Anthropology

Academic Department Introduction

Anthropology explores the diversity and commonalities of the human condition across the world, throughout time. Anthropologists work in faraway places and at home, examining the contemporary moment as well as the distant past. The field is inherently multicultural and multidisciplinary. It covers history, archeology, biology, and social and cultural studies. Our students gain a profound understanding of human nature and the role of culture in everyday lives, including their own. Our faculty carries out research in Nepal, the Balkans, Bolivia, Sudan, Iceland, Central Asia, and Wellesley, Mass.

Learning goals

Learn the basic features of human prehistory, as represented through material and fossil remains.
Practice methods used in anthropological field research, including the excavation of archaeological sites and the construction of ethnographies.

Programs of Study

Anthropology major and minor

Students will gain an understanding of how human cultures vary in their social institutions and practices across time and space.

Major requirements

Minor requirements

Course highlights

Divine Madness: Dreams, Visions, Hallucinations

REL236

This course explores anthropological, religious, and psychiatric perspectives on mental health and mental illness, with careful attention to varied constructions of "madness", treatment, and healing across human cultures. We begin with comparative questions: are there universal standards of positive mental and emotional functioning? Are there overall commonalities in approaches to psychic and emotional disturbances? What is the role of spirituality? After considering the history of ‘madness’ in the West, we consider early anthropological and religious models of "madness" elsewhere. We next turn to ritualized therapeutic interventions in small-scale indigenous societies and consider a range of case studies from around the world. We conclude with a unit on culture and mental health in the United States and the ‘globalization” of American models of the psyche

(ANTH 236 and REL 236 are cross-listed courses.)

Advanced Theory in Anthropology

ANTH301

This course traces a series of conversations in theory and method in anthropology from a broadly thematic perspective. It provides students with a foundation for situating contemporary anthropology and its many theoretical approaches and debates by tracing the field's historical development. It examines the social context in which various "paradigms" took hold and the extent that they gained traction, were critiqued and discredited, or were reconfigured and reinvigorated. We will explore the development of contemporary theory as internal to the discipline and as a response to changing intellectual climates and social milieus. Our discussions will be aimed at identifying both shifts and continuities in the thematic foci, methodological stance, and guiding concerns of the discipline.
Epidemics and Pandemics: Biopolitics, and disparities in historical and cultural perspective

ANTH220

The course will examine epidemics and pandemics and how they shape society and culture. It will explore catastrophic disease events such as the 4th century BC Ancient Greek plague, the Black Death of Medieval Europe, the European infectious diseases that killed native populations of the Americas, the Spanish flu of 1918, the AIDS/HIV epidemic in the late 20th century, and the present-day coronavirus pandemic. Key questions that will guide the course are: 1. Who holds the bio-political power to guide the population through the danger of widespread morbidity, and how is this power used and/or abused? 2. What kind of socioeconomic, gender, ethnic ,and racial disparities are perpetuated and constructed in times of disease? 3. How do individual political entities cooperate and coordinate in their efforts to curtail disease? 4. How is the rhetoric of “war” employed to describe epidemic and pandemic diseases? 5. What are the effects of actual war, violence, and genocide that often follow epidemics? 6. What are the uses and the limitations of international public health organizations in addressing pandemics? (ANTH 220 and PEAC 220 are cross-listed courses.)

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Research highlights

In collaboration with Wellesley colleagues, Professor Adam Van Arsdale is constructing a virtual reality (VR) evolutionary anatomy lab, which enables students to access, explore, and interact with human skeletal anatomy and the human fossil record in ways that are not possible in the “real” world.
Professor Susan Ellison’s research links debates about democracy, foreign aid, justice, and trust to lived experiences of violence and financial insecurity. Ellison’s book, Domesticating Democracy: The Politics of Conflict Resolution in Bolivia (Duke University Press, 2018), received the Bryce Wood Book Award from the Latin American Studies Association and the Association of Political and Legal Anthropology book prize in critical anthropology.

Beyond Wellesley

Careers of anthropology graduates include health care, K–12 education, and higher education. Recent employers include Massachusetts General Hospital, Americorps, and MIT.