PrincetonUniversity
Class of 2004 Sophomore Academic Handbook

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Department of Anthropology

Anthropology is the comprehensive study of human nature, culture, and change in the full range of the world's sociocultural systems. One of the qualities making anthropology different from other academic disciplines is its insistently cross-cultural, or comparative, perspective: by extending our vision beyond the confines of familiar social contexts and experiences, this perspective guards against culture-bound theories regarding human nature. Thus, historically, anthropologists played a leading role in undermining the intellectual credibility of racist social theories. Today, in an increasingly global world, where humankind's most difficult problems are at least as frequently social as technical, a cultural perspective on human diversity is an urgent priority.

Anthropology's characteristic methodologylong-term field research creates an understanding of human behavior that illuminates the interdependence of diverse types of activity: expressive and pragmatic, sacred and secular, individual and collective. Because of its holism, anthropology has been likened to "the carrying frame onto which may
be fitted all the several subjects of a liberal education." And indeed, the discipline of anthropology has been influenced by multidisciplinary approaches integrating the humanities and social sciences. Historians, comparative political scientists, literary critics, psychologists, and others regularly draw on anthropological research and theory. Princeton anthropology department faculty and students have particularly strong interdisciplinary interests in politics, history, science, medicine, law, gender studies, religion, the analysis of literary texts, and media.

The Department of Anthropology at Princeton has a faculty of nine full-time professors. Its size enables it to provide a variety of approaches
to this vast subject of study and give students personal attention. Anthropology faculty and graduate students are active in research on topics including nationalism, ethnicity, gender, ritual, language, law, violence, refugees, medicine, science, media, and the interrelation of history and culture. Faculty bring to classroom teaching the immediacy of field experiences that span the globe: the Americas (the United States), North Africa and the Middle East, South Asia (India, Nepal), Southeast Asia, China, Tibet, and the Pacific Islands.

Course offerings of the department center on cultural anthropology. The department emphasizes the study of the creative processes whereby human beings invest the natural and social worlds with meaning, and the study of change in societies throughout the world. The emphases on meaning and change constitute the core of contemporary anthropology and will provide students with an excellent understanding of the field. Courses are also offered that introduce human evolution.

Many anthropology majors have chosen to spend the summer before their senior year, or one of the junior year semesters, away from Princeton doing field research. While fieldwork is certainly not required of all majors, it is a unique experience and a refreshing change from the laboratory or library research more commonly part of college work. The anthropology department welcomes and encourages students to develop field projects or plans for study abroad.

Juniors in the department write a spring term junior paper in consultation with a faculty adviser. Fall term junior independent work involves drawing up a research proposal and bibliography in preparation for the spring junior paper, giving students a chance to explore their interests with faculty guidance. Senior theses have focused on a wide variety of subjects and have been based on both library and field research. Some theses have nonwritten components: a theater production, dance performance, photography exhibit, or video. Recent theses have included studies of social change and development (in Brazil, France, Nepal), a comparison of Japanese and American business cultures, a study of the symbolic and political dimensions of the American feminist spirituality movement, an autobiographical study of Mexican-American family history on both sides of the border, a literary and historical study of Japanese gender symbolism, fieldwork in urban AIDS clinics, research in support of the recognition of Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape tribal identity, a study of child abuse, a discussion of the relation between fiction and anthropological writing, a study of black theater in New York City, an investigation of a Pentecostal church in New Jersey, and a study of North African immigrants in France.

While anthropology department concentrators are well prepared for graduate study in the social sciences and humanities (leading to employment as university teachers and researchers), anthropology also offers an excellent foundation for many other careers. It is an asset for anyone whose work will involve international or interethnic communication, public health, and education. Anthropology graduates have included a vice-president of an international trading company; a foreign affairs journalist; lawyers involved in community, immigration, and international law; physicians in a variety of specialities; an epidemiologist; high school teachers; an international energy consultant; a program director for the International Research and Exchanges Board; a computer applications analyst for the National Geographical Society; administrators of community development organizations; and an ecological tour operator in Nepal. Anthropology students have also found work as media and market research consultants and as educational and health care policy researchers.

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