Smith’s anthropology offerings promote awareness and understanding of ethnic and cultural diversity on a global scale as well as in the United States. We challenge students’ assumptions about their cultures by introducing them to societies and social groups whose principles and prejudices are different from their own. As a result, students carry a greater sensitivity to the cultural dimension of human experience in their work and lives.
Announcements
Welcome to the Department of Anthropology
Are you considering a major in Anthropology? Please reach out to Prof. Klarich (eklarich@smith.edu) for more information.
Be sure to join us on Saturday, April 29th for the Five College Anthropology Conference in the Julia McWilliams Child Campus Center!
Goals for Majors in Anthropology
Students should have:
- an understanding of the breadth of the subfields of cultural anthropology and/or archeology
- knowledge of the research methods used by anthropologists
- an understanding of the concept of culture and how cultural processes work in the production of meaning
- knowledge of the theoretical foundations of the discipline
- knowledge of the ethical implications of research
- the ability to apply 1–5 to real-world situations both inside and outside of academia
Student Learning Outcomes
All majors in anthropology are expected to demonstrate:
- The ability to communicate in writing and in oral presentations in classrooms and other settings
- The ability to conduct library or document based research
- The ability to read and interpret professional publications in anthropology
- Understanding of the links among anthropological data, method and theory
- Understanding of the possible impacts of anthropological knowledge on broader questions of policy, political participation, and the allocation of diverse tangible and intangible resources
Required Courses
Two elements of the anthropology major are particularly useful in a world increasingly marked by global movements of populations: a foundational knowledge of the societies and cultures of distinct parts of the world and a grasp of the methods by which those societies may be studied in a respectful manner. An appreciation for the complexity of cultures is a critical skill in any profession that reaches across social divides.
- ANT 130 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
- ANT 200 Research Methods in Anthropology (fall)
- ANT 233 The History of Anthropological Theory (spring)
- One Smith senior seminar
- Four additional anthropology classes*, chosen in consultation with your adviser, based on your specific geographical and subject interests
- Three additional classes in anthropology or other disciplines that are related to your interests, with approval of your adviser**
- Foreign language requirement (if applicable)
*Those offered by Smith's anthropology department, by anthropologists with appointments in other Smith departments or programs, or by anthropologists at other approved colleges or universities in the United States and abroad.
**A maximum of two language courses may count toward this requirement.
Choosing an Adviser
You may be tempted to ask the faculty member you had in an introductory class to serve as your adviser, but the best idea is to find a member of the department who shares your interests (geographical and/or topical) and from whom you are likely to take at least two classes. That way, your adviser will get to know you well enough to provide guidance and write useful letters of reference. Look at the biographies of department members and see whose research and teaching aligns with your anticipated direction. Plan to stop by to talk with your prospective adviser during his or her office hours. You may change your adviser at any time.
Transfer Credit
You are welcome to take anthropology seminars off campus and they can count toward the major, but they may not replace a Smith class for the seminar requirement. The only exceptions will be for students with an established focus in biological anthropology or linguistics; since we do not offer seminars in these subfields, we will consider a petition to have the seminar requirement fulfilled off campus.
You may be tempted to ask the faculty member you had in an introductory class to serve as your adviser, but the best idea is to find a member of the department who shares your interests (geographical and/or topical) and from whom you are likely to take at least two classes. That way, your adviser will get to know you well enough to provide guidance and write useful letters of reference. Look at the biographies of department members and see whose research and teaching aligns with your anticipated direction. Plan to stop by to talk with your prospective adviser during his or her office hours. You may change your adviser at any time.
Foreign Language Requirement
Language is central to how people develop a worldview. Since anthropology is dedicated to the profound knowledge of cultures, language learning is a foundational skill. Majors must show a competency in one foreign language equivalent to four semesters of college-level classes. You may demonstrate this level of competency by completing language courses at the intermediate level or by certification from a language instructor. For languages that are not represented at Smith, you can select a qualified evaluator in consultation with your adviser.
Funding is available for majors seeking financial assistance in language instruction. See Nancy “Penny” Schwartz Fund under "Opportunities & Resources: Grants" below.
Biological Anthropology Exception
Students who focus their major in biological anthropology may replace the language requirement with two courses in mathematics and/or natural science if the courses serve as an essential foundation for advanced work in this subfield and are above the 100 level. Any alternative for the language requirement will be developed in consultation with an adviser and must be part of an overall plan of studies approved by the entire department. The alternative to the language requirement is considered exceptional and must be justified by a well-considered curricular plan.
Special Studies
A junior or senior wishing to pursue individualized study that is not available in another course, or to pursue more advanced study within a topic, may enroll in special studies (Anthropology 404a, b, or 408d).
Special studies may also grow out of an internship experience or a project undertaken during study abroad. Special studies sometimes serve as the basis for a subsequent honors project. It is the student's responsibility to propose a project to a faculty member, keeping in mind that the work associated with a special study must be equivalent to that required in a regular course carrying the same number of credits. Special studies may involve the development of an annotated bibliography that will serve as the basis for an honors project, a seminar-like research paper, an exhibit of creative work (e.g., documentary video, photography, dance), or any other product agreed to by the student and the supervising faculty member. Faculty members may not be able to accept a special study if they are insufficiently knowledgeable about the proposed subject or if they have already agreed to supervise others for that semester.
You must secure the agreement of a faculty member well in advance to supervise a particular project prior to enrolling in the course.
Study Abroad
Anthropology majors are encouraged to consider an academic program abroad during junior year. For more information, scroll to Study Abroad.
Research with Human Subjects
Students must obtain prior approval from the Smith College Institutional Review Board for any research with human subjects, even if it is carried out under the supervision of persons affiliated with other institutions. The approval that a non-Smith project may have received from some other review board may not substitute a review by Smith's IRB, although your application for approval may cite pre-existing approval.
For students seeking more in-depth studies in their major, the honors program allows qualified students to devote a substantial portion of their senior year's coursework to an extensive research project. The work culminates in the writing of a thesis and the completion of an oral exam.
The honors program offers an excellent opportunity for a student to develop advanced research and writing skills, but it is not intended for everyone. You should have a strong interest in a specific subject that you want to spend a substantial part of your final two semesters exploring. Although an honors project does not have to be based on independent fieldwork, it must do more than summarize or review an existing body of literature. You should have done preliminary reading on the subject and have an initial idea about what you want to show through your research (i.e., your thesis). You also must develop a relationship with a faculty member who has the background necessary to support and evaluate your project. It is not advisable to approach a faculty member with an honors proposal if you have never taken a course from that person.
Students on campus junior year are strongly encouraged to take a special studies to develop their proposals.
More information on departmental honors, including requirements and deadlines, can be found on the Class Deans website.
For more information, see the Smith College Course Search.
ANT 130 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
Sections taught by: Pinky Hota, Caroline M. Melly
ANT 135 Introduction to Archaeology
Patricia Mangan
ANT 200 Research Methods in Anthropology
Suzanne K. Gottschang
ANT 234 Culture, Power and Politics
Fernando Armstrong-Fumero
ANT 258 Performing Culture
Margaret Sarkissian
ANT 269 Indigenous Cultures and the State in Mesoamerica
Fernando Armstrong-Fumero
ANT 274 The Anthropology of Religion
Pinky Hota
Seminars
ANT 300 Sem: Ethnographic Design
Suzanne K. Gottschang
ANT 353 Sem: Topics in Anthropology Cannabis as Catalyst
Caroline Melly
Cross Listed Courses
MUS 258 Performing Culture
Margaret Sarkissian
For more information, see the Smith College Course Search.
ANT 130 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
Sections taught by: Fernando Armstrong-Fumero, Caroline Melly
ANT 200 Resarch Methods in Anthropology
Colin Hoag
ANT 223 In Sickness and In Health: Biopolitics, Public Health, and Medicine in East Asia
Suzanne Gottschang
ANT 238 Anthropology of the Body
Pinky Hota
ANT(MUS) 258 Performing Culture
Margaret Sarkissian
ANT 269 Indigenous Cultures and the State In Mesoamerica
Fernando Armstrong Fumero
Seminars
ANT 300 Ethnographic Design
Colin Hoag
ANT 340 Seminar-Topics in Anthropology: Ethnographic Writing
Pinky Hota
ANT 342 Seminar-Topics in Anthropology: Critical Global Health: Ethnographic Approaches
Suzanne Gottschang
Biological Anthropology and Archaeology
Majors interested in biological anthropology or additional courses in archaeology may take advantage of the excellent resources in this area at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Hampshire College.
Contact Professor Elizabeth Klarich for more information.
Program in Culture, Health and Science
The Five College Program in Culture, Health and Science (CHS) is a certificate program that gives students an opportunity to explore human health, disease and healing from an interdisciplinary perspective. CHS recognizes that the study of any aspect of health requires theoretical frameworks and research strategies that integrate physical, political, psychological and sociocultural elements of human experience. Thus, students in this rigorous program design a plan of study that links the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities.
Five Colleges Center for the Study of World Language
The Five College Center for the Study of World Languages offers academic-year courses in less-commonly studied languages for students at Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Course sessions meet on all five campuses. Courses are taken for academic credit and are part of a student's regular course load. Five College students are not required to pay any special fees or tuition in order to enroll.
Anthropology majors are encouraged to consider an academic program abroad during junior year. A wide variety of opportunities are available for study at other universities and in special programs, both in America and abroad. These include Smith College programs in Paris, Geneva, Florence and Hamburg programs operated by other institutions that are affiliated with Smith or by some without a formal affiliation Student-designed programs approved by the Smith department. These projects usually include supervision from or residency at another university.
Advisers
Asia
Suzanne Gottschang, Pinky Hota
Latin America
Fernando Armstrong-Fumero, Elizabeth Klarich
Africa and Other Areas
Preparation
A student planning to spend junior year abroad should take at least one, but preferably two, courses in anthropology during sophomore year. Students should discuss study abroad plans with advisers, particularly if they anticipate doing special studies or a senior thesis upon return.
Credit
It is likely that you will be able to count a number of courses in the category of “related” toward your anthropology major, but to be considered a regular anthropology class means those courses must be taught by a professor with an advanced degree in anthropology (including any of the subfields). You may be misled by course titles that sound anthropological; you must investigate the professor's training if you want your adviser to accept a course as a regular anthropology class.
Emeriti
Frédérique Apffel-Marglin
Professor Emerita of Anthropology
Elliot Fratkin
Gwendolen Carter Chair Emeritus in African Studies and Professor Emeritus of Anthropology
Elizabeth Hopkins
Professor Emerita of Anthropology
Donald Joralemon
Professor Emeritus of Anthroplogy
Peter Rose
Sophia Smith Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Anthropology
Lecturer
Patricia Mangan
Lecturer in Anthropology
Related Faculty
Margaret Sarkissian
Professor of Music
Faculty Spotlight

Colin Hoag’s teaching and research examine the politics of nature. How does capitalism, settler colonialism, or the state, say, shape how people understand the natural world? How do patterns in the environment reflect the political struggles of humans and other living things?
Hoag is completing a major project on the water-export economy of Lesotho and the way it generates fantasies about national development, as well as fears that soil erosion and reservoir sedimentation could imperil it. This research draws upon anthropological and ecological methods to examine the condition of Lesotho’s landscapes—and how the commodification of Lesotho’s water incited a debate about how best to manage the land through which it flows. He is preparing a book manuscript based on this research and was awarded an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship in support of it.
In 2020-21, Hoag will be a CEEDS Faculty Research Fellow, where he is facilitating student research on decolonization and the environment while developing his next research project on the biogeography of the cosmopolitan and diverse plant family Asteraceae. This project is in its earliest stages and will examine the political histories and functional traits that have facilitated its global spread, as well as the scientific debates regarding how to classify and explain it.
Opportunities & Resources
Smith College Academic Prize Competitions
Undergraduate students in all classes, and in some cases alumnae, can compete for these prizes by submitting application materials to the department responsible. These are monetary prizes, not scholarships, and the amounts vary. Questions concerning prizes should be addressed to the department responsible for the prize. Prize winners are announced at the Ivy Day Awards Convocation in May.
Department of Anthropology Prize
Samuel Bowles Prize, awarded to a major in the graduating class for the most distinguished paper in anthropology. Submissions may be seminar papers, special studies projects or honors theses. Submissions are due by the last day of classes and should be emailed to the department chair.
Nancy “Penny” Schwartz ’74 Fund
The Nancy "Penny" Schwartz '74 Fund supports the efforts of current anthropology majors to acquire competence in non-Western languages. Modest grants, not to exceed $500, are offered to help cover expenses associated with international or national travel and study that include language instruction.
Expenses Not Included
Domestic funding is for language classes only; no support is provided for other academic coursework, internships or research conducted in the United States. Domestic funding for tutors, commercial services or self-study guides will not be provided, and grants will not be made for postbaccalaureate language training.
How to Apply
Deadline: TBA
The request must include specific information on the study program and the language to be studied, as well as a clear statement of the importance of the language to the student's anthropological interests. Applicants must also indicate any additional sources of funding for which they have applied or received.
About Penny Schwartz
Penny Schwartz received a doctorate from Princeton University in 1989 after writing a magisterial study of the glossolalia practices (speaking in tongues) in Legio Maria, an African independent church founded by the Luo people of Kenya. During her peripatetic teaching career, Schwartz dazzled and inspired colleagues and students in many parts of the United States with her shrewd wit and unbridled enthusiasm for anthropology and Africa. Equally dazzling was a series of papers in which Schwartz, with an appreciation of metaphors and metacommunication and the expressive politics of gender and the marginalized, took Princeton-style symbolic anthropology out to the very edges of its human ethnographic possibilities and then stepped over into other domains of human and animal interaction. She wrote of “magical and mundane powers of African birds,” dealt with African snakes as “charismatic and nonphallic megafauna,” and found something fishy in Lake Victoria” in regard to water abuse and political ecology. Her papers tickled funny bones and poked holes in what she felt were anthropology’s “anthropocentric” and “logocentric” pretensions. In one paper, Schwartz documented ways that Kenya Luo and Luyia women have both pre- and postmortem agency. The celebration of her life will confirm that she remains active dead or alive.—Maria G. Cattell, in Anthropology and Aging Quarterly
Hong Kong Ph.D. Fellowship Scheme
Students with a master’s degree seeking a doctoral program in anthropology may wish to consider applying for the Hong Kong Ph.D. Fellowship Scheme through the Department of Anthropology at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Scholarship to Build Leadership in the Field of African American Women's Health
The Master of Arts in Women's Health (MAWH) program at Suffolk University (Boston) is pleased to offer a competitive, annual, full-tuition scholarship to a student committed to working in the field of black women's health. Funded by the Suffolk University College of Arts and Sciences, this scholarship is designed to develop leadership that will contribute to the health and well-being of African American women and girls. For more information, send an email to mawh@suffolk.edu.
Medical Anthropology Program at the University of Oklahoma
The University of Oklahoma established a graduate program in health and human biology. The program has an integrated biological and cultural approach to medical anthropology, with geographical strengths in native North America and Latin America. This unique perspective from both biological and medical anthropology sets the foundation for studying health, illness, disease and death in human history and the contemporary world.
Infectious Disease Research Training at the University of Pennsylvania
Since 1971, the University of Pennsylvania has provided training in clinical and research aspects of infectious diseases for students who wish to pursue careers in scientific investigation, patient care, education and global health.
M.A. in Children, Youth and International Development at Brunel University
This innovative interdisciplinary program, based in the Centre for Human Geography at Brunel University in West London, is the first in the United Kingdom to cater specifically to those working, or interested in working, in the field of children, youth and international development.
Five College Sites
- Five College African Studies
- Five College Center for East Asian Studies
- University of Massachusetts Amherst Anthropology Department
- Mount Holyoke College Anthropology Department
- The Five College Culture, Health, and Science Program
Ethnographic Research and Fieldwork Ethics
Research Links
- Smith College Library
- American Anthropological Association Resources Page
- Library of Congress
- Vanderbilt Links
- University of Michigan
- University of Chicago
- Princeton University
- Physical Anthropology
Anthropology Blog
- The Best of Anthropology Blogging
Culls the best and most popular work of anthropology blogs, covering all four fields as well as topics in applied, critical, media and medical anthropology.
Journals
Email Discussion Groups
- ACRA-L: American Cultural Resourses Association
Send message "subscribe acra-l your-full-name" to listproc@listproc.nonprofit.net - ANTHRO-L: Anthropology in general
Send message "subscribe anthro-l your-first-name your-last-name" to listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu - COSWA-L: Women in anthropology
Send message "subscribe coswa-l your-first-name your-last-name" to listserver@relay.doit.wisc.edu - MUSEUM-L: Museum Discussion List Archive
Jobs appear frequently Museum-L archive - SHOVELBUMS: Cultural Resource Management
List that keeps you up to date on archaeological fieldwork and jobs— visit the site for information on subscribing to the shovelbums mailing list
Societies and Associations
- The American Anthropological Association
Make sure you visit the academic relations section, where there is information on undergraduate research grants and fieldschool opportunities. - The Society for American Archaeology
This site has information on graduate programs and career oportunities. - Association for Feminist Anthropology
- Institute of Human Origins
- Society for Medical Anthropology
Other Resources
Contact
Email: jwintjen@smith.edu
Administrative Assistant: Jeanette Wintjen
Individual appointments can be arranged directly with the faculty.