Drawing on the sub-disciplinary strengths of socio-cultural, linguistic, and archaeological Anthropology, we provide students with a critical introduction to human variation across time and space. With expertise both abroad and in the United States, faculty and students examine topics such as culture and communication, language preservation, colonial legacies and inequalities, health and well-being, ethics and care, and indigenous worlds and belonging.

Roy Wagner, a visionary theorist of cultural meaning and creativity, died on September 10, 2018, at his home in Charlottesville, Virginia. He was known for his work on kinship, ritual, and myth in Papua New Guinea and for his experiments in representing anthropological thought as a “reciprocity of perspectives” that helped to inspire the “ontological turn."

Who is responsible for ensuring access to clean potable water? In an urbanizing planet beset by climate change, cities are facing increasingly arid conditions and a precarious water future. In Well Connected, anthropologist Tessa Farmer details how one community in Cairo, Egypt, has worked collaboratively to adapt the many systems required to facilitate clean water in their homes and neighborhoods.

Three new Assistant Professors joined the Anthropology Department in the Fall Semester: Dr. Sebastian Jackson (socio-cultural), Dr. Ernesto Benitez (socio-cultural), and Dr. Roberto Rosado-Ramirez (archeology).

Jarrett Zigon’s groundbreaking How Is It Between Us? puts anthropology and phenomenological hermeneutics in conversation to develop a new theory of relational ethics. This ethics takes place in the between, the interaction not just between people, but all existents. Importantly, this theory is utilized as a framework for considering some of today’s most pressing ethical concerns – for example, living in a condition of post-truth and in worlds increasingly driven by algorithms and data extraction, various and competing calls for justice, and the ethical demands of the climate crisis. Written by one of the preeminent contributors to the anthropology of ethics, this book proposes a robust and systematic ethical theory to better address contemporary ethical problems.