Anthropology

This course is an anthropological analysis of responses to death and dying, drawing on cross-cultural case studies and relevant anthropological theories of grief, mourning, and funerary practice. It contextualizes a variety of historical and contemporary responses to death and critically examines the development of "modern" death practices.

This course examines contemporary anthropological theory including post-modernism, post-structuralism, practice theory, political economy, globalization, feminist anthropology and the material turn. It introduces major figures in contemporary theoretical debates and key ongoing controversies in the discipline. 

This course examines how social, political, cultural and material conditions shape scientific work and how science, in turn, shapes society. Because of the central role of science, technology and medicine in driving modern developments, understanding the relationships among science, technology and society is crucial for understanding the history of humanity and the contemporary world. 

This course examines study abroad/overseas exchanges, aiming to integrate individual and collective insights for transformative learning. The course draws upon three main student experiences: 1) Pre-Departure (students intending to go on exchange or an equivalent experience) 2) Re-Integration (students returning from exchange or an equivalent experience) and 3) On- Going (incoming exchange students to HKU from overseas). It will first examine the concepts of transformation, experience, and learning, and how they can be integrated from interdisciplinary perspectives (e.g., the metaphor of metamorphosis; the morality of human development; the phenomenology of perception and stereotypes). It will then examine the structures and theories of unfamiliar places, rootedness, mobility, cross-cultural encounters, reciprocity, and service learning in the context of students’ unique identities and experiences. It will conclude with reflections on transformation of the “whole person” as an embodied, transnational process.

This course provides an analysis of the fundamental aspects of the human evolutionary process in order to identify the main biological and cultural mechanisms involved in the genotypic and phenotypic conformation of modern human populations.

The course offers an introduction to syntax, the fundamental theories of syntactic analysis, and the methodologies to apply theories. Students utilize these methodologies in authentic case studies.

The course introduces students to pivotal and methodological issues in the field of cultural anthropology. Topics change on a yearly basis. The Spring 2023 topic was: The Gift in the Greek and Roman World: Economy, Society, and Religion. The course includes a series of guest lectures. The course is graded pass/no pass only.

The course examines how different religions adapt to a world of consumer capitalism, mass migrations and new technologies. Religious participation has gained new speed in recent years, but not in ways we associate with traditional institutions like temples, pilgrimages and rituals. In today's world, religions spread through transnational migration, social media and consumer practices. Focusing on ethnographies conducted mainly (but not exclusively) in Asia, the course explores how these emerging practices shape contemporary religion.