University at Buffalo (UB)
Reg. #15418
Monday/Wednesday/Friday, 2:00-2:50pm
114 Hochstetter Hall
Instructor: Dr. Irene Ketonen Keating
This class is a general introduction to the field of anthropology, the study of humanity. It is designed to pique your interest in the broad diversity of human behavior and lifestyles across the world and throughout time. This course will take a look at the four major subfields - archaeology, linguistic anthropology, physical anthropology, and cultural anthropology - and include discussions on our "youngest" subfield, applied anthropology. The goal of this class is to understand the wide range of issues covered by the fields of anthropology, the ways in which these issues are studied by specialists in the field, and the practical effects of the questions covered by anthropological study.
Reg.# 15419
Monday/Wednesday/Friday, 10:00-10:50am
Knox 104
Instructor: Dr. Meghana Joshi
What is culture and how does it affect our understanding of the world and the ways we behave? How do cultural anthropologists approach the study of human societies and what methods do they use to do research? These are some of the questions that we will examine in this class. The course introduces students to ethnographic methods and theories of cultural anthropology. The aim is to enhance our knowledge of our own culture and of other cultures around the world. All majors are welcome.
Section 1:
Reg.# 15420
Monday/Wednesday/Friday 9:00-9:50am
Clemens 322
Instructor: Dr. Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel
Section 2:
Reg.# 23112
Remote, not real time
Instructor: Dr. Stephanie Poindexter
How did humans evolve? How did modern humans become so diverse? When did humans start to walk upright?
In this course, we will cover the scientific study of human evolution, focusing on the emergence and diversification of our species. Topics covered include: the fundamental principles of evolutionary theory, human morphological variation, the basics of genetics as it relates to the emergence of our species, how studying nonhuman primates can inform our own evolutionary past and future, the fossil record, and the material culture record from our earliest primate ancestors to the emergence of our species – Homo sapiens.
Section 1:
Reg. #15889
Monday/Wednesday 11:00-11:50am
170 Academic Center
Hybrid Course: In person and remote
Instructor: Dr. Lacey Carpenter
Section 2:
Reg. #23114
Tuesday/Thursday 2:00-3:20pm
222 NSC
Instructor: Dr. Douglas Perrelli
Archaeology is the study of the human past through its material remains. So much evidence of human activity on earth exists outside the realm of written records that archaeology is of primary importance in reconstructing past human life ways. Introduction to Archaeology provides an overview of the methods, theories and models used by archaeologists to better understand past human societies, from the formulation of a research question, through the processes of survey and excavation, to the analysis of data, and the interpretation of the results.
Reg. #16934
Monday/Wednesday/Friday 11:00-11:50am
Alumni 97
Instructor: Dr. Meghana Joshi
People in all societies experience illness, but their understandings of the causes of disease and approaches for restoring health differ greatly. This course examines the social and cultural dimensions of health, illness, and healing. Through a variety of case studies, we will learn about the ways medical anthropologists study explanations of disease, experiences of suffering, and the social organization of health care. Western medicine, also called “biomedicine,” will also be an object of our analysis. We will discuss how the delivery of biomedical health care involves particular understandings of the body and appropriate social relationships. Emphasis will also be placed on how the stories that individuals and institutions circulate about human agency in suffering shape people’s convictions about how to care, and for whom to care. The course aims to teach students to think about health, disease, and medicine in national, cross-cultural and global terms.
Reg. #23127
Monday/Wednesday/Friday, 9:00-9:50am
127B Cooke Hall
Instructor: Dr. Vasiliki Neoftistos
The course explores the multiple relationships between anthropology and film. We will explore how anthropologists have used and debated film as a mode of ethnographic representation, that is, as a way of constructing and communicating knowledge about the world. We will also explore how the medium of film has helped to shape anthropology, specifically the debates on ethnographic representation. Key issues include, but are not limited to, the representation of human realities and the ethical dilemmas involved in filming real people, truth, authority, reflexivity, and spectatorship.
Reg. #23156
Monday/Wednesday/Friday, 9:00-9:50am
200G Baldy Hall
Instructor: Dr. Edith Gonzalez
Museums are sometimes seen as irrelevant places where ancient objects languish in obscurity. However, in recent years, museums have been recognized as community hubs which address key social issues and confront our colonial past, in order to transform how we see the future. Museums have the power to reflect and shape our society. This course examines the intersection of anthropology and museum studies, and the theoretical approaches that have been introduced to reconcile the study of culture and how it is presented to public audiences. This course will pay close attention to a few core debates that have shaped and continue to influence the museum field today. Students will explore audience development and exhibit curation, with special focus on the creation and presentation of culture and “the other” around the world. Class assignments and assessments will be based on weekly readings, in-class discussions, visiting local (in-person) museum exhibits and international virtual museums.
Reg. #12719
Monday, 5:00-7:40p
170 Academic Center
Instructor: Staff
Covers fundamentals of human skeletal anatomy through lecture, demonstration, and laboratory work. Considers procedures and applications in contemporary and historical human biology and in archaeology, stressing both technical approach and theoretical application. This lecture and laboratory course demonstrates the fundamentals of human skeletal biology and anatomy. Stresses procedures and applications used in evaluating archaeological and contemporary human populations. Considers forensic applications.
Reg. #23161
Remote, not real time
Instructor: Dr. Colter Harper
This course meets the Area Studies requirement.
What is popular music and how has it developed over the past century in rapidly globalizing music markets? Students will have the opportunity to listen to and engage with a range of popular music from around the globe. We will explore the development and movement of genres such as hip-hop, rock, jazz, and pop and examine how they have influenced localized scenes and styles. Through critical listening, students will connect musical performances to broader socio-political conflicts that have unfolded since World War II.
Students are not required to have studied music but will be expected to develop critical listening skills.
Reg. #17867
Tuesday/Thursday, 2:00-3:20pm
354 Academic Center
Instructor: Dr. Stephen Lycett
The Palaeolithic covers the timeframe from when our ancestors first began to manufacture stone tools in Africa (around three million years ago) through the point at which the last glacial period ended (i.e. up to the beginning of the Holocene). It is a fundamental phase, in which matters of biological and cultural evolution led eventually to the appearance of our species.
This course explores the evidence for changing patterns of hominin behavior during this phase of our evolution. We will consider the major sites and material evidence that is used in current debates. We will evaluate the factors that might shape patterns in the distribution and form of Palaeolithic data. Critical thought will also be given to the use of behavioral models drawn from primatology (e.g. chimpanzee behavior) as well as anthropology (e.g. ethnographically recorded hunter-foragers) in the study of fossil hominin behavior. Questions will also be asked of the potential requirement for multidisciplinary engagement with associated fields, such as psychology. Key sites and case studies will be discussed, tracking the dispersal of hominins across the globe and the appearance of key behavioral innovations. The course will also consider the (frequently heated) debates regarding the emergence of "behavioral modernity." Issues of cultural transmission and cultural evolution will also be covered.
Reg. #23128
Monday/Wednesday/Friday 2:00-2:50p
354 Academic Center
Instructor: Dr. Nicholas Holowka
This course provides an introduction to the principles of Evolutionary Medicine, and how these principles can be applied to combat growing public health crises in human society. Evolutionary Medicine is a rapidly growing multidisciplinary field that uses evolutionary biology to answer questions about modern human health and disease. Instead of focusing on cellular or molecular mechanisms, this field seeks to understand the larger ultimate reasons why people get sick: Why has evolution left us so vulnerable to diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, allergies, cancer, anxiety and depression? In this course you will investigate these questions by applying evolutionary theory and principles of human evolution to understand the causes of modern diseases, and how we can better prevent and/or treat them.
Reg. #22014
Monday/Wednesday/Friday 1:00-1:50pm
422 Fronczak Hall
Instructor: Dr. Lacey Carpenter
This course meets the Area Studies requirement.
This course examines the development of indigenous societies, including the Zapotec, Aztec, and Maya, in Mesoamerica. We will begin by examining the archaeology of early hunter-gatherer societies and continue to follow the rise of the first cities of the New World and the formation of the Empires that clashed with invading European colonists. The class uses archaeology and the material record to explore the role of indigenous peoples and their history in shaping contemporary Mesoamerica.
Reg. #22313
Thursday, 3:30-6:10pm
335 Cooke Hall
Instructor: Dr. Albert Fulton
This course explores the manner in which Indigenous peoples of eastern North America interacted with and were in turn influenced by the ecological systems within which they lived, from the end of the last Ice Age through the Contact period, approximately 12,000 – 200 years before present. During this period of time known as the Holocene epoch, the ecosystems of eastern North America responded in complex ways to multiple environmental modulators including climate perturbations, species migrations and extinctions, natural disturbance agents such as fire and storms, and human land-use impacts related to changing settlement systems and the adoption of novel subsistence economies. Human societies were in turn influenced by the regional diversity of and temporal variability in environmental contexts, which provided multiple dynamic pathways for cultural innovation and adaptation across space and time. By developing greater awareness of critical interactions among Indigenous Americans, the natural environment, and past climate change, we can develop more nuanced perspectives on how best to respond to current and future climatic and ecological transformations affecting all of humanity.
This course will appeal to advanced undergraduate and graduate students with interests in environmental science, physical geography, archaeology, Indigenous studies, biogeography, paleontology, paleoecology, historical ecology, environmental history, and human-environment interactions. Students seeking interdisciplinary perspectives on addressing paleoenvironmental reconstruction in their own research will especially benefit from this course.
APY 434 meets the Area Studies requirement. Please contact the Anthropology undergradaute coordinator (Carol Zittel, carolzit@buffalo.edu) if you wish to have this course fulfill this requirement.
Reg. #23158
Tuesday/Thursday, 2:00-3:20p
106 Baldy Hall
Instructor: Dr. Stephanie Poindexter
Behavioral Research Methods provides students with first-hand experience in all of the steps involved to conduct scientific research: developing a research question, selecting appropriate observation methods, collecting data, and summarizing their findings in a written report and formal scientific presentation. This is a writing intensive course, and students will be expected to submit various sections of their research report throughout the course.
Reg. #23172
Tuesday/Thursday, 12:30-1:50p
354 Academic Center
Instructor: Dr. Frederick Klaits
This course is an introduction to disability studies, an integrative subfield representing research by medical anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, and historians, as well as clinical and social interventions by social workers, occupational and physical therapists, and public health agents. What unifies these disciplines is the search for understanding of societal and cross-cultural attitudes and policies regarding impairment, illness, and difference, especially those whose physical or behavioral differences have been stigmatized through negative social or medical labels.
Among the topics to be considered are the meanings and perceptions of impairment in various cultures and how these perceptions influence the rights and status of people living with disability. We will look at how individuals and their families experience disability, severe injury, stigmatized illnesses, and severe trauma and come to develop new identities through these experiences. And we will consider community support systems and government policies that positively or negatively affect traumatized and disabled individuals and their families.
Meets Senior Seminar requirement. For Fall 2024, APY 477 will satisfy the Senior Seminar requirement. This course does not automatically populate in HUB as a senior seminar course. Please email the Anthropology Undergraduate Coordinator (carolzit@buffalo.edu) to request that APY 477 be used to fulfill this requirement.