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Haverford College
Department of Anthropology
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Curriculum

Anthropology is the holistic and comparative study of human beings. Anthropologists study people from a variety of perspectives--historical, biological, social, and cultural.

At Haverford we teach socio-cultural anthropology: the comparative study of social organization, family life, subsistence, exchange, politics, ritual, religion, and expressive culture in diverse human communities. Socio-cultural anthropologists promote knowledge and broaden intercultural understanding through sustained participant-observation fieldwork; they study small-scale indigenous and rural communities, state societies and urban populations, and transnational polities and cultures.

Anthropology at Haverford

The Anthropology Major at Haverford teaches students the methods of social and cultural research and analysis and introduces them to the history of anthropology. Students are encouraged to think critically and self-reflectively about several areas of intellectual inquiry, including:

  1. Ethnography: the interpretive skills, analytic frameworks, and descriptive genres through which anthropologists have sought to represent their own and other societies.
  2. Comparative social structure and process: how persons are linked, related or opposed in various social orders, and how such relations are reproduced or tranformed
  3. "Person" as understood in various cultural systems: ideologies of the person in various social and cultural systems
  4. Meaning, communication, and symbolic process
  5. History: problems of historical transformation, and the intellectual legacies and limitations of social evolutionist models, including theories of progress, development and modernization.

The Haverford Department of Anthropology does not teach archaeology or physical/biological anthropology. Courses in those areas may be taken at Bryn Mawr College.

Major Requirements

Students are required to take a total of 11 courses in the major, including six required courses within the department. Individual programs require the advisor’s approval.

  1. ANTH 103a, Introduction to Anthropology, preferably in the first or second year.
  2. ANTH 303a or b, History and Theory of Anthropology, before the senior year.
  3. One course focused on an ethnographic area, such as ANTH 241, Mediterranean; ANTH 245, Africa; ANTH 244, China; or a similar course on another campus.
  4. One other 200 level course in this department.
  5. One 300 level course in this department, before the senior year.
  6. A two-credit, intensive Senior Thesis Seminar, during the fall and spring semesters of the senior year (Anthropology 450/451).

All major programs require the approval of the major advisor. No more than one biological anthropology or archaeology course may be counted for the Haverford major. The remaining courses may be courses offered in the department, in an anthropology department on another campus, or in approved related fields. Students are expected to familiarize themselves with the use of e-mail, Blackboard, Tripod, and the storage server.

Minor Requirements

The minor in anthropology consists of six courses, including: ANTH 103a, Introduction to Anthropology; ANTH 303, History and Theory of Anthropology; an ethnographic area course; and three other courses at the 200 or 300 level, including one course at the 300 level. A minimum of three courses must be taken in the Haverford department. Students are expected to familiarize themselves with the use of e-mail, Blackboard, Tripod, and the storage server.

Requirements for Honors

Honors are decided at the discretion of the faculty in the department of Anthropology. They are based upon overall excellence in the major. "Excellence" is defined by three criteria: outstanding work in the senior thesis (final written work and oral presentation), strong cumulative performance in all anthropological coursework (typically a grade point average of 3.7 or higher), and a record of consistent intellectual commitment and participation in the department. High Honors will be awarded, upon occasion, for exceptional contributions in all areas.