The American Anthropological Association (AAA) designates the 3rd Thursday of February as Anthropology Day, a day to “celebrate what Anthropology is and what it can achieve” while “sharing it with the world around us.” Emory Anthropology students stopped by today to share what they love about Anthropology, which included things like:
“It focuses on concepts I have always thought about but have never been able to articulate. Anthro promotes understanding and acceptance for/of differences!”
“It allows me to apply cultural competence to the social justice issues that I am passionate about.”
“I love anthro because it opens my mind into thinking in new ways and broadens my world view!”
“It connects us to our ROOTS!”
“Because it’s teaching me how to be a more empathetic doctor and human.”
“It provides multi-dimensional perspectives that apply to many disciplines.”
“Anthropology has taught be how to be in the world in a meaningful way.”
We love to see how studying anthropology allows our students to feel more connected to each other and the world, while focusing on a broad range of interests and applications. Whatever our specific goals and inspirations, we all believe in the power of anthropology to help make the world a better place! #AnthroDay
Since 2007, Emory University has partnered in the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative (ETSI) with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Buddhist community, to realize their vision to incorporate science into the monastic curriculum. Emory Anthropology Department professor Carol Worthman has spearheaded the neuroscience track from its inception, orchestrating a 6-year curricular development and pilot phase, and then implementing it at the 3 biggest monastic universities in south India. “In December, 2019, we celebrated the successful roll-out of the entire 6-year ETSI curriculum in the monasteries at a gathering with His Holiness, the monastic community, and ETSI leaders in Mundgod, India. We also graduated the first cohort of monastics to complete the 6-year program. These were historic undertakings for the monastic community, and especially for monastic students and the many senior monastics who work to realize the goal of monastic science education and already are productively exploring fresh ideas and insights from these distinctive perspectives.” (Carol Worthman)
The events not only celebrated ETSI milestones, but also inaugurated a new debating hall at one of the big monasteries and, most importantly, marked a 600th anniversary of Je Tsongkhapa, founder of a major school of Tibetan Buddhism to which His Holiness belongs. Photos show the interior of the vast new debate hall, celebration of graduating classes, and presentations by Worthman of reflections and the neuroscience books ETSI has produced. Also included is a view of Drepung Loseling prayer hall (the Dalai Lama’s home monastery), where ETSI were held for the first 3 years until a large science center was built. The photo of illuminations at Drepung honoring the anniversary show that monastics really know how to celebrate!
Jordan Martin publishes the research he has done during his time at Emory. Martin and his colleagues find that ‘masculinized’ facial morphology associates with both aggressive and affiliative dominance behavior in bonobos (Pan paniscus), one of human’s closest living relatives. Their study suggests that developmental androgen exposure may cause associations between facial morphology, personality, and dominance status in both humans and non-human primates.
The Department of Anthropology at Emory University (Atlanta, GA) invites applications for three tenure track positions to begin Fall 2020. For this cluster hire, we seek scholars at the assistant or associate level who are engaged in cutting-edge research in any area of biological anthropology. To complement existing departmental strengths, we are particularly interested in scholars engaged in field and/or lab-based research in the areas of behavioral/human ecology, genetics, human biology, paleoanthropology, prehistoric archaeology, primatology, and scientifically-based medical anthropology. Candidates should be willing and able to regularly teach a large introductory course in biological anthropology or human biology along with courses in their area of expertise and be willing to mentor undergraduate and graduate students. Candidates must have a doctoral degree, excellent research record, and a demonstrated commitment to teaching.
Applications should include cover letter, curriculum vita, research statement, teaching statement, a statement about teaching and mentorship of students of diverse backgrounds, and complete contact information for three references. The Department of Anthropology, Emory College and Emory University embrace diversity and seek candidates who will participate in a climate that attracts students of all ethnicities, races, nationalities, genders, and members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Applications will be accepted through November 1, 2019. To apply for this position, please visit https://apply.interfolio.com/66080 and submit your materials free of charge through Interfolio. Please direct questions regarding the search to Committee Chair Dr. Craig Hadley at chadley@emory.edu. Questions regarding applications may be directed to Lora McDonald at lora.mcdonald@emory.edu.
Emory University is an equal employment opportunity and affirmative action employer. Women, minorities, people with disabilities and veterans are strongly encouraged to apply.
Left to right: Sierra Stubbs, Abbe McCarter, Sarah Elmongy, Aditi Majoe, Dr. Kristin Phillips, Anna Glass, Karina Collins, Kristen Kaufman, Lila Bilsky. Not pictured: Katya Bobrek, Neharika Penmetcha.
The Anthropology department is proud to recognize a record number of honors graduates for 2019! This year, ten Anthropology students successfully defended honors theses, the culmination of a year (or more!) of independent research and writing. Their projects were completed under the supervision of faculty advisors and committee members from within and outside of Anthropology, with support from faculty honors coordinator Dr. Kristin Phillips. Topics ranged from art forgery to opioid use disorder to genomic analysis, representing the wide variety of applications for anthropological study. These students were honored at the Anthropology Honors and Awards Luncheon on April 26th, and graduated with honors at ceremonies on May 12 and 13.
Please see below for a full list of theses, and join us in congratulating these students on their hard work and accomplishment!
Lila Bilsky – Parental Perceptions and Preferences of Asthma Medication Delivery Devices in a Pediatric Emergency Room
Advised by Carol Worthman and Peter Brown
Katya Bobrek – Genomic Analysis and Natural Selection Scan of Mexican Mayan and Indigenous Populations
Advised by John Lindo
Karina Collins – Community Stigma and Opioid Use Disorder in Southern West Virginia
Advised by Karen Hegtvedt (Sociology)
Sarah Elmongy – Western Perceptions of Arab Women & Their Lived Identities as Women
Advised by Craig Hadley
Anna Glass – The Price of Forgery: An Anthropological Perspective on the Value of Fine Art
Advised by Bobby Paul
Kristen Kaufman – Sustainability, Being, and Reconciliation: Decolonizing Nature and the Australian Imaginary
Advised by Alice Reznickova (Ripon College, WI) and Kristin Phillips
Aditi Majoe – Behavior, Learning, and Lithics: Understanding the Process of Learning and Handaxe Production through Behavior
Advised by Dietrich Stout
Abbe McCarter – Windows into the Lived Experiences and Health Consequences of Food Insecurity on the Cattaraugus Reservation: Implications for Indigenous Peoples’ Food Sovereignty
Advised by Debra Vidali
Neharika Penmetcha – Zooarchaeological Faunal Identifiability: Using GIS Technology to Facilitate Analysis of Gracile Long Bone Specimens
Advised by Jess Thompson (Yale) and John Lindo
Sierra Stubbs – Do Food and Drinks Have Gender?: Cultural Conceptions of Food Types among Emory Undergraduates
Advised by Peter Brown
A list of all previously completed Anthropology honors theses is available on our website.
Peter Little delivers the African Studies Review Distinguished Lectureat the 61st Annual Meetings of the African Studies Association (ASA), Atlanta, GA, November 30, 2018 The ASA is the largest professional association of African specialists in the world.
Douglas Falen (C’92) is a cultural anthropologist at nearby Agnes Scott College in Decatur. His new ethnography, African Science: Witchcraft, Vodun, and Healing in Southern Benin (University of Wisconsin Press) examines the ways that Benin’s occult world blends notions of magic, science, and religion. In emphasizing the moral ambivalence of human acts, Beninois people compare African witchcraft to western technology, known as “white people’s witchcraft.” The books explains how “witchcraft” becomes a universal, all-encompassing term that allows Beninois people to incorporate foreign religions and esoteric traditions, including Hindu mysticism and Freemasonry, into a single category.
In a recent publication in the journal Antiquity, Justin Pargeter (a Postdoctoral researcher with Emory University’s Anthropology Department) argues the motivations of prehistoric hunter-gatherers for selecting particular rocks for toolmaking are often explained in too rigidly functional or symbolic terms. By examining the exploitation of crystal quartz at two archaeological sites (Ntloana Tšoana and Sehonghong) in Lesotho, southern Africa, he and his co-author Jamie Hampson (University of Exeter) reveal that stone tool production required a form of engagement unique to crystal quartz’s specific properties (including possibly quartz crystal’s piezoelectric effects). The prefered use of quartz crystals—irrespective of the availability of other rocks for tool production—demonstrates agency and variability in the prehistoric technologies.
Dr. Dietrich Stout is an experimental archeologist at the department of Anthropology where he researches connections between prehistoric stone tool-making, known as knapping, and the human brain. He has set up an online experiment in collaboration with Robert Rein at the German Sport University Cologne. Participants are asked to spend 10 minutes of their time to help deepen our understanding of the relationship between the visual-spatial skills used in knapping and areas of the brain that are involved in language processing. Dr. Stout is hoping to establish whether participants can differentiate size the of stone flakes removed during knapping, and how novice knappers fare in comparison to experts.
Peter Little delivers the 
EMORY ANTHROPOLOGY 