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Overview and Learning Goals

Overview

Anthropology explores the astonishing diversity of cultures and complexity of human life, centering inquiries on the distinct perspectives and practices of individuals and groups. As a foundational part of a liberal arts education, anthropology challenges students to think critically about the assumptions we make about the world and the power hierarchies that shape our everyday lives. Anthropology examines past and contemporary cultures to understand how and why social, economic, ideological, environmental, and political relationships are reproduced or transformed.

Through the subdisciplines of cultural anthropology and archaeology, students develop holistic and empirically based knowledge of local cultural practices and processes of change in regions including Africa, the Arctic and North Atlantic, North America, Latin America, Asia, and Oceania. Students deepen their understanding of intersecting relationships of power and inequity (including gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and age). They study cultures from various perspectives, considering the social textures of everyday life, long-term processes of adaptation and innovation, and continuity and change, as well as the global circulation of people, ideas, and goods. Throughout the curriculum, students are exposed to the discipline’s concepts, theories, and methods, including field-based qualitative and quantitative research.

Anthropology promotes intellectual curiosity, creative and interdisciplinary thinking, empirical and ethical scholarship, and respect for our common humanity. Our students develop skills that may be mobilized in a variety of fields, such as education, environmental stewardship, cultural heritage, journalism, law, media, medicine, museum administration, public policy, and social and environmental justice, as well as in graduate and professional studies.

Learning Goals

• To develop understanding of human cultural and biological diversity across time and space
• To gain familiarity with anthropological concepts, methods, and theories (within and across the sub-disciplines) and to utilize these to understand past and present issues, relationships, and systems 
• To develop the skills to collect and analyze various types of information (including material, visual, and narrative) and to evaluate the use of qualitative and quantitative data in social science research
• To develop critical perspectives on relations of power and inequality through analyses of local (ethnographic and archaeological) particularities, global connections, and historical trajectories
• To communicate effectively using various forms of communication, with emphasis on clear writing

Options for Majoring or Minoring in the Department

Students may elect to major in anthropology or to pursue a coordinate a major in anthropology with digital and computational studies, education, or environmental studies. Students pursuing a coordinate major may not normally elect a second major. Many students double major in anthropology and another discipline. Non-majors may elect to minor in anthropology.

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