Reg. #15122
Remote, not real time
Dr. Irene Ketonen-Keating
This class is a general introduction to the field of anthropology, the study of humanity. It is designed to pique your interest in the broad diversity of human behavior and lifestyles across the world and throughout time. This course will take a look at our four major subfields - archaeology, linguistic anthropology, physical anthropology, and cultural anthropology - and include discussions on our youngest subfield, applied anthropology.
APY 105LEC-A
Reg. #15123
Tuesday/Thursday 9:30-10:50am
222 Natural Sciences Complex
Dr. Meghana Joshi
APY 105LEC-B
Reg.#23138
Monday/Wednesday/Friday 11:00-11:50am
170 Academic Center
Staff
What is culture and how does it affect our understanding of the world and the ways we behave? How do cultural anthropologists approach the study of human societies and what methods do they use to do research? These are some of the questions that we will examine in this class. The course introduces students to ethnographic methods and theories of cultural anthropology. The aim is to enhance our knowledge of our own culture and of other cultures around the world. All majors are welcome.
Reg. #21602
Tuesday/Thursday 11:00am-12:20pm
06 Clemens
Dr. Stephanie Poindexter
For centuries preceding modern times, our uniqueness as a species was taken as a sign of special creation; we were not seen to be a part of nature. But as knowledge of human evolution, our closeness to other primates, and our adaptations to specific environments emerged, we have taken our place in the animal kingdom. Here, we learn how those insights developed, and about current methods of understanding human origins and the natural forces that have shaped us.
APY 108LEC-A
Reg. #15560
Monday/Wednesday/Friday 1:00-1:50pm
218 Natural Sciences Complex
Dr. Lacey Carpenter
APY 108LEC-B
Reg. #21604
Remote, Tuesday/Thursday 12:30-1:50pm
Dr. Colin Quinn
Archaeology is the study of the human past through its material remains. So much evidence of human activity on earth exists outside the realm of written records that archaeology is of primary importance in reconstructing past human life ways. Bridging the gap between the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities, archaeologists integrate many types of evidence in order to shed light on the origins of our species, Homo sapiens sapiens and development through time of so many different cultural manifestations. Introduction to Archaeology provides an overview of the methods, theories and models used by archaeologists to better understand past human societies, from the formulation of a research question, through the processes of survey and excavation, to the analysis of data, and the interpretation of the results.
Reg. #23141
Tuesday/Thursday 9:30-10:50am
112 O'Brian
Dr. Erin Chapman
Forensic anthropology is the application of biological anthropology and archaeological principles and techniques to legal investigations. This introductory course provides students with a comprehensive understanding of the role of forensic anthropology in the criminal justice system, focusing on the search and recovery of human remains, estimating the biological profile of individuals, assisting with the identification of human remains and skeletal trauma analysis.
Through a combination of lectures and cases studies, students will explore topics such as skeletal biology, osteology, forensic archaeology, human variation, estimating biological parameters, taphonomy, and trauma analysis. The course will also cover the ethical and legal considerations associated with forensic anthropology. Students will explore the various subfields and agencies where forensic anthropologists are employed.
Reg. #16520
Monday/Wednesday/Friday 1:00-1:50pm
14 Knox
Dr. Oscar Gil
People in all societies experience illness, but their understandings of the causes of disease and approaches for restoring health differ greatly. This course examines the social and cultural dimensions of health, illness, and healing. Through a variety of case studies, we will learn about the ways medical anthropologists study explanations of disease, experiences of suffering, and the social organization of health care. Western medicine, also called “biomedicine,” will also be an object of our analysis. We will discuss how the delivery of biomedical health care involves particular understandings of the body and appropriate social relationships. Emphasis will also be placed on how the stories that individuals and institutions circulate about human agency in suffering shape people’s convictions about how to care, and for whom to care. The course aims to teach students to think about health, disease, and medicine in national, cross-cultural and global terms.
Reg. #23140
Tuesday/Thursday 11:00am-12:20pm
260 Capen
Dr. Meghana Joshi
In this class, we focus on how reproduction is shaped by cultural meanings while simultaneously entangled in historical, social, economic and political discussions. Course material includes an analysis of ethnographic fieldwork on topics such as the increasing medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth, the role of authoritative knowledge in creating ‘truths’ about reproduction, the diverse meanings and experiences of pregnancies, governance of reproductive populations, and importantly men’s position in, and their experiences of reproduction. Applying an anthropological perspective, we will learn more about “intimate” life processes in both local and cross-cultural contexts. Specific case studies include examples from North America, Europe and Latin America, and also South Asia.
Section 1:
Section: STF
Reg. #12565
355 Academic Center
or
Section 2:
Section: STF2
Reg. #23714
158 Spaulding Quad
Tuesday/Thursday 2:00-3:20pm
Dr. Erin Chapman
Covers fundamentals of human skeletal anatomy through lecture, demonstration, and laboratory work. Considers procedures and applications in contemporary and historical human biology and in archaeology, stressing both technical approach and theoretical application. This lecture and laboratory course demonstrates the fundamentals of human skeletal biology and anatomy. Stresses procedures and applications used in evaluating archaeological and contemporary human populations. Considers forensic applications.
Course note: There are two sections of APY 348 offered at the same day and time for Fall 2025. Students only register for one of the sections, either APY 348-STF or APY 348-STF2. Both sections refer to the same course.
Reg. #21643
Remote, not real time
Dr. Colter Harper
Introduces the student to music from all over the world, and expands concepts of music in the process. Students learn about different instruments from other cultures and how they influence the music they produce, and explore common features of Asian, European, African, American, and Oceanic music. Students also learn different ways of listening. Designed for non-majors. Requires no musical background. This course is the same as MUS 364 and course repeat rules will apply. Students should consult with their major department regarding any restrictions on their degree requirements.
Reg. #23142
Monday/Wednesday/Friday 1:00-1:50pm
354 Academic Center
Dr. Stephen Lycett
The Palaeolithic covers the timeframe from when our ancestors first began to manufacture stone tools in Africa (around three million years ago) through the point at which the last glacial period ended (i.e. up to the beginning of the Holocene). It is a fundamental phase, in which matters of biological and cultural evolution led eventually to the appearance of our species.
This course explores the evidence for changing patterns of hominin behavior during this phase of our evolution. We will consider the major sites and material evidence that is used in current debates. We will evaluate the factors that might shape patterns in the distribution and form of Palaeolithic data. Critical thought will also be given to the use of behavioral models drawn from primatology (e.g. chimpanzee behavior) as well as anthropology (e.g. ethnographically recorded hunter-foragers) in the study of fossil hominin behavior. Questions will also be asked of the potential requirement for multidisciplinary engagement with associated fields, such as psychology. Key sites and case studies will be discussed, tracking the dispersal of hominins across the globe and the appearance of key behavioral innovations. The course will also consider the (frequently heated) debates regarding the emergence of "behavioral modernity." Issues of cultural transmission and cultural evolution will also be covered.
Reg. #23143
Monday/Wednesday/Friday 10:00-10:50am
354 Academic Center
Dr. Edith Gonzalez
Museums are sometimes seen as irrelevant places where ancient objects languish in obscurity. However, in recent years, many museums have been recognized as community hubs which address key social issues and confront our colonial past, in order to transform how we see the future. Museums have the power to reflect and shape our society. This course examines the intersection of anthropology and museum studies, and the theoretical approaches that have been introduced to reconcile the study of culture and how it is presented to public audiences. This course will pay close attention to a few core debates that have shaped and continue to influence the museum field today. Students will explore audience development and exhibit curation, with special focus on the creation and presentation of culture and "the other" around the world. Class assignments and assessments will be based on weekly readings, in-class discussions, visiting local (in-person) museum exhibits and international virtual museums.
Reg. #23144
Tuesday/Thursday 11:00am-12:20pm
354 Academic Center
Dr. Ana Mariella Bacigalupo
This course will focus on the healing traditions of Native South American people as an important part of our contemporary experience. We will examine the images, forms, and meanings that are common to the healing experience of many Native South Americans: concepts of order, time, space, power, destruction, and renewal which allow us to group them together despite their geographical and sociopolitical diversity. We will also analyze some specific ethnographic examples of how they are manifested through funerary cannibalism, shamanism, sorcery, animal spirits and metaphors, the use of tobacco, narcotics and hallucinogens, and rituals for healing, fertility and collective well-being. Classes will consist of presentations, viewing films, and class discussions.
Reg. #24051
Tuesday/Thursday 12:30-1:50pm
260 Capen
Dr. Meghana Joshi
This course asks what it means to be a man and/or masculine in the particular context of Euro-American societies. Moving away from the notion of sex and/or gender as reducible to, or primarily determined through biology, we will critically evaluate and analyze how men and masculinities are socially and historically contingent, relationally constructed, diverse, and changing over time periods and in changing contexts. We will focus on how notions and ideas, norms and practices related to what it means to be a man emerge at the intersections of various and dynamic positionalities that individuals may occupy such as age, race, sexuality, health status, and life course, and how these in turn represent men and masculinities in ways that affect individual and group experiences. Thus, men are as much gendered beings as are women.
The overall aims of this course are to a. engage with material that directs our attention to the precarity of masculinity i.e., how masculinity is not fixed in its definitions or practices; b. highlight how masculinities derive meaning in relation to (other masculinities/women); and c. how structures (policies, law, representations in scientific literature, medicine and technology) play a key role in reproducing as well as shifting dominant notions of masculinities.
Meets Senior Seminar requirement. For Fall 2025, APY 413 will satisfy the Senior Seminar requirement. This course does not automatically populate in HUB as a senior seminar course. Please email the Anthropology Undergraduate Coordinator (carolzit@buffalo.edu) to request that APY 413 be used to fulfill this requirement.
Reg. #23032
Tuesday/Thursday, 9:30-10:50am
354 Academic Center
Dr. Albert Fulton
This course explores the manner in which Indigenous peoples of eastern North America interacted with and were in turn influenced by the ecological systems within which they lived, from the end of the last Ice Age through the Contact period, approximately 12,000, 200 years before present.
During this period of time known as the Holocene epoch, the ecosystems of eastern North America responded in complex ways to multiple environmental modulators including climate perturbations, species migrations and extinctions, natural disturbance agents such as fire and storms, and human land-use impacts related to changing settlement systems and the adoption of novel subsistence economies. Human societies were in turn influenced by the regional diversity of and temporal variability in environmental contexts, which provided multiple dynamic pathways for cultural innovation and adaptation across space and time.
By developing greater awareness of critical interactions among Indigenous Americans, the natural environment, and past climate change, we can develop more nuanced perspectives on how best to respond to current and future climatic and ecological transformations affecting all of humanity.
Meets Senior Seminar requirement. For Fall 2025, APY 421 will satisfy the Senior Seminar requirement. This course does not automatically populate in HUB as a senior seminar course. Please email the Anthropology Undergraduate Coordinator (carolzit@buffalo.edu) to request that APY 421 be used to fulfill this requirement.