Anthropology

Are you interested in archeology? In the biological development of mankind throughout the ages? Would you like to know how language and culture are related? Are you fascinated by the rich variety in how and why people regulate social life all over the globe? In short: do you want to find out what it means to be human? Then join this inter-faculty minor programme in Anthropology!

Anthropology addresses humans as social and cultural beings. All over the world, people organize themselves empirically – giving rise to various forms of social structure, which anthropologists study under rubrics such as kinship, age, gender, caste and class. Such structures are continually expressed, reproduced and modified in meaningful ways. Not only do people arrange themselves in various ways, they also devise a wide array of rules to regulate social interactions in the natural and supernatural (spiritual) worlds.
Anthropologists study and compare how all of this is achieved – and contested – around the globe, in the present as well as in the past.

Holistic anthropology

This inter-faculty minor programme offers students an intensive engagement with the discipline of anthropology in the form of a holistic “four-field” approach, unique in Europe. It combines the fields of cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, anthropological archaeology and physical (or biological) anthropology. Exposure to such varied—though, deeply interrelated—elements of human cultural development provides students with comprehensive insights into the complexities of the human condition at the interface of (1) the socio-cultural grounding of human thought and action, (2) the biological and evolutionary factors of human development, (3) the material dimensions of human life-worlds and (4) the crucial, ever-changing impacts of language on cultures and societies.

Four newly-designed core modules orienting students to the main concepts, methods and themes within four-field anthropology are taught by specialists in each respective subfield; instructors hail from different UG faculties and maintain active anthropological field research in diverse regions of the world, including South Asia, the North American Arctic and Latin America. A variety of elective modules allow students to further explore themes introduced in the core modules; such electives include Anthropology of Religion, Rituals in Theory and Practice, Religion in South Asia, Arctic Archaeology or Genetics and Evolution, among others. Both core and elective modules make use of a variety of teaching and assessment methods, such as lectures and seminars, written exams, oral presentation, research papers and other shorter written assignments, individual and group assignments.

Study Scheme

Please note: select the correct academic year at the top of the page on the timetable website.

Core Modules

Electives

Please note: not all combinations of electives will be possible. So consult the schedule regularly.

Programme options

1. 30 ECTS (preferred): Core Module 1a is obligatory; for the remaining 25 ECTS you can combine Core Modules and electives as you like. Two Core Modules (in total) are mandatory.
2. 15 ECTS: Core Module 1a is obligatory; you have to choose at least one extra Core Module; you can choose one elective.

Registration

Students have to register for the whole minor as well as for the course units of their choice within the minor.

Students from the Faculty of Religion, Culture and Society (RCS) can enrol for 15 or 30 ECTS in the minor, including the core modules 1a (compulsory) and 1b. They can not enrol in the electives offered by RCS.
Non-UG Students should contact the minor coördinator for more information about registration.

More information and contact

Please visit the UG minor page for more information about the information events, the registration procedure and frequently asked questions.

Our please contact Dr Peter Berger or Dr Sean Desjardins, coordinators of the minor Anthropology.

Quality Assurance

A. 'Home base' of the minor Anthropology is the Bachelor Religious Studies.
B. The minor is covered by the programme committee of the Bachelor's of Theology and Religious Studies.
C. The minor is covered by the Bachelor's Teaching and examination regulations (OER) of Religious Studies.
D. The minor is covered by the Board of Examiners of the Faculty of Religion, Culture and Society.