This course is a broad introduction to the subfield of linguistic anthropology and how an anthropologist studies the relationships between language, culture, and society. Topics covered include descriptive linguistics, historical and comparative linguistics, and sociolinguistics. A study of the methods used to collect, analyze, and interpret archaeological data precedes a survey of the development and composition of past human cultures. This course focuses on electronic media, primarily television, and how they both shape and are shaped by culture. This course provides an overview of applied anthropology and the work of practitioners from a historical perspective.
Students become familiar with and begin to develop requisite skills to undertake applied work.
A survey of the contexts in which practitioners work, the types of problems they face, and the political and ethnic challenges associated with their work. An interdisciplinary anthropological and ethnohistorical analysis of Native American societies and cultures in the Americas from the first peopling of the New World through interactions with Euro-Americans from the 17th to the early 20th century. Archaeological, ethnographic, and ethnohistorical approaches are employed. Cross-listed as HIST 311. Students may receive credit for either course but not both.