Anthropology

Anthropology

Cultural and Linguistic Anthropology


Sections

Faculty

General Description


Cultural AnthropologyCultural anthropologists study a wide range of human activity, belief systems and material cultural, both contemporary and historical. Although, in the past cultural anthropologists conducted research mostly in the non-Western world, today they work across the gamut of institutions and cultural settings in the Western world, including hospitals, prisons, among college students, and in business. An anthropologist once joked that anthropologists study human beings and all that they do. Thus, if you don’t have an anthropologist around, then you won’t know what you’re doing!

More seriously, most cultural anthropologists assert that they are drawn to their projects by a simple desire to help make the world a better place. Close study of the dynamics of cultural habit and belief can perhaps make a difference to the fates of ordinary people everywhere whose ways of life are under assault from the changes wrought by globalization.

Included in our cultural component is linguistics. Linguistic anthropology examines language as a universal medium of human interaction and thus of social life. Rather than focusing on language as an abstract and decontextualizable system of grammatical (lexical, phonological, etc.) rules, contemporary linguistic anthropologists consider discourse as a form of social action through which people negotiate identities, experiences, and relationships. Linguistic anthropology offers tools ranging from close analysis of unfolding communicative events to examinations of broad ideologies that allow us to address all areas of inquiry in cultural anthropology.

Cultural Anthropology

At Western Michigan University, our faculty work in several geographic areas: East Africa, Japan, Latin America, including Ecuador, Cuba and Mexico, East Africa and the United States.

Geography alone only poorly describes what the faculty study and teach. Faculty members conduct research in some of the well-developed subfields of anthropology, including Medical Anthropology, Environmental Anthropology, and Food and Nutrition. We offer undergraduate courses in all these specialities, and helped train graduate students to pursue their own research, as well.

In general departmental faculty work in several overlapping areas, as well as some unique fields of study, distinct to each faculty member. Some of the overlapping areas include: religious practice, (Prof. Wirtz and Prof. Straight), institutional racism and the cultural manifestations of class stratification (Prof. Lyon-Callo Prof. Wirtz and Prof. Ready), and visual culture and new media (Prof. Spielvogel, Prof. Straight, Prof. Holtzman and Prof. Hill). These interests often overlap with the work of faculty in Biological and Archaeology, so if you’re interested in developing a line of study, or planning your courses, make sure to explore what faculty offer there, as well.

Each faculty member manages several on-going research projects, and also teaches courses built around those projects. These include Dr. Miles’s study of chronic disease management in the developing world, Dr. Holtzman and Dr. Straight’s complimentary projects on gender in small arms warfare and cattle raiding in East Africa, Dr. Hill’s research on garbage and recycling around the world, Dr. Lyon-Callo’s projects exploring poverty and homelessness, Dr. Miles’ longitudinal studies of transformations experienced by the working poor among transnational, urban Ecuadorians, Dr. Wirtz’s study of community and religious practice in Cuba, Dr. Spielvogel’s projects on entertainment and exercise in Japan, and Dr. Straight’s collaborative project on the history and health of pastoralists in East Africa.

Several faculty tend to affairs close to home. These include Dr. Lyon-Callo, with his research and advocacy on homelessness in Kalamazoo, Dr. Wirtz and the Race Exhibit (see below), and Dr. Hill and her involvement in improving Kalamazoo’s energy resource management and PCB clean-up of the Kalamazoo River Superfund site.

Major Initiatives

Faculty have also sponsored a couple of university-community partnerships that you can join in. Return to our home page to learn more about the American Anthropological Association’s award-winning Race Exhibit, which will be coming to the Kalamazoo Valley Museum, in 2010.

And click here to learn more about how anthropology students helped launch the Biodiesel Co-op of Kalamazoo, a Registered Student Organization dedicated to converting Kalamazoo’s waste cooking grease into an on-road biofuel.

Linkages

Dr. Ready and Dr. Hill both hold joint appointments with other units on campus. Dr. Ready directs the Walker Institute on…and Dr. Hill teaches in Environmental Studies. That means that both only work half-time in Anthropology, but you should feel free to contact them directly if you’re interested in any of their projects or courses.

Students

Unlike Archaeology and Biological Anthropology, the typical fieldwork undertakings of cultural anthropologists are more often individualized projects. Nonetheless several departmental faculty have developed initiatives that facilitate graduate and undergraduate participation. These include Dr. Straight’s East Africa research and Dr. Lyon-Callo’s research on class dynamics in Kalamazoo.

Undergraduate students in our program have developed their own research projects and many have received funding from the College of Arts and Sciences Creative Activities Fund. Projects include working with pastoralists in Kenya and studying medical school education in Michigan.


 

Courses


Undergraduate Courses

  • Peoples of the World (1200)
  • Principles of Cultural Anthropology (2400)
  • Anthropology through Film (3010)
  • Cultures of Latin America (3390)
  • Cultures of Asia (3400)
  • Cultures of Africa (3410)
  • Cultures of Europe (3430)
  • Ethnicity and Multiculturalism (3470)
  • Power and Conflict (3490)
  • Anthropology and Marxism (3550)
  • Sex, Gender, Culture (3600)
  • Issues in South American Ethnography (4390)
  • Ethnography (4400)
  • Money, Consumption and Cannibals (4600)

Graduate Courses

  • Anthropological Theory (5200)
  • Nationalism, Invented Tradition, and Self-Identity (5210)
  • Poverty, Power and Privilege (5220)
  • Spirits and Medicine (5250)
  • Medical Anthropology (5310)
  • Development Anthropology (5420)
  • Topics in Sociocultural Anthropology (5450)
  • Anthropology and History (5830)
  • Seminar in Cultural Anthropology (6010)

 

Recent Student Theses (1990 - 2003)


Undergradute Honor's Theses

  • Youth Identity and Travel Narratives: An Exploration of Physical and Cultural Spaces
  • Queer as Volk: Toward an Anthropology of Gay Turks in Berlin
  • Housing Policies in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Graduate Theses

  • Negotiated Families: Lesbians and Institutions in Southwest Michigan
  • Reading Between the Lines: The Business Discourse of Globalization, Using Amway Corp. as a Local Example
  • Re-Cycling the Menstrual Cycle: A Multidisciplinary Reinterpretation of Menstruation
  • African American Women's Perceptions of Prenatal Care
  • Community Empowerment and Social Policy Design: A Case Study of the Creation of a School-Based Health Center
  • The Suburban Rice Farmers: Economic and Cultural Change in Japan
  • A Multiplicity of Goals in a Migrant Household
  • Job satisfaction of West Michigan certified nurse midwives: A qualitative study of autonomy and empowerment in the provision of health care
  • Responsibility, Submission and Power; Social factors which influence rural out-migration among Women in southern Vietnam.
  • Kampo consumption among Japanese students at Western Michigan University: A case study in Medical Pluralism
  • History, mission, and visitors at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum in Kalamazoo, Michigan: a study of the museum as cultural practice
 

Department of Anthropology
1005 Moore Hall
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo MI 49008 USA
(269) 387-3969 | (269) 387-3970 Fax
lauretta.eisenbach@wmich.edu