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Anthropology seeks an understanding of human nature, society, and culture
in the widest comparative and historical framework. The department’s
teaching program provides Ph.D. training for research workers and teachers
in the various branches of anthropological science. Lectures, tutorial
guidance, laboratory instruction, and research seminars provide opportunities
for advanced study in sociocultural and linguistic anthropology and archaeology.
Course work, but not a graduate degree program, is also offered in physical
anthropology.
The purpose of the department is the advancement of anthropological research;
this goal is achieved in the graduate program by the development of creative
scholars and scientists. The various educational guidelines that are established
from time to time by the department as a whole as well as by the particular
specialized fields are intended to aid in this development. All programs,
however, are designed to be adaptable to the specific needs and research
interests of individual students. Graduate students are encouraged to
go forward as rapidly as previous preparation and special powers permit.
The identification of specific research problems and the pursuit of these
problems through the writing of original papers are skills that are emphasized
and fostered as early as possible. This experience develops gradually
into the substantial research project that is undertaken for the doctorate.
Graduate students and faculty in the department regularly participate
in a large number of interdisciplinary workshops.
Some are regional (e.g., African Studies; Anthropology of Europe; Anthropology
of Latin America; Caribbean Studies; China’s Long Twentieth Century;
East Asia: Society, Politics and Economy; Interdisciplinary Approaches
to Modern France; Japan in the World, the World in Japan; Latin American
History; Middle East History and Theory; and Theory and Practice in South
Asian Studies), some thematic (e.g., Interdisciplinary Archaeology; Ancient
Societies; Comparative Politics and Historical Sociology; Culture, History
and Social Theory; Culture, Life Course, and Mental Health; Demography;
Education; EthNoise: The Ethnomusicology Workshop; Gender and Society;
History of the Human Sciences; Human Rights; Lesbian and Gay Studies;
Mass Culture; Medicine and Culture; Modern Visual Cultures of the Americas;
Nations and Nationalism; Organizations and State Building; Politics and
Communication; Reproduction of Race and Racial Ideologies; Science, Technology,
Society and the State; Semiotics: Culture in Context; Social Processes
and Institutions in Urban Setting; Social History; and Sociologies and
Cultures of Globalization), and some theoretically oriented (e.g., Contemporary
Philosophy; Continental Philosophy; History and Philosophy of Science;
Political Theory; Psychoanalysis and Human Sciences; Social Theory).
Graduate students beyond the first year may serve as course or laboratory
assistants, and later, as lecturers in College programs. The department
also awards Starr Lectureships each year, on a competitive basis, to advanced
graduate students. Starr Lecturers teach courses on their areas of specialization
in the anthropology concentration in the College.
For a more detailed description of the department’s programs of
study and the interests of its faculty members, please write to Admissions,
Office of the Dean of Students, Division of the Social Sciences, University
of Chicago, 1130 E. 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, ssd-admissions@uchicago.edu.
Programs of Study
Sociocultural and Linguistic Anthropology
Sociocultural anthropology is concerned with the investigation of human
society, culture, and the human relation to nature through intensive ethnographic
investigation and wide-ranging comparison. It is closely related to the
other generalizing social sciences and to the interpretive disciplines
of the humanities. Cross-disciplinary study is encouraged; graduate students
in anthropology often include courses from related fields in their programs.
The Ph.D. program in sociocultural and linguistic anthropology has three
“pre-field” phases, each normally designed as one year’s
work, although under certain circumstances accelerated progress through
the later phases is possible.
Phase I introduces the student to the development of social and
cultural theory and to the scholarly interests of the faculty in the department.
First-year students also take courses in particular specialist areas of
ethnography and theory in order to frame research interests in preparation
for the dissertation project. Course requirements in the first year include
The Development of Social and Cultural Theory (two double courses) and
Introduction to Chicago Anthropology. In addition students take four other
courses dealing with their areas of interest selected in consultation
with the first-year advisor. The requirements of Phase I apply to all
entering graduate students, regardless of whether they hold a master’s
degree in anthropology from another institution.
Phase II training is directed toward acquiring a deeper knowledge
of the special area and theoretical topics on which research will be focused,
as well as toward obtaining a broader anthropological understanding in
preparation for the Ph.D. qualifying examination. With the exception of
those whose master’s theses from elsewhere are approved by the department,
every second-year student completes a master’s paper during that
year. The Ph.D. qualifying examination is normally taken during the spring
of the second year or the autumn of the third year. The department also
requires all students in sociocultural and linguistic anthropology to
take the course in Anthropological Research Methods and to demonstrate
competence in a foreign language by achieving a “High Pass”
on a University foreign language reading examination, preferably by the
end of the second year. The language will be specified by the student’s
advisory committee.
Phase III is a pre-research training period during which the student
hones a dissertation proposal and grant applications and develops advanced
research skills. Upon fulfillment of all pre-dissertation academic requirements
and the acceptance of the dissertation proposal at a hearing in the department,
the student is admitted to candidacy for the Ph.D. degree and proceeds
to research and/or field work and the writing of the dissertation.
Linguistic Anthropology
The linguistic anthropologist is concerned with phonetic, phonological,
grammatical, semantic, and paralinguistic systems and with their relations
to social, cultural and personal ones. A student who chooses linguistic
anthropology as the major sub-field within the Department of Anthropology
should prepare at least one sub-field each in linguistics and anthropology
and satisfy the language requirement. Students of linguistic anthropology
are generally advised to take at least six courses in technical linguistics.
Joint Degree in Anthropology and Linguistics
In addition to linguistic anthropology as a sub-field within the Department
of Anthropology, there is also a joint Ph.D. program available to students
who are admitted first to the Department of Anthropology and subsequently
to the Department of Linguistics. Joint degree students complete the requirements
of both departments, including distinct introductory and advanced courses
stipulated by each, the departmental qualifying examinations in appropriate
special fields, and the language requirements, including additional foreign
languages for the Linguistics Ph.D. The student’s dissertation advisory
committee consists of three or more members of the faculty; at least one
must be a member of the Department of Anthropology but not the Department
of Linguistics, and at least one in Linguistics but not in Anthropology.
After approval for hearing by the advisory committee, the student’s
dissertation proposal must be approved in a hearing open to the faculty
of both departments, and similarly for the final defense of the single
doctoral dissertation that the student writes.
Admission to the Joint Degree Program in Anthropology and Linguistics
cannot be approved until at least the second year, after successful completion
of the core (first-year) coursework and examinations in Linguistics, although
students should declare interest in the joint program on the graduate
application and to the chair of the Department of Anthropology and to
the linguistic anthropologists soon after arriving on campus.
Archaeology
The archaeology program emphasizes the comparative study of complex societies
throughout the world grounded in a close articulation of archaeology,
history and sociocultural anthropology. The program stresses the integration
of social and cultural theory in the practice of archaeology and, in particular,
forges strong links with the historical anthropology that is one of the
recognized strengths of the department. In addition to preparing archaeology
students for anthropologically informed fieldwork and interpretation,
an important element of this interdisciplinary approach is the inauguration
of a training program offering students the methodological skills and
theoretical grounding necessary to undertake innovative ethnoarchaeological
research.
Current faculty strengths include archaeology of Latin America (focusing
on the later prehistory and colonial periods of the Andes and Mesoamerica),
Europe (from the Paleolithic to the Celtic Iron Age), the Near East (from
the Neolithic through the conquests of Alexander), Eurasia (from the early
bronze age through the Scythian era), South Asia and Oceania (state formation
in South India, agricultural intensification, precolonial and early colonial
periods), and southwest Asia (from late prehistory to late antiquity)
as well as ethnoarchaeology in Africa and experimental archaeology in
South America. Associated faculty at the Oriental Institute and in other
University departments specialize in complex societies of the Near East,
Egypt, Greece, Rome, and China.
Research interests include: urbanism, state formation, imperialism, colonial
interaction, industrialization, art and symbolism, spatial analysis, politics,
ritual and religion, human-environment interactions, agricultural systems,
material culture, economic anthropology, political economy and the socio-historical
context and politics of archaeology. Faculty members in archaeology have
major, ongoing field research projects in Armenia, Bolivia, Peru, France,
India, Spain, and Syria and also have research interests in Kenya and
Hawai’i.
The archaeology program requires that students complete a total of 18
courses to qualify for the Ph.D., some of which may be reading and research
in the field of specialization. Students normally enroll in nine courses
per year during their first two years in the program. Within the first
two years, students will complete five required courses that are designed
to provide a comprehensive grounding in social and cultural theory, as
well as the theory and specific methods of archaeology.
In the first year, course requirements include The Development of Social
and Cultural Theory offered over the autumn and winter quarters. The two-quarter
sequence is equivalent to four course credits. In the spring archaeology
students take Theory and Method in Archaeology, also a double-credit course.
The remaining course requirements in the program, to be met in the first
or second year, are Introduction to Chicago Anthropology, and a quantitative
methods course approved by the faculty. For the rest of their course work,
students enjoy a broad range of elective courses in archaeology, sociocultural
anthropology, history, physical anthropology, Classical or Near Eastern
studies, statistics, computer science and geophysical sciences. In addition,
archaeology students are strongly encouraged to gain technical experience
in one of the university’s regular summer field schools or other
research excavations.
By the end of the first year in residence, the archaeology student must
form an advisory committee of three faculty members. The committee will
be chaired by the faculty member of the student’s choice. With the
exception of those students with A.M. theses from other institutions which
are approved by the department, each student will complete an A.M. paper
during the second year. In addition, by the end of year two, each student
takes an oral examination from the members of his/her advisory committee
in the areas of chosen specialization. The oral examination, lasting roughly
an hour and a half, is designed to test basic command of the literature
and methods necessary to pursue Ph.D. research in a chosen area. In the
third year, having passed the qualifying exam, archaeology students are
required to take the proposal preparation seminar. By the end of the third
year, students must defend a dissertation proposal before the faculty
and interested students. Upon fulfillment of all academic requirements
and the acceptance of the dissertation proposal, students are admitted
to candidacy for the
Ph.D. degree.
Physical Anthropology
Courses in physical anthropology, mainly directed towards evolutionary
anthropology and primatology, are offered in the department; but applications
for graduate study in Physical Anthropology are no longer accepted.
Updated 9/09/2003
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