Intro to Cultural Anthropology
Anthropology 1312
This website, and all the websites under www.sanmartians.net/intro/, constitute the classroom display portion of Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, ANTH 1312, taught at Texas State University (there are several different intro courses taught, this is only one of them). It consists of several sub-webs:
Introduction (definitions, subfields, history, ethnocentrism, fieldwork practice, advantages/disadvant)
Language (communication, learning lang, structures of lang, sapir-whorf, culture and lang, slang, etc)
Culture (brief web on basic characteristics of culture)
Foraging (technologies and environment, power and authority, violence, birth control)
Gardening (technologies and environment, nature of work, gaining power, feasting, warfare, balance)
Agriculture (technologies and environment, power, writing, cultural creativity, origins of oppression, caste, caste and race, US race distinctions, class, functionalism and its problems)
Family (kinship basics, marriages, logics of polygyny, unusual marriage, traditional marriage and contracts, levirate/sororate, incest taboos)
Worldview (brief web covering idea of worldview, image of limited good, American worldview)
Religion (defining religion, functions of religion, analysis of rituals, rites of passage and intensification)
Change (rarely presented in class. Look at the traditions of anthro page on the last page of religion)
As you read them, please keep in mind that they are not intended as a stand-alone course in anthropology but rather as a classroom presentation tool for use in my rather idiosyncratic introductory course.
I've made use of several hundred photos and works of art taken from places around the web and I am grateful to the photographers and artists whose work appears on these sites. If you find your work on the site and you would like me to remove it, please just drop me a line by clicking this mailto link.