Department of Anthropology

Slide 1: Shooting Tripoli Cancelled at Ellinikon Airport, Athens. © Naeem Mohaiemen
Slide 2: 'Love in the NY Underground,' © John Pemberton
Slide 3: Still from "The Mermaids, Or Aiden In Wonderland" (2018). © Karrabing Film Collective
Slide 4: Rusty Rheingold beer cans
Slide 5: 'Crossing the Road' © Benjamin Liberatore
Slide 6: Machu Picchu © Terence D'Altroy
Slide 7: Tholpava koothu shadow puppet, back stage, © Suyash Dwivedi
Slide 8: 'Elvis is in the House' © John Pemberton
Slide 9: 'The Cut' © John Pemberton
Slide 10: Still from 'We are Zama Zama' @ Rosalind C. Morris
Slide 11: 'Mount Sinai-St.Catherine' @ Hadeel Assali
Slide 12: Block Cave Mandible @ Hannah Chazin

Train passing through underground station

STILL FROM MERMAIDS, KARRABING COLLECTIVE

Hong Kong Night Market, @ Ben Liberatore

Elvis poster in window of Jones coffee shop, red

Barbershop in New York, seen from outside

Still from 'We are Zama Zama' @ Rosalind C. Morris, men descending in gold mine

Open Letter from the Anthropology Faculty to President Minouche Shafik - April 19, 2024

The Anthropology department finds itself shocked that you would have called in the NYPD to break-up a peaceful demonstration of justifiable student outrage at current events in the Middle East and its repercussions in the US. It is clear from the Congressional hearings on Wednesday, 17 April, that there is now enormous pressure on your office; we believe that this is precisely the moment to bring our entire community together in defense of our hard-earned and deeply cultivated commitment to processing respectful political antagonisms.

We very strongly urge that you intervene immediately to secure the release of all our detained students, and ensure that all charges against them are dropped. We further encourage you to issue a call for all faculty and students to unite in our community's continued resolve to nurture and process political dissent in freedom and mutual respect.

Open Letter to President Rosenbury, of Barnard College

Dear President Rosenbury,

We are writing to you as the Columbia-Barnard Anthropology department to express our resolute opposition to your treatment of Barnard students who attended a peaceful demonstration of current events in the Middle East and its repercussions in the US. The camp posed no threat to University life. We recognize it was not your decision to call the NYPD onto campus. It was your decision, however, to issue “interim suspensions” to students, without due process, and shockingly, to immediately evict them from their dorms, also denying them access to the dining halls. Upon their release from the police station, they literally had nowhere to sleep. Rendering students homeless, and giving them 15 minutes to pack up their stuff and leave, is unconscionable.

We demand that you immediately drop all charges against the students and allow them back into their dorms. We further encourage you to issue a call for all faculty and students to unite in our community's continued resolve to nurture and process political dissent in freedom and mutual respect.

WELCOME

The Department of Anthropology, established by Franz Boas in 1902, is the oldest in the United States and remains a center of disciplinary innovation and theoretical leadership. The department’s faculty members are actively engaged in research and writing about issues of both pressing contemporary relevance and historical significance. Our scholars work in regions and language traditions around the globe and in the United States, as do our students. We operate doctoral degree programs in both sociocultural anthropology and archaeology, and host two distinct MA programs, one in sociocultural anthropology and the other in museum anthropology. In addition, we offer rigorous undergraduate training toward both the major and the concentration, and welcome students from other disciplines into our classes. More.

DEPARTMENTAL STATEMENT ON ETHICS OF RESEARCH AND STEWARDSHIP OF ANCESTRAL REMAINS AND CULTURAL MATERIALS

The Department of Anthropology at Columbia University is committed to the ethical pursuit of knowledge, and the responsible stewardship of that which is entrusted to us in the course of our research, including diverse materials of cultural value and significance. As heirs to a lengthy history of anthropological research, we are also committed to the ethical stewardship of ancestral remains, objects and collections that were generated or acquired by our predecessors. To that end, we are engaged in an ongoing process of identifying and inventorying materials on site, consulting with relevant professional and cultural organizations and authorities to determine provenance, and working to ensure the well-being and, where appropriate, repatriation of ancestral remains, objects and materials of cultural value and significance to the communities whence they originated.

We are guided in our efforts by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), and by international treaties, professional protocols, and our own commitments to just and responsible research practice. In 2024, the Department of Anthropology began taking steps to comply with new NAGPRA regulations, which went into effect on January 12, 2024.

Further information.

PROGRAMS OF STUDY

OUR RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS

The research interests of our faculty and students cover a broad range of theoretical and empirical questions, and our scholarly and personal engagements traverse an equally wide range of geopolitical and territorial domains. Broadly speaking, these interests can be grouped under the thematic headings indicated by the icons below. On the pages linked to the icons, you will find: a brief description of the issues and the Department’s historical relationship to them; a list of faculty members whose research and writing addresses these themes; a list of courses covering related questions and problems; and select publications on these subjects by our faculty members.