Anthropology

While all of our doctoral students complete a core curriculum stressing comprehensive grounding in the field's key methods and theories, our students specialize in one of three areas of faculty strength: socio-cultural anthropology, anthropological archaeology, and linguistic anthropology.  Some students further specialize in one of our particular areas of strength, including demographic anthropology, the anthropology of development, Mesoamerican archaeology, Andean archaeology, historical archaeology, medical anthropology, urban anthropology, environmental anthropology, and gender. Brown has offered graduate degrees in Anthropology since the 1960s, and our graduates are employed in a range of teaching, research and museum positions, as well as in nonacademic fields where anthropological expertise is required.

Additional Resources

Medical and population anthropologists are closely linked to Brown's Population Studies and Training Center, through the Working Group in Anthropology and Population, as well as the School of Public Health's Global Health Initiative. The department has strong ties to the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, especially through the Graduate Program in Development and its area studies centers. The Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology provides important research collections for archaeology and world ethnography, and archaeologists in the department also connect with the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World and the John Carter Brown Library for ethnohistorical documents pertaining to the Americas. The Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women at Brown, the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, and the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America provide additional valued opportunities for collaboration. The John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage supports students and faculty interested in public humanities.