Department of Anthropology (GRAD)
The Ph.D. program in anthropology draws on the intellectual strengths of the department’s faculty and a tradition of excellence in scholarly and applied approaches to train students to become leading researchers, teachers, and practitioners of anthropological knowledge. We only admit students pursuing a Ph.D. degree and offer specialized training to support their work. Students may earn an optional master’s degree as part of their progress toward a Ph.D, should they desire.
Our graduate program offers intensive training in the methods and debates of contemporary anthropology, while also valuing interdisciplinary study. The Department of Anthropology and its doctoral program remain integrally connected to a range of interdisciplinary programs, centers, and research initiatives across the university and beyond. Up-to-date lists of anthropology faculty members and courses, along with additional information about the graduate program, faculty research projects, interdisciplinary affiliations, and other information are available on the department's website.
Courses
Numbered 400-999:
The Ph.D. program offers advanced training in archaeology, biological, medical, and sociocultural anthropology. The topics and structures of graduate students’ dissertational research are flexible, provided they meet the formal approval of the student's advisor, Ph.D. committee, and the faculty. Recognizing the wide array of issues that anthropologists study today, the doctoral program aims to provide the specialization and accommodation that doctoral students require for their Ph.D. projects, while also facilitating generative exchange and awareness across the subfields of contemporary anthropology.
During the first year in the program, students are required to take an integrated three-field ‘Core’ proseminar (ANTH 701), during the fall semester. Students subsequently are required to take a specialized Core proseminar in their respective subfield.
Our doctoral program puts a premium on professionalization and career development. First-year students are required to enroll in our Monday afternoon seminar “The Practice of Anthropology”, which focuses on developing the skills and credentials necessary for a successful career in anthropology. Though required for first-year students, all doctoral students are encouraged to attend this fall-spring seminar—as it is a locus of our departmental culture. The program also relies on a portfolio model to organize student’s professional development. Assembled throughout one’s time in the program, these portfolios provide a repository of key credentials, achievements, and resources for advancement in academic and/or non-academic careers. The internal components of these portfolios will vary by subfield and student, and should be developed in regular consultation with the student’s advisor.
During the second year, graduate students are required to produce a substantial piece of independent research/writing, advised by a three-member faculty committee (also constituted during the second year). The nature of this requirement varies by subfield. At the end of Year 2, the committee will assess this work and make a recommendation whether the student is to move forward with preparing for their comprehensive exams in Year 3.
During the third year, students should be preparing for fieldwork, applying for funding, writing their dissertational proposal, and progressing toward their comprehensive exams. Prior to their exams, students are required to constitute their 5-person dissertation committee, with whom they will work closely for the duration of their time in the program. Ensuring competency in one’s field-language is an important facet of anthropological research. Students, in collaboration with their committee, will ensure these needs are met prior to their PhD exams. Graduate students are recommended to take their written and oral Ph.D. exams by the end of Year 3. Upon successfully completing their exams, students advance to Ph.D. candidacy (becoming ‘ABD’) and may formally begin their dissertational research. ABD students may register for dissertation hours (ANTH 994), while completing their thesis.
Dissertational fieldwork in anthropology varies by subfield. Sociocultural anthropologists typically conduct a minimum of one year's field work, which provides the context for the dissertation data. Students of archaeology or biological anthropology may combine fieldwork with analysis of preexisting collections and data.
Following dissertational fieldwork, students typically take one to two years to write and defend their dissertation. The successful defense of one’s dissertation confers the Ph.D. degree, thus completing the doctoral program.
Any exceptions to these requirements must be approved by the director of graduate studies.
Following the faculty member's name is a section number that students should use when registering for independent studies, reading, research, and thesis and dissertation courses with that particular professor.
Professors
Benjamin Arbuckle (86), Near Eastern Archaeology, Turkey, Origins and Evolution of Animal Economies, Animals in Complex Societies
Rudolf Colloredo-Mansfeld (76), Indigenous Peoples, Artisan Economies, Competition, Commodities, Consumer Cultures, Producer Associations, Local Food Systems
Patricia McAnany (75), Cultural Heritage and Indigenous Communities, Ancestor Veneration, Archaeological Understanding of Detachment from Place, Cultural Logic of Noncapitalist Economies, Identity and Gender Constructs, Cacao Production and Use, Social Reproduction of Technology, Maya Studies, Archaeology of Mesoamerica
Christopher Nelson (64), History and Memory, Everyday Life, Ethnography, Critical Theory, Storytelling, Ritual and Performance, Japan and Okinawa
Michele Rivkin-Fish (73), Medical Anthropology, Moral Economies of Medicine and Health, Gender and Health, Reproductive Politics, Health Care Reform, Russia, United States
Charles Price (49), Black Identity; Collective Identity; Rastafari Identity; Race; Social Movements; Community Organizing Organizations; Life Narrative Research; Action Research; Resilience & Adversity
Karla Slocum (56), Place, Race, and History; Globalization; Rurality; Social Movements; the Caribbean; the United States Southwest
Amanda Thompson (78), Biomedical Anthropology, Nutrition, Human Biology, Early Life Determinants of Body Composition and Obesity, Infant and Child Feeding
Colin Thor West (81), Human Ecology and the Human Dimensions of Global Change, West Africa, Arctic North America/Asia, Southwestern United States
Margaret Wiener (47), Actor Network Theory, Ontology, Science Studies; History and Memory; Magic; Human and Animal Relations; Colonial Societies; Southeast Asia; Indonesia; Bali
Associate Professors
Anna Agbe-Davies (79), Historical Archaeology, Plantation Societies of the Colonial Southeastern United States and Caribbean, Towns and Cities of the 19th- and 20th-Century Midwest, African Diaspora
Brian Billman (42), Archaeology of Chiefdoms and States, Political Economy, Human Violence, the Evolution of Human Behavior, Heritage Preservation, Settlement Pattern Analysis, the Prehistory of the Andes and the American Southwest
Jocelyn Lim Chua (82), Anthropologies and Politics of Health and Well-Being, Globalization of Psychiatry, Mental Health and Illness, Politics of Life and Death, Suicide, Ontologies of the Body, Kinship and Care, South Asia, Kerala
Glenn D. Hinson (36), Ethnography, Belief Studies, Folklife, Public Folklore, Trauma-Informed Ethnographic Practice, Experience-Centered Anthropology, African American Expressive Culture, Vernacular Poetry, Vernacular Art, African Diaspora, the North American South
Jon Bernard Marcoux (85), Colonial Period Archaeology, Diasporic Communities, Cultural Landscapes, Heritage Preservation, Quantitative Methods, Southeastern U.S.
C. Townsend Middleton (83), Politics of Recognition, Belonging, and Autonomy; Affect and Anxiety; the State; Anthropology of Knowledge; Political Anthropology; India; South Asia
Mark Sorensen (67), Biological Anthropology, Health and Culture Change, Adaptability, Energetics, Nutrition, Russia, Siberia, Ecuador
Angela Stuesse (84), Neoliberalism; Race, Ethnicity, and Identity; Globalization; Migration; Social Movements; Human Rights; Labor; Methodologies of Activist Research; the United States South and Southwest; Latino and Latin America; Equatorial Guinea
Matthew Velasco (43), Bioarchaeology, Mortuary Practice, Paleopathology, Diet and Foodways, Embodiment, Ethnogenesis, Personhood, Social Inequality, Andes, South America
Teaching Associate Professors
Martha King
Teaching Assistant Professors
Rachel Briggs
Emily Curtin
Charles Hilton
Doug Smit
Assistant Professors
Morgan Hoke (92), Biological Anthropology, Medical Anthropology, Human Biology, Inequality, Embodiment, Maternal and Child Health, Gut Health, Nutrition, Housing and Resource Security, Latin America, the Andes, North America
Caela O'Connell (88), Environmental Anthropology; Human-Environment Relationships; Socio-Ecological Interdependencies; Risk; Crisis; Change; Anthropologies of Water, Economics, Disaster, and Engagement; Interdisciplinary and Mixed Research Methodologies; Food and Agricultural Studies; Rural and Agrarian Communities; the Caribbean and the Americas
Dafna Rachok (23), Medical Anthropology, Global Health, Infectious Diseases, Care, Disability, Affect, Body and Embodiment, the State, Bureaucracies, Eastern Europe, Postsocialism, Ukraine
Melissa Salm (72), Global Health; Science & Technology Studies (STS); One Health; Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; Eco-Epidemiology; Planetary Health; Biosecurity Governance; Pandemic Preparedness; Science Mistrust; Public Health Misinformation; Conspiracy Theories
Adjunct Associate Professors
Michael C. Lambert (51), Political Anthropology, Economic Anthropology, Africa
Patricia Sawin (44), Ethnography of Communication, Narrative, Performance and Poetics, Gender, Anthropology of Children and Adoption, Southern United States, Latin America
Professors Emeriti
Florence Babb (79), Cultural/Economic/Feminist Anthropology, Gender and Sexuality, Critical Development Studies, Urbanization in the Global South, Tourism Studies, Latin American Studies, Central America, Central Andes, Caribbean
Carole L. Crumley (22), Epistemology of Complex Adaptive Systems; “Two Cultures” (Science/Humanities) Problems in Inter- and Transdisciplinary Research; Integrated Global- to Local-Scale Historical Ecology; Historical Climate Change; Evolution of Landscapes; Social Inequality; Social Memory; Applications of Geomatics (Especially GIS/Remote Sensing) to Anthropology, Ecology, and Regional Planning
Robert E. Daniels (4), Social Anthropology, Psychological Anthropology, Systems Theory, Africa
Arturo Escobar (53), Political Ecology; Anthropology of Development, Social Movements, and Science and Technology; Latin America; Colombia
Kaja Finkler (32), Medical Anthropology, Gender and Health, the New Genetics, Kinship and Family, Economic Anthropology, Political Economy, Globalization, Mexico, Latin America
Valerie Lambert (58), American Indians, Tribal Sovereignty, Tribal Nation Building and Tribal Governance, Federal-Tribal Relations and Tribal-State Relations, Bureaucracy and the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs
Paul W. Leslie (37), Human Ecology, Biological Anthropology, Demography, Population Genetics, Reproduction, East Africa
Dale L. Hutchinson (63), Bioarchaeology, Human Osteology, Forensic Anthropology, Paleopathology, Health and Nutrition, Agricultural Origins and Consequences, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic United States, South America
Norris B. Johnson (25), Architecture, Art and Aesthetics, Photography and Visual Anthropology, Religion and Nature, Japan
Donald Nonini (34), Urban Anthropology, Political Anthropology, Anthropology of the State, Class/Race/Ethnic/Gender Inequalities, Global Systems and Transnationalism, the Urban Commons, Chinese in Southeast Asia, China, the Southern United States
James L. Peacock (11), Global Issues and Identities, Southeast Asia, Southeastern United States
Peter Redfield (54), Anthropology of Science and Technology, Medicine, Colonial History, Ethics, Humanitarianism and Human Rights, NGOs and Transnational Experts, Europe, French Guiana, Uganda
C. Margaret Scarry (48), Archaeology, Paleoethnobotany, Subsistence Economies, Foodways, North America, Greek Aegean, Complex Societies
Vincas P. Steponaitis (2), Archaeology, Political Economy, Chiefdoms, Quantitative Methods, Southeastern United States
Silvia Tomášková (59), Archaeological Method and Theory; History of Archaeology; Social and Gender Archaeology; Archaeology and Nationalism, the State, Politics; Gender and Science; Women in Scientific Professions and Society; Old World Prehistory; Paleolithic Archaeology; Central and Eastern European Archaeology; Prehistoric Imagery; Theories of Symbolic Representation; Stone Tool Analysis
Department of Anthropology
