School of Arts and Sciences
Department of Anthropology

BA in Anthropology

A major in Anthropology equips students to explore the wide variety of social experience, offering conceptual tools as well as real-life research experience that can help to make sense of a volatile and vibrant world. The discipline encompasses culture, biology, archeology, and language, drawing on a suite of tools that range from participant-observation to laboratory analysis as we investigate topics like gender, race, capitalism, colonialism, ritual, health, technology, human rights, and even the life-worlds of non-human primates, our close relatives. Our graduates have taken their integrative abilities into fields as diverse as medicine, education, politics, media, activism, market research, and the arts.

Program Requirements and Policies 

  • For the BA in Anthropology, a total of eleven courses are required for the new requirements and ten courses are required for the old requirements. 
  • We recommend taking the theory course (ANTH 130) in the junior year and the ethnographic methods course (ANTH 161) prior to the senior year.
  • The department encourages majors to explore the possibility of undertaking an internship (ANTH 99) or independent study (ANTH 191-199).
  • A minimum of 50% of courses counted toward the anthropology major must be completed at the Tufts University home campus or in Tufts University sponsored programs abroad.
  • A maximum of two courses cross-listed in other Tufts departments may be counted toward the anthropology major.
  • Students must achieve a grade of C- or better for a course to count for credit toward the major.

Course Requirements

Eleven courses, including:

  • One gateway (introductory level) sociocultural anthropology course (ANTH 10-39)
  • One gateway biological anthropology or archaeology course (ANTH 40-59)
  • ANTH 130: Anthropological Thought
  • ANTH 161: Fieldwork Lab
  • And seven additional anthropology courses, at least one of which must be a "critical geographies" course (course adopting a regional focus), and two of which must be upper-level seminars (ANTH 162-189).

Critical Geographies Courses

  • ANTH 15 Indigenous Movements in the Americas and Beyond
  • ANTH 16 Introduction to Latinx Cultures
  • ANTH 26 Anthropology of Socialism & Postsocialism
  • ANTH 51 North American Archaeology
  • ANTH 117 Coming of Age in Contemporary Africa
  • ANTH 118 Culture and Power in Africa
  • ANTH 120 Culture, Personhood and Subjectivity in South Asia
  • ANTH 121 The Politics of Knowledge in the Middle East
  • ANTH 122 Gender & Sexuality in South Asia
  • ANTH 128 Mesoamerican Archaeology
  • ANTH 129 Archaeology and Colonialism (formerly ANTH 149-15)
  • ANTH 142 American Meat
  • ANTH 143 Palestinians and Israelis: Ethnographies of Justice
  • ANTH 144 Media of the Middle East
  • ANTH 149-08 Transnational Migration in East Asia
  • ANTH 149-42 Music of North Africa
  • ANTH 153 Medicine, Bodies, and Minds in South Asia
  • ANTH 168 Anthropology of Colonialism / Decolonizing Anthropology
  • ANTH 185-04 Science and Society in South Asia
  • ANTH 185-05 The End of Work in the United States 

Old Course Requirements

NOTE: Only for students who matriculated prior to Fall 2018

Ten courses, including:

  • One Gateway (introductory level) sociocultural anthropology course (ANTH 5-39 excluding ANTH 5 Science and the Human Experience)
  • One Gateway biological anthropology or archaeology course (ANTH 40-59)
  • ANTH 130: Anthropological Thought
  • Seven additional anthropology courses, at least one of which must be an area-focused course numbered below 160 (a Gateway or mid-level), and two of which must be upper-level seminars (ANTH 160-189).