Department of Anthropology

DIVISION OF LIBERAL ARTS

UPPER IOWA UNIVERSITY

Broadly speaking, Anthropology is the study of the breadth and depth of the human experience across space and time, looking at the variety of ways that one can be human.  Anthropology’s mission is to put the career of the human species into perspective.  In addition to its reflective (and, reflexive) academic aspect, the discipline has a growing, explicitly practically oriented component.  There is no field upon which it does not touch, with practical relevance increasingly articulated in the area of Applied Anthropology in fields ranging from education to marketing to product design.

Anthropology courses at Upper Iowa University can be taken to fulfill general education requirements or as electives.  Courses offered in the UIU Anthropology Program focus on the cultural (rather than biological) aspect of Anthropology.  Courses regularly offered include: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Culture and Difference, Visual Anthropology, and Political Anthropology.  (Recently, some film classes have also been offered intermittently.)  All courses strive for a balance between theoretical and ethnographic content.  In addition, other culture-oriented courses are offered in the Spanish Department, with a survey of Latin America and an important, in-depth ethnographic course focusing on Spain.

Students have the opportunity to participate in the extra-curricular culture-related activities connected to a yearly commemoration of Hispanic Heritage Month, which has in the past included concerts, lectures, and films.
 

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