Major Requirements
Minor Requirements
To graduate with honors in anthropology, a student must pursue one of the two honors options. (As of Fall 2020)
HONORS OPTION A:
A student completing Honors Option A will propose, carry out, and complete an independent project. This project may involve ethnographic, archival, archaeological, or evolutionary approaches to an anthropological question. Students will work closely with their advisor(s) to establish a timeline for carrying out this work, reviewing the appropriate literature, writing up their project in the form of a written thesis, and defending their thesis, as part of the ANTH 360/ANTH 370 sequence. Expectations are that the scope of an Honors thesis project will be substantively greater than other independent work (e.g. an Anth 350 course) that a student may complete.
HONORS OPTION B:
Recognizing that students may not always be in a position to carry out in-person work on their desired subject, Honors Option B is intended to nevertheless provide students with honors recognition and an independent project of equivalent academic rigor. An Option B thesis will involve the co-production between student and advisor of a thorough reading list relevant to the student’s theoretical/subject/regional interest. The student will be responsible for progressing through this list, culminating in the production of a critical literature review of this topic. Following the completion of this literature review, the student will produce an NSF/Wenner-Gren style grant application laying out a formal research proposal. This process should be iterative, involving close consultation and feedback between student and advisor(s). At the culmination of this process, the literature review and grant application will be submitted and subject to an oral defense in order to complete the thesis process. Option B will also include the standard ANTH 360/ANTH 370 course sequence.
Students interested in pursuing an honors thesis should begin consultation with potential advisor(s) no later than the Spring term of their Junior year. Normally, the department will ask for honors thesis proposals for evaluation and feedback by the end of the Spring term prior to Senior year.
Past examples of Honors projects may be browsed through the College's digital thesis repository.