Undergraduate Program

Course Credit: 2

The course is designed with a brief introduction to what anthropology is about. In this regard, the major areas of anthropology will be introduced. What makes anthropology the most comprehensive discipline among those which study human beings, what integrates the diversified sub-fields under the umbrella of ‘anthropology’, what makes anthropology the most ‘humanistic’ science – will be taught in this course.

Course Credit: 4

This course has been designed to orient students to their own culture and society from an anthropological and ethnohistorical perspective. Thus, they would be able to relate their learning from other ‘core’ courses to their society.

Course Credit: 4

The course is designed to make students familiar with some of the basic concepts and techniques of collecting, recording, and analyzing data following the qualitative approaches to research.

Course Credit: 4

The course is designed to offer an intellectual background of the origin of anthropology as an academic discipline. It also aims to track down the thoughts and events that made the major theoretical developments in anthropology possible. Anthropology, after all, is a western enterprise developed in the west by western thinkers, theorists, and peoples. It is, therefore, incumbent on us to learn those contexts, events, thoughts, and practices that shaped the discipline of anthropology.

Course Credit: 2

The course is designed with basic training on the functions and programs of the computer for academic purposes.

Course Credit: 2

This course introduces the basic ideas and concepts of social and cultural anthropology. It will also highlight various aspects of culture with ethnographic examples.

Course Credit: 4

The course will offer an introduction to the background of anthropological theories. It will also emphasize the development of the evolutionary school and the reaction against it in terms of diffusionism and historical particularism.

Course Credit: 2

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the basic concepts and issues of kinship and social organizations. This will also help them to learn about the nature of kinship relations, the development of ‘modern’ reproductive technologies, and the emergence of new patterns in kinship systems of Bangladesh.

Course Credit: 4

The course provides students with a detailed introduction to the principles and methods of physical anthropology. It highlights the evolutionary process through a critical theoretical understanding and discusses how this process shaped who we are today.

Course Credit: 2

This course is designed to help students develop communicative competence in English. To achieve this goal a task-based learner-centered approach will be adopted. Emphasis will be given on listening, speaking, reading, and writing as well as grammar. That is learners will do a variety of activities in the class to become fluent speakers and effective writers and readers.

Course Credit: 2

The course is designed to make students familiar with the ‘field’ in anthropology. In this regard, the major aspects of conducting fieldwork in anthropology will be introduced. This course will provide an approach to common concepts and methodologies in anthropology relating to ethnographic fieldwork. Students will be able to relate their learnings in the classroom with the people, society, and culture in the field through writing a fieldwork report.

Course Credit: 4

The course will orient the students with the functionalist paradigm that has dominated over the areas, methods, and perspectives of the discipline anthropology in question. This course is designed with a major focus on the study of origin, development, and downfall of the functionalist paradigm in anthropology examined through Thomas Kuhnian sense.

Course Credit: 4

The course is designed to familiarize students with the strategies to investigate archaeological remains and how these strategies contribute to the goals of archaeological anthropology.

Course Credit: 4

The course introduces students to quantitative methods in anthropology. This will also provide students with a hands-on experiment of different quantitative methods in anthropology. Principles of and epistemologies associated with quantitative methodology are included and major concepts of quantitative research are introduced.

Course Credit: 4

The course is designed to provide students with an overview of the evolutionary process of political organization from cross-cultural perspectives. It will also explore the idea of the essence of formal and informal political practices in Bangladesh.

Course Credit: 4

This course introduces students to the theories inspired by Freud in anthropology. These theories are categorized as Neo-Freudian and Post-Freudian theories of psycho-analysis.

Course Credit: 4

This course aims to make students familiar with the basic concepts and issues of urban anthropology. This course will contain the issues of urbanism and urbanization; kinship, family, and neighborhood in an urban setting, urban social stratification, environment, and research methods relevant to urban anthropology.

Course Credit: 4

This course aims to introduce students to the basic issues and concepts of economic anthropology. It will offer an analysis of how human societies provide the material goods and services, and the realization of final consumption that makes life possible. Different economic systems, money and market, ecosystems and economies, perspectives in economic anthropology, and development will also be introduced with examples from different cultures.

Course Credit: 2

The goal of this course is to give the student an understanding of how anthropologists study the human dimension of environmental problems. The student will study the impact humans have made on the natural environment from an international and a domestic perspective. The course is concerned with people’s perceptions of and interactions with their physical and biological surroundings, and the various linkages between biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity.

Course Credit: 2

The course Comprehensive and Viva-Voce has two parts: written comprehensive (25 marks) and oral defense (25 marks). Students will sit for this Comprehensive and Viva-Voce examination during the 4th semester of the BSS Honors program. It will test their learning over the last 2 semesters’ (second year 3rd and 4th semesters) courses of the undergraduate program.

Course Credit: 4

The course aims to introduce students to the major ideas of Marx and Engels and their legacies to anthropology. The course offers an introduction to ‘dialects’, and materialist interpretation of history and society. Then it offers a review of the different brands of Marxism, notably, western Marxism, structural Marxism, cultural ecology, American materialism, and neo-Marxism.

Course Credit: 4

South Asia is considered as a ‘culture area’ to which Bangladesh belongs to. South Asia, including the current political units like Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan shares many things in common and hence, is referred to as a distinct ‘culture area’. Since it is a requirement in anthropology to specialize in a region, this course provides students the opportunity to have an orientation to the history and culture of South Asia. This course starts with the concepts and perspectives of south Asia and addresses its common history, tradition, and culture. Specific attention has been given to the aspects of religion, politics, gender, nationalism, and ethnicity of South Asian societies.

Course Credit: 4

The anthropology of religion is a cross-cultural study of the relationship between humans and the supernatural world. This course involves the exploration and analysis of religious traditions in diverse cultural contexts. Major anthropological perspectives on and theories of religion will be discussed along with various aspects of religious life in both past and contemporary societies.

Course Credit: 4

The course intends to familiarize students with the theories and concepts contested in the analysis of ethnicity, identity, and nationalism. It will enable them to explore how ethnic relations are being defined and perceived. These readings will be supplemented with empirical studies from developed and developing countries across different periods and exploring the historical and contemporary basis for their development and significance. Finally, it will guide students to the political and social implications of ethnic and national identification and solidarity both in the national and international arena.

Course Credit: 4

The course introduces the students to the foundations of structuralism and highlights the works of Levi-Struss. Then the national traditions of structuralism are looked into. Next, it moves beyond structuralism and examines the works of Rolland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Pierre Bourdieu.

Course Credit: 4

The course focuses on the conceptual and theoretical issues related to gender and discusses them in the light of current intellectual trends of anthropology. The course is designed to provide a deeper understanding of the categories of sex, gender, and sexuality from cross-cultural perspectives. It explores how these categories intersect with other categories of social and cultural diversity such as race, ethnicity, class, and age. Throughout different sections of the course, it has a detailed discussion on the constructions of such categories in the light of historical and global processes such as colonialism, nationalism, the international division of labor, and global economic transformation.

Course Credit: 4

This course introduces the students to how linguistics has influenced the field of anthropology and has provided theories and methods used in the analysis of humankind concerning culture. This will also highlight linguistics anthropology’s discovery through cross-cultural fieldwork that many existing non-western languages had no scripts. This will explore new areas of research including the relationship between nationalism and languages, the role of languages in mass media, and politics.

Course Credit: 2

This course introduces students to the application of anthropological knowledge, methodology, and theoretical approaches to address contemporary human problems. It will focus on the associated ethical issues and practical constraints and obstacles encountered by anthropologists when conducting applied research. Special attention will be given to reviewing cases in the major domains of applied anthropology, to understand how people can make their training in anthropology work in the fields of agriculture, education, health and medicine, business and industry, environment, tourism, development, etc.

Course Credit: 2

The course is designed to engage students in the field taking experiences gathered from the first and second year of fieldwork. This course will provide an approach to common concepts and methodologies in anthropology relating to ethnographic fieldwork. Students will be able to apply their theoretical and methodological understandings in the field with the people, society, and culture and write a fieldwork report.

Course Credit: 4

This course deals with major theoretical shifts that occurred in anthropology since the 1970s and onward. Among them, feminism is noteworthy because of its critique of science as well as its portrayal of male bias across the disciplines. A large portion of feminist works and theories will be offered in this course, covering the areas of ‘anthropology of women’, anthropology and gender’, and ‘feminism and anthropology’. In addition to this, interpretivism and postmodernism will also be taken into account since many of their concerns and suggestions overlap with feminism.

Course Credit: 4

This course aims to teach students some of the basic kinds of qualitative analysis and academic writing. In addition to this, common methodological issues and debates are introduced. This course explores the traditions and central issues in anthropological research. Qualitative analysis and experimentation of different kinds, triangulation, procedures of research, and issues involved in writing are also focused on this course.

Course Credit: 4

This course introduces the students to the main concepts and theories of globalization. It will help them to examine the diverse range of economic, social, political, cultural, and environmental issues encompassed by the globalization debate and to explore their impacts on contemporary society, culture, and environment.

Course Credit: 4

This course introduces basic concepts and theoretical approaches (critical, ecological, or ethno-medical) to medical anthropology. It explores the on-going debates between cosmopolitan and alternative medicines. Following a critical perspective, it discusses how biomedicine achieved a hegemonic status and the process of survival of alternative medicines in Bangladesh as well as in other cultural contexts. Another highlighted issue in therapy management and the health-seeking process. Finally, the course explores ‘politics’ behind the institutionalization of biomedical healthcare in the subcontinent and discusses the applied aspect of medical anthropology in various cultural contexts.

Course Credit: 4

This course will examine the human dimensions of climate change from a cultural perspective. It will highlight the interactions among societies, cultures, and climate change. The course contains anthropological perspectives and discourses on climate and global environmental changes. It also includes encountering climate change through ethnographic studies around the world. The politics of climate change and engaging anthropology in climate change in Bangladesh will also be focused upon.

Course Credit: 4

This course will introduce different forms of inequalities in society from anthropological perspectives. It will critically address the different theoretical explanations of causes and persistence of inequality, and its implications on society. The course will also focus on the conceptualization and dimensions of and the approaches to social inequality. It will highlight the different forms of inequality e.g. caste, racism/colorism, religious communalism, age, class, ethnicity, gender, and health with ethnographic examples.

Course Credit: 4

The course provides students with an understanding of anthropological perspectives on peasant society. It will examine relevant issues and theories on peasant and peasantry. The course begins with the conceptualization of peasants and the theorization of peasant society. Then it focuses on the cross-cultural contexts of the peasant economy, politics, development, and movements.

Course Credit: 4

This course aims to guide the students to the current contexts of forest and forest-dependent people. Starting with the basic understanding of the forest, this course will focus on the issues related to forest and forest-dependent such as ecological adaptation, resources and their management, cultural aspects and environmental concerns, property rights, and, forest policy and gender.

Course Credit: 4

The course is designed to provide knowledge and understanding of poverty from anthropological perspectives. In this regard, an attempt has been made to bring into focus the increasing impact of climate change, food insecurity, starvation, and similar other issues on people of different countries. Emphasis has been given to examining the dynamics, strength, and impact of poverty to reduce the risk and vulnerability to an acceptable limit.

Course Credit: 4

The course readings would assist us in thinking anthropologically about state formation, state projects, and state effects along with theoretical genealogies of state. The kinds of questions that would be examined include: How are state subjects and citizens made? How can the state itself – as a set of institutions and as an idea– be examined ethnographically? What kinds of cultural understandings underlie a range of state projects and interventions? How can we understand how local populations and/ or subordinate groups experience and respond to such interventions? Given the range of student interests, the aim is to allow students to familiarize themselves with analytical tools that can be applied to their research, rather than to thoroughly review the literature on state formation in any specific region. The course is equally concerned with discerning how the anthropological approach to the modern nation-state may draw upon yet differ from perspectives on the state developed within other disciplines and the new connections and divisions that may arise from staking out a common conceptual space.

Course Credit: 4

This course intends to provide the students with an introduction to the study of law and an overview of anthropology’s engagement with human rights and law. It also investigates the discipline’s theoretical and practical engagements with global social justice and law focusing on wider social processes of state regulation, conflict and mass displacement, transnational social movements, and international agencies.

Course Credit: 4

This course is intended to provide a multidisciplinary, comparative look at the anthropology of food and nutrition. The objective of this course is to give students a thorough grounding with a focus on food as well as nutrition and its relations with culture, religion, food security and sovereignty, hunger, famine, and power. This course will highlight different approaches to the anthropology of food to understand dietary patterns, historical and contemporary food regimes, and commodity chain analyses. It will also analyze hunger, malnutrition and famine, cultures of thinness and fatness, food as a human rights and gender issue, agro-ecology and industrial agriculture, and food-related social movements.

Course Credit: 4

The course is designed to engage students in the field taking experiences gathered from the first, second, and third year of fieldwork. This course will provide an approach to common concepts and methodologies in anthropology relating to ethnographic fieldwork. At the end of the fieldwork, students will have to write the research monograph. This is a 4 credit course equivalent to 100 marks. and the examination of the Research Monograph has two parts: an examination of the written monograph (80 marks) and viva-voce (20 marks).

Course Credit: 4

The course Comprehensive and Viva-Voce has two parts: written comprehensive (50 marks) and oral defense (50 marks). Students will sit for this Comprehensive and Viva-Voce examination during 8th semester of the BSS Honors program. It will test their learning over the last 4 years of the undergraduate program.