Course Descriptions

ACCT 5210 - Introductory Auditing

Examines auditing methodology through a study of auditing standards. Includes the nature of evidence, program planning, work papers, internal control evaluation, types of audit tests, and audit reports. Prerequisite: ACCT 3120.



Credits: 3

ACCT 5250 - Advanced Auditing

Builds on the concepts and practice examples from introductory auditing to provide students with an in-depth understanding of professional standards, the audit process, advanced audit techniques, and the auditor’s role in ensuring that publicly issued financial statements are fairly presented. Prerequisite: ACCT 5210.



Credits: 3

ACCT 5310 - Selected Topics in Advanced Accounting

Studies accounting and financial reporting for partnerships, business enterprise segments, home office/branch office, foreign transactions and translation, business combinations, and other intercorporate investments and consolidated statements. Prerequisite: ACCT 3120.



Credits: 3

ACCT 5330 - Accounting for Non-Business Organizations

Financial accounting for governmental and non-profit organizations. Studies the theory and techniques of accounting and reporting for various funds and groups of accounts. Prerequisite: ACCT 3120.



Credits: 3

ACCT 5410 - Fraud Examination

Focuses on the principles and methodology of fraud detection and deterrence. Examines how and why occupational fraud is committed, how fraudulent conduct can be deterred, and how allegations of fraud should be investigated and resolved. Prerequisite: ACCT 3120 Intermediate Accounting II



Credits: 3

ACCT 5460 - Federal Taxation II

Analyzes of the federal income tax law and its application to corporations, shareholders, partnerships, partners, estates, and gift transactions. Prerequisite: ACCT 4450.



Credits: 3

ACCT 7300 - Accounting Theory

AAS 5528 - Topics in Race Theory

This course examines theories and practices of race and otherness, in order to analyze and interpret constructions, deconstructions and reconstructions of race from the late 18th to the 21st centuries. The focus varies from year to year, but the consistent theme is that race is neither a biological nor a cultural category, but a method and theory of social organization, an alibi for inequality, and a strategy for resistance.



Credits: 3

AAS 5559 - New Course in African and African American Studies

AAS 5891 - South Atlantic History

This course focuses on Africa and Latin America to analyze the applicability of the concept of Atlantic History. We explore tensions, juxtapositions and intersections between different branches of Atlantic History, as well as related fields such as African Diaspora and Imperial Studies. We examine the social, cultural and commercial interactions between European and and indigenous West African peoples, the middle passage and slave resistance.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5090 - Historical Ethnography

Combines lectures on historical ethnography and archaeology with documentary research in primary sources on specific topics.
Prerequisite: At least one 300-level archaeology course or instructor permission.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5180 - Labor, Capital, and States

ANTH 5190 - Science and Culture

This course explores the cultural context of science and science as a cultural production. It investigates the cultural history of science as well as its national and transnational manifestations; the relation between scientific authority and social hierarchy; and the relation between cultural and scientific categories and practices.
Prerequisite: Previous anthropological course work or consent of instructor.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5200 - History of Kinship Studies

ANTH 5210 - Reconfiguring Kinship Studies

Examines the ways in which the forms of kinship have been reconfigured in contemporary societies, and the ways in which traditional kinship studies have been reconfigured by their intersection with culture theory, feminist theory, gender studies, postmodern theory, gay and lesbian studies, and cultural studies of science and medicine.
Prerequisite: ANTH 5200 or instructor permission.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5220 - Economic Anthropology

ANTH 5240 - Religious Organization

Analysis and comparison of social organization in selected communities from the perspective of systems of belief, ritual, and ceremonialism.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5250 - The Experience of Illness in American Society

Starting with the basic premise that the experience of illness/disease is at once a biological and cultural condition, the course focuses on narratives of the sick as a lens into the interrelationships between the body and society, medicine and culture. While the point of entry is the individual experience of illness and self in one Western society, the course intends to build a theoretical framework with which we can begin to conceptualize cultural institutional responses to and definitions of disease and ill-health.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5260 - History Production and Collective Memory

This course is an examination of the meanings and relationships between the past and present, memory, and history writing in anthropological practices and debates.
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5300 - Foundations of Symbolism

ANTH 5310 - Feminist Theory in Anthropology

Critical overview of the historical development of the issues central to feminist theory in anthropology and their relation both to specific ethnographic problems and to other theoretical perspectives within and outside anthropology.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5330 - Folklore and Ethnohistorical Research Methodology

ANTH 5340 - Ethnographies of Illness and the Body

It is often at moments of intense ruptures in the normalcy of the body’s functioning that individuals/societies reflect on the taken-for-granted assumptions about self, family, community, social and political institutions, the relation between normal and pathological, the roles of healers and patients, life, and death. Writing about illness and the body is a form of therapeutic action. Examines such claims and writings done by those facing bodily distress.
Prerequisite: For undergraduates: ANTH 224 and 360, SOC 428; instructor permission for graduate students.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5350 - Folk and Popular Health Systems

Surveys various medical beliefs and practices, considering the traditional health systems of several American groups, and examining in detail the input into local traditional health systems from various sources.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5360 - World Mental Health

This course will examine mental health issues from the perspectives of biomedicine and anthropology, emphasizing local traditions of illness and healing as well as evidence from epidemiology and neurobiology. Included topics will be psychosis, depression, PTSD, Culture Bound Syndromes, and suicide. We will also examine the role of pharmaceutical companies in the spread of western based mental health care and culturally sensitive treatment.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5395 - Mythodology

A hands-on seminar in myth interpretation designed to acquaint the student with the concept and techniques of obviation.
Prerequisites: Upper division undergraduate or graduate student.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5401 - Linguistic Field Methods

Investigates the grammatical structure of non-European language on the basis of data collected in class from a native speaker. A different language is the focus of study each year.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5410 - Phonology

An introduction to the theory and analysis of linguistic sound systems. Covers the essential units of speech sound that lexical and grammatical elements are composed of, how those units are organized at multiple levels of representation, and the principles governing the relation between levels.     



Credits: 3

ANTH 5420 - Theories of Language

Survey of modern schools of linguistics, both American and European, discussing each approach in terms of historical and intellectual context, analytical goals, assumptions about the nature of language, and relation between theory and methodology.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5430 - African Languages

ANTH 5440 - Morphology

An overview of morphological theory within the generative paradigm. Covers notions of the morpheme, theories of the phonology-syntax interface (e.g., lexical phonology, prosodic morphology, optimality theory), and approaches to issues arising at the morphology-syntax interface (e.g., inflection, agreement, incorporation, compounding).



Credits: 3

ANTH 5450 - African Languages

Analyzes the expressive use of language in Africa with emphasis on such traditional genres as folktales, epics, proverbs, riddles, etc.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5470 - Language and Identity

Explores the view that language is central in the construction, negotiation, and expression of social identities by juxtaposing and critically appraising social, theoretic, and linguistic treatments of identity.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5490 - Speech Play and Verbal Art

This graduate-level seminar seeks to understand variation in language (and its significance for social relations and social hierarchies) by focusing on forms of language that are aesthetically valued (whether as powerful or as poetic) in particular communities. The course assumes some familiarity both with technical analysis of language and anthropological perspectives on social formations.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5510 - Topics in Ethnography

ANTH 5520 - Topics in Ethnology of Latin America

ANTH 5528 - Topics in Race Theory

This course examines theories and practices of race and otherness, in order to analyze and interpret constructions, deconstructions and reconstructions of race from the late 18th to the 21st centuries. The focus varies from year to year, and may include ‘race, ‘progress and the West,’ ‘gender, race and power,’ and ‘white supremacy.’ The consistent theme is that race is neither a biological nor a cultural category, but a method and theory of social organization, an alibi for inequality, and a strategy for resistance.
Cross listed as AAS 5528.
Prerequisite: ANTH 1010, 3010, or other introductory or middle-level social science or humanities course



Credits: 3

ANTH 5529 - Topics in Social and Cultural Anthropology

Seminars and classes in topics of specific interest to faculty and advanced students will be announced prior to each semester.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5530 - Topics in Ethnology of Europe

ANTH 5536 - Topics in Folklore

Seminars and classes in topics of specific interest to faculty and advanced students will be announced prior to each semester.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5539 - Topics in Symbolic Anthropology

ANTH 5540 - Topics in Ethnology of Africa

ANTH 5541 - Topics in Linguistics

ANTH 5549 - Topics in Theoretical Linguistics and Linguistic Anthropology

ANTH 5550 - Topics in Ethnology of the Middle East

ANTH 5559 - New Course in Anthropology

ANTH 5560 - Topics in Ethnology of South Asia

ANTH 5561 - Topics in Ethnology of Oceania

ANTH 5565 - Topics in Ethnology of Australia

ANTH 5569 - Topics in Ethnology

Seminars and classes in topics of specific interest to faculty and advanced students will be announced prior to each semester.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5570 - Anthropology of Politics

ANTH 5580 - Topics in Ethnology of Southeast Asia

ANTH 5589 - Selected Topics in Archaeology

ANTH 5590 - Topics in Social and Cultural Anthropology

ANTH 5620 - The Middle East in Ethnographic Perspective

Survey of the anthropological literature on the Middle East & N. Africa. Begins historically with traditional writing on the Middle East and proceeds to critiques of this tradition and attempts at new ways of constructing knowledge of this world region. Readings juxtapose theoretical and descriptive work toward critically appraising modern writers’ success in overcoming the critiques leveled against their predecessors.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5650 - Creole Narratives

Studies eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and twentieth-century Caribbean intellectual life, Imperialism, Island nationalism, slavery, colonized values, race, class, and religion.
Prerequisite: ANTH 3157 strongly recommended.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5660 - Conquest of the Americas

Explores the power and personhood specifically related to the Americas. Topics include cultural frontiers; culture contact; society against the state; shamanism and colonialism; violence; and resistance.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5710 - Anthropology of Ritual and Religion

Overview of anthropology’s approach to ritual during a century of diverse speculation on the nature and origins of religions, with discussion of such figures as James Frazer, A.M. Hocart, Claude Levi-Strauss, Max Gluckman, and Victor Turner. Focuses on topics announced prior to each semester relating those issues to the whole tradition of interpretation of ritual in anthropology. Topics have included the nature of sacrifice, the expression of hierarchy in ritual, and the compatibility of historical approaches with ritual analysis.
Prerequisite: Instructor permission.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5720 - Ritual Experience and Healing

Studies the ritual of different cultures, using not only anthropological terms of analysis but also examining the viewpoint of the cultures themselves. Examines changing attitudes in the study of ritual, along with the problem of the wide variability of religious expression. Explores new directions in the anthropology of experience in the light of recent work healing and spirit possession.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5750 - Buddhism, Politics and Power

ANTH 5760 - Tibetan Religion in Anthropological Perspective

This seminar approaches a complex, major religious tradition, Tibetan Buddhism in its larger sociocultural contexts, from an analytical, anthropological perspective. Through ethnographies, a selection of comparative and theoretical elements, and film, we analyze the diverse array of Tibetan religious forms, and address larger anthropological issues and debates on religion and society (or politics), ritual, and the anthropology of texts.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5800 - Archaeology Laboratory

Field and laboratory training in the collection, processing, and analysis of archaeological material. Because subject matter varies from semester to semester, course may be repeated.



Credits: 1 to 12

ANTH 5807 - History of Archaeological Thought

ANTH 5808 - Method and Theory in Archaeology

ANTH 5810 - Archaeology of the Eastern United States

Studies the prehistory of the eastern woodlands region, emphasizing cultural development and change. Discussions of archaeological field techniques and methods, and examination of sites in the vicinity of the University.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5820 - Archaeology of the Southwestern United States

Studies the prehistory of the American southwest, emphasizing cultural development, field techniques, and particular sites.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5830 - Archaeology of the Ancient Middle East

ANTH 5840 - Archaeology of Complex Societies

Examines archaeological approaches to the study of complex societies using case studies from both the Old and New Worlds.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5850 - Archaeological Approaches to Economy and Exchange

A review of archaeological approaches to systems of production, exchange, and consumption. Discusses data from both the Old and New Worlds.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5860 - Ceramics, Style and Society

Critical review of the theoretical and methodological issues involved in the archaeological study of ceramics. Includes ceramic production and exchange, and the uses of ceramics in the study of social interactions.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5870 - Archaeozoology

Laboratory training in techniques and methods used in analyzing animal bones recovered from archaeological sites. Include field collection, data analysis, and the use of zooarchaeological materials in reconstructing economic and social systems.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5880 - Gender in Archaeology

Explores the range of case studies and theoretical literature associated with the emergence of gender as a framework for research in archaeology.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5885 - Archaeology of Colonial Expansions

Exploration of the archaeology of frontiers, expansions and colonization, focusing on European expansion into Africa and the Americas while using other archaeologically-known examples (e.g., Roman, Bantu) as comparative studies.
Prerequisite: For undergraduates, ANTH 4591 senior seminar or instructor permission.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5890 - Archaeology of Symbolism

Examines the ways in which archaeologists have studied symbolism in ancient societies. Some key topics include the analyses of cultural concepts of space and time, symbolism of material culture and the construction of social identity.
Prerequisite: Undergraduates should obtain instructor permission.



Credits: 3

ANTH 5895 - Issues in Archaeological Analysis

ANTH 6590 - Topics in Social and Cultural Anthropology

ANTH 7010 - History of Anthropological Theory I

Explores the diverse intellectual roots of the discipline, showing how they converged into a unitary program in the late nineteenth century, and how this program was criticized and revised in the first half of the 20th century.



Credits: 3

ANTH 7020 - History of Anthropological Theory II

Analyzes the main schools of anthropological thought since World War II, a half century during which separate English, French, and American traditions have influenced each other to produce a broad and subtle international discipline.



Credits: 3

ANTH 7030 - Anthropological Monographs

Critical reading of selected monographs that use the data and methods of each of the three subdisciplines of socio-cultural, archaeological and linguistic anthropology. Explores the relationship between theory and data through readings selected from different historical periods, theoretical perspectives, and geographical areas.



Credits: 3

ANTH 7040 - Ethnographic Research Design and Methods

Seminar on ethnographic methods and research design in the qualitative tradition. Surveys the literature on ethnographic methods and explores relations among theory, research design, and appropriate methodologies. Students participate in methodological exercises and design a summer pilot research project.
Prerequisite: Second year graduate in anthropology or instructor permission.



Credits: 3

ANTH 7050 - Ethnographic Data Analysis and Writing

A seminar and writing workshop exploring methods of qualitative data analysis, styles of ethnographic description, and problems of research design. Students apply these techniques to the results of field research.
Prerequisite: ANTH 7040 or instructor permission.



Credits: 3

ANTH 7060 - Dissertation Research Proposal Workshop

A workshop for graduates preparing dissertation proposals and writing grant applications. Each student prepares several drafts of a proposal, revising it at each stage in response to the criticisms of classmates and the instructor.



Credits: 3

ANTH 7110 - Paper and Presentation

Available for graduate students in their fourth semester, as they prepare to fulfill their paper and presentation requirement.



Credits: 3

ANTH 7129 - Marriage, Mortality, Fertility

Explores the ways that culturally formed systems of values and family organization affect population processes in a variety of cultures. Readings are drawn from comparative anthropology and historical demography.
Cross-listed as ANTH 3129.



Credits: 3

ANTH 7130 - Disease, Epidemics and Society

Topics covered in this course will include emerging diseases and leading killers in the twenty-first century, disease ecology, disease history and mortality transitions, the sociology of epidemics, the role of epidemiology in the mobilization of public health resources to confront epidemics, and the social processes by which the groups become stigmatized during disease outbreaks.
Prerequisites: previous ANTH or SOC course



Credits: 3

ANTH 7150 - Boasian Anthropology

Studies the works of Franz Boas and his students (Kroeber, Lowie, Sapir, Benedict, Mead, Radin, Whorf) in historical perspective; considers their relevance to contemporary culture theory.
Prerequisite: Instructor permission.



Credits: 3

ANTH 7151 - Native American Women

Explores the lives of Native American women through reading and discussing biographies, autobiographies, ethnographies, and articles addressing specific questions of the roles and status of women in Native American societies before and after contact with Europeans.
Prerequisite: Background in anthropology.



Credits: 3

ANTH 7153 - Anthropology of Eastern Europe

This course explores Eastern European societies through an examination of the practices of everyday social life. Topics include the changing cultural meanings of work and consumption, the nature of property rights and relations, family and gender, ethnicity and nationalism, religion and ritual.
Prerequisite: one course in anthropology or permission of the instructor.



Credits: 3

ANTH 7156 - Critiques of Representation

Examines post-modern critiques of traditional modes of representation in anthropology, particularly by symbolic anthropologists, and critically assesses their impact on the conduct of ethnographic research and on modes of ethnographic writing.



Credits: 3

ANTH 7160 - Culture Theory in American Anthropology

A critical assessment of the development of culture theory in American anthropology over the last half of the 20th century.



Credits: 3

ANTH 7170 - Visual Anthropology

The study of visual means of representation in Anthropology. Topics include ethnographic film and the documentary tradition of still photography.



Credits: 3

ANTH 7200 - Marriage, Gender, Political Economy

Cross-cultural comparison of marriage and domestic groups, analyzed as a point of intersection between cultural conceptions of gender and a larger political economy.



Credits: 3

ANTH 7210 - Anthropology of the State

This course explores the anthropology of modern political and government institutions with an eye towards the methodological and analytical tools necessary for investigating the bundle of relationships subsumed under the heading of “the state”. The first half of the course will focus on theories of the nation-state, its nature, and “effects”. The second half will examine ethnographic analysis of encouters with the state and it institutions.



Credits: 3

ANTH 7250 - Anthropology of the Third World

Analyzes the situation of peoples in the Third World in the circumstances of the contemporary world economy.



Credits: 3

ANTH 7270 - Political Anthropology

Surveys major theoretical approaches in political anthropology including evolutionism, structural functionalism, transactionalism, and ideological approaches.



Credits: 3

ANTH 7290 - Nationalism and the Politics of Culture

ANTH 7330 - Ethnohistory: Research and Methods

Introduces ethnohistory, considering various sources and methods for conducting ethnohistorical research, and requiring a practical application of these to a historical case study in Albemarle County. Discusses concepts of group identity and culture, or ‘ethnos,’ and the nexus between history and anthropology.



Credits: 3

ANTH 7340 - Anthropology and History

This course explores the mutuality of the disciplines of anthropology and history, as well as the differences in their approaches and methods, in order to reassert the epistemology and subject matter common to the two disciplines, and to bring strength to disciplinary analysis. We will read works of scholars who traverse the two disciplines, paying close attentions to their methodological approaches.



Credits: 3

ANTH 7350 - The Museum in Modern Culture

An in-depth study of the life history and its use as a sociocultural document, and of oral history methodology. Students read and critique various works, both historical and contemporary, that use oral history or present what various scholars have termed personal narrative, personal experience story, life story, life history, conversational narrative, or negotiated biography. Practical experience is gained in conducting interviews and writing life histories.



Credits: 3

ANTH 7370 - Power and the Body