About
Theoretical Orientations
Cultural anthropology today is marked by the dynamism of the times. No longer
just the study of remote societies, the field explores how people produce,
inhabit and make sense of all corners and aspects of today's globalized world.
The Department at Duke is committed to studying collective identities, however
these are defined, and to examining the politics and conditions under which
these get attached to, and detached from, specific locales.
The graduate program aims to prepare students who are able to integrate grounded
research with theoretical sophistication in doing anthropology sensitive to
the challenges and complexities of today's restless world. Our department
is on the cutting edge of new debates about globalization and diaspora, popular
culture and mass media, nationalism and identity, race and sexuality, and
the politics of tradition and modernity. We explore these issues through a
range of theoretical orientations that include postcolonial and Marxist theory,
feminist and critical race theory, psychoanalysis and psychology.
Students in the graduate program receive a strong training in theory as well
as in contemporary research methods and proposal writing. They may choose
to work in areas where the faculty has strengths (Latin America, Africa, the
US, Europe, the Caribbean, the Middle East, East Asia) or elsewhere. They may also
pursue interconnections between places through flows of various kinds-media,
culture, labor, capital, pop culture, advertising-or study the construction
of ("imaginary") places and identities through, for example, movies,
fiction, virtual reality. Recent dissertation projects include those on African American churches
in North Carolina, strip clubs in Atlanta, tourism in Cuba, miners in Romania,
militarism in Turkey, the sex trade in the Black Sea area, Palestinian refugee
camps in Syria and Lebanon, soap operas in Japan, a Christian development organization in Canada
and Ghana, rural militias in Sierra Leone, migrant domestic workers in Kuwait, skateboarding youth in Japan, pentecostalism in Ghana.
While believing that students must have a firm foundation in cultural anthropology,
we also recognize that our discipline is connected, more than ever today,
to related fields across the humanities and social sciences. We thus encourage
an interdisciplinary outlook and expect our students to engage with other
departments across the campus - History, Literature, Law, Psychology, Religion, African
and African American Studies, Women's Studies, area centers such as the Asian Pacific Studies Institute (APSI), Duke Islamic Studies Center (DISC), Center for South Asian Studies (CSAS), and European Studies - and with the many interdisciplinary
and global initiatives and reading groups for which Duke is well-known.
Aims and Procedures
The Graduate Program in Cultural Anthropology is designed primarily to provide
the knowledge and skills necessary for an academic career in anthropology,
but is flexible enough to accommodate students interested in bringing their
training to careers outside the discipline. We admit a small number of carefully
selected applicants each year, and our policy promotes close contact between
faculty and graduate students. Each student designs a plan of study with the
supervision of his/her advisor(s). The plan of study enables each student
to develop particular interests, to acquire general competence through exposure
to classic paradigms and current trends within the field, and to meet departmental
and university requirements.
While admission to the Program does not necessarily depend on previous anthropological course work or an undergraduate major in anthropology, students are expected to have taken course work in anthropology and related subjects and to be familiar with some of the questions and debates that currently animate the discipline.
The Program leading to the Ph.D. does not require a master's thesis or an
Anthropology undergraduate degree. All graduate students must gain familiarity
with theoretical perspectives and appropriate methodologies, spoken and/or
written competence in a foreign language relevant to their research, and teaching
experience as part of their professional training. All complete a doctoral
dissertation based on significant and original research.
The J.D./M.A.
Program allows summer-entering law students to pursue both the J.D. degree
and the M.A. in Cultural Anthropology, completing coursework in both the Law
School and the Graduate School. Students learn anthropological perspectives
and methods applicable to the law.
The Guidelines
for Graduate Students in the Doctoral Program in Cultural Anthropology and
those for Graduate
Students in the J.D./M.A. Program, respectively, fully describe these
and additional requirements and the detailed steps in the student's graduate
career.