Anthropology: The Study of Humanity
The famous anthropologist Alfred Kroeber said, ‘Anthropology is the most humanistic of the sciences and the most scientific of the humanities.’ It involves the study of humankind across space and time. The Anthropology minor at PLU will provide you with a deeper understanding of the nature and variety of all humanity, something that is a valuable complement to almost any PLU major.
Anthropology is both holistic and comparative and is composed of the cultural, archaeological, biological, and linguistic sub-disciplines. In cultural and archaeological anthropology, we look at the diverse, aspects of culture and society (a holistic view), including, but not limited to, the environment, economic systems, family and kinship, social organization, political organization, gender, religion, and art. We do this comparatively by comparing cultures past and present, in support and appreciation of cultural diversity. Biological anthropology looks at humans from an evolutionary perspective, highlighting the meaning and implications of our genetic diversity and how it relates to culture (the bio-cultural approach). Linguistic anthropology examines human language, its origins and how it reflects the nature of various cultural values. All four subdisciplines have applied foci, which entails the use of anthropological knowledge and skills to improve the human condition. As a whole, these four sub-disciplines take a strong anti-racist stance informed by both scientific and humanistic perspectives. This perspective is what makes the overall discipline unique – like many other disciplines, we study humans, but we do it in a way that is completely unique.
Anthropology provides a wide variety of potential career opportunities. These include museum and teaching positions, but also employment in private businesses, governmental organizations, and NGOs, all of which are interested in employees with knowledge and an appreciation of foreign cultures and cultural diversity. If you are curious about specifics, please click on the Alumni tab to see what former Lutes with degrees in anthropology are doing after PLU.