Current Undergraduate Courses

Field | Cultural Anthropology

In this course students examine the nature of cultural variation of populations in the present and recent past. Its subjects include social, political, economic, and ideological aspects of human cultures.

Field | Biological Anthropology

This lecture and accompanying laboratory course examine fundamental aspects of the biological nature of humans. Course content is divided into topics devoted to explaining the scientific method, evolutionary theory, genetics, speciation, variation and adaptation, nonhuman primates, and human evolution.

Field | Archaeology

This lecture and accompanying laboratory course examine the basic principles of archaeology. It includes a study of the kinds of sites; classification of stone artifacts; methods of archaeological survey and excavation; methods of dating by geological, faunal, and radiometric means; and the theoretical approach to archaeology.

Field | Cultural Anthropology

This course offers tutelage in professional scholarly writing, word processing software, library research, scientific and ethnographic writing styles, and effective use of anthropological literature. Because it provides core skills presupposed by advanced anthropology courses, students should enroll in it alongside their first writing-intensive anthropology electives.

Field | Cultural Anthropology

This course surveys the breadth of careers open to people holding anthropology degrees. Issues discussed include professional ethics, specialized skill sets, the transferable skills of liberal arts degrees, broad trends in the labor market, and steps toward pursuing relevant careers.

Field | Archaeology

An examination of magic and religion in cultures of the world with an emphasis on recent works dealing with mysticism and the occult.

Field | Biological Anthropology

This course presents a survey of the prehistoric human record throughout the world. It focuses upon the achievements of early and modern humans, world colonization events, and the development of complex societies.

Field | Archaeology

An examination of the prehistory and early cultures of the Greater Southwest from the first arrival of humans as early as 20,000 years ago to the coming of the Spaniards in the 16th century. The course covers several mammoth kill sites at the end of the Pleistocene; the emergence of Archaic hunters and gatherers and the appearance of agriculture about two thousand years ago, leading to the three major cultures in the southwest-the Mogollon, the Hohokam and the Anasazi, the last in multistoried pueblos and cliff dwellings. 

Field | Biological Anthropology

This course presents our current understanding of Old World Paleolithic Archaeology. The origin and evolution of hominid behavior, the initial colonization of the Old World, and the development of modern human behavior will be discussed for each continent. 

Field | Archaeology

This course will present our current understanding of Texas archaeology. The environmental and social contexts of prehistoric, protohistoric, and historic records of Native American and Spanish occupations in Texas are discussed. 

Field | Cultural Anthropology

This course focuses on how illness identities are culturally constructed, how adaptations or maladaptations to local environments affect health, how political and economic forces influence health and health behaviors, and how the practice of medical anthropology can contribute to solving urgent health issues around the world.

Field | Biological Anthropology

In this course students will learn where race concepts originated, examining the worldview and scientific mindsets that guided biological anthropology into the 21st century. We will explore how social race has become biological, put forth pragmatic solutions in the context of anthropology research, and help develop an informed scientific practice.

Field | Biological Anthropology

This course provides instruction on the ecology and conservation of primates and the flora and fauna in their ecosystems.

Field | Cultural Anthropology

This course explores historical and contemporary issues related to gender and sexuality from cross-cultural perspectives. It will focus on cultural constructions of gender and sexuality and explore key themes in queer anthropology as well as US minority and Global South feminisms through expressive and documentary forms including music, film, art and performance. 

Field | Archaeology

This course examines the cultures of the Andes Region of South America with an emphasis on pre-Columbian and contemporary peoples of the area

Field | Archaeology

This course is designed to provide students with an intensive overview of historical archaeology method, theory, and artifacts in Texas and North America. Using the methods and theories of historical archaeology, students analyze historical narratives, which incorporates research, documents, and material culture from historic period sites.

Field | Biological Anthropology

This course is laboratory based and students will learn human skeletal processing techniques used in forensic anthropological casework and gain an introduction to human skeletal anatomy and variation. 

Prerequisite: ANTH 3381 with a grade of a "D" or better.

Field | Cultural Anthropology

Reviews central issues in economic anthropology, using both case studies and theoretical writings. Analyzes production, exchange, distribution, consumption,property, economic surplus, inheritance, and types of economic structure. Materials will cover huntergatherer societies, simple agricultural societies, pre-capitalist complex state societies, and issues of development in nonindustrialized countries.

Field | Archaeology

This course explores violence in past societies considered especially shocking or controversial in the contemporary, developed West: human sacrifice and the consumption of the human dead. It considers cannibalism and sacrifice as cultural expressions of universal human drives and preoccupations and as historically specific solutions to common problems in social organization. The course examines archaeological and ethnohistoric case studies from many periods, cultures, and regions to identify and explain diversity and commonalities among such practices.

Field | Cultural Anthropology

This course explores the role of law as an instrument of change, justice, and legal rights. Topics include law as a social system, understanding legal reasoning, identifying key actors, legal pluralism, how law influences change, law as depicted in popular culture, and how law influences anthropological research. The course will consider US Law, International Law, folk model systems, and common law versus case law.

Field | Biological Anthropology

Forensic Anthropology is the recovery and analysis of human skeletal remains for modern legal inquiry. This course is an overview of the field of Forensic Anthropology illustrated with real forensic cases.

Field | Biological Anthropology

The foundation of biological anthropology is the study of the human skeleton. This is a lab-intensive course in which students will learn how to identify skeletal elements, both whole and fragmentary.

Field | Cultural Anthropology

This course explores major theoretical and historical developments in anthropology, highlighting the discipline’s unique four-field perspective that includes archaeology, biological and cultural anthropology, and anthropological linguistics. Topics stress the importance of anthropological thought in key scientific discoveries and cultural debates. 

Field | Biological Anthropology

In this course students will learn how to locate, excavate and recover human remains, associated personal effects, and other materials in order to ensure legal credibility for all recoveries. 

Field | Biological Anthropology

This course is for students who wish to advance their osteological skills. Students will learn how to identify isolated and fragmentary skeletal remains to estimate age, sex, ancestry, stature, and health of an individual in past and present contexts.