![pic](https://admissions.dartmouth.edu/sites/admissions.prod/files/styles/400x420_blog/public/admissions/content/blog-author/image/img_1827.jpg?itok=8xQ1HHTm×tamp=1665456638)
Course Spotlight: ANTH 9!
Here is a glimpse into ANTH 9: Language and Culture, an introductory course in linguistic anthropology.
ANTH 9 centers around a term-long ethnography project. What is ethnography? In essence, you pick a community –– whether it be a club on-campus, the town of Hanover, or a floor in the library filled with students –– and take a deep dive into how the members within the community interact with one another as well as the community itself.
The course began with an ethnographic practice. My group chose Novack Café, a student-run cafe at the basement of the Baker-Berry library. We recorded what the students were wearing, how they were speaking to one another, how gestures were used to convey different messages et cetera. I found it fascinating how a short, 30-minute documentation culminated in a good understanding of a community and environment!
Ethnographies don't always have to be academic. Rather, Prof. Slobe made it interesting – we'd analyze TikToks, Instagram Reels, and even old Vines! The term-long project was a community of choice, and I decided to look into the Korean Student Association (KSA) community. Students within KSA are Korean Americans, Korean internationals, and non-Koreans as well!
This series of observations were very interesting because some students would use Korean and English interchangeably (known as code-switching) and some would practice Confucian values (respecting elders) on Dartmouth campus!
Aside from the ethnography project, we'd engage in pop data analysis activities to strengthen our anthropological skills. When the weather was nice, we'd have the class on the Green; when students were stressed, we talked about how our term has been so far. There was immense flexibility in this course, and I enjoyed learning in a classroom filled with students with different interests as well! While all of the anthropology courses (I'm not lying) have been to a certain extent intriguing to me, nothing came close to this course.
Even if you're a hardcore STEM major, an econ fanatic, or a gov-enthusiast, I highly recommend taking a course like this in the humanities