Grade levels: Adult

This program explores concepts related to non-kin based social groupings by focusing on the culture of the Black Indians of New Orleans. They are a common interest group that celebrates their own art and culture, culminating in their annual celebration of Mardi Gras separately from the better known White Carnival. Divisions within the group based on age and gender are discussed, as is its origins and history as an oppressed minority social class excluded from the white Mardi Gras. Finally the show examines the effects of hurricane Katrina on the culture of the Mardi Gras Black Indians and on the recovery of the city in general.

This video explores the anthropological concepts of political organization and social control as practiced cross-culturally. It opens with anthropologists Victoria Bernal and Laura Nader discussing the concepts of political organization, in terms of power, authority, functions, and its four main forms: bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states. Nader and William Ury then explore the various methods of maintaining social order across cultures, including interior and externalized controls, sanctions and laws. Methods of dispute resolution are described by Nader and Ury, and the two then debate the merits of the use of alternative dispute resolution methods (ADR) in the United States. China?s control over citizen use of the internet is used as an example of the interrelationships between social control, ideology, legitimacy, and the potential for the use of force by ruling powers.

The program opens with a general discussion of the anthropological definition of religion contrasted with spirituality. This is followed by a close up view of some of the history, beliefs, and practices of Islam and Tibetan Buddhism, through the eyes of several experts and practitioners. Discussions of anthropological concepts of religion cross-culturally are offered with examples of the basic forms of religion, its specialists, and its rituals, as well as magic and witchcraft. The exploration of some of the social and psychological functions of religious practices and belief systems, especially focusing on Islam, conclude the show.

This video lesson focuses on visual, verbal and musical art forms. Since art is created in response to social, religious, political, economic, and aesthetic stimuli, anthropologists use it as a guide to understanding the values and ideals of culture. Being able to put art within a cultural context enables anthropologists to observe cultural dynamics. That is why tattoos, hip hop and hula provide insight into past and present cultures. You will also be reintroduced to the Pacific Northwest Potlatch ceremony. This once again will highlight the integrated nature of all aspects of culture.

Throughout history, cultures have changed because of environmental conditions, internal pressures, or external forces. Change comes quickly, or it may occur slowly. In any event, anthropologists chronicle cultural change and offer explanations as to why it happens. Anthropologist Eugene Cooper has tracked cultural change as it is reflected in the craft of Chinese furniture-making during the 1970s and 1980s, and he emphasizes that societies change with the use of new technologies. The key term, diffusion, is introduced and discussed within the context of the spread of the English language from the anthropologist to the group she/he studies. The video illuminates some of the benefits and problems that immigration poses for a culture. It focuses on the current migration of Mexicans and Central Americans to the United States. It illustrates why the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps was founded, and how their goals were formed in response to the perception that too many Mexican citizens were coming across the border into the United States illegally.

Anthropology: The Four Fields introduces the central concepts, concerns, and research methods of cultural anthropology. It takes a cross-cultural approach to diverse subject areas, including subsistence patterns, political organization, the family, social organization, economics, kinship, language, the arts, and religion.

Exlains the four-fields of anthropology, defines the concept of hilsm, and describes how anthroplogists approach their subject matter form a holistic and comparative cross-cultural perspective in order to reach the braodest and most inclusive conclusions possible on their subject of interest. Each field, cultural, physical (biological), linguistic anthropology, and archaeology, are described and situational material is included to illustrate how each field functions and interconnects with the others. This video also introduces the student to the way anthropologists carry out their analyses through rigorous fieldwork and participant observation in order to create the ethnographies that describe human cross-culturally.

The state of Oaxaca, Mexico, is the backdrop of this film, which explores the nature of culture and how cultures are studied. The Oaxacan society is used to illustrate the basic characteristics of culture: an integrated, dynamic system of beliefs, values, and behaviors that are shared by the members of a society; wholly learned and based on symbolic systems; and constituting humankind?s most important method of adaptation. Jayne Howell?s work in Oaxaca aims to determine how this society in transition is adapting to the pressures imposed by outside forces, and illustrates some of the methods of research that ethnographers employ in a biocultural approach to discovering how the world?s diverse cultures function.

Humans are first a biological species, Homo sapiens, but they are unique among all species in their capacity for cultural adaptations. This lesson first compares humans to modern primates, especially the great apes, in terms of biology, genetics, and behaviors. Next, it surveys the evolution of the line of pre-human ancestors from the first bipedal species that emerged about six million years ago up to anatomically modern humans and their increasingly sophisticated cultural innovations. Finally, the concept of race is discussed as a social construct that has no biological validity.

This program focuses on the efforts of the Serrano tribe of Native American to revitalize their dying cultural traditions and language. The features and structures of human language in general are discussed, showing some examples from the Serrano language, and the role played by descriptive linguist assisting them is examined. A discussion of deaf sign languages reveals that they are in every way like all other human languages except that they are based on gestures instead of sounds. Nonverbal human communication systems are explored, as are various aspects of the fields of ethnolinguistics and sociolinguistics. African-American Vernacular English is discussed as an example of a social dialect that marks membership in a group. The film closes with a focus on the Serrano children, who it is hoped will carry on the tribal language and traditions.