Law and Politics

For those with interests in law and politics, anthropology provides an understanding of the origins and nature of governance as well as how the problem of order has been treated across cultures from prehistory to the present. A key question animating this approach is how societies have developed systems of rules and conflict resolution processes to conciliate the tension between collective and individual needs, desires, and rights. More broadly, anthropology asks how peoples across the globe constitute the political.  The Law & Politics pathway gives students an excellent grounding for pursuing law as a career, be it in academia or in professional practice, as it enhances one’s understanding of the law’s sociocultural grounding and the complexities inherent in regulating human behavior.

This pathway through the major could include these courses:

  • ANTHR 2310 Natural History of Chimpanzees & the Origins of Politics 

  • ANTHR 2430 Rise and Fall of Civilization 

  • ANTHR 2433 Anthropology of Law & Politics  

  • ANTHR 3428 Conflict, Dispute Resolution, & Law in Cultural Context 

  • ANTHR 3437 Brave New World, 21st Century Authoritarianism

  • ANTHR 3465 Anthropology of the Body   

  • ANTHR 3552 Genocide Today 

  • ANTHR 3620 A Global Controversy: How to Study a Human Rights Violation 

  • ANTHR 3762 Law, Latinxs, Illegality  

  • ANTHR 4176 Humanitarian Affects  

  • ANTHR 4225 The Prehistory of Power:  Archaeological Visions of the Political

  • ANTHR 4268 Aztecs and their Empire: Myth, History, and Politics   

  • ANTHR 4476 Carceral Worlds: Policing, Prisons, and Securitization 

  • ANTHR 4485 Secularism and the Minority Question

  • ANTHR 4725 American Indian Lands and Sovereignties

  • Other courses from Anthropology or other units with departmental approval.

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