PROGRAM

For many students, anthropology becomes a framework for integrating knowledge
and a system of organization for their formal education. The anthropological
perspective is holistic; that is, each piece or aspect of a culture is viewed within the
context of the whole culture. Unique among the social sciences and humanities,
anthropology studies people and behavior in a cross-cultural perspective.

It has accumulated the world's largest database of knowledge about humans living
in hunter-gatherer, horticultural, herding, nomadic, peasant, island, urban,
industrial, and post-industrial societies.

It combines sciences with humanities, biology with culture, history with prehistory,
in both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to understanding the
human condition. Anthropology studies commonalties as well as differences in the
cultural behavior of humans. This aspect of the discipline has wide ramifications for
expanding the students' world-view and approaches to other studies by increasing
their awareness of ethnocentric bias.

The evolution of human life and its varied expressions on the face of the globe today
is the result of an interplay of physical, social, and cultural factors. Anthropologists
study various aspects of this development, whether in the remains of ancient
civilizations, or in the isolated mountains of New Guinea, among nomads of the
Middle East, or in urban areas of industrialized societies like New York City, in
order to further understand the human experience.
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Department Office:
3307 James Hall
p 718.951.5507
f 718.951.3169
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Brooklyn College Home
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Anthropology and Archaeology—Brooklyn College—2900 Bedford Avenue—Brooklyn NY 11210