ANTH 23110 - Peoples & Cultures: Contemporary US

Course Credit: 1
(ARCH, SOCI)
PEOPLE AND CULTURES: CONTEMPORARY U.S. This course is designed as a general survey of some of the rich cultural traditions found in contemporary America. Each of these cultures is a product of their unique heritage combined with the influences of the colonial and contemporary elite power structures of Euro-American traditions. The readings and lectures focus on the multiplicity of beliefs that comprise an American culture, particularly those aspects that are concerned with the interrelationships between social structure, economics, politics, and religion. The readings and movies also provide differing perspectives on the cultural construction of festivals, landscape, gender, and race in terms of these social institutions. In addition, this course offers you an opportunity to explore many aspects of the discipline of cultural and social anthropology. Major theoretical issues in the anthropological consideration of the United States presented in this course include: fieldwork methodologies, symbolic anthropology, visual anthropology; applied anthropology, the use of oral and family histories; tourism; and culture change. Prerequisite(s): ANTH-11000 or permission of instructor [C, HSS]