* a free alternative to expensive Introduction to Cultural Anthropology textbooks

* includes a full textbook and several original videos

* includes 10 "challenges" (assignments)

* a hub of original and found resources for teaching and learning anthropology

* a “connected course” of many faculty around the world sharing instructional materials

* an open course freely available to anyone online

* an emerging producer of original anthropological videos and other digital content

These educational videos provide an invaluable resource on Ancient Nubia for Middle and High School Ancient World History and Geography teachers and students. The video content aligns with Geography, Economics, Civics, and Historical Thinking Social Studies standards across the nation. Key concepts and inquiry skills from each content area weave seamlessly throughout the videos and associated lesson plans. This unit overview document links to developed resources on the Archeology in the Community site.

This course introduces students to some of the major social theories and debates that inspire and inform anthropological analysis. Over the course of the semester, we will investigate a range of theoretical propositions concerning such topics as agency, structure, subjectivity, history, social change, power, culture, and the politics of representation. Ultimately, all theories can be read as statements about human beings and the worlds they create and inhabit. We will approach each theoretical perspective or proposition on three levels: (1) in terms of its analytical or explanatory power for understanding human behavior and the social world; (2) in the context of the social and historical circumstances in which they were produced; and (3) as contributions to ongoing dialogues and debate.

This course examines the ways humans experience sound and how perceptions and technologies of sound emerge from cultural, economic, and historical worlds. It considers how the sound/noise/music boundaries have been imagined, created, and modeled across sociocultural and historical contexts. Students will learn how environmental, linguistic, and musical sounds are construed cross-culturally as well as the rise of telephony, architectural acoustics, sound recording, multi-channel and spatial mix performance, and the globalized travel of these technologies. Questions of sound ownership, property, authorship, remix, and copyright in the digital age are also addressed.

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.

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.

In this course the conquest and colonization of the Americas is considered, with special attention to the struggles of native peoples in Guatemala, Canada, Brazil, Panama, and colonial New England. In two segments of the course-one devoted to the Jesuit missionization of the Huron in the 1630s, the other to struggles between the government of Panama and the Kuna between 1900 and 1925-students examine primary documents such as letters, reports, and court records, to draw their own conclusions. Attention focuses on how we know about and represent past eras and other peoples, as well as on the history of struggles between native Americans and Europeans.

This course enhances cross-cultural understanding through the discussion of practical, ethical, and epistemological issues in conducting social science and applied research in foreign countries or unfamiliar communities. It includes a research practicum to help students develop interviewing, participant-observation, and other qualitative research skills, as well as critical discussion of case studies. The course is open to all interested students, but intended particularly for those planning to undertake exploratory research or applied work abroad. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignments.

An introductory cultural anthropology textbook covering all major topics and produced by Lumen Learning.

The Open for Antiracism (OFAR) Program – co-led by CCCOER and College of the Canyons – emerged as a response to the growing awareness of structural racism in our educational systems and the realization that adoption of open educational resources (OER) and open pedagogy could be transformative at institutions seeking to improve. The program is designed to give participants a workshop experience where they can better understand anti-racist teaching and how the use of OER and open pedagogy can empower them to involve students in the co-creation of an anti-racist classroom. The capstone project involves developing an action plan for incorporating OER and open pedagogy into a course being taught in the spring semester. OFAR participants are invited to remix this template to design and share their projects and plans for moving this work forward. 

Resources in this file includes a D2L adapted  version of Michael Wesch's The Art of Being Human textbook, Quizzes, and 10 Challenges. The textbook was transferred into Rise 360 before being loaded into HTML shells. The structure of the course was built for a 7 week semester but could be easily adapted to a 15 week semester.    

This is a short collection, which features the work of students in Dr. Mark Kinney's course, ICST 471, ANTH 470, SOCI 493: Enculturation and Spiritual  Development Across Cultures, taught at Evangel University, 2022-2023. The course has used the open textbook Discovering Cultural Anthropology by Antonia M. Santangelo. 

This module provides descriptive notes and images that can support teaching and learning about ethnobotany and landscape ethnoecology, or the integrative study of human-resource relationships. The photos and graphics are mostly derived from field study and research at Mt. Kasigau, Kenya (1999-2015) as a case example. I openly make them available through the OER site for educational purposes. The resources attached to the module include:I. Ethnobotany- descriptive notes and images (ethnobotany_notes_oer) and a powerpoint presentation (ethno_div_oer);II. Landscape Ethnoecology- descriptive notes and images (landscape_ethnoecology_oer) and a powerpoint presentation (landscape_ethno_oer);III. Participatory Inquiry in Ethnobotany and Landscape Ethnoecology- descriptive notes and images (ethno_participatory_oer) and a powerpoint presentation (ethno_process_outcome_oer);IV. Collaborative Field Guide to Woody Plants and their Uses at Mt. Kasigau, Kenya (kasigauplantbook_may2013.pdf)

The funds of knowledge concept was originally applied by Vélez-Ibáñez and Greenberg (1992) to describe the historical accumulation of abilities, bodies of knowledge, assets, and cultural ways of interacting that were evident in U.S.-Mexican households in Tucson, Arizona.

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.

An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology: Perspectives on Humanity Reading List and Schedule

ANTH 213

Introduces a comparative study of human culture. Covers kinship systems, politics, economics, language, ritual, cultural change, ecological adaptations, and ethnographic methodology. Explores cultural similarities and differences and the linkages among cultural, social, political, and economic institutions.

Examines modern human cultures. Analyzes a variety of ethnographic examples from various world societies to understand the diverse aspects of language, technology, economy, social structure, governance, religion, world views and expressive aspects of life.

This is a fun assignment for Cultural Anthropology students. They can research one or both parents, and/or step parents. 

This article provides an overview of some of the indigenous people of the circumpolar Arctic and the similarities and differences between their cultures.