This is a required course for all incoming graduate students in
sociocultural anthropology, and is highly recommended for
bioanthropologists, archaeologists, and linguists who desire
familiarity with the current concepts and issues in the study of culture.
This course is also open to graduate students in other disciplines
who seek to understand the ethnographic approach so characteristic of
modern sociocultural anthropology.
E500 will cover the major writers and theories in sociocultural
anthropology starting in 1970 and working up to the present. Our goal
is the classic one of a survey course; to get students familiar with
the intellectual currents of the discipline. This means reading some
major works, but it also means that sometimes we will take shortcuts
and have you read about theories and writers instead of reading all
the original sources.