Anthropology

Challenge your assumptions – study Anthropology. Study topics like race, gender, food, and the environment in our Sociolcultural Track or focus on Human Evolution, Archaeology, & Material Culture to study cultural diversity and material objects. Engage in research to gain insights into different cultures.

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About This Program

  • Our anthropology program offers two distinct tracks: The Sociocultural Anthropology track and the HEAM Track (Human Evolution, Archaeology, and Material Culture Studies).
  • As a student in the Sociocultural track, you’ll study the social orders and meanings humans create with a global, inclusive approach.  
  • Students in the HEAM track focus on human and cultural evolution and the material cultures of historical and contemporary ethnic groups. 
  • The resources of our on-campus Jean M. Pitzer Archaeology Lab are available to enhance your studies. 
  • Anthropology majors have the opportunity to apply for the Robert L. Munroe Scholarship and the Sheryl F. Miller Scholarship funds. 

At a Glance

Degree Awarded

  • Bachelor of Arts

Field Group

Anthropology

Program Type

Area of Study

Pitzer Voices

Read Shelby's Story
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“I'm thinking about why we create things. This major is about understanding why we make things and what it reflects about us. The creation of art is a mirror for our society.”

Shelby Ottengheime ’23

Anthropology major

Student Experiences

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Research

Diego Borgsdorf Fuenzalida ‘24, anthropology and Spanish major, researches the return of objects and archival documents from the Chilean exile, triggered by the Pinochet dictatorship, to cultural institutions in Chile. His research contributes to the studies of object repatriation, memorialization, and nation-building in museums. 

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Awards

O’philia Le ’23, an anthropology and environmental analysis double major, was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to teach English in Taiwan. Our students follow a variety of career paths: Le plans to pursue a career as a public health professional. 

Anthropology Program Details

View Course Catalog

What You Will Learn

Goals of the Sociocultural Track

  1. Be able to recognize and critically engage popular versions of anthropological theories in such non-academic forms as informal conversation and mass-mediated entertainment; and, when these popular versions of anthropological theories are versions of social evolutionism and/or racism, or are ethnocentric, be able to identify their fallacies and harmful consequences.
  2. Be able, when reading an anthropological article or book, to recognize and critically discuss the work’s relationship to major paradigmatic traditions in disciplinary anthropology (e.g., functionalism, structuralism, and semiotic theory).
  3. Question the universality of meanings and practices; be able to identify contingent social orders through comparisons across time and geography and be able to distinguish human phenomena that are, to various degrees, invariant from those that are not.
  4. Be able to relativize–or doubt the absoluteness of–taken-for-granted concepts in their own lives (notably “gender,” “race,” and “ethnic” identifications) and taken-for-granted institutions and domains in their own social world (such as “the family” and “the economy”).
  5. Be able to analyze the interconnections among economics, politics, kinship and family, the psyche, and expressive and artistic forms–domains conventionally differentiated and separated by the social sciences.
  6. Be able to identify (in particular circumstances) how cultural categories contribute to and reproduce relations of power and inequality.
  7. Be able to plan and conduct ethnographic field research projects at an undergraduate level.

Goals of the Human Evolution, Prehistory, and Material Culture Studies Track (HEPtrack)

  1. An understanding of the human evolutionary past, in terms of both biological and cultural factors.
  2. An awareness of the biological facts of contemporary human physical diversity and the socio-political implications attached to the concept of “race” as a means to label differences through 500 years of history, particularly in what is now the U.S.
  3. A recognition of diversity in cultural systems, and the roles played by material culture in the negotiation of cultures and the agency practiced by their social enactors.
  4. An ability to analyze problems, to formulate and test hypotheses, to seek evidence and interpret data rationally, and to recognize one’s own bias as well as the biases of others.
  5. An ability to conduct original research.

Goals of both tracks

  1. Comprehend and critically analyze scholarly works; demonstrate a capacity to distinguish the author’s point of view from the views the author criticizes, responds to, and builds upon.
  2. Write cogent, clear research papers and short anthropological essays.

Learn More

Visit the Anthropology Field Group page for more information and resources. 

Anthropology Field Group

Anthropology Faculty

portrait of angela castillo-ardila

Ángela Castillo-Ardila

  • Assistant Professor of Anthropology
  • Anthropology Field Group
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Emily Chao

  • Professor of Anthropology
  • Anthropology Field Group
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Sheryl Miller

  • Professor of Anthropology
  • Distinguished Teaching Chair in Archaeology and Biological Anthropology
  • Anthropology Field Group
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Claudia Strauss

  • Jean M. Pitzer Professor of Anthropology
  • Anthropology Field Group

Contact Us

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