Offered By	ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences
Areas of Interest	Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of cultural differences and similarities in a globalised world. As a field of study anthropology is uniquely placed to interpret the widest range of contemporary social phenomena - from migration to religious fundamentalism, online communities and new social movements, contemporary indigenous cultural expression and identity politics, consumption and commodification, and many changing forms of social relationships. The School of Archaeology and Anthropology offers a diverse range of undergraduate courses which cover these themes and more.

The discipline's distinctive methodology, long-term ethnographic fieldwork, provides anthropologists with finely grained and in-depth understandings of complex social phenomena. With a commitment to a comparative and holistic framework, anthropologists' treatment of cultural diversity provides insights into the different ways people comprehend their place in the world and relationships to each other, as well as new ways for us to think about our own relationships and society. It is an ideal foundation for a contemporary liberal-arts degree. Students of non-English languages can find anthropology especially useful.

 

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Due to structural changes in the undergraduate program rules in 2012, the courses that make up the new 2012 majors may be different to the pre-2012 majors, and therefore some courses cannot be counted between majors.  Students are advised to contact the CASS Student Office if they are unsure about their Majors.

 

Learning outcomes

• familiarity with the major dimensions of analysis of societies and cultures (e.g., gender, religion, personhood, identity, violence, emotion, state, nation, globalisation)
• familiarity with directed as well as unintended processes of change (e.g., culture and  development, applied anthropology)
• familiarity with the interrelation of technique and theory in the recording and describing of cultures (e.g., film); and
• familiarity with the intersection of bio-social and material dimensions of social life 

Requirements

The Anthropology major requires the completion of 48 units, which must include:

12 units from completion of the following compulsory courses:

ANTH1002 - Culture and Human Diversity: Introducing Anthropology (6 units)

ANTH1003 - Global and Local (6 units)

 

24 units from completion of 2000/3000-level courses from the subject area ANTH – Anthropology:

ANTH2004 - Religion, Ritual and Cosmology (6 units)

ANTH2005 - Indigenous Australian Societies and Cultures (6 units)

ANTH2006 - Anthropology of New Guinea and Melanesia (6 units)

ANTH2009 - Culture and Development (6 units)

ANTH2010 - Anthropology of Art (6 units)

ANTH2017 - Indigenous Australians and Australian Society Today (6 units)

ANTH2025 - Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective (6 units)

ANTH2026 - Medical Anthropology (6 units)

ANTH2033 - Religion and Society in India (6 units)

ANTH2049 - Filming Cultures (6 units)

ANTH2050 - Themes in Anthropology I (6 units)

ANTH2051 - Themes in Anthropology II (6 units)

ANTH2056 - Belonging, Identity and Nationalism (6 units)

ANTH2057 - Culture and Person  (6 units)

ANTH2127 - Genes, Memes and Cultural Difference  (6 units)

ANTH2128 - Media and Modernity  (6 units)

ANTH2129 - Crossing Borders: Diasporas and Transnationalism  (6 units)

ANTH2130 - Violence and Terror  (6 units)

ANTH2132 - Food for Thought: Anthropological theories of food and eating  (6 units)

ANTH2133 - Social Animals: anthropological perspectives on animal-human relationships  (6 units)

ANTH2135 - Vietnam Field School (6-12 units)

ANTH3010 - Supervised Research in Anthropology (6 units)

ANTH3014 - SouthEast Asia Field School: Contemporary Change in SouthEast Asia (6 units)

 

12 units from completion of courses from the following list:

ASIA3610 - Globalising Southeast Asia: Capitalism, Media, and 21st Century Cultures

ASIA3905 - Visualising Contemporary Pacific & Asian Cultures through Art

ASIA2516 - Indonesia: Politics, Society and Development

ASIA2517 - Indonesia: Language, Media, and Arts in Social Change

ARCH2039 - Origins and Dispersals of Agricultural Populations

ARCH2108 - Animals, Plants and People

ARCH2126 - Analytical Methods for Anthropology and Archaeology

BIAN2013 - Human Evolution

BIAN2064 - Anthropology of Environmental Disasters (6 units)

BIAN2115 - 'Race' and Human Genetic Variation

BIAN2119 - Nutrition, Disease and the Human Environment

BIAN2120 - Culture, Biology and Population Dynamics

BIAN2124 - Human Society as Animal Society: Sex, Conflict, Co-operation and Human Uniqueness

BIAN2126 - Primate Evolutionary Biology

BIAN2127 - Primate Ecology and Behaviour

BIAN3012 - Topics in Primatology

BIAN3013 - Topics in Human Evolution

BIAN3115 - Regional Topics in Human Genetic Variation

BIAN3119 - Regional Topics in Nutrition, Disease and the Human Environment

BIAN3120 - Regional and Thematic Topics in Demographic Anthropology

ENVS2017 - Vietnam Field School

GEND2000 - Culture Matters: An Interdisciplinary Approach

INDN3107 - Introduction to Southeast Asian Performing Arts: Performance, Genres and Intercultural Translation

LING2015 - Language, Culture, Translation

PASI2001 - Learning Oceania: an Introduction to Pacific Studies

PASI2002 - Pacific Encounters: an Introduction to History and Culture in Oceania

PASI2003 - Environment, Conflict and Development in the Western Pacific

PASI2005 - Pacific Politics: From Independence to Intervention

PASI3001 - The Contemporary Pacific: Society, Politics and Development

PASI3003 - Spirit Islands: Indigenous and Introduced Religions in the Pacific

PASI3006 - Navigating the Pacific: Mapping the study and research resources

The information published on the Study at ANU 2012 website applies to the 2012 academic year only. All information provided on this website replaces the information contained in the Study at ANU 2011 website.