Updated 2024-2025 Undergraduate Catalog | 20255

ANTH 3400 Anthropology of Current World Issues - Religion and Nationalism (3 credits)

This course employs a cultural anthropological lens to critically examine world events. Using holistic perspectives from anthropology we will undertake an analysis of the interconnected nature of countries and cultures around the world. In this class we will focus on two significant cultural ideas - religion and nationalism to understand how these impact global geopolitics. Using examples from around the world like India, United States, Brazil and Iran we will examine how religion and nationalism combine to construe religious identity in the service of national character. We will examine how such forms of nationalism might reconstruct religious nationalists as the only legitimate citizens of these countries and how such identity affects international relations. This course is meant to serve especially as an introduction to American college students to the realities of globalization and the interconnectedness of world development, poverty and culture. [Core Curriculum Goal Area 8.]
Common Course Outline