Overview of Course

Cultural Anthropology is, simply put, the study of human societies and the shared beliefs, social structures, values, practices, and material goods within those societies. In this course we will begin by studying the history of anthropological thought and discuss the various theoretical approaches within the field, after which we will examine aspects of social life that most of us take for granted as being “normal.” Students will learn that many of their core beliefs, such as religion, kinship, marriage, and gender are not universally held by the rest of the world and are in many cases not the most commonly held beliefs. As we circumnavigate the Mediterranean, we will take every opportunity to find examples of these different cultural systems and explore the origins of these differences to better understand our own individual cultures.