Department of Sociology & Anthropology

Congratulations to Kaelyn Simone Reid, recipient of the 2023 James A. Sartain award!

Faculty opening: Assistant Professor of Sociology (000874) 

ANTH 379 Special Topics - courses for your consideration:

Anthropology of Film and Design  21956  Tues Th 10:30 

Dr. Diaz-Barriga

Ethnography (observation and interviews) has become a key methodology for exploring the reception of films and learning about how people use space, technology and products.  This class explores how anthropologists have explored the meanings of films to viewers and developed new approaches to understanding product design, websites, and museum exhibits.  Students will be given the opportunity to develop their own project in design and/or audience reception to film.  Several films, both popular and ethnographic, will be screened.  No prerequisites.

Border Art and Ethnography 22472 Tues 3:00-5:30 Dr. Dorsey

Border Art and Ethnography will take students out of the classroom and into Richmond.  We will read about the ways in which artists reinterpret borders, and we will go into Richmond where artists have transformed walls with their murals.  We will learn directly about the craft of curating border art as the University of Richmond prepares to host an exhbition titled, "Border Cantos" (Border Songs).  This exhibtion focuses on sound, forcing us to consider the role of senses outside of sight that are part of constructing border art.  This course will draw from Dr. Dorsey’s experience curating numerous border art exhibitions and curating folklore archives in the borderlands that focus on music, politics, food and folk healing.  Students will participate in experiential learning (going into the world) while learning about border art exhibitions.  We will ask: how can ethnographic practice inform art and how do anthropology and art communicate?  No prerequisites.

Divas, Cowboys and Outlaws: Ethnography of Borders through Film Thurs  3:00-5:30 Dr. Dorsey

Want an excuse to watch Selena, No Country for Old Men, Lone Star, Giant? "Divas, Cowboys and Outlaws: Ethnography of Borders through Film" investigates borders as sites of creation, ingenuity, innovation, and mobility.  Early ethnographers who based research on the US-Mexican borderlands exploded the conventions of ethnography and invited a new way to do anthropology.  These ethnographers paved the way for "native" anthropology to be legitimate, to focus on contact, change and innovation at borders.  Ethnographers began talking back to anthropology in their work on "Greater Mexico" where they analyzed cowboys and outlaws.  We will use our new-found lens to analyze current presentations of the border and see beyound the gore and crisis into a remaking of meaningful borders. No prerequisites.

Sociology courses for your consideration:

SOC 316 Race and Ethnicity in America Mon Wed 1:30-4:15 Dr. Richards

Race and ethnicity in the United States will contribute to students’ understanding of contemporary manifestations of racism in the United States by tracing its historical genesis and evolution over time.  It will expand students’ understanding the role of slavery, internal colonialism and immigration in constructing racial categories and ideologics in the United States, as well as how these conceptions of race explain current social hierarchies and inequalities.  In particular, we will explore how contemporary racial ideologies explain and help to maintain race-gencer gaps in wealth, residential segregation, and mass incarceraton.  As such, the course will provide students with the knowledge, tools and opportunities needed to exercise their agency on behalf of racial justice in their communities.