Masters degree in Cultural Anthropology at Duke University

 

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Masters Degree in Cultural Anthropology at Duke University

Duke University
Masters degree
Cultural Anthropology

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-Degree Requirements-
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 the popular press in Ghana, US military bases in Okinawa, 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, the impact of GATT on fishing villages in southern India, soap operas in Japan, a Christian development organization in Canada and Ghana, rural militias in Sierra Leone.

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.

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