Reading and composition courses based on the anthropological literature. These courses provide an introduction to issues distinctive of anthropological texts and introduce students to distinctive forms of anthropological writing, such as ethnography and anthropological prehistory. Readings will be chosen from a variety of texts by authors whose works span the discipline, from bioanthropology to archaeology and sociocultural anthropology. Satisfies the second half of the Reading and Composition requirement.

Ghosts are, of course, everywhere. It is hard to ignore how they continually haunt the popular media, religious traditions, and stories with which many of us regularly engage. Indeed, anthropological scholarship has long been captivated by the role of ghosts, spirits, and invisible beings in cultural contexts across the world, often presenting belief in such entities as evidence of prevailing superstition or educational underdevelopment. In this reading and writing intensive course, students will explore a series of ethnographic, popular and theological texts that deal with the ghosts and how the living interact with them. More specifically, through several writing exercises, students will be invited to think about how the way different communities relate to and write about ghosts might shed light on the nature of secularism in our contemporary, alternative ways of encountering and memorializing history, and our own mortality.

Instructor: Jacob Liming

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills