Each student meets regularly with tutor to discuss readings. Grounding in fundamentals of anthropology and integration of other coursework in field. Material drawn from traditional non-western societies, medieval and early modern Europe, and colonial and contemporary North America. How people make sense of their worlds symbolically through myth, ritual, metaphor, and cosmology. The structure of symbols, the natural and social elements they draw on, their social use, and the messages they convey.
Students learn to record and analyze myth and ritual.
Analysis of medical practice as a cultural system, focusing on the human, as opposed to the biological, side of things. Also examines how we and people in other cultures think of disease, health, body, and mind. Exploration and conquest. Colonialism, resistance, and adaptation. Missionizing and culture contact.