2023-2024 Undergraduate Catalog [Archived Catalog]
Anthropology, BA
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Anthropology is concerned with how humans and human societies evolve culturally and biologically. Anthropology explores the differences and similarities among human cultures and the biocultural processes that influence human biological diversity. It integrates a wide range of perspectives on human behavior, culture, and society. Students will become familiar with the basic concerns of four sub-fields of anthropology: archaeology, biological anthropology, cultural anthropology, and anthropological linguistics.
The anthropology program offers archaeology courses covering many geographic regions (Latin America, Africa, Europe, North America, among others), techniques of analysis, and issues in prehistory.
Course offerings in biological anthropology focus on evolutionary theory, human biological diversity and adaptability, bioarchaeology, forensic anthropology, paleopathology, and human and nonhuman primate evolution.
Cultural anthropology is represented by a wide variety of courses on culture areas including the Pacific, Caribbean, Latin America, China, Japan, South Asia, Eastern Europe and the United States. Classes provide cross-cultural studies of topics such as medical anthropology, social and political organization, power and resistance, gender, food, folklore, religion, and multispecies relationships.
Linguistic anthropology courses examine language and other sign systems (semiotics) in context, focusing on the complex relationship between language, society, and culture. Courses include issues surrounding language and power, resistance, decolonization, identity, media and society, and migration. Topics also include poetics and storytelling and semiotic anthropology.
Opportunities for student field work and research are provided through museum collections, participation in independent studies with faculty and graduate students, internships with local organizations, and summer field school experiences.
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