Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology: Visual Anthropology Track

The general anthropology major is intended to give students a foundation in all of the four sub-fields associated with the discipline of anthropology. Each of the sub-fields requires the development of a number of skills, including: formulating hypotheses; developing research programs and proposals; applying theories to the interpretation of artifacts and other data; and gathering ethnographic information through participant-observation. There is sufficient flexibility in the requirements for the general anthropology major so that a student with an interest in a specific sub-field can focus their program of study in that area - or not, if a more general program is of interest. The Visual Anthropology curriculum emphasizes a well-rounded liberal arts background and a comprehensive understanding of the world's varied systems of visual representation. The Visual Anthropology curriculum allows students to combine cultural anthropology with the study and practice of visual communication. Courses in the Visual Anthropology curriculum combine topics and methods familiar to the social sciences, humanities, and media arts. It is well suited to those students interested in popular culture as well as the fine arts; documentary and ethnographic film as well as feature film; all forms of artistic performance, including the folk arts, fine arts, popular arts, and media arts; televisual communication, including both broadcast and narrowcast forms; and home media and alternative media. Additional attention is now dedicated to relationships of globalization and New Media. In the Visual Anthropology curriculum, literary traditions and criticism find a place alongside pictorial traditions and media criticism. Students may do original research that involves still photography and/or video production. Students apply field methods familiar to cultural anthropology to achieve a better understanding of the processes and products of visual communication. Laboratories are available for both still photography and video production.