Teaching

Undergraduate Courses

African Cultures This class is an introduction to contemporary Africa and its cultural diversity, modern history, politics, economies, health and development, its roles in globalization and its relationships with international communities. Africa is a very large and diverse continent, and this class will function as an overview and springboard for interested students to learn more about particular peoples, cultures, subjects and issues. By the end of the course students will have a working knowledge of the contemporary African experience, as well as experience in thinking critically about current issues and the place of Africa in the global community. Attention will be given to post-colonial years with a (very) brief overview of the pre-colonial era.

Applied Anthropology. Applied anthropology uses anthropological methods, skills and training to help address practical problems in today’s global world. Applied anthropologists (also called practicing anthropologists) now constitute over half of the anthropologists working in the US today, and are increasingly recognized outside of academia as having unique training to solve issues linked with globalization and development, in particular. Applied anthropologists can be found working as experts, advocates and consultants in a variety of fields, including health, human rights, business and marketing, environmental protection, economic development, and social justice.

Disease & Culture This course serves as an introduction to medical anthropology, the expansive subfield of anthropology that studies health, healing, disease, and the social and cultural factors that interact and impact on health. This course studies medical anthropology from multiple perspectives, and focuses on the cultural and biological causes and consequences of health and disease. In addition, ethnographic research in biocultural anthropology, global health and humanitarianism complete the core readings, examining inequalities in health and well-being, and the political, economic and social causes underlying them. (Undergraduate/Graduate)

Ethnographic Research Methods This course serves as an opportunity for students to conduct original research, and to put anthropological theory and method into practice for insight into a small part of the human experience. We will conduct a semester-long research project, incorporating several of the methods anthropologists use “in the field” to better understand a cultural group: behavioral observation, interviews and surveys. From the resulting data, we will work together to analyze and interpret it, culminating in an original written ethnography. (Undergraduate/Graduate)

Introduction to Anthropology Anthropology is the holistic study of human beings. Anthropologists carry out research in a variety of ways each of which works to build better understandings of what it means to be human. This course provides a general introduction to the discipline of anthropology including all of its major subfields. In this course, students are introduced to the full range of topics which engage anthropologists, including human biology and biological evolution; the biology and social life of non-human primates; the development and diversity of human languages and other aspects of communication; and the components of social and cultural organization. In addition, students are introduced to the different ways in which anthropologists study humans, with biological or physical anthropology focusing on human biology and evolution, as well as non-human primates; archaeology focusing on past human societies and cultures; cultural anthropology on contemporary societies and cultures; and linguistic anthropology on the human use of language in cultural context.

History of Anthropology This course provides students with a history of anthropology as a discipline, focusing on major schools of thought, research trends, and personalities.

Human Sexuality & Culture This course examines human sexuality from an anthropological perspective, which focuses on the diversity of experiences, beliefs and practices of sexuality across cultures and over time, including our evolutionary history. Using a critical lens, this course addresses cultural and biological dimensions of sex, gender, and sexuality, and engages with issues inclusivity, safety, and sexual and reproductive health.

Peoples & Cultures of the World Cultural anthropology is the study of contemporary peoples and cultures across the globe. It examines societies cross-culturally to document and interpret the diversity of the human experience and the increasingly contingent relationships of global social processes and cultural groups. Anthropology is unique among the social sciences in that it applies a holistic perspective to studying human variability, and for this reason teaches those who study and practice it to examine social phenomena with a critical eye. This course will serve as an introduction to cultural anthropology, focusing on contemporary issues of globalization, political economy, health, social inequality, religion, human rights, and changing kinship and gender norms. We will conclude the course with discussions of the role of anthropology in illuminating emerging challenges in a more inter-connected world, and ways in which we can use anthropology to better solve them.

Plagues, Pandemics, & Peoples (Honors) We are living in unprecedented times – experiencing a pandemic that people will be writing and reading about for years (maybe even centuries). This Honors seminar explores contemporary pandemics (COVID-19, SARS, HIV, ebola) and historic ones (Bubonic plague, 1918 influenza pandemic, smallpox) using biosocial analyses, exploring how they are shaped by not only biology, but by cultural ideas and practices, politics, economics, and histories. This course primarily approaches pandemics from a medical anthropological perspective, integrating ethnographic and historical works that examine global health and humanitarianism, the historical legacies of colonialism, global inequities and ‘philanthrocapitalism’, sexualities, religion, biomedical technologies and folk healing, among others, and will examine our progress toward achieving ‘health for all’ as a human right throughout the world. Assignments will include a semester-long ‘pandemic journaling project’ that helps students reflect on their own experiences living in a pandemic, as well as place the COVID-19 pandemic in a broader historical and global context of pandemic illness. Additional assignments include reflection essays and presentations that encourage original critical thinking and research as well as cross-disciplinary analysis. Students will learn to think of diseases not only as biological entities, but as forces that shape the arc of human history.

Race, Ethnicity & Culture In this course, we explore race and ethnicity and their relationship to culture in a cross-cultural, anthropological perspective. We will consider cultural constructions of race and ethnicity in the United States, in other areas of the Americas, and other areas of the world. (Undergraduate/Graduate)

Sex, Gender & Sexuality Cross-Culturally In this course, we examine issues of sex, gender, and sexuality using cross-cultural examples and the holistic perspective that is a hallmark of anthropology. We will focus on issues of power, equality, and intersectionality, and will read ethnographic works that richly illustrate the complex and contingent experiences of everyday (gendered) life around the world.

Graduate Courses

 Contemporary Cultural Anthropological Theory Through readings and seminar discussion, students explore key themes and thinkers of the past century that have contributed to the production of contemporary cultural theory in anthropology. Important topics include structuralism, cultural materialism, feminism and anthropology, post-modernism, globalization, post-colonialism, symbolic anthropology, structural and symbolic violence. Key theorists include Franz Boas, Claude Levi-Strauss, Marvin Harris, Clifford Geertz, Sherry Ortner, Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Foucault, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, James Clifford, Anna Tsing

Global Health (for UWF’s Masters of Public Health program) The course will introduce students to the main concepts of the public health field and the critical links between global health and social and economic development. Students will get an overview of the determinants of health, and how health status is measured. Students will also review the burden of disease, risk factors, and key measures to address the burden of disease in cost- effective ways. The course will review specific topics related to the most important communicable and non-communicable diseases as well as issues related to food distribution, reproductive health and other global major health concerns with an important focus on low- and middle-income countries and on the health of the poor. We will also discuss cross-cutting global health issues such as poverty and equity, human rights and ethical issues in public health; globalization and health and complex emergencies.