ANTH 2031 - Sex, Love and Evolution: An Anthropological Perspective

Credits: 3
Hours/Week: Lecture 3
Course Description: This course explores the natural history of human sex and love through an anthropological lens. Topics include the biological origins of sex, sex differences, attraction, mate choice, mating systems, parenting, and conflict. After comparing patterns across species, the course shifts to a focus on humans to understand how sex, love, reproduction, division of labor, and cooperative parenting evolved from the Paleolithic to the culturally diverse modern era. Through evolutionary and then cross-cultural perspectives, the course reveals insight into our species’ origins and design and sheds light on aspects of our bodies and our psychological and social lives.
MnTC Goals
5 History/Social/Behavioral Science, 8 Global Perspective

Prerequisite(s): Course placement into college-level English and Reading OR completion of ENGL 0950  with a grade of C or higher OR completion of RDNG 0940  with a grade of C or higher and qualifying English Placement Exam OR completion of RDNG 0950  with a grade of C or higher and ENGL 0090  with a grade of C or higher OR completion of ESOL 0051  with a grade of C or higher and ESOL 0052  with a grade of C or higher.
Corequisite(s): None
Recommendation: None

Major Content
1.    Introduction to anthropology
2.    Anthropological methods and theories
3.    The evolution of sexual reproduction
4.    Survey of animal mating systems and the patterns associated
5.    Human evolution and ecology
6.    Human sex, marriage, and parenting through deep time
7.    Cross-cultural patterns of mate choice, marriage, and parenting
8.    Sexual labor division thorugh deep time.
9.    Social science writing instruction
Learning Outcomes
At the end of this course students will be able to:

1.    analyze and compare various anthropological methods for collecting data.
2.    use anthropological theories to explain aspects of human bodies, social life, and patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. 
3.    evaluate anthropological studies of human sex and reproduction.
4.    explain how evolution by natural selection works.
5.    organize and develop a social science essay.
6.    contrast cross-species diversity in sex and reproduction.
7.    categorize the changes to mating systems and parenting over the last several million years of human evolution. 
8.    identify the concept of adaptations and instincts.
9.    identify patterns of cross-cultural variation in mate choice, marriage systems, and parenting.
Minnesota Transfer Curriculum (MnTC): Goals and Competencies
Competency Goals (MnTC Goals 1-6)
05. 01. Employ the methods and data that historians and social and behavioral scientists use to investigate the human condition.
05. 02. Examine social institutions and processes across a range of historical periods and cultures.
05. 03. Use and critique alternative explanatory systems or theories.
Theme Goals (MnTC Goals 7-10)
08. 02. Demonstrate knowledge of cultural, social, religious and linguistic differences.
08. 03. Analyze specific international problems, illustrating the cultural, economic, and political differences that affect their solution.
08. 04. Understand the role of a world citizen and the responsibility world citizens share for their common global future.

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