Columbia University Home GSAS Home
Dean's Office | Academic Programs | Prospective Students | Current Students | Alumni
Academic Programs
All Programs
M.A. Programs
Ph.D. Programs
Liberal Studies Programs
Dual Degree Program
Non-Degree Programs
Dissertation Sponsors
Other Information
Information About this Department
List of Faculty
Dissertation Sponsors
Degree Requirements
Apply Online
Visit the Department's Website
Course List

Department of Anthropology


Degree Programs: Full-Time: M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.; Full-Time/Part-Time: Free-Standing M.A.; Museum Anthropology: Full-Time/Part-Time: Free-Standing M.A.

Chair: Brinkley Messick, Ph.D.
862 Schermerhorn Ext
Tel: 212-854-7459


Director of Graduate Studies: Nadia Abu El-Haj, Ph.D.
Milbank 411G
Tel: 212-854-4316


M.A. Adviser: Ellen Marakowitz, Ph.D.
468 Schermerhorn Ext.
Tel: 212-854-8268


Dissertation Sponsors

Nadia Abu El-Haj:
Assistant Professor (Barnard), Ph.D., Duke, 1995
Interests: Social cultural anthropology, anthropology of science, colonialism, race; Middle East
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Lila Abu-Lughod:
Professor, Ph.D., Harvard, 1984
Interests: Social anthropology, gender, popular culture and oral literature, self and emotion, Third World media, social transformation, politics of scholarship, Islam; Middle East
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Alexander Alland Jr.:
Professor Emeritus, Ph.D., Yale
Interests: Anthropology and aesthetics, ethnography, racism in academia
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Partha Chatterjee:
Professor, Ph.D., Rochester, 1971
Interests: Nation and State, political theory, political economy, colonialism, religion, agararianism, globalization; South Asia
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Myron L. Cohen:
Professor, Ph.D., Columbia, 1967
Interests: Social organization; political organization; complex societies; peasant societies; China; East society since the seventeenth century; Taiwan and northern, eastern, and western mainland China
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Elaine Combs-Schilling:
Associate Professor, Ph.D., UC Berkeley, 1981
Interests: Symbolic anthropology; political anthropology; nation-state formation; gender; North Africa; Middle East
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Marina Cords:
Professor (Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology), Ph.D., UC Berkeley, 1984
Interests: Biological anthropology; primate social organization; behavioral ecology; behavior, behavioral ecology, ethology, ecology, socioecology, primatology
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Zoe Crossland:
Assistant Professor, Ph.D., Michigan, 2001
Interests: Historical archaeology, forensic archaology, semeiotics; Madagascar Argentina
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Terence D'Altroy:
Professor, Ph.D., UCLA, 1981
Interests: Archaeology; complex politics and economics; Andean South America; quantitative analytic methods
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
E. Valentine Daniel:
Professor, Ph.D., Chicago, 1979
Interests: Semiotic anthropology, refugees, states of violence, critical theory; South Asia
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Nicholas De Genova:
Assistant Professor, Ph.D., Chicago, 1999
Interests: Sociocultural anthropology and Latino studies; U.S.-Mexico migration and transnational social process, racialization, labor and class formation, the production of urban space, nationalism, the politics of citizenship and immigration law, and the politics of ethnographic research practice
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Nicholas B. Dirks:
Professor, Ph.D., Chicago
Interests: Historical anthropology, history of anthropology, ethnology, peasant society, the state, critical theory; South Asia
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Severin M. Fowles:
Assistant Professor (Barnard), Ph.D., Michigan, 1998
Interests: Archelogical Theory, religion and ritual, theocracy, landscape, village societiesoral history, archaeology and ethnography of American Southwest
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Steven Gregory:
Associate Professor, Ph.D., New School, 1986
Interests: Race and gender studies, urban ethnography, environmental justice, cultural race theory, African-American political activism , political economy and globalization
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Ralph L. Holloway:
Professor (Anthropology), Ph.D., UC Berkeley, 1964
Interests: Physical anthropology; evolution of brain and behavior; paleoanthropology;comparative primate psychology and aggression, ethology, evolutionary biology, paleoneurology, hominid paleontology, neural biological variability, sexual dimorphism, and allometry
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Marilyn Ivy:
Associate Professor, Ph.D., Cornell, 1988
Interests: Critical theory, history, anthropology of modernity, literature and textuality; Japan
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Robin D.G. Kelley:
Professor, Ph.D., University of California (Los Angeles), 1987
Interests: Black radical movements in US, African Diaspora, black intellectuals, music, visual culture, contemporary urban studies, poverty studies and ethnography, colonialism/imperialism, organized labor, constructions of race, Surrealism, Marxism, nationalism; African (notably South Africa)
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Paul Kockelman:
Assistant Professor, Barnard, Ph.D., Chicago, 2002
Interests: Linguistic anthropology, personhood and developmental disorders; Guatemala and Urban U.S.
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Brian Larkin:
Assistant Professor, Ph.D., New York University, 1998
Interests: Media, Islam, contemporary cultural theory, globalization; urban Africa
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Claudio Lomnitz:
Professor of Anthropology and Director of Center for Study of Ethnicity and Race, Ph.D., Stanford University, 1987
Interests: Anthropology and history of Latin America, historical anthropology, political anthropology, anthropology of corruption and death, historicity and crisis in contemporary societies, cultural, geography, intellectuals, ethnography of the state, public culture; Mexico, Latin America
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Mahmood Mamdani:
Herbert Lehman Professor of Government (Anthropology, International and Public Affairs), Ph.D., Harvard, 1974
Interests: Political identity, justice and reconciliation in Rwanda and South Africa, Africa, African studies, state reform and social movements
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Don J. Melnick:
Professor (Anthropology, Biological Sciences, Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology), Ph.D., Yale
Interests: Genetic structures of primates, dynamics of genetic change, molecular phylogenies and date cladogenic events; Population genetics, molecular evolution and conservation
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Brinkley Messick:
Professor, Ph.D., Princeton, 1978
Interests: Cultural theory, historical anthropology, law, ethnography of writing, political economy; Middle East, North Africa
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Hlonipha Mokoena:
Assistant Professor, Ph.D., Cape Town, 2005
Interests: Zulu intellectual history, colonialism, missionaries, public spheres; South Africa
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Rosalind Morris:
Professor (Anthropology), Ph.D., Chigaco, 1994
Interests: Visuality and performance, modernity, gender/sexuality; Thailand;the history of modernity in Thailand; the theorization of ritual and performance, and of their relationships to the discourses of cultural order; the transformation of vision and visuality through technologies of mass reproduction, and especially film
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Neni Panourgia:
Associate Professor, Ph.D., Indiana, 1992
Interests: Sociocultural anthropology, critique of science, neoclassical architecture, cancer, death, myths, anthropology and classics; Europe, Greece
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
John Pemberton:
Associate Professor, Ph.D., Cornell, 1989
Interests: Colonial/postcolonial studies, historiography, politics, discourse, ritual practice, translation; Java, Indonesia
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Elizabeth A. Povinelli:
Professor, Ph.D., Yale University, 1991
Interests: Language, culture and power, subjectivity and sexuality, critical theory, liberalism and multiculturalism, indigenous and human rights; Austrailia, US
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Nan A. Rothschild:
Ann Whitney Olin Professor (Barnard Emerita), Ph.D., NYU, 1975
Interests: Urban archaeology; historical archaeology; museology; archaeological methods; social organization; sex roles; native North America; US
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
David Scott:
Associate Professor, Ph.D., New School, 1989
Interests: Colonialism, postcolonialism, politics, cultural theory; Sri Lanka, Caribbean
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Karen Seeley:
Lecturer, Ph.D., Pennsylvania, 1997
Interests: Psychological anthropology, cultural psychology, cultural psychotherapy, comparative human development, psychoanalysis
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Lesley A. Sharp:
Professor (Barnard), Ph.D., UC Berkeley, 1990
Interests: Medical anthropology; religion, work and economic development, gender, ethnographic arts, theory and methods; Africa and Indian Ocean
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Sandhya Shukla:
Assistant Professor, Ph.D., Yale, 1997
Interests: Immigration, race and ethnicity, the Indian diaspora in the US and UK, US cultural studies
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Michael Taussig:
Professor, Ph.D., London School or Economics, 1974
Interests: Theory, colonialism, shamanism, terror, folk healing, mimesis, magicalities of the state, secrecy, Latin America
Approved Dissertation Sponsor
Paige West:
Assistant Professor (Anthropology, Barnard College), PhD, Rutgers University, 2000
Interests: Cultural and environmental anthropology, relationship between conservation and development and the imagination and the environment, social and environmental consequences of conservation and the production of nature and culture; Linkages between environmental conservation and international development, and environmental ethics;Anthropology, political ecology, Melanesi
Approved Dissertation Sponsor




SITE MAP  |  GSAS HOME  |  CU HOME  |  CONTACT US