This course applies the tools of anthropology to examine biology in the age of genomics, biotechnological enterprise, biodiversity conservation, pharmaceutical bioprospecting, and synthetic biology. It examines such social concerns such as bioterrorism, genetic modification, and cloning. It offers an anthropological inquiry into how the substances and explanations of biology—ecological, organismic, cellular, molecular, genetic, informatic—are changing. It examines such artifacts as cell lines, biodiversity databases, and artificial life models, and using primary sources in biology, social studies of the life sciences, and literary and cinematic materials, and asks how we might answer Erwin Schrodinger’s 1944 question, “What Is Life?” today.

Anthropologists attempt to answer the question of what it means to be human. In a sense, we all –do” anthropology because it is rooted in a universal human characteristic, curiosity. We are curious about ourselves and other people_ including the living and the dead. This course provides an introduction to the anthropological approach to the study of humans. It is a survey course that introduces anthropology as a four-field discipline, encompassing biological anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, and cultural anthropology. Aspiring to a holistic understanding of what it means to be human, anthropology is at the intersection of the humanities and the sciences, the most scientific of the humanities and the most humanistic of the sciences.The course begins with a basis in evolutionary theory and human variation. With this foundation, we will explore primate behavior and the fossil record to develop a better understanding of human evolution. We will discuss the archaeological record of early civilizations, the origins and use of language, and the concept of culture in the development of human societies, both extinct and extant. This class will also highlight the epistemological development of the field of anthropology and how religion, culture, and the scientific process pertains to the discipline of anthropology.

The high cost of textbooks prevents many students from succeeding. Textbook prices have gone up 3 times the rate of inflation in the past 30 years. New textbook editions are a scam. Textbooks have become a way to shift the cost of teacher salaries onto the student. The change in Jurmain's Introduction to Biological Anthropology from 2009 to 2011 was to search and replace the word “hominid” for the word “hominin”, and raise the price 20%. Many students will not buy their textbooks (Kingkade 2013), and struggle through class, reading at the library. Other students will order cheap copies online but get the wrong edition, or discounted shipping where it arrives halfway through the semester. Textbooks have become a barrier to student success.

Assigning free online textbooks is one solution. Much of the high cost of textbooks comes from color printing, but black-and-white and text-heavy books are poor options for our predominantly visual learners. Online textbooks allow for unlimited, large, color graphics. For the price of a new textbook, a student can buy a text reader (kindle, ipad, tablet, surface, etc.) or a used laptop. There may still be problems with students' access to high speed internet. The monthly fee for a cable modem service is expensive, but free WiFi is becoming more and more widely available. The new downtown San Diego library is a good example.

Unfortunately, in 2011 when I started this, there were no free online textbook available for Introduction to Physical Anthropology. Probably the closest were Dennis O'Neil's Biological Anthropology Tutorials from Palomar College, Wikipedia's Biological Anthropology and Introduction to Paleoanthropology textbooks, and Augustín Fuentes primatology class notes (no longer available), and I borrowed from these, especially O'Neil. I found most of these sources written in the style of an encyclopedia, and tried to make the textbook more approachable by including my own voice whenever possible.

Some students may lack the necessary computer skills to use an online textbook. Hopefully, the recent increases in funding for basic skills will help. Gone are the good old days whence we scribed our homework on tablets of wet clay. Students must learn computer skills to survive academically and professionally, and the printed textbook is becoming a relic of a bygone age. Information Communication and Technology Literacy is a component of most institutional goals. The more students practice current electronic research techniques, the better prepared they will be for the rest of their academic and professional life.

I previously encouraged students to use their textbook as the main source for my take-home tests, but I found that many students start with the internet as their first source of answers, and then fall-back on the textbook if the info doesn't show up immediately in a search engine. I've come to realize that this is not always bad, as they often discover more current information than the textbook. For rapidly changing issues, such as how many genes are in the human genome, how closely we are related to Neandertals, Homo naledi, or the Cerruti Mastadon eaters, the information available on sites such as Wikipedia is often more accurate than the typical textbook written three to ten years ago.

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Through the comparative study of different cultures, anthropology explores fundamental questions about what it means to be human. It seeks to understand how culture shapes societies, from the smallest island in the South Pacific to the largest Asian metropolis, and affects the way institutions work, from scientific laboratories to Christian megachurches. This course will provide a framework for analyzing diverse facets of human experience, such as gender, ethnicity, language, politics, economics, and art.

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Introduction to Cultural Anthropology course calendar using the open textbook Perspectives: http://sacc.americananthro.org/publication/open-source-textbook/

Course Description
Considers contemporary human cultures from an anthropological perspective. Covers fieldwork, language, race, gender, sex and marriage, kinship, politics, world view, religion, economics, and globalization from a cross-cultural perspective. This course compares cultures found around the globe, focusing closely upon at least two specific cultures, with extended discussion of additional cultures and societies as appropriate. Greater understanding of particular cultures will be achieved through an application of the comparative method.

Upon completion of the course students should be able to:

Describe basic concepts, methods, and theories associated with cultural anthropology.
Use an understanding of anthropology to identify and compare values, beliefs, norms, economic systems, and social organization or institutions in a variety of societies in different world regions.
Examine systems of power and social justice issues related to U.S. society and other cultures from an anthropological perspective.
Explore fieldwork methods and ethical considerations of doing anthropological fieldwork.

This course explores a range of contemporary scholarship oriented to the study of 'cybercultures,' with a focus on research inspired by ethnographic and more broadly anthropological perspectives. Taking anthropology as a resource for cultural critique, the course will be organized through a set of readings chosen to illustrate central topics concerning the cultural and material practices that comprise digital technologies. We'll examine social histories of automata and automation; the trope of the 'cyber' and its origins in the emergence of cybernetics during the last century; cybergeographies and politics; robots, agents and humanlike machines; bioinformatics and artificial life; online sociality and the cyborg imaginary; ubiquitous and mobile computing; ethnographies of research and development; and geeks, gamers and hacktivists. We'll close by considering the implications for all of these topics of emerging reconceptualizations of sociomaterial relations, informed by feminist science and technology studies.

Presents physical anthropology and the study of human biological evolution in the context of modern genetics and primate behavior studies. Examines human fossil record, as well as the diversity and commonality of present and past populations of humankind.

This textbook aims to provide an introduction to the field of cultural anthropology. The initial chapters introduce the concept of culture and review the historical, theoretical, and methodological influences on the field. Chapters four through twelve discuss the major domains of the study of culture; symbolism, communication, ritual, production, healing, rights, reproduction, kinship, conflict, and globalization. These chapters provide ethnographic examples (both etic and emic perspectives) and case studies to support the central concepts in each chapter. Additional case studies are available via the Anthrobase website and others can be developed in wikibook format and integrated through links in this book.

The first peer-reviewed open access textbook for cultural anthropology courses. Produced by the Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges and available free of charge for use in any setting. 2nd edition. This book is an edited volume with each chapter written by a different author. Each author has written from their experiences working as an anthropologist and that personal touch makes for an accessible introduction to cultural anthropology. The first edition of Perspectives was published in 2017 and is also available at: http://perspectives.americananthro.org/

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Anthropology is the study of all humans in all times in all places. But it is so much more than that. “Anthropology requires strength, valor, and courage,” Nancy Scheper-Hughes noted. “Pierre Bourdieu called anthropology a combat sport, an extreme sport as well as a tough and rigorous discipline. … It teaches students not to be afraid of getting one’s hands dirty, to get down in the dirt, and to commit yourself, body and mind. Susan Sontag called anthropology a “heroic” profession.” What is the payoff for this heroic journey? You will find ideas that can carry you across rivers of doubt and over mountains of fear to find the the light and life of places forgotten. Real anthropology cannot be contained in a book. You have to go out and feel the world’s jagged edges, wipe its dust from your brow, and at times, leave your blood in its soil. In this unique book, Dr. Michael Wesch shares many of his own adventures of being an anthropologist and what the science of human beings can tell us about the art of being human. This special first draft edition is a loose framework for more and more complete future chapters and writings. It serves as a companion to anth101.com, a free and open resource for instructors of cultural anthropology.

This class examines the ways humans experience the realm of sound and how perceptions and technologies of sound emerge from cultural, economic, and historical worlds. In addition to learning about how environmental, linguistic, and musical sounds are construed cross-culturally, students learn about the rise of telephony, architectural acoustics, and sound recording, as well as about the globalized travel of these technologies. Questions of ownership, property, authorship, and copyright in the age of digital file sharing are also addressed. A major concern will be with how the sound/noise boundary has been imagined, created, and modeled across diverse sociocultural and scientific contexts. Auditory examples — sound art, environmental recordings, music — will be provided and invited throughout the term.

Shared Voices is a student-centered cultural anthropology mini textbook built with an equity lens. We are excited to share this with you all. This book attempts to address the lack of current, reliable, and relevant resources for introductory anthropology courses that center equity and anti-racism.

We set out to create a culturally responsive and inclusive textbook with an anti-racist and global citizenry perspective. We center marginalized voices, stories, and community. This text is a starting point for any introductory anthropology course recognizing that cultural change is constant and the familiar is cousin to the weird and unusual. A work in progress, this text aims to provide students an opportunity to build content as they explore the topics within.

This course examines traditional performances of the Arabic-speaking populations of the Middle East and North Africa. Starting with the history of the ways in which the West has discovered, translated and written about the Orient, we will consider how power and politics play roles in the production of culture, narrative and performance. This approach assumes that performance, verbal art, and oral literature lend themselves to spontaneous adaptation and to oblique expression of ideas and opinions whose utterance would otherwise be censorable or disruptive. In particular we will be concerned with the way traditional performance practices are affected by and respond to the consequences of modernization.
Topics include oral epic performance, sacred narrative, Koranic chant performance, the folktale, solo performance, cultural production and resistance.

Welcome to Beliefs: An Open Invitation to Anthropology of Magic, Witchcraft and Religion. This book was the combined efforts of the authors, contributors and editors who have been teaching these concepts to students for a number of years. While there are many great textbooks that teach the concepts covered in this textbook, there was a need for an Open Educational Resource (OER) for students. The success of Perspectives: An Open Invitation to Cultural Anthropology and Explorations: An Open Invitation to Biological Anthropology inspired this project in 2020, when the authors began curating the OER at Los Angeles Valley College. The project quickly grew over the next two years to include many talented anthropology instructors, thanks to the support and guidance of ASCCC.

In this unit, you will explore globalization and development and its effects on indigenous peoples. Modern economic and political development is driven by the assumption that the results will be benefical for all people; however, cultural differences are not taken into consideration, leading often to the destruction of indigenous cultures. Understanding the context of modern development students become versant in the current debate about globalization.

By the end of the unit, you should be able to answer the following questions:

What is globalization?

How did the modern era of globalization develop?

What is the relationship between culture and globalization?