Please always refer to the current year's academic calendar for the most accurate list of courses offered by the Department. The courses listed below are not offered every semester. Please refer to the Bridge for current offerings and to register for courses.
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
The concept of culture as an analytical tool for understanding human diversity. The basic building blocks of cultural anthropology including kinship, marriage, the family, religion and myth, law and politics, and subsistence and economics, among others. Ethnographic data from all parts of the world.
Prerequisite(s): Admission to the First Nations' Transition Program
Equivalent: Anthropology 0500 (prior to 2016/2017)
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Comparative study of society and culture. Overview of the methods and theoretical orientations used by anthropologists to understand and explain human diversity. Examination of the material, social and cultural conditions of human behaviour and life from a local and global perspective.
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Examination of the legal and cultural construction of what it means to be Indigenous in historical and contemporary cross-cultural contexts. Taking as a starting point that indigeneity is simultaneously constructed globally and locally, the course will examine diverse themes, including the politics of Indigenous recognition; Indigenous cosmopolitics; indigenous social movements; and questions of performing indigeneity, “authenticity” and predicaments of Indigenous political, social, and economic empowerment.
Prerequisite(s): Anthropology 1000
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
A critical introduction to anthropological approaches to popular culture with a focus on the way culture is produced and contested in specific ethnographic and historical contexts. Culture as the prime site of struggle; the place of mass media, music, film, religion, race, material culture and related issues may be considered.
Prerequisite(s): One of Anthropology 1000 or a previous course (3.0 credit hours) in Anthropology
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Examination of development from an anthropological and cross-cultural perspective. Policies and practices of development and their relationship to notions of modernity, progress, neocolonialism, and the environment. The shared history of anthropology and development, both in theoretical and practical terms, situating the contributions of anthropologists in the critical examination of the development enterprise and as development practitioners. Various “alternative” approaches to development, such as gender and development, sustainable development, and fair trade.
Prerequisite(s): Anthropology 1000
Equivalent: Anthropology 2850 (Anthropology of Development) (prior to 2018/2019)
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
A thematic course that highlights issues in anthropology related to ethnography. Ethnographic practice and writing as social science and as literature. Classic and contemporary ethnographies.
Prerequisite(s): One of Anthropology1000 or a previous course (3.0 credit hours) in Anthropology
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
A broad introduction to a culture area or region of the world from an anthropological perspective.
Prerequisite(s): Anthropology1000
Substantially Similar: Any offering in the Anthropology3100 Series with the same title as the offering in the Anthropology2210 Series
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Examination of a diversity of ancient societies including Aztec, Maya and Inka. Comparison of political institutions, economic structures and religious ideologies of ancient polities. Anthropological theories on the emergence and transformation of centralized political hierarchy.
Prerequisite(s): One of Anthropology1000, a previous course (3.0 credit hours) in Anthropology, or Archaeology1000
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
An introduction to anthropological archaeology emphasizing the prehistory of the New World. Overview of the methods and approaches used to reconstruct ancient social dynamics through the analysis of material culture. Issues related to interpretation, heritage, and the politics of the past.
Prerequisite(s): One of Anthropology1000 or a previous course (3.0 credit hours) in Anthropology
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Introduction to linguistic anthropology considering theories and methods which focus on the relationship between language, culture, and social/political contexts. Universal and particular aspects of language as a defining human attribute, the nature of the ethnography of communication, and language in relation to issues such as gender, race, ethnicity, nationalism and class.
Prerequisite(s): One of Anthropology1000 or a previous course (3.0 credit hours) in Anthropology
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Anthropological theories and approaches to the study of ritual, religion, and ideology in a cross-cultural framework.
Prerequisite(s): One of Anthropology1000 or a previous course (3.0 credit hours) in Anthropology or Religious Studies
Equivalent: Anthropology3550 (prior to 2015/2016)
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
An introduction to anthropological analyses of gender. Topics include the social and cultural construction of gender, gender inequality, sexuality, and masculinity and femininity.
Prerequisite(s): One of Anthropology1000 or a previous course (3.0 credit hours) in Anthropology
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Theoretical explorations of environmental anthropology from the mid-20th century onwards, tracing disciplinary and epistemological branches to help us better understand the role of culture in past and contemporary human-environment relations.
Prerequisite(s): Anthropology1000
Equivalent: Anthropology2850 (Introduction to Environmental Anthropology) (prior to 2018/2019)
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Examination of the ideas that have shaped the discipline. Draws on a range of approaches, from classic to contemporary thought, to consider significant theories, concepts, and practices in anthropology.
Prerequisite(s): One of Anthropology2210, Anthropology2410, or Anthropology2510 AND One additional course (3.0 credit hours) in Anthropology at the 2000 level or higher
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
The variety of methods and settings of anthropological research. The relationships between methodology and the production of anthropological knowledge. Shifting ethical concerns that relate to diverse power configurations between anthropologists and anthropological subjects.
Prerequisite(s): One of Anthropology2210, Anthropology2410, or Anthropology2510 AND One additional course (3.0 credit hours) in Anthropology at the 2000 level or higher
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
The role of cultural analysis in understanding the interrelated complexities of both managing natural landscapes and dealing with crisis and conflict within them. Environmental justice, climate change, conservation, natural disasters.
Prerequisite(s): Anthropology1000 AND Third-year standing (a minimum of 60.0 credit hours)
Equivalent: Anthropology3850 (Anthropology of Environmental Conflict and Management) (prior to 2018/2019)
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Various theoretical approaches to power and language will be explored in relation to specific ethnographic contexts.
Prerequisite(s): One of Anthropology2210, Anthropology2410, or Anthropology2510 AND One additional course (3.0 credit hours) in Anthropology at the 2000 level or higher
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
An examination of the methods and theoretical orientations used by anthropologists to understand and explain contemporary and historical urban processes. The comparative and ethnographic study of cities as centres of social and cultural complexity where global, national, and local processes intersect.
Prerequisite(s): One of Anthropology1000 or a previous course (3.0 credit hours) in Anthropology AND Third-year standing (a minimum of 60.0 credit hours)
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
The anthropological study of economic processes of production, consumption, distribution and exchange in ethnographic contexts.
Prerequisite(s): One of Anthropology2210, Anthropology2410, or Anthropology2510 AND One additional course (3.0 credit hours) in Anthropology at the 2000 level or higher
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Recent developments in anthropological theory and ethnography. Comparative analysis of race and ethnicity as social and cultural forms of inequality both historically and in contemporary society.
Prerequisite(s): One of Anthropology1000 or a previous course (3.0 credit hours) in Anthropology AND Third-year standing (a minimum of 60.0 credit hours)
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Critical appraisal of theories proposed to interpret the origins of human inequality and the social and political structures found in egalitarian communities, middle-range societies and ancient states. Focuses on the dynamics of sociocultural evolution by studying selected archaeological and ethnographic case studies.
Prerequisite(s): Anthropology2410
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Examination of human-nature relatedness as it unfolds over prolonged timespans and the way anthropogenic landscapes and other forms of human intervention serve as a context for examining the mutual constitution of culture, technology, and social institutions.
Prerequisite(s): Anthropology1000 AND Third-year standing (a minimum of 60.0 credit hours)
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Intensive investigation of anthropological theories of ritual, ceremony and performance. Consideration of ethnographic and historical case studies.
Prerequisite(s): One of Anthropology1000 or Religious Studies2001 AND Third-year standing (a minimum of 60.0 credit hours)
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Anthropological approaches for understanding health and medicine in society and culture.
Prerequisite(s): One of Anthropology1000 or a previous course (3.0 credit hours) in Anthropology AND Third-year standing (a minimum of 60.0 credit hours)
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
The role of material culture in the production, reproduction, and performance of social relations. Case studies will illustrate anthropological theories on material culture, particularly its importance in constructing and contesting gender, class, political authority and colonialism.
Prerequisite(s): One of Anthropology1000 or a previous course (3.0 credit hours) in Anthropology AND Third-year standing (a minimum of 60.0 credit hours)
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Exploration of food at the juncture of the material and the symbolic. The cultural construction of food experience and how practices of food production, circulation, and consumption speak to larger cultural and political issues.
Prerequisite(s): Anthropology1000 AND Third-year standing (a minimum of 60.0 credit hours)
Equivalent: Anthropology3900 (The Anthropology of Food) (prior to 2018/2019)
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
A consideration of the cross-cultural shaping of the use and perception of space and the role of place in shaping culture, including the cultural implications of how people create, move within, and assign value to the spaces around them.
Prerequisite(s): Anthropology1000 AND Third-year standing (a minimum of 60.0 credit hours)
Equivalent: Anthropology3900 (The Anthropology of Space and Place) (prior to 2018/2019)
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Anthropological approaches to governance, with particular emphasis on policy, in both the narrow sense of government programs and the wider sense of charters for social perception and action. Situating policy as artifact and architect of culture – as simultaneously reflective and productive of particular cultural formations – the course will focus on one or more substantive themes, such as the environment, social welfare, development, medicine, language, identity, migration, the judiciary, etc. Governance as a practice of meaning making marked by power struggles.
Prerequisite(s): Anthropology1000 AND Third-year standing (a minimum of 60.0 credit hours)
Lib Ed Req: Social Science
Credit hours: 3.00
Contact hours per week: 3-0-0
Advanced study of the social and cultural organization in societies of varying complexity.
Prerequisite(s): One of Anthropology2210, Anthropology2410, or Anthropology2510 AND One additional course (3.0 credit hours) in Anthropology at the 2000 level or higher
Credit hours: 6.00
Contact hours per week: Variable
This is a research-oriented course in which students will conduct fieldwork, text or library-based research, submit a report in the form of an Undergraduate Thesis which will be made publicly available, and report orally on the work. In consultation with their Thesis Supervisor, students will define a research problem and formulate a research plan.
Prerequisite(s): Fourth-year standing (a minimum of 90.0 credit hours) AND a cumulative GPA of 3.30 or higher AND a minimum of eight courses (24.0 credit hours) in Anthropology
Note:Contact hours will vary. Students should be aware that this course involves regular contact with the Thesis Supervisor as well as considerable independent work