Cornell University

Graduate SchoolGraduate School

Graduate SchoolFields of Study

Anthropology

Field Description

Graduate training in the Field of Anthropology emphasizes sociocultural anthropology, with an additional concentration in archaeological anthropology; biological anthropology is primarily an undergraduate program except under special circumstances, particularly in international nutrition. Substantively, the Field of Anthropology combines humanistic and social scientific approaches in innovative ethnographic research, emphasizing culture as a productive process and anthropologists as engaged in understanding and defending cultural diversity. Geographically, our greatest depth is in Asia (East, South and Southeast), but the Americas, Europe, and Oceania all also figure importantly. The Field of Anthropology has strong ties with all the geographic area programs, as well as faculty active in many other interdisciplinary programs, including joint appointments with Asian American Studies, Latino Studies and Women's Studies.

The graduate program in anthropology is highly individualized and interdisciplinary. Only three courses and a field research proposal are required; thus, the bulk of students' work in language, area studies, or other training is individually designed in consultation with the Special Committee. Individually tailored examinations occur after approximately the first year of course work (the Qualifying Exam), the second or third year (the Admission to Candidacy, or A Exam), and after completion of the thesis (the Defense or B Exam). Most graduate students in the Field of Anthropology complete one to two years of intensive field research. All doctoral candidates are also expected to teach at some point: most students first get experience as assistants in both introductory and mid-level courses; later, many design and teach courses of their own in the Knight Writing Program. A vigorous weekly colloquium series enriches the intellectual environment for both students and faculty.

The Field of Anthropology primarily admits candidates seeking a Ph.D. because of the lack of funding for, and employment with, only an M.A. With very rare exceptions, every student admitted to the Ph.D. program receives full funding to support all the expected years of on-campus study. In recent years, all our graduate students have received additional funding, either from Cornell or from major external sources such as NSF, Fulbright, SSRC, and Wenner-Gren to conduct both preliminary and dissertation field research. Most students complete the Ph.D. within seven years and most have gone on to find academic employment at major colleges and universities in the U.S. or abroad.

Contact Information

Website: http://anthropology.cornell.edu/
Email: ldw59@cornell.edu
Phone: 607 255-6768

266 McGraw Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853-4601

 

Data and Statistics

Field Manual

Subject and Degrees

Anthropology

Concentrations by Subject

Anthropology

  • archaeological anthropology
  • socio-cultural anthropology

Faculty

Chloe Ahmann

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: socio-cultural anthropology
  • Research Interests: Environmental anthropology, political anthropology, science and technology studies, industrialism, climate change, time and temporality, urban history; United States

Caitlin Barrett

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: archaeological anthropology
  • Research Interests: classical archaeology; egyptology; archaeology of religion

Sarah Besky

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: socio-cultural anthropology
  • Research Interests: anthropology of work, labor, land, agriculture, Buddhism, oral histories, Nepal, India

Amiel Bize

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: socio-cultural anthropology
  • Research Interests: Economic Anthropology, Science and Technology Studies, Value, Capitalism, Margins, Risk and Insurance

Jonathan Boyarin

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: socio-cultural anthropology
  • Research Interests: Jewish ethnography, East European Jewish culture, migration, comparative diaspora, collective memory, politics of identity, textuality and orality, temporalities

Jane Fajans

  • Campus: Ithaca - (Graduate School Professor)
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: socio-cultural anthropology
  • Research Interests: social and cultural anthropology; ritual and symbolic forms; socialization and life cycle; gender studies (Oceania)

Magnus Fiskesjo

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: archaeological anthropology; socio-cultural anthropology
  • Research Interests: China; East and Southeast Asia; historical and political anthropology; autonomy and dependence; ethnicity and ethnonymy; cultural heritage

Frederic Wright Gleach

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: archaeological anthropology; socio-cultural anthropology
  • Research Interests: historical anthropology; history of anthropology; material visual culture; museum studies; tourism; warfare; religion; native North America; Puerto Rico; Cuba

Seema Golestaneh

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: socio-cultural anthropology
  • Research Interests: anthropology of Islam, Islam and governance, contemporary Sufi thought and practice in Iran, contemporary Shi'i thought and practice in Iran, literary cultures, aesthetics and mediation

Denise Nicole Green

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: socio-cultural anthropology

Davydd James Greenwood

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: socio-cultural anthropology
  • Research Interests: action research; industrial democracy; program evaluation; political economy, universities as work organizations; Spain (Basque Country, La Mancha)

John Stanley Henderson

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: archaeological anthropology
  • Research Interests: archaeology; ethnohistory; evolution and complex societies; settlement and household archaeology; Mesoamerica

Saida Hodzic

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: socio-cultural anthropology
  • Research Interests: medical and legal anthropology; gender and sexuality; human rights, violence, development, and citizenship; science and global health; postcolonial and critical theory

David Hines Holmberg

  • Campus: Ithaca - (Graduate School Professor)
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: socio-cultural anthropology
  • Research Interests: culture and meaning; comparative religion; social organization; South Asian studies; women's studies

Kurt Jordan

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: archaeological anthropology
  • Research Interests: archaeological anthropology; archaeology of indigenous peoples; colonialism and culture

Lori Khatchadourian

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: archaeological anthropology
  • Research Interests: archaeological theory; eastern Mediterranean in antiquity; Achaemenid Persian empire; archaeology of Eurasia and the South Caucasus

Stacey A. Langwick

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: socio-cultural anthropology
  • Research Interests: anthropology of medicine; healing and the body; postcolonial science studies; African ethnography; anthropology of knowledge; politics of materiality; culture and feminist theory

Sturt W. Manning

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: archaeological anthropology

Kathryn S March

  • Campus: Ithaca - (Graduate School Professor)
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: socio-cultural anthropology
  • Research Interests: culture and meaning; expressive culture; social organization; South Asian studies; women's studies

Viranjini P Munasinghe

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: socio-cultural anthropology
  • Research Interests: ethnicity; nationalism; South Asian diaspora; Caribbean; Asian American studies

Paul Nadasdy

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: archaeological anthropology; socio-cultural anthropology
  • Research Interests: aboriginal people and the state; arctic/sub-arctic studies; hunter-gatherer studies; anthropology of science and knowledge; politics of wildlife management; environmental/ecological anthropology

Alex M. Nading

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: socio-cultural anthropology
  • Research Interests: medical anthropology, Latin America, environmental anthropology, science and technology studies, development

Juno Salazar Parrenas

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: socio-cultural anthropology
  • Research Interests: anthropology of science, human-animal relations, southeast Asia

Rachel Prentice

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: socio-cultural anthropology

Natasha Raheja

  • Campus: Ithaca - (Minor Member)
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: socio-cultural anthropology
  • Research Interests: visual anthropology, documentary, migration, citizenship, borders, South Asia

Lucinda Ramberg

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: socio-cultural anthropology
  • Research Interests: culture; medicine and the body; religion and secularism; gender, sexuality, and kinship; feminist, queer and post colonial theory; south Asia

Alison Katherine Rittershaus

  • Campus: Ithaca - (Minor Member)
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: archaeological anthropology; socio-cultural anthropology
  • Research Interests: Classical Art and Archaeology Museum Studies

Nerissa Russell

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: archaeological anthropology; socio-cultural anthropology
  • Research Interests: European and Near Eastern prehistory; Neolithic zooarchaeology and bone tools; inequality; human-animal relationships; social and symbolic roles of animals and meat

Adam T Smith

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: archaeological anthropology
  • Research Interests: archaeology; political anthropology; Eurasia, and the Near East and the caucasus; archaeological and political theory; early complex politics; authority and sovereignty

Noah Tamarkin

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: socio-cultural anthropology
  • Research Interests: political and legal anthropology, science and technology studies, Jewish studies, race and genetics, citizenship, diaspora, and indigeneity, policing and carcerality, gender and sexuality

Matthew C. Velasco

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: archaeological anthropology
  • Research Interests: Bioarchaeology; Andean archaeology; mortuary practice; stable isotope analysis; paleopathology; taphonomy; cranial modification; ethnogenesis

Sofia A. Villenas

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: socio-cultural anthropology
  • Research Interests: anthropology of education; multiculturalism; critical race studies; language; school equity; community; ethnic studies; feminist cultural studies

Marina A. Welker

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: socio-cultural anthropology
  • Research Interests: corporations and capitalism; international development; global networks; nongovernmental organizations; political economy; social theory; business history in the United States and Southeast Asia (insular and mainland, especially Indonesia, Burma, Thailand)

Andrew C Willford

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Anthropology: socio-cultural anthropology
  • Research Interests: sociocultural anthropology; political economy; ethnicity; nationalism; transnationalism; symbolism; religious revivalism; Hinduism; Malaysia; India; U.S.A.