Graduate Programs of Study in Anthropology at Cornell
The Graduate Field of Anthropology encompasses the faculty of the Department of Anthropology as well as anthropologists in other departments and programs. At Cornell the field of anthropology has a long intellectual tradition. Its current emphasis is on complex social and cultural systems -- primarily through sociocultural anthropology, but also through archaeology and biological anthropology. We deal with past and present sociocultural systems through courses on myth, ritual, symbols, religion, kinship, gender and sexuality, nationality and ethnicity, personhood and identity, visual anthropology, urban anthropology, economic, political, and legal anthropology. We specialize in world areas, with special concern for cultural diversity in: Southeast Asia, South Asia, East Asia, Latin America, Mesoamerica, Oceania, Europe, the United States, and the Caribbean. Most members of the field of anthropology are also members of one or more of Cornell's many area studies, ethnic studies, or inter-disciplinary programs. Students can take courses and work with faculty from any of these programs.
The graduate program in anthropology aims to combine anthropologically grounded knowledge with an understanding of the history of the discipline and the development of current theoretical debates. Collaboration among the subfields of sociocultural anthropology, archaeology, and biological anthropology encourages the study of thought systems of ancient and contemporary societies, the origins of sedentism and domestication, ethnohistory, the origins of the state and complex institutional systems, social and cultural reproduction, biological and cultural aspects of human sexuality, and the history and theory of anthropology. Methodological training emphasizes ethnography but includes additional approaches from the three subdisciplines.
Cornell's unique structure, which joins the private university to the land grant university, provides students with the opportunity to gain substantial training in a broad range of theoretical and practical applications of the discipline. Cornell's Libraries offer extensive holdings of special interest to anthropologists, including the world-renowned Wason-Echols Collections on South, Southeast, and East Asian history, cultures, and languages in the Kroch Library.