposed or not—is unavoidable, and in fact an important mechanism for the survival of societies, it sometimes has unintended consequences that unevenly impact different segments of the community/society.  Men—and more and more women—have been forced to leave their villages or communities in order to survive.  The renegotiation of individual identities and roles in the community and the increasing movement of peoples are changing the social landscape of  Latin American society.  It is also forcing governments and community members to redefine gender, class, and ethnic relations and understandings.

Taught in a seminar format, this course aims at exposing students to a wide array of issues brought by changes in the local and global economies that particularly affect l

Latin American women’s understandings of their identities and roles in the communities they live.

ANT 4930 Peoples of Florida (3)

Instructor:Dr. Weedman

This course will focus on the ethnohistory and ethnography of the People of Florida. We will begin with a very brief overview of the prehistory of Native Americans followed by the history of interaction between Native Americans and colonial powers, the US government, and other immigrant populations. In the second half of the semester, we will examine the history and current lives of Florida's nonnative peoples such as African Americans, Anglo-Americans, Cuban-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Italian-Americans, tourists, and transplant populations. The lectures will combine ethnohistory, history, and ethnography examining contemporary issues such as education, health, identity, natural resource control, cultural heritage, land (re)acquisition, and cultural tourism.

ANT 4153 North American Archaeology (3)

Instructor: D. Arthur

ANT 4930 Archaeology of Africa

Instructor: Dr Arthur, Dr. Weedman

African Archaeology will critically examine the western myths of Africa as a "Dark Continent" inhabited by an unsophisticated peoples.  First, we will explore the fossils that reveal Africa to be the home of the first people followed by the wonderful rock art and megaliths associated with the earliest food producers.  Then, we will study the lives of the ancient pyramid builders of Egypt, the earliest Christian Kingdom in the Horn of Africa,  and the gold and ivory traders of Southern Africa.   The purpose of the course is to not only examine the spectacular prehistory and history of Africa, but also to provide a rich understanding of the diversity that is Africa.

ANT 4930 Archaeology and History of the African Diaspora

Instructor: Dr. Weedman

This course will focus on the rich contributions made by African peoples to lifeways outside its boarders. After first reviewing the history of African Diaspora studies, we will identify the earliest migrations of African peoples into Europe and Southwest Asia during the Paleolithic, Classical, and Proto-historic periods. Subsequently, we will explore the history and archaeology of interaction, cultural change and continuity on the African continent during the colonial period. We also will trace through archaeology, history, and ethnography the cross-cultural patterns of peoples of African descent living outside the African continent.

ANT 4930 Theory and Method in Archeology (4)

Instructor: Dr. Arthur

ANT 4586 Prehistoric Human Evolution (3)

Instructor:Dr. Weedman

This course will introduce you to the study of human evolution – Paleoanthropology . The story of our past can be found in clues from a wide range of sources -- everything from details of primate behavior to art murals in Ice Age caves. We will begin with an introduction to the history of Paleoanthropological studies and comparative studies of other primates. We can learn a lot about ourselves by studying the bodies and behavior of non-human primates and human foragers and apply this knowledge to help interpret ancient evidence.  We will dig into the past, to look at fossils and archaeological sites for the evidence revealing when and where our ancestors begin to walk upright, hunt and gather, use tools, invent art, speak and develop  the wide range of social and cultural practices that we consider human.   And throughout the semester, we will sift through the present to reveal how researchers construct current models and theories concerning human evolution.

ANT 4930 Food, Health and Culture

Instructor: Dr. Dixon

ANT 4620 Language and Culture (3)

Instructor:Dr. Schmidt

This course has been designed to provide students with an opportunity to focus on contemporary issues of language and culture and the very complex influences they exert on our understanding of our daily lives.  Besides focusing on theoretical considerations, this course affords students the opportunity of applying knowledge generated in class to the analysis of the role  language plays in the construction of realities that are seen through the lenses of gender, class, ethnicity, and power and the effects words have in the readings and understandings of reality.  Students will be encouraged to analyze the role of language in the media (radio, TV. Newspapers, ads) and the internet in the production and reproduction of ideologies and hegemonies in issues of representation and imposition.  This course follows a seminar format.

IDH 3000/4000 (Honors) Cultures of Latin America

Instructor: Dr. Sokolovsky

IDH 3000/4000 Culture, Aging and Experience

Instructor: Dr. Sokolovsky