Anthropology
The Anthropology Department offers a rigorous and comprehensive program for graduate students, who study anthropology through coursework, fieldwork, and laboratory work.
Our faculty members are at the forefront of research in fields that include religion, politics, family and society, human sexuality, the evolutionary biology of human and nonhuman primates, and archaeological research on long-term change in environments, agricultural systems, and early urbanism.
Social anthropologists typically identify themselves in relation to two broad types of concerns: geographical regions of expertise and topics of theoretical investigation. Among world areas, the department has concentrated on four regions: Africa, Asia broadly conceived, the Islamic world, and Europe. We have recently moved to increase our expertise in the Americas. This focus on world areas builds on center and department resources across the University, including the African Studies Center, the Center for the Study of Asia, the Center for Latin American Studies, and the Pardee School of Global Studies. In terms of theoretical topics, our social anthropology faculty are leaders in the study of youth and gender, religion and modernity, care and family, migration and belonging, psychological anthropology, environmental anthropology, and political anthropology.
Biological anthropologists focus on the evolutionary biology of both humans and nonhuman primates and typically have specialties themselves based on their study subjects (human or nonhuman primates) and methodology (behavioral ecology, genetics/genomics, physiology, and morphology). Current faculty research projects afford opportunities for students to become involved in cutting-edge field research and laboratory studies, including evolutionary genetics and genomics, fossil morphology, comparative studies of human maturation, primate ecology and life history, human and primate reproduction and nutrition, and the evolution of complex social systems. Students hoping to conduct graduate coursework in forensic anthropology should apply to the MS program in Forensic Anthropology at the BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine.
Archaeology is the study of the human past from prehistory to recent times, primarily through the study of material remains. Our anthropological archaeology program focuses on various aspects of past societies, including human-environment interactions, agricultural strategies, urbanism, households, colonialism, and material culture viewed in deep historical perspective. At Boston University, archaeologists study these themes to understand and learn from the past, applying their research to issues of global concern, including collaborative and Indigenous research, climate change, and human migration. Primary regions of active fieldwork and laboratory study include Mesoamerica, North America, and the Mediterranean, and we offer training in a variety of technical methods, including zooarchaeology, paleoethnobotany, ceramic analysis, spatial analysis, human osteology, and others.
In all these respects, the graduate program in Anthropology at Boston University is committed to the training of a new generation of anthropologists capable of addressing the challenges of the modern world.
