Ongoing research projects in the Department engage a range of critical themes including: medicine and culture; politics, inequality and sovereignty; economy, finance, corporations and law; materiality and aesthetics; gender, personhood and identity; ethics and humanitarianism; humans and animals; colonialism and post-coloniality.

Select Current Research Projects:

Jewish Communities on New York’s Lower East Side (Boyarin)
Humanitarian Encounters (Hodzic)
Excavations at the Seneca Iroquois White Springs site near Geneva, New York (Jordan)
The Archaeology and Geography of Ancient Transcaucasian Societies (Smith)

Faculty Research

Anthropological research is engaged with local communities. It is committed to empirical observation. And it is shaped by advanced theoretical understandings of practice and process, tradition and transformation. These are a few highlights of our current work:

Student Research Opportunities

The Department of Anthropology has many partners on campus and around the world that enable our students and faculty members to explore collaborative research opportunities. Students can work with faculty but are also encouraged to develop their own skills at imagining, designing and executing individual research projects.

Thanks to the Freedman Awards for Undergraduate Research, the department can provide some financial support to help students gain training at field schools, conduct original research and gather data in support of an honors thesis. Anthropological research experience is an unparalleled way to gain experience working independently in the global community.

Visit the engaged anthropology page for more information on student opportunities.

Application Directions for the Freedman Award and Engaged Learning Scholarships are below:

Freedman Fund for Undergraduate Research Application Directions

Engaged Learning in Anthropology Scholarship Application Directions