Anthropology Majors and Minors

Anthropology is the comparative study of human culture and society, the study of how individuals and communities are shaped by their traditions, values, and institutions. Anthropology is the core academic discipline in which to learn about culture and behavior in a global context.

In an increasingly interconnected world, it has never been more important to understand and appreciate the diversity of social worlds, cultures and human experiences.

Through coursework in Anthropology, students will:

• Gain skill and insight necessary to successfully work and negotiate across cultural differences.
• Learn to perform qualitative research into human social forms, building on anthropology’s strong tradition of participant-observation ethnographic research.
• Learn the major concepts, questions and theoretical approaches in anthropology and the humanistic social sciences.
• Learn to apply anthropological concepts and tools to the description and analysis of social life and human experience.
• Acquire skills in critical thinking and expository writing with an emphasis on social analysis, empirical evidence and intercultural understanding.

You’ll find additional information about Anthropology’s undergraduate majors and minors below.

Anthropology brings a holistic and comparative perspective to the study of human life and culture. By providing students with tools for better understanding human diversity and complexity, the Anthropology Major prepares students for careers in global health and medicine, museums, law, government, environmental management, entrepreneurship and international business, education, and the arts.

Requirements

Anthropology majors take ten courses (40 units) in Anthropology including:

One introductory course in preparation for the major, either:

• ANTH 201 Introduction to Sociocultural Anthropology, or
• ANTH 263 Exploring Culture through Film

An introduction to a subfield Anthropology (1 course or 4 units):

• ANTH 101 Body, Mind and Healing: Introduction to Medical Anthropology
• ANTH 105 Culture, Medicine and Politics
• ANTH 202 Archaeology: Our Human Past
• ANTH 203 Global Media
• HBIO 200 The Human Animal

Five Anthropology electives (20 units), one of which should represent an area of world ethnography – involving study of a region, cultural or religious group, or diasporic or settled community. Courses offered in other departments can be applied toward this requirement, with departmental approval.

Additional requirements for the major (12 units):

• ANTH 440 History of Anthropological Theory
• ANTH 410 Ethnographic Research Methods
• ANTH 411 Thesis Seminar in Ethnographic Analysis

Visual Anthropology majors combine anthropology’s toolkit for the rigorous study of culture and society with training in the production, history, and theory of ethnographic film and the emerging field of multimodal anthropologies.

Students in the Visual Anthropology Major conduct independent research and explore the use of media from documentary video to the photo essay to bring their research findings to a broader public.

Requirements

Visual Anthropology Majors take seven courses (28 units) in Anthropology.

Required Courses, Lower-Division (4 units):

• ANTH 263g Exploring Culture through Film

Required Courses, Upper-Division (8 units):

• ANTH 410 Ethnographic Research Methods
• ANTH 440 History of Anthropological Theory

Visual Anthropology Courses (8 units):
Students must complete two Visual Anthropology courses from the following list:

• ANTH 470 Multimodal Methods in Visual Anthropology (Note: ANTH 470 can be taken as either a course option OR as a Senior Capstone Course option. For it to count as the latter Capstone, students have to inform the instructor by the drop/add deadline.)
• ANTH 472 Visual Techniques in Anthropology: Stills
• ANTH 475 Anthropological Film Analysis 
• ANTH 476 Ethnographic Film Theory from an Historical Perspective 
• ANTH 575 Seminar in Ethnographic Film (Note: ANTH 575 requires departmental approval, or an A- or higher in either ANTH 410 or ANTH 440 as prerequisite.)

Electives (4 units):

• One additional Anthropology elective. The USC Course Catalog lists the recommended electives for the Visual Anthropology Major.

Senior Capstone (4 units):

Students must submit a proposal for departmental approval prior to enrolling in the 4-unit senior capstone seminar course. The following are approved capstone seminar courses for the Visual Anthropology Major:

• ANTH 411 Thesis Seminar in Ethnographic Analysis 
  Offered irregularly:
• ANTH 470 Multimodal Methods in Visual Anthropology (Note: ANTH 470 can be taken as either a course option OR as a Senior Capstone Course option. For it to count as the latter Capstone, students have to inform the instructor by the drop/add deadline.)

Contact Dr. Jennifer Cool cool@usc.edu if you have questions about the Visual Anthropology Major.

The Anthropology Minor provides students with training in the fundamentals in anthropology, the core academic discipline for the study of culture and social difference in global context. The cultural anthropology minor provides students with training in anthropological theory, as well as opportunities to study and apply anthropological insights in an interdisciplinary context.

Departmental minors are required to take four courses (16 units) in Anthropology.

Requirements

Preparation for the Anthropology minor (4 units) – either:

• ANTH 201 Introduction to Sociocultural Anthropology, or
• ANTH 263 Exploring Culture through Film

Upper-Division Requirement (4 units):

• ANTH 440 History of Anthropological Theory

Electives (8 units): 

• Two anthropology electives, of which at least one should be upper division (300 or 400 level).

Contact Undergraduate Academic Advisor, Kim Vinson vinson@usc.edu if you have questions about the Anthropology Minor.

The Medical Anthropology Minor provides students with the tools to analyze and understand health, wellness, and the body as understood in a cultural frame; and to gain a deeper understanding of medicine itself as a social and historical practice.

The USC Course Catalog lists the requirements for the Medical Anthropology Minor. Contact Undergraduate Academic Advisor, Kim Vinson vinson@usc.edu if you have questions about the Medical Anthropology Minor.

The Department of Anthropology hosts the interdisciplinary Minor in Folklore and Popular Culture. The minor aims to lay the basis for students’ understandings of the theories and techniques of understanding folklore and popular culture and to offer students the opportunity to conduct their own original research on folklore and popular culture. The minor may be of interest to students in Cinema Studies, Communication, Law, Music, Anthropology, Sociology, Art History, English, History, Comparative Literature, East Asian Languages and Cultures, Spanish, as well as Fine Arts and Interactive Media.

Folklore is an integral part of being human. The discipline of folklore studies the unofficial, the spoken, and the traditional forms of expressed culture, such as legends (including urban ones), myths, folk music, jokes, festivals, and more. It is often contrasted with the printed word, yet the recent growth of the internet and digital communications has brought the realms of popular culture increasingly closer to folklore as well. Thus the field of folklore and popular culture encompasses more than two hundred different genres such as folktales, myths, legends, proverbs, jokes, games, folk medicine, and ethnomusicology. The interpretation of these materials draws on theories in various fields such as Anthropology, Communications, English, Cultural Studies, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, and Religion. For more information about the field of folklore see the American Folklore Society.

For more information about the Minor in Folklore and Popular Culture, contact Prof. Tok Thompson tokthomp@usc.edu.

The interdisciplinary minor in Food and Society at USC explores food as a complex social phenomenon, shaped by human knowledges, practices, and ecologies. Grounded in Anthropology, the minor in Food and Society examines the diversity that characterizes human relationships to food, and uses the tools of social analysis to gain critical insight into the complex social forces that shape food systems.

The USC Course Catalog lists the requirements for the Food and Society Minor. Contact Undergraduate Academic Advisor, Kim Vinson vinson@usc.edu if you have questions about the Food and Society Minor.