Cultural Anthropology Course Explores Diverse Global Experiences
Anthropology professors use engaged, creative teaching methods to inspire critical thought. Here, students in Dr. Storey’s Introduction to Cultural Anthropology course lead discussion in the Teaching Innovation Learning Lab.
Cultural anthropology is often described as the process of “making the strange familiar, and the familiar strange.” Through readings, discussions, and activities, cultural anthropology courses seek to link our own everyday worlds to diverse global experiences. All students in Dr. Storey’s courses—from first-semester undergraduates to PhD students—use hands-on, ethnographic research methods such as participant observation and interviewing to connect abstract concepts to concrete experiences. How, for example, might we make the economic processes of globalization relevant to daily life? Examining the commodity chains of items sourced from students’ own kitchens provides a link between our lives, the experiences of people laboring around the world, and massive flows of material and information.