ANTH 3290 - Culture, Memory and the Past

Goals: To investigate the human practice of writing, speaking, remembering, and representing the past from an anthropological perspective. This course examines the social, cultural and biological contexts of human apprehension of the past through varied means such as individual and social memory, myth, biography, and history.

Content: From anthropology’s earliest beginnings, anthropologists have been interested in how members of different societies and cultures ascribe meanings to the past and how these meanings persist or change through time. An early emphasis on “myth” has, in recent years been expanded to include such varied concepts as social or cultural memory and even an examination of western historiography, biography, and fiction. Beginning with a survey of biological understandings of individual human memory this course will examine the relationship of these memories to society and culture.
Taught: Alternate years.
Prerequisite: ANTH 1160 or consent of instructor.