Class Time:         Wednesday  10:30 - 1:30    SSC 3028
Class Website:    http://instruct.uwo.ca/anthro/222/
 

John Gehman	Alexis Chapeskie
Office:              3415  SSC	3301  SSC
Office Hours:   Tuesday  11 - 12	Thursday  11:30 - 12:30    (NEW)
Office Phone:   661-3430, ext 80547     No voice mail.	661-3430,  leave message
Email:               gehman@uwo.ca         Use e-mail	achapesk @uwo.ca

MARKS
 

Essay #1	16%	15 Oct
Essay #2	20%	5 Nov
Essay #3	24%	26 Nov
Final Exam	40%	take-home, due 10 Dec

The essays will be short, c. 3 pages each, and will be on assigned topics related to the course readings.
The final exam will be a take-home, made available on-line at the time of the last classmeeting, and due by Dec 10.

READINGS

There is nothing to purchase, as most of the readings are on the web. A few articles will be available in the Department. With most readings on the web, you'll be spending a good deal of time at the course website. Some items may be added on the web as we go along. If so, I'll let you know (and they won't be lengthy).

CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES
    North American anthropology has traditionally defined itself as a comprehensive "study of humanity" in all our complexity at all times and in all places, and in all our social, cultural and biological aspects. I suppose that definition has been usefully vague, however grandiose. But the discipline is just part of a larger Western confrontation with fundamental questions about why and how people differ, in all sorts of ways, from place to place and time to time. It pretends to contribute some satisfactory responses to questions about "human nature" (if there's any such thing), and especially about the place of human differences in that "nature". Which means the field has always been  loaded with big theories and with big assumptions, only some of which are obvious at any given moment.
    In most anthropology courses, you'll be looking at the work of contemporary scholars and at contemporary dilemmas of theory and presentation.  But this short course is meant to be an introduction to the roots of contemporary anthropology.  It has the practical intentions of familiarizing you with a few of the big names, a few of the big ideas and questions, and a few of the "schools of thought" of the last 300 years or so which have helped shape the discipline's current strengths, dilemmas, and vocabulary.