LIBS 126: Anthropologists on Campus

Anthropology professors have studied the lives of university students (My Freshman Year; Coming of Age in New Jersey).This course turns the tables, inviting new students to conduct field work on the “hidden lives” of professors, university staff, and other students.  Through guided practice in ethnographic skills—interviewing and participant-observation—students will come to understand what culture means to anthropologists while exploring the multiple cultures of UM-Dearborn and gaining insights on meanings and functions of higher education.

Kathryn Anderson-Levitt is Professor of Anthropology and Dean of the College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters. She has conducted fieldwork in France, in Guinea (West Africa), in Dearborn, Detroit, and Los Angeles, and in World Bank and UNESCO offices.  As an undergraduate, she changed her major a few times and is happy to report that her not-quite majors in French, international relations, and education all turned out to be useful. She earned her Ph.D. in anthropology at Stanford and has published books called Teaching Cultures and Local Meanings, Global Schooling, and articles with titles like “The Schoolyard Gate:  Schooling and Childhood in Global Perspective.” At UM-Dearborn, she has taught Anthro 101, Culture and Sexuality, Psychological Anthropology, and many other courses.

This course may be used to fulfill the following CASL distribution requirement: Behavioral and Social Analysis Group A.