Naor Ben-Yehoyada

I learned more about the history of the field of anthropology, as well as more about the central concepts and themes of cultural anthropology.

4/5 essay prompts that are about 1500 words not including the bonus question 1 book a class (pages vary on book)

I have never written a CULPA review, but Naor is one of my favorite professors I've had so far at Columbia. He is very laid back and understanding. He knows that we are not reading every word of the books and wants us to get the gist. He is easy to approach and wants to help you (I even came to him about work in another class). He is very knowledgable and quite down to earth for an anthro professor. That being said, his essay prompts are very difficult and take a lot of thought, even though he is not a harsh grader. All in all, I would 100 recommend him and would like to take another class of his.

I learned an immense amount of information on the history, ethics, and basic principles of anthropology. We covered a lot of topics — a few main ones being rites of passage, gifting, and hospitality. All of these topics included notions of kinship, power, hierarchy, and exchange. There's also a heavy amount of theory embedded within the course material.

I learned an overview of the field of cultural anthropology, particularly focusing on different perspectives on classifying culture and its components (kinship, identity, etc.).

I learned a lot about the different variables at play which constitute culture as a whole

I gained knowledge of famous anthropologists' theories such as Malinowski, Mauss, and Hurston Neale.

This was the first course I took in anthropology and it was a strong introduction. I feel I have a much better handle on some of the main approaches to the field, generally.

I learned how to interpret more complex anthropological and ethnological documents as well as how to write ethnological descriptions and analyses of my own.

I learned how to critically examine specific themes in different cultures and how to analyze general social interactions in my own life and in other cultures.