This course introduces students to anthropology and its four subdisciplines (archaeological, biological, cultural, and linguistic anthropology), providing a glimpse of the field's history, present status, and importance. We'll look at the concepts and methods that typify the discipline and frame anthropology's comprehensive, holistic worldview. The course looks especially at cultural and ethnic diversity, and the interactions leading to structures of dominance, inequality, and resistance. It teaches students ways of learning and thinking about the world's many designs for living in time and space. We'll cover topics like the nature of culture, race, and ethnicity; human genetics, biological evolution, and the fossil record; primate (monkey and ape) behavior; the emergence of agriculture, cities, and states; language and culture; systems of marriage, kinship, and family; sex-gender divisions; economics, politics, and religion in global perspective; theories of development, power and social change; technoscience and emerging media; world systems, global assemblages, and contemporary cultural predicaments.

Course Requirements:

Assignments and tests will be asynchronous multiple-choice, short answer, and essay questions that will be submitted via Canvas and Connect during a designated time frame. Assignments will be due in the discussion section and at the lecture level.

Class Format:

All aspects of the course will be compatible with remote online learning (DC). The lecture will be asynchronous. Weekly discussion sections will require synchronous participation. We will use Canvas for asynchronous components and Zoom for optional synchronous meetings with the instructor. The section will be conducted synchronously via Zoom.