Department of Sociology & Anthropology

Congratulations to Metasebia Tessema — recipient of the 2022 James A. Sartain award!

NEW ANTHROPOLOGY COURSES  Spring 2023

(21187) Anth 279 01 Special Topics: Ritual, Shamanism, and Witchcraft   MW 9:00 am

This course is designed to introduce anthropological approaches to the understanding of religious ideas and practices in non-Western cultural traditions.  Various interpretive/explanatory approaches and key theoretical issues in the anthropology of religion will be explored through an examination of contemporary ethnographic studies on topics such as the ritual process, initiation rites, sacrifice, shamanism, spirit possession, and witchcraft.  The goal will be to discern what are similarities and differences in the forms and fuctions of religous expression across cultures, based on a comparative review of aspects of religious life in a representative sample of a variety of societies from around the globe.

(21954) Anth 279 02 Special Topics: Indigenous Peoples of South America   MW  12:00 noon

Focuses upon the comparative ethnography of a number of indigenous societies of South America, including contemporary cultures of both the highland Andean region and the lowland Amazonian region, as well as providing some historical background regarding the pre-Hispanic era to the time of Conquest and a look at cultural transormations of indigenous identity in the modern era.

(21956) Anth 379 01 Special Topics: Money and Survival in West Africa  MW 4:30 pm

In this class, our examination of financialization will take a global view.  We will begin with a close look at Wall Street, the regime of accumulaton, and shareholder value orientation.  We will then direct our searchlight to the often taken-for-granted financial activities in everyday lives of market vendors and commodity producers who inhabit the informal economic sector, particularly in the global south with emphasis on West Africa.  We will examine the development of the concept of financialization drawing from different fields in social sciences.

Sociology and Anthropology: Assistant Professor in Africana Studies