1.1 Introduction
Vanessa’s Story
I remember the first anthropology class that I took in my second year of college. It was a cultural anthropology class taught by Dr. Sabine Hyland, an American anthropologist and ethnohistorian working in the Andes. It was challenging and exciting, and she was the first real mentor I ever had. Her research and teaching style allowed me to engage with topics and questions that I loved inside the college classroom. The way she taught brought you into the stories and research of the communities she highlighted, giving a rich understanding of our diverse world. A class really can change the trajectory of your life. This class did. I fell in love with anthropology and wanted to merge it with my interest in health and wellbeing. It was this class, and this professor, that made me see that there were many more options for degrees, and that medical anthropology could be my path. I am someone who wants to leave the world better than I found it. I found that with anthropology, a discipline devoted to better understanding of humanity as a whole, I could investigate questions that I was curious about and develop solutions to real world problems by centering humanity as cooperative and creative. Years later, I even wrote a recommendation letter for Dr. Hyland to receive tenure, which she did. One class and one mentor can make a difference in the trajectory of your life.
Demetri’s Story
I came to the field of anthropology completely by accident. I entered college at Stony Brook University in New York as a biology major and was considering a pre-med pathway. I always had a passion for science but admittedly the push towards medicine was largely because— well, because according to my parents who came from Greece in the late 70s, every “good Greek boy” had to become a doctor or lawyer (even though they both grew up in tiny agricultural villages). When I first met my R.A. during freshman orientation, I mentioned needing an elective course. He suggested taking cultural anthropology as the course would be fun and the professor was “a character”. Admittedly at the time, I had very little idea of what anthropology was, but the course description sounded interesting so I registered for it. This ended up being the very first college course I attended on the first day of my life as a college student. The professor, William Arens, was indeed eccentric. Although his somewhat controversial research on cannibalism (or lack thereof) in human societies has been met with almost universal criticism, he was one of the most vibrant and engaging professors I had as an undergraduate. The topics he discussed and the people he introduced us to were eye-opening. The way he casually discussed taboo topics and his use of narrative in the classroom really brought culture to life. Before I knew it, I was taking more anthropology courses on various topics, including: the anthropology of food, medical anthropology, physical anthropology, and many others. When I took my first Archaeology course, and subsequently my archaeological field school in Pompeii, Italy, I knew I wanted to become an archaeologist. Being able to connect with past cultures through their material remains is the closest human beings can get to a time machine. Once I felt that connection, I was in love. Luckily for me, I was able to combine my training in biology with my interest in archaeology, through the interpretation of animal remains, leading to my doctoral research in zooarchaeology.
If you are reading this textbook for your cultural anthropology course, you are likely wondering, much like we did, what anthropology is all about. Perhaps the course description appealed to you in some way, but you had a hard time articulating what exactly drove you to enroll. With this book, you are in the right place!
Self Reflection: What are you excited to learn about this semester in this class?
