Anthropology

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Professor Deeb (SC)
Assistant Professor Park (SC)
Professors Chao (PZ), Miller (PZ), Segal (PZ), Strauss (PZ)
Associate Professor Chao (PZ), Martins (PZ)

Affiliated faculty: Professor Chatterjee (SC) 
Associate Professor Jaquez (SC)
Assistant Professor Sojoyner (SC)

Anthropology is the study of the broad range and intimate specificity of human societies and cultures throughout the world. At Scripps, we focus on sociocultural anthropology, which explores the social orders and meanings that humans create. This is a comparative endeavor, as anthropologists look at existing cultures in the light of other cultural possibilities. The anthropology curriculum examines a broad range of topics including kinship and family relations; artistic, religious, linguistic, political and economic values and practices; health, medicine, and science; material culture; and the social meanings afforded all these human endeavors. Anthropology also emphasizes the grounding of theoretical interpretations in ethnographic fieldwork. The study of anthropology prepares students for any career in which an understanding and appreciation of the diversity of human activity is foundational. The anthropology curriculum at Scripps is part of a cooperative program with Pitzer College.

Learning Outcomes of the Program in Anthropology

Department Goals and/or Objectives

Goals are broad statements that describe what the program wants to accomplish

1. Students will acquire knowledge of anthropological concepts and will be able to analyze the interconnections among politics, economics, kinship and family, religion, and expressive and artistic forms within social contexts.
2. Students will gain proficiency in the use of anthropological and ethnographic methods, and learn to apply anthropological frameworks to research projects.
3. Students will learn how to recognize and critically discuss the relationship of anthropological arguments, debates, and scholarship to major paradigmatic traditions in disciplinary anthropology.
4. Students will be able to relativize taken-for-granted concepts and institutions in their own social world, question the universality of meanings and practices, and critically engage non-academic versions of anthropological theories.

Student Learning Outcomes

Outcomes describe specific knowledge, abilities, values, and attitudes students should demonstrate

SLO1: Students will demonstrate knowledge of basic anthropological concepts and demonstrate that they can relativize taken-for-granted concepts and institutions in their own social worlds.
SLO2: Students will demonstrate knowledge of and the ability to utilize anthropological or ethnographic methods.
SLO3: Students will demonstrate knowledge of major theoretical paradigms and/or longstanding and continuing debates in anthropology.
SLO4: Students will independently choose a research topic and develop, carry out, and write an anthropological or ethnographic project.
 

Programs

• Anthropology Major
• Anthropology Minor
• Courses in Anthropology

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