Introduction to Anthropology
Introduction to Anthropology – ANTH 130-03
Fall Semester 2006
Class meets: Monday and Wednesdays, 2:00 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.
Science Building, Room 516
Professor Aldo Civico, civicoa@wpunj.edu, phone: 917-330-7785
Office Hours: ONLY by appointment
Course Description: This course explores the diversity of the human condition through an introduction to the basic ideas and concepts of anthropology and their application by anthropologists in different research sites around the globe. We will introduce basic aspects of the four sub-fields of anthropology: physical anthropology, archaeology, social and cultural anthropology, and linguistic anthropology. We will focus primarily on culture, difference and familiarity in the contemporary world. How do we understand, evaluate, and validate the experiences, histories, and values of people around the world? How do we understand and interpret difference at home and abroad? What can the study of a different culture or different way of being tell us about our own lives? We will explore these issues from an anthropological perspective and from the different vantage points of language, perception, recreation, worldview, social organization, power, survival, family and kinship systems, inequality, nationalism, localism and globalization.
