Graduate Programs: ANTHROPOLOGY

NOTE: This document was generated from the 1995-1997 UIUC Programs of Study. Every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, but be advised that requirements may have changed since this book was published. Errors may have also been introduced in the conversion to a WWW document. Thus for items of importance, it might be wise to seek confirmation from either the paper version or a live human being.

Head of the Department: Janet D. Keller

Director of Graduate Studies: F. K. Lehman

Correspondence and Information: Graduate Secretary, Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 109 Davenport Hall , 607 South Mathews Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801; (217) 333-0874

GRADUATE FACULTY

Professors: E. Giles, D. C. Grove, J. F. Hill, J. D. Keller, L. L. Klepinger, F. K. Lehman, E. Mayer, D. W. Plath, O. Soffer, N.E. Whitten, Jr.

Associate Professors: S. H. Ambrose, D. J. Brewer, P. A. Garber, A. Gottlieb, R. B. Lewis, T. J. Riley, M. Saul, T. R. Turino

Assistant Professors: N. Abelmann, S. D. Gillespie, W. F. Kelleher, S. R. Leigh, H. I. Silverman, A. Torres

Emeritus Professors: C. J. Bareis, E. M. Bruner, C. E. Cunningham, H. A. Gould, C. M. Keller, B. Nettl, R. T. Zuidema

GRADUATE PROGRAMS

The Department of Anthropology offers graduate work leading to the master of arts and the doctor of philosophy degrees.

ADMISSION

Students without the equivalent of this department's undergraduate concentration may be admitted to either degree program, but will be required to make up deficiencies in their background in anthropology. In addition to the Graduate College admission requirements, students not required to take the TOEFL are required to submit Graduate Record Examination scores.

MASTER OF ARTS

The master's degree can be a first stage toward the doctorate or may be used by students wishing to apply a knowledge of anthropology to some related field. Candidates for the master's degree must complete at least 8 units of graduate credit and present a thesis or paper in lieu of a thesis acceptable to his or her adviser and another member of the graduate faculty within the department. At least 3 units must be at the 400 level, and 2 of these units must be in anthropology.

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Requirements for the Ph.D. include 24 units of graduate course work or 16 units beyond the M.A., a preliminary examination, a thesis, and a final examination. The preliminary examination consists of a predissertation research paper, a proposal for doctoral research, and a written examination designed by the student's doctoral committee followed by a two-hour oral examination. The final examination is a defense of the doctoral thesis. High proficiency in one or reading ability in two foreign languages is required; however, statistics, computer modeling, faunal analysis, or similar expertise may be used in lieu of one foreign language. Fieldwork is strongly recommended, although not required.

RESEARCH INTERESTS AND FACILITIES

Courses and individualized study provide broad coverage of sociocultural, linguistic, archaeological, and physical anthropology. The department provides special emphases in the analyses of state ideologies and cultural transformations; complex societies in transition; kinship and gender relationships; symbolism, cosmology, art, and religion; politics, economics, and ethnicity; language and culture; ethnomusicology; text and narrative; formal analysis and mathematical modeling; medical anthropology; agricultural origins, evolution, and development; hunter-gatherer adaptations; diet and nutrition; paleoecology and paleobiology; comparative and analytical osteology; and nonhuman primate evolution, morphology, behavior, and ecology. The department's Laboratory of Anthropology has constituent archaeological, paleoethnobotany, faunal analysis, human biology, casting, stable-isotope analysis, and ethnographic laboratories, and developing visual arts and networked computer laboratories.

Departmental funds are available for graduate students' summer field research. An archaeology field school is held at various locations in Illinois and occasionally elsewhere (location varies from year to year). Graduate student programs are enriched by close departmental relationships with the interdisciplinary area studies centers on campus, African, East Asian and Pacific, Latin America and Caribbean, and Russian and East European, and with the Afro-American Studies and Research Program, Women's Studies Program, La Casa Cultural Latina, Office of Women in International Development, World Heritage Museum, Museum of Natural History, Krannert Art Museum, and the Graduate College Program in Ancient Technologies and Archaeological Materials.

Agreements between the University and various governments and institutes facilitate research in many nations. Training is available in various languages, including Quechua, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Indonesian, Thai, Burmese, Swahili, Hausa, Lingala, Wolof, Arabic, and Shona. Students have ready access to the extensive computer facilities of the University and to the department's facilities, which include microcomputers, printers, software, and mainframe computer terminals, a graphic digitizer and color printer, photographic and video equipment, and other research-oriented hardware and software. The Journal of the Steward Anthropological Society, edited by graduate students, has been published since 1969.

FINANCIAL AID

University fellowships and, for underrepresented minorities, Graduate College fellowships, teaching and research assistantships, and a few separate tuition and service fee waivers (tuition and service fee waivers accompany fellowships and assistantships) provide variable levels of funding for most graduate students who do not hold external awards. Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships are available through various area centers. Extensive contract archaeology programs in the department provide support and research employment for graduate students, as does the U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory in north Champaign.

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