For the better part of a decade, the HAR editorial collective has imagined an online collection of syllabi in the history of anthropology and allied fields to complement our existing work. Our vision is to create a free online repository of syllabi relevant to the history of anthropology, with no restrictions on methodology, region, or time period. Today, we are publishing the first version of this syllabus collection: small and simple, but with big hopes for the future.

This project has two main goals: to help instructors hone their teaching through reference to existing syllabi in the field; and to facilitate research in the history of anthropology, from creating general reading lists to exploring different approaches to a familiar topic. As part of our commitment to promote conversation around teaching in our field, contributors may also publish a reflection about their syllabus with Field Notes. Our first such reflection, by HAR’s own Nicholas Barron, is available here.

With this new project has also come a change to our masthead: we’ve added a ‘Teaching’ tab, where you can find both the syllabus collection and associated reflections. In time, we plan to expand this with more teaching materials and reflections.

If you would like to add your syllabus to the collection, please write to syllabi@histanthro.org. We welcome any and all syllabi, so long as the contributor is the instructor of record and grants us permission to publish their material. We also welcome teaching-related reflections, either in conjunction with a syllabus or as stand-alone pieces.

How do I use the Syllabus Collection?

The Syllabus Collection currently includes basic citational data and downloadable PDF versions of each syllabus. At the top of the page, you’ll find an annotated bibliography of syllabi with abstracts and links to related pieces. Below, you’ll find the same list that can be filtered by tag for different audiences (graduate or undergraduate) and different course formats (survey, seminar, lecture). To download a syllabus, click the “Download” button next to the citation.

What’s next?

We plan to continue building the collection by soliciting more syllabi and improving our webpage’s functionality. In the long term, we hope to build up a sufficiently large collection to function as an archive of teaching in our field, including other kinds of teaching materials, such as lecture notes or assignment prompts.

These improvements and expansions of the collection will be informed by community feedback, so if you have ideas or suggestions, please write to syllabi@histanthro.org.