About the Department

The Department of Anthropology at Northwestern, founded in 1938, is old and respected, among the second generation of anthropology departments. It was established by Melville Herskovits, student of Franz Boas and an early builder of four-field American anthropology. Unlike most other American anthropologists in the 1930s, Herskovits focused on Africa and the African Diaspora, rather than on native Americans. He recruited other prominent Africanists (Paul Bohannan, George Dalton, Ethel Albert, and Ronald Cohen) and trained an impressive Africanist cadre of anthropologists (William Bascom, Joseph Greenberg, Igor Kopytoff, Warren D’Azevedo, Simon Ottenberg, Harold Schneider, and James Fernandez). In 1948, Herskovits also founded the Program of African Studies (the first formally instituted African Studies program at a research university in the US) and he encouraged the development of what has become the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies, the largest separate Africana collection in the world.

Since its founding in 1938 the Department’s primary strength has continued to be in African ethnography (Bledsoe, Hansen, and Launay). The Department’s Africanists have long been central to the Program in African Studies (PAS), providing half of its past Directors. The breadth of our African coverage is considerable: west and south Africa, British and Francophone Africa, Islamic and non-Islamic groups, and urban and rural populations. In the Americas, we have now established a concentration in urban United States (di Leonardo, Schwartzman) that complements our urban focus in Africa. Initially developed by Herskovits, economic anthropology (di Leonardo, Hansen, Launay, and Weismantel) continues as a strong concentration in cultural anthropology and links to our strengths in this area in other subfields, especially archaeology. A focus on gender and race with a comparative perspective is also emphasized by the work of di Leonardo (US), Hansen (Africa), and Weismantel (Latin America).

In the 1960s and 70s Northwestern archaeologists were central to the emergence and establishment of the New Archaeology. Lewis Binford’s students, Jim Brown and Stuart Streuver, joined by bioarchaeologist Jane Buikstra, formed a long-term and continuing archaeological project in Campsville, Illinois that became an incubator and training ground for a generation of processual archaeologists. Standard archaeological field techniques, like flotation sampling for botanical remains, were developed here. Today our strength is in the comparative study of complex societies with research covering the globe: North America (Brown), Mesoamerica (Robin), and Europe, South America, and the Pacific (Earle). Our specialties in complex societies and urbanism, in subsistence and political economies, and in gender identity connect unusually well with the strengths of the other subfields. In addition, the Geography Program (directed by John Hudson) that is embedded within the Department provides key resources on environment studies, settlement patterns, geographic information systems, and map making.

Biological anthropology has remained a strong part of the Department, although its focus has changed several times over our history. During the 1970s, Jane Buikstra developed a strong focus on human skeletal biology as a means to study prehistoric disease, nutrition and genetic relations. Her work provided a strong tie to the Department’s processual archaeologists interested in changing diet and disease in human social history. A focus on primate skeletal evolution and behavior developed with James Cheverud, Brian Shea and Donald Sade, and their interest in quantitative approaches bridged to the mathematical anthropology of Malcolm Dow. The quantitative and evolutionary research reinforced the skeletal work of Buikstra. This interest in primate evolution and skeletal biology continues with a research group in the Medical School that includes Larry Cochard , Marion Dagosto, Matthew Ravosa, and Brian Shea.

In 1996, the Department committed itself to rebuilding biological anthropology with a focus in human biology that would closely articulate with specialties in the other subfields. Current faculty include Bill Leonard,Thom McDade and Chris Kuzawa. As an evolutionary ecologist, Bill Irons works closely with this subfield. All share interests in the study of human biological variation, health, and the interaction of biology and culture. In February 2001 the Laboratory for Human Biology Research (LHBR) was opened. The LHBR is a state of the art laboratory for the study of human population biology (growth and development, nutrition, immune and reproductive function, work capacity). The lab supports primary research as well as the teaching/training of advanced undergraduate and graduate students. Members of the lab have ongoing research in Latin America (Bolivia), Africa (Kenya), Asia (Siberia), and the Pacific (Samoa and the Philippines). Work in urban US is beginning to develop.

Herskovits believed that language studies were essential to anthropology, and he trained Joseph H. Greenberg (NU Ph.D. 1940), one of the greatest linguistic anthropologists of the twentieth century. Over the years the subfield has been represented in several ways ---with a focus on the study of culture and communication (Edward T. Hall) as well as more recently by the cognitive anthropology of Oswald Werner. Historically, the strength of linguistic anthropology has been its commitment to examining the dynamic relationship between language and culture. In the last ten years, by emphasizing language in social interaction and performance, the subfield has become theoretically vibrant. Our goal is to develop a program in the study of language and culture that has the potential to link a focus on situated and embodied language use with broader issues relevant to the study of complex institutions in contemporary society and in this way connect linguistic anthropology with the interests of the other subfields.

The Department has a special interdisciplinary and cross-school role to play in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences (WCAS) and the larger University. Some of the major linkages that exist between the Department and other programs include: 1) Program of African Studies (Jane Guyer served as Director of this program for 7 years and Bledsoe, Hansen, and Launay are all active participants in program activities); 2) Gender Studies Program (Micaela di Leonardo is the long-term Director of Graduate Studies in this program, and additional faculty also contribute relevant courses and/or have served on the executive board, e.g., Hansen, Schwartzman, Robin, Weismantel); 3) Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program (Mary Weismantel is currently the Director of this program), and 4) the Geography Program (John Hudson is the Director of this program, which is housed in anthropology, and serves students in several fields including anthropology and especially Environmental Sciences---John Hudson is also the Director of this program).In biological anthropology, a concentration in Human Biology has been developed with a parallel and coordinated concentration in Human Biology in the Undergraduate Program in Biological Sciences. This subfield has participated actively in initiatives in International Health which involve WCAS and the Medical School as well as work with the Buehler Center on Aging (also in the Medical School).

In the Chicago community our students have worked actively with anthropology curators at the Field Museum. We have recently finalized an agreement to establish a joint program between the Departments of Anthropology at Northwestern and the Field Museum that will provide opportunities for faculty and students to participate in field and collections projects directed by Northwestern University and/or Field Museum anthropologists.

Identity Statement